Lightfoot the Deer | Page 3

like to be seen

without them or with halfgrown ones. Besides, I am very
uncomfortable while the new antlers are growing and I want to be
alone." Lightfoot spoke as if he really meant every word he said, but
still Peter couldn't, he just COULDN'T believe that those wonderful
great antlers had grown out of Lightfoot's head in a single summer.
"Where did you leave your old ones and when did they come off?" he
asked, and there was doubt in the very tone of his voice.
"They dropped off last spring, but I don't remember just where," replied
Lightfoot. "I was too glad to be rid of them to notice where they
dropped. You see they were loose and uncomfortable, and I hadn't any
more use for them because I knew that my new ones would be bigger
and better. I've got one more point on each than I had last year."
Lightfoot began once more to rub his antlers against the tree to get off
the queer rags hanging to them and to polish the points. Peter watched
in silence for a few minutes. Then, all his suspicions returning, he said:
"But you haven't told me anything about those rags hanging to your
antlers."
"And you haven't believed what I have already told you," retorted
Lightfoot. "I don't like telling things to people who won't believe me."

CHAPTER III
: Lightfoot Tells How His Antlers Grew
It is hard to believe what seems impossible. And yet what seems
impossible to you may be a very commonplace matter to some one else.
So it does not do to say that a thing cannot be possible just because you
cannot understand how it can be. Peter Rabbit wanted to believe what
Lightfoot the Deer had just told him, but somehow he couldn't. If he
had seen those antlers growing, it would have been another matter. But
he hadn't seen Lightfoot since the very last of winter, and then
Lightfoot had worn just such handsome antlers as he now had. So Peter
really couldn't be blamed for not being able to believe that those old
ones had been lost and in their place new ones had grown in just the
few months of spring and summer.
But Peter didn't blame Lightfoot in the least, because he had told Peter
that he didn't like to tell things to people who wouldn't believe what he
told them when Peter had asked him about the rags hanging to his

antlers. "I'm trying to believe it," he said, quite humbly.
"It's all true," broke in another voice.
Peter jumped and turned to find his big cousin, Jumper the Hare.
Unseen and unheard, he had stolen up and had overheard what Peter
and Lightfoot had said.
"How do you know it is true?" snapped Peter a little crossly, for Jumper
had startled him.
"Because I saw Lightfoot's old antlers after they had fallen off, and I
often saw Lightfoot while his new ones were growing," retorted
Jumper.
"All right! I'll believe anything that Lightfoot tells me if you say it is
true," declared Peter, who greatly admires his cousin, Jumper. "Now
tell me about those rags, Lightfoot. Please do."
Lightfoot couldn't resist that "please." "Those rags are what is left of a
kind of covering which protected the antlers while they were growing,
as I told you before," said he. "Very soon after my old ones dropped off
the new ones began to grow. They were not hard, not at all like they are
now. They were soft and very tender, and the blood ran through them
just as it does through our bodies. They were covered with a sort of
skin with hairs on it like thin fur. The ends were not sharply pointed
they now are, but were big and rounded, like knobs. They were not like
antlers at all, and they made my head hot and were very uncomfortable.
That is why I hid away. They grew very fast, so fast that every day I
could see by looking at my reflection in water that they were a little
longer. It seemed to me sometimes as if all my strength went into those
new antlers. And I had to be very careful not to hit them against
anything. In the first place it would have hurt, and in the second place it
might have spoiled the shape of them.
"When they had grown to the length you now see, they began to shrink
and grow hard. The knobs on the ends shrank until they became
pointed. As soon as they stopped growing the blood stopped flowing up
in them, and as they became hard they were no longer tender. The skin
which had covered them grew dry and split, and I rubbed it off