Hello everyone, this is Rhea with a quick note. This is a full episode preview of a story featured on Little Stories for Sleep, an exclusive bedtime podcast just for my Little Stories premium subscribers. The episode I'm sharing with you today is part of a series I'm calling Wandering Sleep Stories. These new stories are peaceful, calming, and perfect for that last track on a bedtime playlist. On Little Stories for Sleep, Wandering Sleep Stories have no intro or outro, it's just the story framed by soft music. Now, grab your weighted blanket, snuggle up, and fall asleep to this sweet tale. Music Cedric, Lionel, and Johnny Fox rose from their beds all within a single minute of one another. They did not know how perfectly in sync they were. Or they could not have known since each of their beds was in a different underground den in a different corner of the vast forest. Separately, they boiled water for tea. Separately, they dressed for the night, overalls, and matching caps. Separately, they slipped as quietly as possible out of their dens, so as not to wake their sleeping families. Music Twenty minutes later, they met beneath the moon at a bend in the stream, midway between their homes. That is where they met, six evenings per week, where they began their night's work as three foxes moving company. A few years ago, when they had decided to combine their talents to create a business, they'd planned to call it Three Brothers Moving Company until they learned there was a well-established business run by a trio of raccoons named Three Brothers Piano Moving Company. After no small amount of debate, the foxes determined, reluctantly, especially on Cedric's part, that such similar names could lead to confusion, which was the last thing they wanted to cultivate in the minds of potential forest customers. So it was that they settled on Three Foxes Moving Company. But Cedric, Lionel, and Johnny were, indeed, brothers. They were born of the same litter, within minutes of one another, but Cedric had been the first to enter the world and never let anyone forget it. Like most firstborns, he was a natural leader and had been instrumental in developing the initial business plan and overseeing workflows thereafter. Lionel, by far the most creative of the three, had built a custom cart designed to carry twice the typical weight for a vehicle of its size, as well as various specialized tools to aid the brothers in their work. Johnny, known as the talker from his early youth, focused on marketing and customer satisfaction. And after a challenging first year, something known to most new business owners, the brothers found that they had created something of value and that by joining forces, they could accomplish much more than the sum of what they could do apart. In the years since, the business had earned a reputation for being quick, thorough, and honest. They had moved families of beavers to new lodges, owls to new nests, elder raccoons to tree houses for the aged, and dozens upon dozens of foxes to new dens. The hardest job they'd ever accepted was moving a family of bears in the shortest days of winter, made harder by the fact that mother and father bear insisted baby bear ride in the cart alongside the belongings, as he had not woken up from his great sleep for the move. The easiest job was moving a family of crows in spring, as they carried most of their items themselves in baskets, the handles of which they clutched in their beaks. The fox brothers had even once moved a piano for a skunk when three brothers' piano moving company was booked solid in advance of the All Forest Piano Expo. Six evenings per week, they met at the bend in the stream, it burbling peacefully nearby, and Cedric would go over their job for the night. Tonight, on the night of our interest, when Cedric said the name of their customer, Lionel and Johnny cocked their heads in puzzlement. Auntie Maple, are you certain? Surely she can't be moving. Well, she is, Cedric said with his usual authority, moving in with her daughter's family. Huh. A silent question came to all of them then, as they stood in the dark woods. Where had the time gone? Auntie Maple was not the sister of their mother or father. She was not a true aunt to them. If they shared a connection as relations, it was of a distant kind, one she shared with most every other fox in those woods. But Cedric, Lionel and Johnny all felt a special loyalty and kinship to her. After Auntie Maple's children grew up and left the tree house, and after Uncle Cedar passed on, she poured every ounce of her love and generosity into the young foxes in the forest, those she knew, and those she did not. And in doing so, by bringing round delicious treats at holidays, knitting countless blankets for each newborn fox she learned was on the way, setting a table at the base of her tree with piping hot apple cider on frigid winter evenings, the heavenly aroma of which drew every young fox and not an insignificant number of opossums to stop by. In doing all this, and simply by being herself such a reservoir of joy, Auntie Maple came to be a beloved fixture in the forest. And she was not only full of good cheer, she was also clear eyed and honest. For instance, she always had a healthy supply of bandages and salves up in her tree, but most often she deemed the cuts and scrapes of young foxhood things to treat with a combination of time and forbearance. You'll be all right, just walk it off. To the many dozens of young foxes that had grown up seeing the lantern that glowed in her tree house window, it seemed as though Auntie Maple had been there as long as the tree itself and always would remain watching over the woodland from high above the ground, which is why it came as a small but real shock to the three brothers to learn that she was moving and needed their assistance. Come on, she'll be waiting for us. The brothers retrieved their cart from its spot under a hedge. It was very early spring and there was a thin film of frost on the forest. That crunched softly as they wheeled the cart, Cedric and Lionel at the front pulling Johnny at the rear pushing as needed when the back wheels snagged on a root. They knew the way had been there a thousand times and within a few minutes pulled the cart to a soft stop at the foot of Auntie Maple's tree. Her lantern was lit in the window. You can start with those trunks. The brothers were startled by the appearance of her tree house. They'd been up there many times as young foxes when Auntie Maple would set out juice and snacks for a whole group of them. Back then she'd had clocks on the walls, colorful drapes framing the windows, rugs adorning the ancient wood floors, paintings made by small foxes hung in places of honor and various signs of warm life within those rough, hewn walls. Now it was bare. Cedric wondered how long it had taken her to stow everything in trunks. Lionel thought the tree house looked strangely bigger. Johnny heard small echoes accompany their footsteps. Well, all right, here you go. Maybe this will get you moving. Auntie Maple fished three wrapped licorice candies from the pocket of her sweater and held them out. The brothers smiled, amused, momentarily transported back in time and gratefully accepted them. Then they got to work. Using Lionel's custom built pulley system, the brothers methodically lowered the trunks one by one, with Cedric and Johnny loading them onto a platform at the top and Lionel feeding the rope through his paws at the bottom slowly until he could unload them on the forest floor. They could only lower one trunk at a time, but the work went swiftly. The trunks were down and packed in the cart within an hour. There were just a few more things to move. The lantern from the window, the rocking chair where Auntie Maple had quietly watched the brothers work. And after all that, Auntie Maple herself, I'm afraid I need help getting down. That's why it's time to move. She said with a hint of bitter sweetness. Moving Elder Foxes was not typically something done by Three Foxes Moving Company. They moved boxes, crates, sofas, and the very occasional piano. But this was no typical Elder Fox. It was Johnny who took the lead on this effort. He guided Auntie Maple onto the platform attached to Lionel's pulley system and held her steady as it lowered extra slowly this time to the forest to the forest floor. Then he walked alongside her all the way to her daughter's den, pointing out roots and rocks to avoid with the heavy cart pulled behind them by Cedric and Lionel. On the way, she told him about the family who would move into her treehouse. They have five young foxes. Isn't that marvelous? Just like you. Isn't that right, Johnny? Yes, that's right. It'll be a good home for them. Don't you think? They'll bring such life to it. Indeed. Moving the trunks into the den was much easier than lowering them from the treehouse. Auntie Maple's daughter appeared, bright-faced, and cheerful to direct the brothers' movements. It was all done in another hour. It seemed such a small time for it all to happen. But before they knew it, and long before dawn, Auntie Maple was officially moved into a new chapter of her life. The brothers did not typically hug their customers, nor did they typically refuse payment, but they did that night. Auntie Maple waved to them from the seat of her rocking chair, placed before a warm fire in her new den, with two of her grandbaby foxes dozing in her lap. Cedric, Lionel, and Johnny wheeled their now empty cart back to its spot beneath the hedge. They chatted together, joked a bit, shared memories of Auntie Maple's famous pies, then parted ways. Separately, they took trails bathed in moonlight, home to their underground dens, in different corners of the forest, to see their families on that cool spring night. This has been a special full episode preview of a wandering sleep story. To hear more wandering sleep stories, you can join Little Stories Premium by visiting littlestoriespremium.com. And thank you, as always, for listening in.
