een her new youngster and old Spot's home.
So in a little while she led the way slowly along the pine grown ridge
which bent around a shoulder of the mountain. She was headed for the
spring which marked the beginning of Broad Brook.

Her little spotted fawn, Nimble, kept close beside her. Slowly as his
mother moved, he found the traveling none too easy. And he was glad when
she stopped in a pocket-like clearing. There she spoke to a proud
speckled bird who was sitting on a log and amusing himself by spreading
his tail feathers into a beautiful fan.

"Good morning, Mr. Grouse!" said Nimble's mother.

"Good morning, madam!" replied the gentleman with the fan. "What a
handsome child you have! There's nothing quite like spots--or
speckles--to add to a person's looks."

"They _are_ pretty," Nimble's mother agreed with a happy glance at her
son.

"I can't say he favors his mother," Mr. Grouse remarked.

"Oh, I had spots enough when I was young," she explained. "You see, all
our family lose our spots as we grow up."

"I'm glad to say," Mr. Grouse said with a flirt of his tail, "that all
our family keep their spots, every one of them."

"We get to be so swift-footed that we don't need spots," said Nimble's
mother.

That speech seemed to displease Mr. Grouse.

"I hope," he cried, "you don't mean to say that we Grouse aren't swift!"

"No, indeed!" Nimble's mother answered hastily.

"I should hope _not_!" was Mr. Grouse's response to that. "For everybody
knows that we go up like rockets at the slightest sign of danger."

"Exactly!" said Nimble's mother. "You are so swift that you don't really
need those spots to help conceal yourself, once you're grown up."

"They're handy to have, all the same," he told her. "And as for this
youngster of yours, you needn't worry much about him. He'll be safe
enough in the woods. He looks just like a patch of sunlight that has
fallen through a tree top upon a leaf-strewn bank."

Nimble's mother was pleased to hear that.

"Yes!" said Mr. Grouse cheerfully. "He'll be safe enough--except for
the Foxes."

And that remark didn't please Nimble's mother at all.

II

LEARNING THINGS

Nimble's mother hadn't liked Mr. Grouse's remark about Foxes. Somehow
she couldn't put Foxes out of her mind. And not once did she mean to let
Nimble wander out of her sight.

At first, when he was only a tiny chap, it was easy for her to keep her
young son near her. But Nimble grew a little