The nurseryman said, "I intend to plant mulberry-trees in this sunny spot."
"I know," cried Doby. "This hole grows to grow a tree to grow a leaf to grow a worm to grow a silk frock to grow a fine lady," and he returned his mother's smile.
Behind them the silent buck had ventured up to take a browse at the seedlings. Doby foolishly ran toward it to drive it off. Angrily it rose on its hind legs to strike him.
Horrified Johnny felt that death was coming in that brutal downward cut of hoof. Instantly, desperately, he flung his spade at the deer. The metal clanged on its antlers. The deer turned aside. Doby vaulted to the top of the boat's barricade, yelling for Johnny to follow him.
Johnny had seized the other spade and had thrown it in his own defense. It hit the deer on the flank. Doby and his mother shrieked like mad. Startled and confused by the attack and the noise, the buck took flight.
Whirling about wildly, it chose the one dangerous direction—straight away, over the sunny open space where the digging had been done. Its forelegs went down in one hole, its head seemed to light in another, and the flying brute turned a complete somersault. Leaves and grass and dirt filled the air.
Doby's screams redoubled. Johnny gained the boat's wall. He knew they were out of danger's reach, should the buck turn back to rend them, for the baggage stockade would protect them.
But he was shaken by their peril. While getting his breath and calming Doby and his mother, he watched uneasily for the next movement of the irate beast.
After many minutes of waiting he knew that it would never move again. Its neck was broken.
Then Johnny Appleseed leaned his bark-colored form back against the woodsy setting of the leaf-covered boat wall, crossed his feet, set his arms akimbo—the kindest gnome who ever lived, the good spirit of the Fairy Isle, the best-known and most-beloved character on the frontier—and murmured to Doby: