When the denizens of the Little House waked the next morning, their tiny forest guest was lying in his basket, bright-eyed as usual. For an hour after his breakfast and theirs, they hovered about him making all kinds of plans in regard to his future. But these dreams were rudely shattered when Mrs. Dore informed them that she had told Mr. Westabrook, over the telephone, the whole episode and that he was sending a man that day to bring the deer back to the Big House.
“Oh I don’t see why we have to give him up!” Maida declared in heart-broken accents. “What fun it would be to have a deer all our own and watch him grow. Just think when his horns came!”
“Oh, Maida!” Rosie begged, “do call your father up and tease him to let us keep him. Just think of having a baby fawn running about the house.”
Both the Sixes, Little and Big, added their entreaties to Rosie’s.
“I don’t think it would be any use, Maida,” Mrs. Dore quietly interrupted. “Your father said if by chance any stranger brought a dog here, he would kill the little fawn the moment he caught him. And then when the fawn himself grew bigger, and developed horns, he might even be dangerous. Besides Betsy,” as Betsy burst into loud wails of, “I finded him myself. I ranned and I ranned and I ranned—” “Mr. Westabrook said he would send you something nice to take the fawn’s place.”
“But the fawn’s alive,” Rosie expostulated in a grieved tone. “And nothing can be as nice as a live creature.”
“He said this would be alive too,” Mrs. Dore comforted her.
“Oh what?” Rosie asked.
Mrs. Dore’s eyes danced. “It’s a surprise. I’m not to tell it.”