5.0
Comment(s)
3
View
40
Chapters

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Chapter 1 I: Peter Rabbit Meets Lightfoot

Peter Rabbit was on his way back from the pond of Paddy the Beaver deep in the Green Forest. He had just seen Mr. and Mrs. Quack start toward the Big River for a brief visit before leaving on their long, difficult journey to the far-away Southland. Farewells are always rather sad, and this particular farewell had left Peter with a lump in his throat,-a queer, choky feeling.

"If I were sure that they would return next spring, it wouldn't be so bad," he muttered. "It's those terrible guns. I know what it is to have to watch out for them. Farmer Brown's boy used to hunt me with one of them, but he doesn't any more. But even when he did hunt me it wasn't anything like what the Ducks have to go through. If I kept my eyes and ears open, I could tell when a hunter was coming and could hide in a hole if I wanted to. I never had to worry about my meals. But with the Ducks it is a thousand times worse. They've got to eat while making that long journey, and they can eat only where there is the right kind of food. Hunters with terrible guns know where those places are and hide there until the Ducks come, and the Ducks have no way of knowing whether the hunters are waiting for them or not. That isn't hunting. It's-it's-"

"Well, what is it? What are you talking to yourself about, Peter Rabbit?"

Peter looked up with a start to find the soft, beautiful eyes of Lightfoot the Deer gazing down at him over the top of a little hemlock tree.

"It's awful," declared Peter. "It's worse than unfair. It doesn't give them any chance at all."

"I suppose it must be so if you say so," replied Lightfoot, "but you might tell me what all this awfulness is about."

Peter grinned. Then he began at the beginning and told Lightfoot all about Mr. and Mrs. Quack and the many dangers they must face on their long journey to the far-away Southland and back again in the spring, all because of the heartless hunters with terrible guns. Lightfoot listened and his great soft eyes were filled with pity for the Quack family.

"I hope they will get through all right," said he, "and I hope they will get back in the spring. It is bad enough to be hunted by men at one time of the year, as no one knows better than I do, but to be hunted in the spring as well as in the fall is more than twice as bad. Men are strange creatures. I do not understand them at all. None of the people of the Green Forest would think of doing such terrible things. I suppose it is quite right to hunt others in order to get enough to eat, though I am thankful to say that I never have had to do that, but to hunt others just for the fun of hunting is something I cannot understand at all. And yet that is what men seem to do it for. I guess the trouble is they never have been hunted themselves and don't know how it feels. Sometimes I think I'll hunt one some day just to teach him a lesson. What are you laughing at, Peter?"

"At the idea of you hunting a man," replied Peter. "Your heart is all right, Lightfoot, but you are too timid and gentle to frighten any one. Big as you are I wouldn't fear you."

With a single swift bound Lightfoot sprang out in front of Peter. He stamped his sharp hoofs, lowered his handsome head until the sharp points of his antlers, which people call horns, pointed straight at Peter, lifted the hair along the back of his neck, and made a motion as if to plunge at him. His eyes, which Peter had always thought so soft and gentle, seemed to flash fire.

"Oh!" cried Peter in a faint, frightened-sounding voice and leaped to one side before it entered his foolish little head that Lightfoot was just pretending.

Lightfoot chuckled. "Did you say I couldn't frighten any one?" he demanded.

"I-I didn't know you could look so terribly fierce," stammered Peter. "Those antlers look really dangerous when you point them that way. Why-why-what is that hanging to them? It looks like bits of old fur. Have you been tearing somebody's coat, Lightfoot?" Peter's eyes were wide with wonder and suspicion.

Continue Reading

Other books by Thornton W. Burgess

More

You'll also like

The Billionaire's Secret Twins: Her Revenge

The Billionaire's Secret Twins: Her Revenge

Shearwater
4.4

I was four months pregnant, weighing over two hundred pounds, and my heart was failing from experimental treatments forced on me as a child. My doctor looked at me with clinical detachment and told me I was in a death sentence: if I kept the baby, I would die, and if I tried to remove it, I would die. Desperate for a lifeline, I called my father, Francis Acosta, to tell him I was sick and pregnant. I expected a father's love, but all I got was a cold, sharp blade of a voice. "Then do it quietly," he said. "Don't embarrass Candi. Her debutante ball is coming up." He didn't just reject me; he erased me. My trust fund was frozen, and I was told I was no longer an Acosta. My fiancé, Auston, had already discarded me, calling me a "bloated whale" while he looked for a thinner, wealthier replacement. I left New York on a Greyhound bus, weeping into a bag of chips, a broken woman the world considered a mistake. I couldn't understand how my own father could tell me to die "quietly" just to save face for a party. I didn't know why I had been a lab rat for my family’s pharmaceutical ambitions, or how they could sleep at night while I was left to rot in the gray drizzle of the city. Five years later, the doors of JFK International Airport slid open. I stepped onto the marble floor in red-soled stilettos, my body lean, lethal, and carved from years of blood and sweat. I wasn't the "whale" anymore; I was a ghost coming back to haunt them. With my daughter by my side and a medical reputation that terrified the global elite, I was ready to dismantle the Acosta empire piece by piece. "Tell Francis to wash his neck," I whispered to the skyline. "I'm home."

Rising From Wreckage: Starfall's Epic Comeback

Rising From Wreckage: Starfall's Epic Comeback

Huo Wuer
4.5

Rain hammered against the asphalt as my sedan spun violently into the guardrail on the I-95. Blood trickled down my temple, stinging my eyes, while the rhythmic slap of the windshield wipers mocked my panic. Trembling, I dialed my husband, Clive. His executive assistant answered instead, his voice professional and utterly cold. "Mr. Wilson says to stop the theatrics. He said, and I quote, 'Hang up. Tell her I don’t have time for her emotional blackmail tonight.'" The line went dead while I was still trapped in the wreckage. At the hospital, I watched the news footage of Clive wrapping his jacket around his "fragile" ex-girlfriend, Angelena, shielding her from the storm I was currently bleeding in. When I returned to our penthouse, I found a prenatal ultrasound in his suit pocket, dated the day he claimed to be on a business trip. Instead of an apology, Clive met me with a sneer. He told me I was nothing but an "expensive decoration" his father bought to make him look stable. He froze my bank accounts and cut off my cards, waiting for the hunger to drive me back to his feet. I stared at the man I had loved for four years, realizing he didn't just want a wife; he wanted a prop he could switch off. He thought he could starve me into submission while he played father to another woman's child. But Clive forgot one thing. Before I was his trophy wife, I was Starfall—the legendary voice actress who vanished at the height of her fame. "I'm not jealous, Clive. I'm done." I grabbed my old microphone and walked out. I’m not just leaving him; I’m taking the lead role in the biggest saga in Hollywood—the one Angelena is desperate for. This time, the "decoration" is going to burn his world down.

Chapters
Read Now
Download Book
Lightfoot the Deer
1

Chapter 1 I: Peter Rabbit Meets Lightfoot

06/12/2017

2

Chapter 2 II Lightfoot's New Antlers

06/12/2017

3

Chapter 3 III Lightfoot Tells How His Antlers Grew

06/12/2017

4

Chapter 4 IV The Spirit Of Fear

06/12/2017

5

Chapter 5 V Sammy Jay Brings Lightfoot Word

06/12/2017

6

Chapter 6 VI A Game Of Hide And Seek

06/12/2017

7

Chapter 7 VII The Merry Little Breezes Help Lightfoot

06/12/2017

8

Chapter 8 VIII Wit Against Wit

06/12/2017

9

Chapter 9 IX Lightfoot Becomes Uncertain

06/12/2017

10

Chapter 10 X Lightfoot's Clever Trick

06/12/2017

11

Chapter 11 XI The Hunted Watches The Hunter

06/12/2017

12

Chapter 12 XII Lightfoot Visits Paddy The Beaver

06/12/2017

13

Chapter 13 XIII Lightfoot And Paddy Become Partners

06/12/2017

14

Chapter 14 XIV How Paddy Warned Lightfoot

06/12/2017

15

Chapter 15 XV The Three Watchers

06/12/2017

16

Chapter 16 XVI Visitors To Paddy's Pond

06/12/2017

17

Chapter 17 XVII Sammy Jay Arrives

06/12/2017

18

Chapter 18 XVIII The Hunter Loses His Temper

06/12/2017

19

Chapter 19 XIX Sammy Jay Is Modest

06/12/2017

20

Chapter 20 XX Lightfoot Hears A Dreadful Sound

06/12/2017

21

Chapter 21 XXI How Lightfoot Got Rid Of The Hounds

06/12/2017

22

Chapter 22 XXII Lightfoot's Long Swim

06/12/2017

23

Chapter 23 XXIII Lightfoot Finds A Friend

06/12/2017

24

Chapter 24 XXIV The Hunter Is Disappointed

06/12/2017

25

Chapter 25 XXV The Hunter Lies In Wait

06/12/2017

26

Chapter 26 XXVI Lightfoot Does The Wise Thing

06/12/2017

27

Chapter 27 XXVII Sammy Jay Worries

06/12/2017

28

Chapter 28 XXVIII The Hunting Season Ends

06/12/2017

29

Chapter 29 And Mrs. Quack Are Startled

06/12/2017

30

Chapter 30 XXX The Mystery Is Solved

06/12/2017

31

Chapter 31 XXXI A Surprising Discovery

06/12/2017

32

Chapter 32 XXXII Lightfoot Sees The Stranger

06/12/2017

33

Chapter 33 XXXIII A Different Game Of Hide And Seek

06/12/2017

34

Chapter 34 XXXIV A Startling New Footprint

06/12/2017

35

Chapter 35 XXXV Lightfoot Is Reckless

06/12/2017

36

Chapter 36 XXXVI Sammy Jay Takes A Hand

06/12/2017

37

Chapter 37 XXXVII The Great Fight

06/12/2017

38

Chapter 38 XXXVIII An Unseen Watcher

06/12/2017

39

Chapter 39 XXXIX Lightfoot Discovers Love

06/12/2017

40

Chapter 40 XL Happy Days In The Green Forest

06/12/2017