SEPTEMBER 17: The Deer
“Far away,” said daddy, “some men went hunting.”
“‘We hope to get a couple of deer,’ they said. ‘And of course, we’d like it better if we could get more.’
“They thought they were going out for a great deal of fun and they planned what they should take to eat and what a glorious grown-up picnic they would have.
“They went hunting on the first day of their trip, and there, sure enough, was a deer. Oh, such a lovely deer! His eyes were soft brown in color and very large and beautiful.
“He had left his mate to go hunting for food and here he was caught by the men. He could not run. He just stood there for one awful moment, his great eyes looking at the men.
“‘Oh men,’ he was trying to say, ‘oh great, big men with guns, don’t shoot me down. I do no harm. I am gentle. I have a mate. I don’t want to be shot. Oh men, you men with guns! You are so powerful, so strong. What can I do? But have pity on me. Think of me killed and enjoyed by you as food, and my poor mate crying away by herself in the woods.’
“‘Sometimes,’ said one of the men, ‘I cannot bear to shoot one of these lovely creatures. They look so sad. And this one is struck still with fear.’
“‘Oh, nonsense,’ said one of the other men, ‘you always get this way on the first day of our hunting trip. Think what good venison we will have.’ For venison is the meat of the deer.
“And the man’s kindness fled from him and a loud bang-bang ended the beautiful deer’s life—the deer with the big brown eyes which begged and pleaded for kindness—not for gunshot.
“The next day the men were off shooting again. They had what they called a great deal of luck. In truth it means that they killed some of the woodland animals and could feed on some of the meat.
“They saw deer in great numbers but none of the family of the poor deer they had killed on the first day.
“On the fifth day of their trip they saw the doe who was the mate of the deer. She, too, had beautiful soft brown eyes and with her a lovely fawn child.
“‘Oh look,’ said the men, ‘there is a doe. And a fawn with her.’
“‘There is a fine against us if we kill a mother deer,’ said one.
“‘Who will know?’ said another.
“Now the man who had shown a little bit of kindness on the first day by feeling badly to kill the deer was the one who spoke next. To be sure, he had not felt badly enough to have prevented the killing of the deer, nor had he gone home and given up hunting. But he was like those people who haven’t the courage to say they don’t want to do a thing when they know and feel it is cruel and wrong. They just go on doing it to be thought fine and manly.
“But to continue with the story. The man spoke and this time he meant what he said.
“‘I cannot bear to kill that mother doe and her lovely fawn. She is running from us, and I, for one, won’t try to get her.’
“The mother doe and fawn had vanished and were safe back in the woods. Oh, how her heart was beating. ‘It was those men who killed my mate,’ she was saying to her fawn child.
“And the fawn nestled close to her mother and licked her head to tell her how much she was still loved by her child.
“‘Yes,’ said the mother deer, ‘I am all alone without my mate, but I have you safe with me.’
“But for days and days the mother had great trouble in keeping her child safe from harm. For it was the time when the men were around with the big guns and the look in their eyes to kill the creatures of the woods and forests.
“And when the men from the hunting trip I have told you about went home, one man vowed he would never join them again. And he kept his word. Neither did he eat any of the venison, for he could not get from his mind the thought of those great brown eyes begging for pity from the strong men with the guns. And something deep within him must have told him of the lonely mate left in the woods, for never again did he go hunting.”