Which way? Below her in the wood was a load of hay:
a man and a boy, with pitchforks in their hands, were running towards
her. She turned south, and flew along the street. The town was up.
Women and children ran to the doors and windows; men snatched their
rifles; shots were fired; at the big boarding-houses, the summer
boarders, who never have anything to do, came out and cheered; a
campstool was thrown from a veranda. Some young fellows shooting at
a mark in the meadow saw the flying deer, and popped away at her; but
they were accustomed to a mark that stood still. It was all so
sudden! There were twenty people who were just going to shoot her;
when the doe leaped the road fence, and went away across a marsh
toward the foothills. It was a fearful gauntlet to run. But nobody
except the deer considered it in that light. Everybody told what he
was just going to do; everybody who had seen the performance was a
kind of hero, - everybody except the deer. For days and days it was
the subject of conversation; and the summer boarders kept their guns
at hand, expecting another deer would come to be shot at.
The doe went away to the foothills, going now slower, and evidently
fatigued, if not frightened half to death. Nothing is so appalling
to a recluse as half a mile of summer boarders.
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