What Brownie Wanted

: The Tale Of Nimble Deer

Nimble Deer had stopped at Brownie Beaver's pond to get a drink. Just as

he raised his head from the water he spied Brownie a little way off, on

the bank, gnawing at a box alder tree.



"Good evening!" Nimble called to him.



"Good evening!" Brownie Beaver answered.



"I see you're busy, as usual," Nimble remarked.



"Yes!" Brownie replied. "And what are you doing--if I m
y ask?"



"Oh! I'm just rambling about," Nimble explained.



"Then you're not doing much of anything," said Brownie Beaver.



Nimble admitted that he wasn't.



"Since you're not working, perhaps you'll be willing to help me,"

Brownie suggested.



"Certainly!" Nimble cried. He liked Brownie Beaver. Everybody liked

him--unless it was Timothy Turtle, who had a grudge against the whole

Beaver tribe.



"Maybe I can make arrangements with you to----" Brownie began.



"Of course you can!" Nimble interrupted.



"That's very kind of you," Brownie said. "I'm sure I'm much obliged to

you."



"You're quite welcome," Nimble assured him.



"You're sure you won't mind!" Brownie Beaver inquired.



"Not at all! No, indeed! What is it you want me to do for you? Do you

want me to help you roll a log into the water, when you've finished

cutting down that tree? I might use my horns for a cant hook, such as

the lumbermen have."



"No! It's not that--thank you!" Brownie Beaver mumbled. He had not

stopped working, while he talked. And having some chips in his mouth he

did not speak any too clearly.



"Maybe you'd like me to walk back and forth along the top of your dam

and make it firmer," Nimble suggested.



"No, it's not that," Brownie told him. "The dam is firm. It has been

here a great many years, ever since my great-great-grandfather's

time.... You've noticed my house, I dare say," he went on.



"I have," Nimble answered. "It's a good one, though the chimney looks a

bit lopsided, to me. Shall I give it a push and see if I can straighten

it?"



"No, indeed--thank you!" said Brownie hurriedly. "For mercy's sake,

don't touch my chimney! I worked a long time to make it. And if I do say

so, it's the best one in the whole village."



Well, Nimble Deer couldn't guess what it was that Brownie Beaver wanted

him to do. He couldn't think of any other way in which he might help.



"Then what--" he demanded--"what is it you want?"



"There's something I need for my house," Brownie explained.



"Shingles!" Nimble cried.



"No!" Brownie said, as he shook his head.



"I hope you don't want a pair of antlers to fasten over your chimney

piece!" Nimble exclaimed. "I shouldn't care to part with my

antlers--not just at present!"



"No!" Brownie said once more.



"I'm glad of that," Nimble replied. For a moment he had been worried.



And then Brownie Beaver told him what he had in mind: "I need a flag to

fly over my house."



"That would be fine," Nimble observed. "But I don't see how I could help

you with that."



"I've heard that you have a flag. I thought perhaps you'd let me have

it--or borrow it, at least," Brownie Beaver told him.



Nimble Deer looked puzzled.



"I haven't any flag," he said. And then he cried, "Yes! Yes, I have

one!"



"Ah! I was told you had," said Brownie Beaver.



"Who told you?"



"Old Mr. Crow!" Brownie Beaver said.



"I might have known it," Nimble muttered. "He has played a joke on you.

It's true that I have a flag; but it's not the kind of flag you want.

Some people call my tail a flag, on account of the way I wave it in the

air when I'm startled. Of course you wouldn't care to have my tail on

the top of your house."



And Brownie Beaver admitted that he shouldn't.



"But I can't help being disappointed," he confessed.



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