Chapter 4

"Well, I dare say _somebody_ would enjoy a sham fight," said Nimble. "I must ask Jimmy Rabbit who it will be."

So the next time Nimble found Jimmy Rabbit he asked him that very question.

But Jimmy Rabbit said there were to be no battles of any kind at his party.

"Then how am I going to help you?"

"You're going to use your horns--but not to fight," Jimmy Rabbit explained.

And he wouldn't say another word.

XXII

THE NEW HAT-RACK

The night of Jimmy Rabbit's party arrived at last. The time was an hour after sunset. The place was Farmer Green's back pasture. And Jimmy Rabbit was waiting eagerly. He had told Nimble Deer to come early, before the other guests, because Nimble was going to help him.

Jimmy Rabbit hadn't waited long when he heard a muffled thud, followed by a swift patter.

"There's Nimble now!" he exclaimed. "He just jumped the stone wall and he's coming this way."

Jimmy Rabbit was right. In a few seconds more Nimble Deer stood before him.

"Here I am!" Nimble cried. "I've come early and I'm ready to help you."

"Good!" said Jimmy Rabbit. "Step this way, please!" And he hopped over to a clump of evergreens. Nimble followed him.

"Now," Jimmy Rabbit went on, "step inside this thicket and let only your head and neck stick out!"

"What shall I do with my antlers?" Nimble asked him. "They won't come off, because it's the wrong time of year to shed them."

"Oh! I want your antlers to show too," Jimmy Rabbit assured him.

So Nimble did exactly as Jimmy Rabbit had told him.

Then Jimmy sat up a little way off, cocked his head on one side, and looked at Nimble. "That's fine!" he declared. "When the moon comes up everybody will be able to see you--except what's hidden by the evergreens."

"What am I going to do here?" Nimble inquired.

"You're to stand perfectly still," Jimmy explained.

"And what else?"

"Nothing!" Jimmy Rabbit answered. "The other guests will do the rest.... And now, if you don't mind, I'll leave you here; for I hear somebody coming."

He scampered away then. But soon he came hurrying back.

"There's something I forgot to say," he told Nimble hurriedly. "You mustn't talk. You mustn't even open your mouth. You mustn't even chew your cud."

"I suppose I can wink if I want to," said Nimble Deer.

"No, indeed!" Jimmy Rabbit cried. "That would spoil everything."

"It's going to be hard," Nimble complained, "to keep so still."

"Oh, no!" Jimmy Rabbit assured him. "It will be easy. Just act as if you were stuffed!"

"Stuffed!" Nimble exclaimed. "I've never been stuffed. I hope I never shall be. And I don't know how to act as if I were."

Jimmy Rabbit didn't even wait to hear what Nimble said, but whisked away again.

"Dear me!" Nimble muttered. "I wish I hadn't said I'd come to the party and help. For it certainly won't be any fun to stand still in this thicket, with only my head and neck sticking out."

However, he had promised to help. So there was nothing to be done except to follow Jimmy Rabbit's orders. And at once Nimble could hear Jimmy Rabbit welcoming some early guests.

"Come this way and leave your hats and coats!" Jimmy Rabbit was saying. And soon he returned with Billy Woodchuck and Fatty Coon at his heels. Jimmy led them straight to the place where Nimble stood.

"Hang your things on my new hat-rack!" Jimmy Rabbit told them as he waved a paw toward Nimble's antlers.

And to Nimble's amazement they reached up to do as they were told.

But Nimble's antlers were too high for them.

It was a bad moment for Jimmy Rabbit.

XXIII

HOW NIMBLE HELPED

Billy Woodchuck and Fatty Coon had come early to Jimmy Rabbit's party. And Jimmy had told them to hang their hats and coats upon his new hat-rack--meaning Nimble Deer's antlers. But when they tried to do as they were bid they found that the antlers were beyond their reach.

Of course Jimmy Rabbit was most uncomfortable. He coughed and gave Nimble an odd look. He even nodded his head at Nimble behind his guests' backs, thereby doing his best to give Nimble a hint to lower his head.

But Nimble Deer couldn't imagine what Jimmy Rabbit meant. Hadn't Jimmy warned him not to move--not even to open his mouth, or chew his cud, or wink? So Nimble stood like a statue.

"I--I see my new hat-rack is too high," Jimmy Rabbit stammered. "Let me take your hats and coats and I'll hang them up for you while you go and wait for the rest of the company over by the stone wall!"

So Billy Woodchuck and Fatty Coon gave their hats and coats to Jimmy.

"That's a fine Deer's head," Fatty remarked. "It seems to me I've seen it before somewhere."

"Perhaps! Perhaps!" Jimmy Rabbit answered. He wished his guests would move away.

"Those antlers remind me of Nimble Deer's," Billy Woodchuck remarked. And he gave Nimble a wink, for he had quickly guessed the secret of the hat-rack and how Jimmy Rabbit had planned to have Nimble at his party and yet keep him out of the crowd.

"Is this Deer's head stuffed?" Billy Woodchuck asked Jimmy Rabbit.

"Perhaps! Perhaps!" Jimmy muttered. "Move along, please!"

Nimble wanted to return that wink that Billy Woodchuck gave him. But he didn't, because Jimmy Rabbit had warned him to keep perfectly still.

As soon as his guests had left them Jimmy whispered to Nimble, "Lower your head a bit, for pity's sake!"

Nimble promptly obeyed him. And Jimmy Rabbit hung the hats and coats upon Nimble's antlers.

"Now," Jimmy said, "keep your head exactly where it is!"

"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 nobody 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

End of Project Gutenberg's The Tale of Nimble Deer, by Arthur Scott Bailey