The Tale of Nimble Deer.

by Arthur Scott Bailey.

I

THE SPOTTED FAWN

When Nimble's mother first looked at him she couldn't believe she would ever be able to raise him. He was such a tiny, frail, spotted thing that he seemed too delicate for a life of adventure on the wooded ridges and in the tangled swamps under the shadow of Blue Mountain.

"Bless me!" cried the good lady. "This child's not much taller than an overgrown beet top and he can't be any heavier than one of Farmer Green's prize cabbages. And his legs--" she exclaimed--"his legs are no thicker than pea pods.... They'll be ready to eat in another month," she added, meaning _not_ her child's legs, as you might have supposed, but Farmer Green's early June peas. For Nimble's mother was very fond of certain vegetables that did not grow wild in the woods.

Of course young Nimble did not know what she was talking about. He had a great deal to learn. And he would have to wait until he was a good deal bigger before his mother took him on an excursion, by night, across the fields to Farmer Green's garden patch.

All at once Nimble leaped quickly upon his slightly wobbly legs. He trembled and gazed up at his mother with a look of fear in his great eyes. At the same time his mother, too, lifted her head and listened for a few moments. "Don't be afraid!" she said then, to Nimble. "That's old Spot--Farmer Green's dog--barking. But he's down near the barns, so we don't need to worry."

That was the first time Nimble had ever heard a dog's voice. Yet no one needed to tell him that it wasn't a pleasant sound.

Even his mother couldn't help feeling that she had better put a wide stretch of rough country between her new youngster and old Spot's home.

So in a little while she led the way slowly along the pine grown ridge which bent around a shoulder of the mountain. She was headed for the spring which marked the beginning of Broad Brook.

Her little spotted fawn, Nimble, kept close beside her. Slowly as his mother moved, he found the traveling none too easy. And he was glad when she stopped in a pocket-like clearing. There she spoke to a proud speckled bird who was sitting on a log and amusing himself by spreading his tail feathers into a beautiful fan.

"Good morning, Mr. Grouse!" said Nimble's mother.

"Good morning, madam!" replied the gentleman with the fan. "What a handsome child you have! There's nothing quite like spots--or speckles--to add to a person's looks."

"They _are_ pretty," Nimble's mother agreed with a happy glance at her son.

"I can't say he favors his mother," Mr. Grouse remarked.

"Oh, I had spots enough when I was young," she explained. "You see, all our family lose our spots as we grow up."

"I'm glad to say," Mr. Grouse said with a flirt of his tail, "that all our family keep their spots, every one of them."

"We get to be so swift-footed that we don't need spots," said Nimble's mother.

That speech seemed to displease Mr. Grouse.

"I hope," he cried, "you don't mean to say that we Grouse aren't swift!"

"No, indeed!" Nimble's mother answered hastily.

"I should hope _not_!" was Mr. Grouse's response to that. "For everybody knows that we go up like rockets at the slightest sign of danger."

"Exactly!" said Nimble's mother. "You are so swift that you don't really need those spots to help conceal yourself, once you're grown up."

"They're handy to have, all the same," he told her. "And as for this youngster of yours, you needn't worry much about him. He'll be safe enough in the woods. He looks just like a patch of sunlight that has fallen through a tree top upon a leaf-strewn bank."

Nimble's mother was pleased to hear that.

"Yes!" said Mr. Grouse cheerfully. "He'll be safe enough--except for the Foxes."

And that remark didn't please Nimble's mother at all.

II

LEARNING THINGS

Nimble's mother hadn't liked Mr. Grouse's remark about Foxes. Somehow she couldn't put Foxes out of her mind. And not once did she mean to let Nimble wander out of her sight.

At first, when he was only a tiny chap, it was easy for her to keep her young son near her. But Nimble grew a little livelier with each day that pa.s.sed. And it wasn't long before he began to annoy his mother and worry her, too. For he soon fell into the habit of dodging behind something or other, such as a baby pine tree or a clump of blackberry bushes, when his mother wasn't looking. Every time she missed her spotted fawn the poor lady was sure a Fox had s.n.a.t.c.hed him up and dragged him away. And when she found Nimble again she was so glad that she hadn't the heart to punish him.

However, one day she talked to him quite severely.

"Do you want a Fox to catch--and eat--you?" she asked him.

"No, Mother!... Has a Fox ever eaten you?"

"Certainly not!" Nimble's mother answered.

"Do you expect to be caught by a Fox?"

"No, indeed!" said his mother.

"Then there can't be any great danger," Nimble remarked lightly.

"Ah! There's always danger of Foxes so long as you're a little fawn,"

she explained. "When you're grown up--or even half grown--no Fox would dare touch you. But if you wandered away alone at your tender age and you met a Fox----" Well, the poor lady was so upset by the mere thought of what might happen that she couldn't say anything more just then.

But her son Nimble was not upset.

"If I met a Fox," he declared bravely, "I'd be safe enough. I'd stand perfectly still. And he wouldn't be able to see me, on account of my spots."

"Ah! But if the wind happened to be blowing his way he'd be sure to smell you," cried Nimble's mother. "And he would find you. And he would jump at you."

"I'd run away from him then," said Nimble stoutly.

His mother shook her head.

"You're spry for your age. But you're too slow to escape a Fox. You're not quick enough for that yet. You don't know how quick Foxes are. So look out! Look out for a sly fellow with a pointed nose and a bushy tail!"

In spite of all these warnings Nimble didn't feel the least bit alarmed.

And the older he grew the less he heeded his mother's words. He thought she was too careful. She seemed always to be on the watch for some danger. She was forever stopping to look back, lest somebody or something might be following her. Whenever she picked out a good resting place behind a clump of evergreens, out of the wind, she never lay down without first retracing her steps for a little way and peering all around. Then, of course, she had to walk back again before she sank down on the bed of her choosing. It all seemed very silly to young Nimble.