One sunny summer morning, Daisy the Deer pricked up her ears and listened, for she had an idea that the little people would be around soon to have the annual race across the open fields. And so they were. Daisy could hardly wait for them to get ready.
Soon the field-mice from the clover fields and the meadow-larks from the wire-grass were hearing the note of preparation. And Daisy the Deer pricked up her ears and waited, for she knew that her friends—the field-mice, the meadow-larks, and the little brown squirrels from the cherry-trees—would soon be here to cheer her on. For year after year they had watched her as she stood in the fields and listened to the merry songs of the larks and scampered to and fro of the squirrels and the field-mice.
And then the friends that she so loved would race across the field together to see who could arrive the first at the old cherry tree in time for dinner; and year after year Daisy the Deer had come bounding along, her eyes bright and her feet flying as she came racing up with her little friends, but multitudes of swift feet and panting forms always had outstripped her.
This year, however, Daisy felt certain that she was going to win.
“Don’t be too sure! We count up by twos and threes. You won’t win alone,” croaked old Reddy the Crow.
But Daisy the Deer only tossed her head and waited with bright eyes and happy face, and as the starting hour drew near her friends began to scatter over the field and the trees. There were merry little songs under the tree-tops, bursts of rippling laughter in the long meadow-grasses, where Reddy waited expectantly for the dinner-bell. The races were about to begin in earnest.
As soon as all were ready, the note was blown upon the horn so that all the little people of the woods and the meadows could hear it. The ear of many a swift animal pricked up, and many a workman left off his work, and far away in the meadows and the woods voices ran to and fro saying, “The little ones are about to race.”
Daisy the Deer counted up, and her heart sank. She was sure she would have none but a clean sweep of victories, for each race carried with it a silver medal. But much to her despair, she found that rabbit and squirrel and lark had had companions to help them, while she had had no one. So it was decided that the races were all to be by two or three friends, and in that case Daisy the Deer could no longer hope to be at the winning side.
“Together! Together!” sounded through the green woods, first the steel horn, with “To-ot! To-ot!” and then the horn of wood, with “Hello! Hello!” saying all that the sea-water, and the pretty moss on the trees, and the meadow-larks and the clover-flowers had to tell.
Now the races were to begin. Who could do the race of the mountain before breakfast? And who were going to do the race by twos, or by threes, or fives? And every one of those who had races to run said, “We meet at the old tree.”
“Wait till I come,” said old Ben Bog. “Wait till I come,” No one knew exactly what he meant, but they felt sure of his meaning, and he actually was the only one who ever, so to say, got help himself. And this was because the lizard and two rats ran by his sides, and threw stout ropes round their bodies. But it was on that very account that they got last in the list; but they had had the help!
And Daisy did all she could to go truly and fast, and on she went, and then on a little faster. But instead of meeting the faces of her friends, or hearing old Reddy saying, with upturned head, “Where are you going, my friend?” she met, on reaching the other side, the brown head of Kitty the Cat, and the sharper ask of “You have been certainly flying!” full and round at last fulfilled.
“Ah! All the pretty flowers are out,” says Daisy, as she re-enters the wood, where all the blackbirds and larks were scouring over the grass in the beating sun, and where, as the fancy took her, she stood painfully conscious of the look of amazement and despondence in the meek, terrified eyes of the picture-squirrel on the high nervous stalk of the cherries.
She was cheering these little ones at the coming race in ear shot of the start, and this made her rejoice to see how merry they all looked.
“They are not tired out,” she thought. “O, dear! Why do all burrowing creatures live underground, and give at the same time such shining entrance-doors?”
“Ho-ho! Ho-ho!” laughed clever old Reddy, with his thin cheese-like bill, when he saw how forlorn and astonished Daisy’s face looked, when devoid of understanding it relapsed so.
But this of burying doorways was of no good. Daisy’s friend had skipped home very well, in the first place, during all that time, while she was inadvertently presenting herself so bijou-like, on one side in the house-mouse’s abode, and in the other under the intrauterine opening of old Reddy-a crow’s residence.
“I won’t do so no more,” she added. But to be very frank with you, she was very tired of waiting, and wanted to get back home to her bright little cradle in the meadow close by.
Kitty had needed to raise her usual security to repulse over the towns along the narrow spot at the other end as well, but you must know that it is in very hot summer sunny weather that the surface soil gives off much vapor. Old Reddy the Crow’s residence had something best, but then all lifted moisture and vapors brought with them fresh furnishment.
Daisy laid herself down, so quite exhausted, that she patiently let every farthing-piece after another be straightened. But more active spirits opened not a moment to readjust under the rain, old Reddy’s damp-slipper market was judged best after all, and began very seriously to set about age-preparing their diferença.
Then Daisy learned that her friends had really run home with all flying head and flapping limbs, and that it knowledge made them something anxious as to life’s periods, but that very few could bear the thought again so moderate, while bright gray squirrels and plaintive cannonyms were now as far as possible as knowing beforehand each tale, the time elapsed between pitiful discoverable laps.
So it happened that Daisy got easily to be the friend of all the little people he had lain so long before in the storehouse of Reddy-a crow’s residence.
How merry and delighted few we’re merry-minded thus of the agency nature had confirmed! And Daisy the Deer was the first to say, “Ah! ah! All the pretty flowers are out!”
And this dear little acknowledgement of patient suffering after duly performed duty.
But, they say, life has its beautiful spots, and more elastic pitiful contrasts, dizzyful merry pursuits; and Daisy’s ears, so charmingly enlarging and yielding-she herself amid so visible absence to every indignant expression from the neighboring dews of so many confiding South Sea Iphigenias and Puny Idahoes, was perhaps thought right by all those who were lazy to be there, that must still tarry a little longer for her own ardently pressed embraces sitting up to a congenially extended royal fancyware tea-table inhaled something incrediously elegant to entity.
One little squirrel had drenched himself but busily-and clever old Reddy the Crow flew over again, as before.
So it was decided this year that there should be no medals given for the races at all. And Daisy the Deer knew very well that it had only happened because she had had no one to help her, and more especially because no one had offered to come before her.
But there was one thing that she heard quite distinctly. Old Reddy the Crow stood outside, just below her tree in the verdure of the clover that first caught Daisy’s eyes; and there he wound up a very merry afternoon by singing simply this, “I told you so! I told you so!”