y together.
There was little need of speech, for all they had to do the livelong day
was to wander about while the doe picked up her food, and then, when she
had eaten her fill, to lie down in some sheltered place, and there rest
and chew the cud till it was time to move again.

Life wasn't all sunshine, of course. There were plenty of hard things
for the baby Buck to put up with, and perhaps the worst were the
mosquitoes and the black-flies and "no-see-'ems" that swarmed in the
woods and swamps through the month of June. They got into his mouth and
into his nose; they gathered in circles around his eyes; and they
snuggled cosily down between the short hairs of his pretty, spotted
coat, and sucked the blood out of him till it seemed as if he would
soon go dry. For a while they were almost unbearable, but I suppose the
woods-people get somewhat hardened to them. Otherwise I should think our
friends would have been driven mad, for there was never any respite from
their attacks, except possibly a very stormy day, or a bath in the lake,
or a saunter on the shore.

At the eastern end of the Glimmerglass there is a broad strip of sand
beach, where, if there happens to be a breeze from the water, one can
walk and be quite free from the flies; though in calm weather, or with
an offshore wind, it is not much better than the woods. There, during
fly-time, the doe and her baby were often to be found; and to see him
promenading up and down the hard sand, with his mother looking on, was
one of the prettiest sights in all the wilderness. The ground-color of
his coat was a bright bay red, somewhat like that of his mother's summer
clothing; but deeper and richer and handsomer, and with pure white spots
arranged in irregular rows all along his neck and back and sides. He was
so sleek and polished that he fairly glistened in the sunshine, like a
well-groomed horse; his great dark eyes were brighter than a girl's at
her first ball; and his ears were almost as big as a mule's, and a
million times as pretty. But best and most beautiful of all was the
marvellous life and grace and spirit of his every pose and motion. When
he walked, his head and neck were thrust forward and drawn back again at
every step with the daintiest gesture imaginable; and his tiny pointed
hoofs touched the ground so lightly, and were away again so quickly,
that you hardly knew what they had done. If anything startled him, he
stamped with his forefoot on the hard san