Why The Deer's Teeth Are Blunt

________________________________________________
Title:     Why The Deer's Teeth Are Blunt
Author: Elaine Goodale Eastman [More Titles by Eastman]

Although it was not the Deer's fault that the Rabbit lost the prize, the Rabbit was greatly provoked and laid his plans to get even. Cutting a stout grapevine almost in two with his teeth, he laid it across the Deer's path and began leaping back and forth, snapping at the vine.

"What are you doing that for?" asked the Deer, when he caught him at this game.

"Only look! I can bite this tough vine in two with one snap of my sharp teeth," replied the Rabbit.

"Let me see you do it," the Deer suggested.

So the Rabbit sprang at the vine and bit it in two, where it was already almost cut through. "You cannot do anything like that," he declared proudly.

"If you can do it, I am sure I can," the Deer insisted, and the Rabbit made haste to drag forward a heavy vine. The Deer leaped at it and tried to bite it as the other had done, but caught his heels and fell headlong. Again and again he tried without success.

"My friend," put in the Rabbit, who had been looking on and pretending to sympathize, "how can you expect to bite anything in two with such blunt teeth as you have? Just let me file them for you a bit, and they will soon be as sharp as mine."

The Deer was hot and embarrassed and very foolishly gave his consent. Thereupon the sly Rabbit got a rough stone and filed off the Deer's teeth almost down to the gums, so that he could not bite off anything at all.

[The end]
Elaine Goodale Eastman's short story: Why The Deer's Teeth Are Blunt

________________________________________________



GO TO TOP OF SCREEN