In the old days the animals were fond of amusement, and were constantly getting up grand meetings and contests of various kinds, with prizes for the winner. On one occasions a prize was offered to the animal with the finest coat, and although the otter deserved to win it, the rabbit stole his coat, and nearly got the prize for himself. After a while the animals got together again, and made a large pair of horns, to be given to the best runner. The race was to be through a thicket, and the one who made the best time, with the horns on his head, was to get them. Everybody knew from the first that either the deer or the rabbit would be the winner, but bets were high on the rabbit, who was a great runner and a general favorite. But the rabbit had no tail, and always went by jumps, and his friends were afraid that the horns would make him fall over in the bushes unless he had something to balance them, so they fixed up a tail for him with a stick and some bird’s down.
“Now,” says the rabbit, “let me look over the ground where I am to run.”
So he went into the thicket and was gone so long that at last one of the animals went to see what had become of him, and there he found the rabbit hard at work gnawing down bushes and cutting the limbs of the trees, and making a road for himself clear through the other side of the swamp. The messenger did not let the rabbit see him, but came back quietly and told his story to the others. Pretty soon the rabbit came out again, ready to put on the horns and begin the race, but several of the animals said that he have been gone so long that it looked as if he must have been cutting a road through the bushes. The rabbit denied it up and down, but they all went into the thickets and there was the open road, sure enough. Then the chief got very angry, and said to the rabbit, “Since you are so fond of the business, you may spend the rest of your life gnawling twigs and bushes,” and so the rabbit does to this day. The other animals would allow the rabbit to run at all now, so they put the horns on the deer, who plunged into the worse part of the thicket, and made his way out to the other side, then turned round and came back again on a different track, in such fine style that every one said he had won the horns. But the rabbit felt sore about it, and resolved to get even with him.
One day, soon after the contest for the horns, the rabbit stretched a large grape vine across the trail, and gnawed it nearly in two in the middle. Then he went back a piece and took a good run, and jumped up at the vine. He kept on running and jumping up at the vine, until the deer came along and asked him what he was doing.
“Don’t you see?” says the rabbit. “I’m so strong that I can bite through that grape vine at one jump.”
The deer could hardly believe this, and wanted to see it done. So the rabbit ran back, made a tremendous spring, and bit through the vine where he had gnawed it before. The deer, when he saw that, said “Well, I can do it if you can.” So the rabbit stretched a larger grape vine across the trail, but without gnawing it in the middle. Then the deer ran back as he had seen the rabbit do, made a powerful spring, and struck the grape vine right in the center; but it only flew back and threw him over on his head. He tried again and again, until he was all brushed and bleeding.
“Let me see your teeth”, at last said the rabbit. SO the deer showed him his teeth, which were long and sharp, like a wolf’s teeth.
“No wonder you can’t do it,” said the rabbit; “your teeth are too blunt to bite anything. Let me sharpen them for you, like mine. My teeth are so sharp that I can cut through a stick like a knife.” And he showed him a black locust twig of which rabbits gnaw the young shoots, which he had shaved off as well as a knife could do it, just in rabbit fashion.
The deer thought that was just the thing. So the rabbit got a hard stone, with rough edges and filed and filed away at the deer’s teeth, until they were filed down almost to the gums.
“Now try it,” says the rabbit. SO the deer tried again, but this time he couldn’t bite at all.
“Now you’ve paid for your horns,” said the rabbit, as he laughed and started home through the bushes. Ever since then the deer’s teeth are so blunt that he cannot chew anything but grass and leaves.