Miss Cary enjoys rejecting articles. Not only mine.

More than once, I was working about in the shop when one of the real reporters would come out of her office with a very upset expression and the cheerful words “Now, off you go” following behind them.

The only good thing was I could see it wasn’t personal.

Right after Mr. Thames came scowling out of her office, Miss Cary called, “Ben-jamin!”

I went in.

There was another flyer on her desk.

“How about three hundred words due on Monday at nine sharp?”

The flyer told about a farmer charging people to see the mounted head of a huge deer. It was supposed to have a record rack and weigh more than three hundred pounds. He’d shot it near one of his fields.

I could never shoot a deer. Maybe it has something to do with the animal’s size. Maybe the bigger something is, the closer it is to God.

Or maybe it’s their eyes; a deer’s eyes are so … so … Gentle is the only word I can use to describe them. Whatever the reason, even if I was carrying a rifle large enough and sighted in on a deer, I know my finger would be a frozen lump on the trigger.

I told Miss Cary, “Yes, ma’am,” but my heart wasn’t going to be in this article.

When I reached home, Mother and Father were sitting on the front porch.

“Good evening, Benjamin,” Mother said. “How is Miss Cary doing?”

“Good evening, Mother, Father. Miss Cary is fine.”

Father said, “Any good word on getting something published?”

“No, Father, nothing. She’s given me the assignment to write an article about a huge deer getting shot.”

Father said, “I heard ’bout that. Up near Chatham, on Lennox Burroughs’s farm, I think.”

“I don’t want to write it. I don’t see how anyone can shoot a deer.”

“Benji,” Father said, “it just ain’t in some folk’s nature to kill, not no large game anyway. Some folks is just too fra-gile to do it.”

I scowled. Nobody wanted to be called fragile.

Mother quickly added, “Now, son, there’s not a thing wrong with that. This world would be a whole lot better place if we had more gentle-souled folks rather than those who are happy to shoot anything they see.”

Father smiled that little lopsided smile of his and said, “TooToo, you should say they’s happy to shoot anything they sees … long as it ain’t shooting back.”

He added, “It brings to mind what happened a ways back in the North Woods, Benji. You wasn’t but six or seven and we was headed back from fishing.”

Mother sighed. She’d heard this story more times than she wanted to.

I don’t remember the things Father described and have always wondered if it was true, because if it happened the way he says it did, it would be something hard to forget, even for a six-year-old. I don’t know if Father always brings it up to teach me a lesson or to poke fun at me or maybe he’s just misremembering what really happened.

“You and me was out in the North Woods coming back from fishing. Even back then, I knew you was gonna be a great outdoorsman one day ’cause we’re walking along and you all the sudden stops and shushes me.

“I stopped and I’ll be blanged if there wasn’t a strange sound.

“I remember you said it was off to the right and I said it was off to the left, and you was right.

“The sound was coming out of some thick underbrush. I told you to wait while I checked what it was.

“I pulled some of the growth aside and my heart broke. I told you, ‘Some fool’s done lung-shot a doe. Give me your knife, Benjamin.’

“You give it to me, then when you saw the doe, Benji, you done something I never expected. You looked like you was dumbstruck; you put your hands atop your head and started walking back home without saying a word.

“That’s probably why you’s a little sensitive about deer, son, but like your momma say, ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

I don’t know why Father tells that tale. Usually, Mother’s the one you can expect that sort of thing from, what the old folks call prettying-up a story. Father’s stories are usually close to the truth.

Whenever he’d recount the story of the deer in the forest, it always left me scratching my head in wonder.

I should have started over to the Burroughs’ farm to write my article. Instead, I went into the woods to think about how I was going to do it. I know a good reporter wouldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of what he was writing unless he could do it in a very sneaky way.

I was sitting near the river when the woods whispered, “He’s near.”

He was coming from the back, but I didn’t let on I knew.

He said, “I hear tell you’s a reporter.”

I never turned around.

“Yes, sir, I’m trying to be one.”

“You report on you and me talking?”

“Why, no, sir, that’s no one’s business but ours.”

“Good, good.”

He threw a stone into the water.

“So what kinda things you reporting on?”

“Not that anyone will ever know, but I’m supposed to do an article on a deer.”

“Deer?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Folks so desperate for news now that they looking to read about deer?”

“This was a special one. He’s supposed to have had the largest rack on any deer in Canada and weighs three hundred and sixty-five pounds. It’s supposed to be a record.”

“He’s dead?”

“Yes, sir. Mr. Burroughs shot it on his farm. He’s charging people to come look at it and I’m supposed to –”

“He shot him?”

“He shot the buck, sir.”

“Huge rack? Three hundred sixty pounds?”

“They say.”

“A shame, a rotten shame. That the Old Grandfather. That deer older than you by a lot. A shame, a rotten shame. And they showing off his head?”

“Yes, sir, he’s charging …”

I turned around and he was gone.

They didn’t say it exactly, but I took that to mean the woods were telling me, “Go fishing. Your deadline for the article isn’t up for four days. You can do it later.”

I went to the tree where I hide my pole and took the woods’ advice.

*  *  *

I’m going to have to listen to the trees more carefully! Their advice to wait to write the article was perfect.

I went to the Burroughs’ farm on Sunday and as soon as I knocked on the front door of the farmhouse, I was greeted by a double-barrel shotgun behind the screen!

I put my hands in the air and said, “Sir, I’m a reporter for the Chatham Freedman come to do a story on your deer head.”

My heart was doing somersaults in my chest.

The farmer pushed open the screen door and pointed the gun at the ground. He was a large white man with a wad of tobacco in his cheek.

“Well, you’re too late, boy. Someone done run off with the head.”

“It was stolen?”

“That’s right. Had it in the loft of the locked barn with dogs all ’round it, and some thief got it anyway.”

He swore and spit to the side.

“Maybe I can write about that and someone will give it back.”

He said, “Write what you want; it’s probably in Toronto by now. That buck was worth a lotta money. I’d-a had the record.”

He showed me where he had kept the deer’s head and he was right. It was high in the loft of his barn. He’d first had to shoo away three huge dogs.

I wrote my article when I got home. It was pretty good. It turned out to be interesting because it had a mystery in it.

One thing that wasn’t mysterious was what happened when I turned my article in.

It was no surprise on Monday morning when the words “Now, off you go” chased me out of Miss Cary’s office.