LIGHTFOOT SEES THE STRANGER
Lightfoot the Deer was unhappy. It was a strange unhappiness, an
unhappiness such as he had never known before. You see, he had
discovered that there was a stranger in the Green Forest, a stranger of
his own kind, another Deer. He knew it by dainty footprints in the mud
along the Laughing Brook and on the edge of the pond of Paddy the
Beaver. He knew it by other signs which he ran across every now and
then. But search as he would, he was unable to find that newcomer. He
had searched everywhere but always he was just too late. The stranger
had been and gone.
Now there was no anger in Lightfoot's desire to find that stranger.
Instead, there was a great longing. For the first time in his life
Lightfoot felt lonely. So he hunted and hunted and was unhappy. He lost
his appetite. He slept little. He roamed about uneasily, looking,
listening, testing every Merry Little Breeze, but all in vain.
Then, one never-to-be-forgotten night, as he drank at the Laughing
Brook, a strange feeling swept over him. It was the feeling of being
watched. Lightfoot lifted his beautiful head and a slight movement
caught his quick eye and drew it to a thicket not far away. The silvery
light of gentle Mistress Moon fell full on that thicket, and thrust out
from it was the most beautiful head in all the Great World. At least,
that is the way it seemed to Lightfoot, though to tell the truth it was
not as beautiful as his own, for it was uncrowned by antlers. For a long
minute Lightfoot stood gazing. A pair of wonderful, great, soft eyes
gazed back at him. Then that beautiful head disappeared.
With a mighty bound, Lightfoot cleared the Laughing Brook and rushed
over to the thicket in which that beautiful head had disappeared. He
plunged in, but there was no one there. Frantically he searched, but
that thicket was empty. Then he stood still and listened. Not a sound
reached him. It was as still as if there were no other living things in
all the Green Forest. The beautiful stranger had slipped away as
silently as a shadow.
All the rest of that night Lightfoot searched through the Green Forest
but his search was in vain. The longing to find that beautiful stranger
had become so great that he fairly ached with it. It seemed to him that
until he found her he could know no happiness.