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.