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"I suppose I may raise it after everybody has come to the party," Nimble ventured.

"No! That would never do," Jimmy Rabbit replied firmly. "If anybody happened to come back to get a pocket-handkerchief out of his coat he'd be sure to notice the difference."

A sigh escaped Nimble Deer.

"My neck will ache before the evening's over," he said. "Couldn't I take a short walk in the woods, later, to rest myself?"

"My goodness, no!" Jimmy cried. "You'd be sure to lose some of the hats and coats, or tear them on some briars, or get them full of burs."

"How long is the party going to last?" Nimble asked.

"Only till midnight!"

At that Nimble gave a groan.

"S-s-h!" Jimmy Rabbit laid a paw upon his lips. "Keep still! Stuffed animals never talk. If you don't look out somebody will hear you."

And then he hurried away to join his guests. He did not want to leave them alone too long. He feared they might be saying things to each other about his new hat-rack.

XXIV

UNCLE JERRY CHUCK

Soon Jimmy Rabbit's friends arrived at his party in throngs. And soon Nimble Deer's antlers bristled with hats and coats of many kinds and colors.

"I must look like a Christmas tree," Nimble thought. "I wish Jimmy Rabbit and his friends would come and dance around me so I might see the fun."

But they didn't. They stayed down in a little hollow some distance away. Nimble could hear their voices. And they seemed to be having a delightful time.

As for Nimble, he wasn't having a good time at all. "I'll never help at another party!" he promised himself. He couldn't believe that midnight--and the end of the party--would ever come.

At last, however, he took heart. For old Uncle Jerry Chuck came hurrying up and began taking hats and coats off Nimble's antlers. And Nimble knew then that the party must be almost over.

"This is a good hat!" Uncle Jerry muttered to himself. "I'll take it."

And then he said, "This is a good coat! I'll take it." Then he looked closely at another hat. "This is a good one, too!" he remarked. "I might lose the other. I'll take this one, too--and this coat here," he added, selecting a second coat that pleased him.

Little did Uncle Jerry Chuck dream that the Deer's head was a real, live one. And just as the old chap reached for the second coat Nimble Deer had to cough. He didn't want to. Hadn't Jimmy Rabbit cautioned him not to stir--not to open his mouth?

But the cough came all the same, right in Uncle Jerry Chuck's ear. And Uncle Jerry jumped. He dropped both hats and both coats. And then he waddled off as fast as he could go and scrambled over the stone wall, out of sight. He didn't even wait to get his own rusty coat and tattered hat, which he had left lying on the ground.

Uncle Jerry hadn't been gone long when all the company came jostling up to Nimble. Everybody--except Nimble--was very merry. Amid a good many jokes the company put on their hats and coats, until only Aunt Polly Woodchuck's poke bonnet hung from Nimble's horns.

Then--just for fun--Jimmy Rabbit set the bonnet on Nimble's head and tied its strings under his chin. And Aunt Polly Woodchuck herself laughed hardest of all.

And then all at once something happened. A dog barked. "It's old dog Spot!" somebody cried.

Nimble Deer was the first to run. One leap took him out of the evergreen thicket in which he had been standing all the evening. Three leaps more took him over the stone wall.

After that n.o.body saw him--nor Aunt Polly Woodchuck's bonnet--again that night.

The whole company scattered and vanished like baby grouse surprised in the woods. And when old dog Spot reached the clump of evergreens a few moments later he found nothing to show that there had been a party there--that is, he found nothing except a battered hat and a rusty coat lying on the ground.

Spot sniffed at them. "Unless I'm mistaken, Uncle Jerry Chuck has forgotten something," he murmured. "No doubt he'll be back here in a little while."

So Spot waited and waited there.

But Uncle Jerry Chuck was half a mile away and sound asleep in his underground chamber.

And Nimble Deer was a mile away, over in Cedar Swamp, trying to tear Aunt Polly's bonnet off his head by rubbing his horns against a young cedar.

THE END

Other Books:

THE TALE OF CUFFY BEAR

THE TALE OF FRISKY SQUIRREL

THE TALE OF TOMMY FOX

THE TALE OF FATTY c.o.o.n

THE TALE OF BILLY WOODCHUCK

THE TALE OF JIMMY RABBIT

THE TALE OF PETER MINK

THE TALE OF SANDY CHIPMUNK

THE TALE OF BROWNIE BEAVER

THE TALE OF PADDY MUSKRAT

THE TALE OF FERDINAND FROG

THE TALE OF d.i.c.kIE DEER MOUSE

THE TALE OF TIMOTHY TURTLE