CHAPTER III.--AT THE VALLEY FARM.
Now that her broken leg had been set so skillfully, Fleet Foot feltbetter. And the fawns were content to get their supper of the Jerseycow.
But the Boy and his father had to face the problem of getting them allback to the Valley Farm.
"How can we make a litter?" asked the Boy, who was not so skilled inwood-craft as the Farmer.
"First, find two good long poles," his father directed. "I wish we'dbrought an axe, but perhaps you can manage with your jack-knife." Andunder his direction the Boy found what he needed. Next they peeled thebark from a chestnut tree, and on this they arranged a mattress of driedmoss, then tied it firmly between the two long poles. Stretching thisflat on the ground, they laid Fleet Foot on it and carried her home instate, one of them shouldering either end of the litter.
"She ought to ride easy on that," said the backwoodsman. But the doeshrank back in fear when the Boy tried laying his hand caressingly onher velvet throat. For every moment she expected they would kill her.
The fawns followed Clover Blossom, and finally they came out into thestar-lit meadow, where Fleet Foot caught the odor of cows and sheep fromthe big red barn. The next thing she knew, she was lying on a mound ofsweet-smelling dried clover, in a clean stall of that same barn, andthere was a pail of water beside her. She roused herself to drinkfeverishly, standing on three legs, but she could not eat. Then followeda few hours when she slept despite her fears, because she was too tiredto keep awake.
In the pink dawn she awoke at the sound of the milk-pails, and her firstthought was of the fawns. The Boy brought her a hatful of grass; but hergreat eyes only searched wistfully through the woodland and meadowbefore the open door, and on to the dew-wet forest where she thoughtthey waited, and she struggled weakly to get to her feet and go to them.
"She's worrying about her babies," said the Boy. "Can't we show them toher?" he begged his father.
"The only trouble with that," the farmer replied, "is that, once theyget a sight of her, they won't have anything more to do with CloverBlossom, and she's got to take care of them till their own mother iswell again. But that leg will heal quickly. The bone was broken in onlyone place. We've got to keep her quiet, though,--and the fawns arebetter off where they are."
Thus several weeks went by, till at last Fleet Foot was able to tripdaintily into the pasture lot. But still she worried about the fawns.She was comfortable and well fed, and was even becoming used to the Boy,who brought her food and water every morning and sometimes a few grainsof rock salt. Through the bars of the open doorway she could gazestraight into the cool green woods all day. Had it not been for herlonging for the fawns, she would have been quite content to lie stilland get well.
The bone had set quickly, for her life in the open had given her pureblood and much reserve strength. But she was anxious to make her escapeand search for her babies. Little did she dream, in the confusion ofsounds and smells that filled the barn every day, that the pair actuallycame to Clover Blossom's stall.
Meantime, the fawns throve on the Jersey milk. Though too shy to minglewith the cows and sheep in the pasture lot, they spent their days in aclump of alders down by the brook.
"Won't they be happy when they get their own mother back?" the Boyexclaimed to his father one evening.
The Father looked at his son in a puzzled way.
"The doe has disappeared," he announced. "I had just taken the splintsoff her leg. It was healed as good as new. Thought I'd turn her loose inthe pasture to limber up a bit, when--would you believe it?--she leapedclean over that fence, and off into the woods out of sight."
"Honestly?" exclaimed the Boy. "Without so much as a thank you! And whatwill become of her now?"
"Oh, she'll be all right. But isn't it a shame now we didn't let herhave her fawns?"
"Perhaps we can keep them ourselves," ventured the Boy wistfully, for heloved pets. "We could tame them and let them grow up with the cows.They're half tame already."
"I don't believe a wild thing is ever really happy that way," mused theFarmer. "Do you?"
"No, perhaps not," decided the Boy. "And besides, their mother willbreak her heart if she never finds them again."
"She'll feel badly, of course. But don't you see, the fawns will take tothe woods again, sooner or later, unless we keep them tied all the time.And then do you know what would happen? They wouldn't know how to takecare of themselves, without their mother's training."
"Oh," said the Boy. "And some hungry animal might catch them for itsdinner!"
"I'm afraid so," agreed the Farmer. "It is always the young animals thathave lost their mothers that get caught."
"Say, I've noticed a funny thing," said the Boy, a few days later."Clover Blossom has been giving more milk lately, and yet the fawnsaren't weaned."
"You didn't see what I saw last night," said the Farmer, smiling. And hetold the Boy where to watch.
Meantime what had become of Fleet Foot? First she leaped the fence, andtook to the trail down which Clover Blossom had wandered--here over thesmooth pine needles, there through the crackling oak leaves, and yonderover a fallen log. And as she went, she nibbled course after course ofthe dainties of the woodland.
How fit she felt, after her long imprisonment! How swift her slenderhoofs, how strong her long hind legs that could send her over a hazelcopse like steel springs! And how good it was to be alive in a world allsunshine and dancing butterflies and tinkling streams!
But where were her fawns? She searched and searched for some sign of thelittle fellows. But she searched in vain. And all the joy went out oflife again.
Then, one evening, as she stood on a hill-top watching the Boy drive thecows home from pasture, she saw something that made her lonely heartbeat high with hope. She couldn't make out the little spotted coats sofar away, but she did see their red-brown outlines, so tiny beside thecows, and the furtive way they shied along, as if they never could getused to coming right out in the open. And her anxious mother-heartassured her that they were worth a closer view.
So, the next night, before they turned off the lane to the pasture lot,the fawns heard the little stamp that had always been their mother'ssignal. "Wait where you are--and hide!" she bade them with her whistled"Hiew!" "I will come to you."
And they obeyed, thrilling with a great wave of homesick longing for themother they had thought lost to them. The Boy, tip-toeing back to seewhat had become of his pets, found the doe in the pasture lot, nursingher fawns.
And though he did not know it, she stayed with them until the first graylight in the east warned her that she must leave them for the day. Forthe fence was too high for the fawns to leap.
The next night the Boy watched again, from the cover of the hay-stack.Before long the doe leaped smoothly into the pasture, stamping for thefawns. Then he saw the flash of her white tail signaling for them tofollow, and after that, two tinier tails wig-wagging through the dusk asthey disappeared in the alders down by the brook that ran through thelower end of the pasture.
The Boy stared after them awhile, a smile of sympathy in his eyes.Then--ever so softly, so as not to alarm them--he slipped across towhere she had leaped the fence, and lifted the top bars away.
The next morning the fawns were gone!
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