The Adventures of Lightfoot the Deer | Page 2

the top of a little hemlock tree.
"It's awful," declared Peter. "It's worse than unfair. It doesn't give them
any chance at all."
"I suppose it must be so if you say so," replied Lightfoot, "but you
might tell me what all this awfulness is about."
Peter grinned. Then he began at the beginning and told Lightfoot all
about Mr. and Mrs. Quack and the many dangers they must face on
their long journey to the far-away Southland and back again in the
spring, all because of the heartless hunters with terrible guns. Lightfoot
listened and his great soft eyes were filled with pity for the Quack
family.

"I hope they will get through all right," said he, "and I hope they will
get back in the spring. It is bad enough to be hunted by men at one time
of the year, as no one knows better than I do, but to be hunted in the
spring as well as in the fall is more than twice as bad. Men are strange
creatures. I do not understand them at all. None of the people of the
Green Forest would think of doing such terrible things. I suppose it is
quite right to hunt others in order to get enough to eat, though I am
thankful to say that I never have had to do that, but to hunt others just
for the fun of hunting is something I cannot understand at all. And yet
that is what men seem to do it for. I guess the trouble is they never have
been hunted themselves and don't know how it feels. Sometimes I think
I'll hunt one some day just to teach him a lesson. What are you
laughing at, Peter?"
"At the idea of you hunting a man," replied Peter. "Your heart is all
right, Lightfoot, but you are too timid and gentle to frighten any one.
Big as you are I wouldn't fear you."
With a single swift bound Lightfoot sprang out in front of Peter. He
stamped his sharp hoofs, lowered his handsome head until the sharp
points of his antlers, which people call horns, pointed straight at Peter,
lifted the hair along the back of his neck, and made a motion as if to
plunge at him. His eyes, which Peter had always thought so soft and
gentle, seemed to flash fire.
"Oh!" cried Peter in a faint, frightened-sounding voice and leaped to
one side before it entered his foolish little head that Lightfoot was just
pretending.
Lightfoot chuckled. "Did you say I couldn't frighten any one?" he
demanded.
"I--I didn't know you could look so terribly fierce," stammered Peter.
"Those antlers look really dangerous when you point them that way.
Why--why--what is that hanging to them? It looks like bits of old fur.
Have you been tearing somebody's coat, Lightfoot?" Peter's eyes were
wide with wonder and suspicion.

CHAPTER II
LIGHTFOOT'S NEW ANTLERS
Peter Rabbit was puzzled. He stared at Lightfoot the Deer a wee bit
suspiciously. "Have you been tearing somebody's coat?" he asked again.
He didn't like to think it of Lightfoot, whom he always had believed
quite as gentle, harmless, and timid as himself. But what else could he
think?
Lightfoot slowly shook his head. "No," said he, "I haven't torn
anybody's coat."
"Then what are those rags hanging on your antlers?" demanded Peter.
Lightfoot chuckled. "They are what is left of the coverings of my new
antlers," he explained.
"What's that? What do you mean by new antlers?" Peter was sitting up
very straight, with his eyes fixed on Lightfoot's antlers as though he
never had seen them before.
"Just what I said," retorted Lightfoot. "What do you think of them? I
think they are the finest antlers I've ever had. When I get the rest of
those rags off, they will be as handsome a set as ever was grown in the
Green Forest."
Lightfoot rubbed his antlers against the trunk of a tree till some of the
rags hanging to them dropped off.
Peter blinked very hard. He was trying to understand and he couldn't.
Finally he said so.
"What kind of a story are you trying to fill me up with?" he demanded
indignantly. "Do you mean to tell me that those are not the antlers that
you have had as long as I've known you? How can anything hard like
those antlers grow? And if those are new ones, where are the old ones?
Show me the old ones, and perhaps I'll believe that these are new ones.

The idea of trying to make me believe that antlers grow just like plants!
I've seen Bossy the Cow all summer and I know she has got the same
horns she had last summer. New antlers indeed!"
"You are quite right, Peter,