one juicy apple and one hungry deer

All that gushing and carryin’ on I did about apple blossoms–well, I’ll tell you I felt downright silly when the deer came through not two days later and ate up those blossoms like they were the sweetest treat.

I took myself and my thoughts of that crispy, juicy apple I wouldn’t be biting into come October away up into the hills. Pilot, he came trottin’ along beside me, tongue a-waggin’ and not a care in the world. You just know a dog is feelin’ good when his tongue is hanging halfway to his knees. There’s days I wish I could set my own tongue to waggin’, just let it flop around against my face so everyone could know just by lookin’ at me how good I feel.

I reckon Wilbur has some tongue envy too. More’n once I’ve caught that goat walking side-by-side with Pilot, her mouth gapin’ open and her tongue just peeking out the side. I’d tell her she’s gonna bite her tongue one of these days, tell her a goat’s tongue just wasn’t made for wagging, but I reckon some things a goat just has to learn for herself.

Anyhow, that’s what I was thinking about–that, and juicy, crunchy apples–when I ran smack into that rotten boy Ezekiel from across the creek. I would’ve let him have a talkin’ to ’bout being in my way and there being a whole lot more hills he could take himself away to, but that boy wheeled around, grabbed me by the shoulders with one arm, planted one of his big, scratchy hands over my mouth and told Pilot to be quiet with just a look in his eye.

Well, and what was I to think but I was bein’ assaulted?

I wiggled and squirmed and spit in his hand and all I got outta him was a grunt and a curse.

In the silence that followed, we heard a crashing in the manzanita. Pilot’s ears perked up and his tongue slipped back inside his mouth. One thing about a wagging tongue–it just doesn’t belong where there’s rabbits to be chased.

“They’re gone now,” Zeke said, his mouth so close to my ear that I felt his sigh before I heard it.

When he let go of me I spun around and pinned him with my best Aunt Kitty you’re-in-for-it-now look.

He shrugged. “There was a whole mess of deer.” He gestured to a clearing not five feet away. “I’ve been watching them for a while now.”

My eyes darted back to where we’d last heard the crashing in the brush. “Why! Those rapscallion scallywags!” There were no pebbles on the ground, so I raised my voice–the only weapon I had. “And don’t come back!” I hollered.

**

It wasn’t till later that evening, when Ben and I were eyein’ each other over the last piece of banana cream pie, that I found out those deer had actually done us a service.

“Deer came through last night,” he told Aunt Kitty, while she scrubbed at the dinner dishes. “Saved me a whole lot of work in thinning and pruning. I reckon we’ll have some nice big apples come autumn, if the bees to their work.”