He looked puzzled at her question.
"Wasn"t that the moon that lit up the lake along the sh.o.r.e?" he demanded.
"Certainly not!" she replied.
"Didn"t the moon fall into the water?" he asked.
"No, indeed!" his mother cried. She was astonished at his question.
Nimble was disappointed. He had thought he had a wonderful tale to tell.
And he couldn"t understand yet why everything wasn"t as he had supposed.
"I was sure the moon fell into the lake and blew up," he explained.
"What was that terrible noise we heard if it wasn"t the moon bursting into pieces?"
His mother didn"t laugh. Instead she was quite solemn as she answered Nimble"s last question.
"That--" she said--"that was a gun that you heard. And the light that you saw came from a lantern in a boat."
It was very hard for Nimble to believe what she told him.
"I thought I heard a piece of the moon whistle past my head," he went on.
"A bullet!" his mother declared. As she spoke she moved a little distance, to a spot where the trees were not so thick. And she raised her nose towards the sky. "There!" she said. "There"s the moon! It"s still up there where you"ve always seen it."
Nimble looked; and at last he knew that his mother had made no mistake.
But somehow he was more frightened than ever.
"Then--" he faltered--"then there must have been men in the boat--men that turned the light upon the sh.o.r.e--and fired the gun!"
"They were men--yes!" said his mother. "And they were lawbreakers, too.
I hope the game warden will catch them at their tricks."
"What is a game warden?" Nimble asked her.
"He"s a man," she answered. "He"s a man that looks after all of us forest folk and he"s the best friend we"ve got.... Goodness, child!
Are you never going to stop asking questions?"
IX
A SPIKE HORN
Nimble didn"t mind losing his spots, when he grew older. He had something else that gave him much more pleasure than they ever had. He had a new toy. Or to be exact, he had two new toys. And everywhere he went he carried them with him.
He carried them on his head. And he couldn"t have left them behind in the woods even if he had wanted to--at least not until he had enjoyed them for a whole season.
Of course you have already guessed that he had a pair of horns. They were not very big. But neither was Nimble, for that matter. So they suited him well. A little deer like him would have looked queer wearing great branching horns such as his father owned.
Nimble"s horns were merely two spikes which stuck up out of the top of his head in a pert fashion.
It was a proud day for him when an old deer spoke to him and called him "young Spike Horn." About that time the forest folk had begun to speak of him as a "yearling." But there was something about "Spike Horn" that sounded much more important.
Somehow there was a new crop of Spike Horns that summer--Nimble"s second summer. And every one of them had been--like him--a little spotted fawn the year before.
At first Nimble had thought it fun to use his new horns to jab anybody that happened to be with him. One day he even stole up behind his own mother and gave her a sharp prod with them.
He never did that again. His mother quickly taught him better. She wheeled and struck him smartly with her fore feet.
"There!" she cried. "That"s the first time a child of mine has played that trick on me.... Let it be the last!"
And it was. Nimble was very careful, after that, to prod only those that didn"t mind such pranks.
Luckily he soon found that the other Spike Horns liked the same sort of fun that he did. They were just as proud of their new horns as he was of his. And (sad to say!) there was a good deal of boasting among them.
Each one declared that his own horns were the longest and strongest.
All the Spike Horns, including Nimble, were forever b.u.t.ting one another in play. And they had just discovered a new sport when Nimble met with what he feared, for a time, was a terrible accident.
Late in the fall, before the deep snows came, both his horns loosened and dropped off his head.
"Oh! oh!" he cried when he saw what had happened. "I"ll never be able to take part in another mock battle again!" For the Spike Horns had had gay times pretending to fight one another in a most savage fashion.
After Nimble lost his horns he carefully avoided all his playmates. He didn"t want the other Spike Horns to see him. At last, to his great dismay, one day he came face to face with one of them. They both tried to dodge out of sight. But the other, whose name was Dodger, was not quite quick enough. Before he hid behind a thicket Nimble saw that he had lost his horns too!
Then Nimble guessed the truth. He knew why it was that he had managed to keep out of sight of his friends. Every Spike Horn in the neighborhood had lost his horns! And every one of them had been trying to keep out of sight.
X
AT THE CARROT PATCH
During his first summer Nimble never reached Farmer Green"s carrot patch once. His mother had planned to take him there. But on account of an unexpected party she had postponed their visit. And somehow the right night for a trip after carrots never seemed to come again.
Now, Nimble had never forgotten what his mother had told him about carrots. And he was going after some--so he promised himself--just as soon as he was big enough.
When Nimble"s second summer rolled around he was big enough and old enough to prowl through the woods and fields much as he pleased. He was a Spike Horn. And he felt fit to go to the carrot patch without waiting for anybody to show him the way.
So one night he stole down the hillside pasture, across the meadow, and jumped the fence into Farmer Green"s garden.
He saw at once that somebody was there ahead of him. It was Jimmy Rabbit. He was very busy with one of Farmer Green"s cabbages.
"I"ve come down to try the carrots," said Nimble.