In todays troubled times, sometimes it's just nice to hear a story that makes you smile. Even better when it also teaches a valuable lesson. I hope this is such a story for you all and, if you have children or grandchildren, you share it with them....SH ^i^
This is what I was told as a boy...In the beginning the Buck Deer had no antlers, his head was smooth just like a doe's. He was well known as a great runner and the Rabbit as a great jumper, and the other animals were all very curious to know which could go farther in the same amount of time.
They talked about it a good deal, and at last arranged a match between the two, and made a nice large pair of antlers for a prize to the winner.
They were to start together from one side of a thicket and go through it, then turn and come back, and the one who came out first was to get the antlers.
On the day fixed all the animals were there, with the antlers put down on the ground at the edge of the thicket to mark the starting point. While everybody was admiring the antlers the Rabbit said: "I don't know this part of the country; I want to take a look through the bushes where I am to run."
They thought that all right, so the Rabbit went into the thicket, but he was gone so long that at last the animals suspected he must be up to one of his tricks. They sent a messenger to look for him, and away in the middle of the thicket he found the Rabbit gnawing down the bushes and pulling them away until he had a road cleared nearly to the other side.
The messenger turned around quietly and came back and told the other animals. When the Rabbit came out at last they accused him of cheating, but he denied it until they went into the thicket and found the cleared road and confronted him with it. They agreed that such a trickster had no right to enter the race at all, so they gave the antlers to the Deer, who was admitted to be the best runner, and he has worn them with pride ever since.
They told the Rabbit that as he was so fond of cutting down bushes he might do that for a living thereafter, and so he does so to this day......So says Spirit Hawk ^i^
