The Fox

A fox in a hen house and a dying oak tree are used as analogies to tell the story of the intersecting lives of three people in rural Ontario. Following college where they met, Jill Banford was able to convince her friend Ellen March to live together as chicken farmers in relative isolation from the rest of the world. It is the middle of their first winter on the farm, their livelihood with which they are struggling financially, it not helped by being plagued by a fox routinely raiding their hen house, Ellen who has been unable to kill it. While Jill is chatty but dependent on Ellen to make this venture work, Jill handling the books and domestic chores, Ellen is the strong but relatively silent one handling most of the heavy farm work. Into their lives enters Paul Grenfell, the grandson of the farm's previous owner. Being a merchant marine, Paul was unaware not only that the farm was sold to Jill and Ellen, but that his grandfather passed away. Two weeks until he needs to return to his ship with he having planned to spend the time with his grandfather, Paul and Jill/Ellen come to an agreement for Paul to stay on the farm in return for doing some of the heavier farm work. Outwardly, Paul's interaction with the two women is much like the two women interact with each other: Paul is chattier with Jill, but he and Ellen seem to have a non-verbal means of communicating. Without any romantic encounters up to this point, Paul announces to Ellen that he fell in love with her on first sight and knew that he would marry her, she who agrees to the proposal. This news to Jill forces the two women not only to examine their situation, but also their relationship and the reason that they both, unspoken, entered into this outwardly hard life.