Mother West Wind "How" Stories

by Thornton W. Burgess

Peter looked at the Laughing Brook in dismay. It was quite wide at that point. "I—I can't," he stammered.

"Then I can't tell you how Lightfoot learned to jump," replied Grandfather Frog, quite as if the matter were settled.

"I—I'll try!" Peter hastened to blurt out.

"All right. While you are trying, I'll see if I can remember the story," replied Grandfather Frog.

Peter went back a little so as to get a good start. Then he ran as hard as he knew how, and when he reached the bank of the Laughing Brook, he jumped with all his might. It was a good jump—a splendid jump—but it wasn't quite enough of a jump, and Peter landed with a great splash in the water! Grandfather Frog opened his great mouth as wide as he could, which is very wide indeed, and laughed until the tears rolled down from his great, goggly eyes. Jerry Muskrat and Billy Mink rolled over and over on the bank, laughing until their sides ached. Even Spotty the Turtle smiled, which is very unusual for Spotty.

Now Peter does not like the water, and though he can swim, he doesn't feel at all at home in it. He paddled for the shore as fast as he could, and in his heart was something very like anger. No one likes to be laughed at. Peter intended to start for home the very minute he reached the shore. But just before his feet touched bottom, he heard the great, deep voice of Grandfather Frog.

"That is just the way Lightfoot the Deer learned to jump—trying to do what he couldn't do and keeping at it until he could. It all happened a great while ago when the world was young." Grandfather Frog was talking quite as if nothing had happened, and he had never thought of laughing. Peter was so put out that he wanted to keep right on, but he just couldn't miss that story. His curiosity wouldn't let him. So he shook himself and then lay down in the sunniest spot he could find within hearing.

"Lightfoot's great-great-ever-so-great-grandfather was named Lightfoot too, and was not a whit less handsome than Lightfoot is now," continued Grandfather Frog in his best story-telling voice. "He had just such slim legs as Lightfoot has now and just such wonderful, branching horns. When he had the latter, he was not much afraid of anybody. Those enemies swift enough of foot to catch him he could successfully fight with his horns, and those too big and strong for him to fight were not swift enough to catch him. But there was a season in every year when he had no horns, as is the case with Lightfoot. You know, or ought to know, that every spring Lightfoot loses his horns and through the summer a new pair grows. It was so with Mr. Deer of that long-ago time, and when he lost those great horns, he felt very helpless and timid.

"Now old Mr. Deer loved the open meadows and spent most of his time there. When he had to run, he wanted nothing in the way of his slim legs. And how he could run! My, my, my, how he could run! But there were others who could run swiftly in those days too,—Mr. Wolf and Mr. Dog. Mr. Deer always had a feeling that some day one or the other would catch him. When he had his horns, this thought didn't worry him much, but when he had lost his horns, it worried him a great deal. He felt perfectly helpless then. 'The thing for me to do is to keep out of sight,' said he to himself, and so instead of going out on the meadows and in the open places, he hid among the bushes and in the brush on the edge of the Green Forest and behind the fallen trees in the Green Forest.

"But one thing troubled old Mr. Deer, who wasn't old then, you know. Yes, Sir, one thing troubled him a great deal. He couldn't run fast at all among the bushes and the fallen trees and the old logs. This was a new worry, and it troubled him almost as much as the old worry. He felt that he was in a dreadful fix. You see, hard times had come, and the big and strong were preying on the weak and small in order to live.