The Tale of Nimble Deer | Page 2

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
passed. 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 snatched 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.
"What's the use," he finally asked her one day, "what's the