A Deer Bedtime Story: The Picnic Basket at the Gate

Read this original deer bedtime story: Dara finds an unclaimed picnic basket and gives its owner time to remember where it is. The full story comes with one optional way to add a detail from your child’s imagination.

The Picnic Basket at the Gate

Dara the deer found a picnic basket beside her garden gate. A red cloth covered its lid, and a bunch of daisies was tucked through the handle. She looked up the lane. Nobody was there.

She called, "Has someone left a basket?" The lane answered with the rustle of leaves. Dara carried a stool to the gate and sat beside the basket. Whoever owned it would probably come back.

A mouse passed with a wheelbarrow. "Lovely afternoon for a picnic," he said.

"It belongs to someone else."

"Then it is a lovely afternoon for waiting."

He parked the wheelbarrow and sat on its handle. They watched a beetle cross the path, taking a long detour around a pebble. After a while the mouse said he had always wondered what grew behind Dara's gate.

"Sweet peas," she told him. "And one tomato plant that has become rather bossy."

She opened the gate so he could see. A rabbit passing by stopped to admire the peas. Then a thrush landed on the post and asked whether anyone had seen a red cloth. Dara pointed to the basket.

"That is my aunt's," said Thrush. "She is at the other end of the lane, looking beside every gate. She remembers a gate."

Thrush flew off. Dara brought another stool from the garden. The mouse fetched the small cushion from his wheelbarrow. Rabbit stayed standing because she liked the view over the sweet peas.

Soon Aunt Thrush arrived, flustered and warm. "I put it down to tie my scarf," she said. "Then I remembered the scarf and forgot the picnic."

Dara handed her the basket. Aunt Thrush looked at the assembled neighbors. She lifted the lid. Inside were sandwiches, a jar of berries and a cake wrapped in paper.

"I was taking this to my nephew," she said. "But he is here now, and so are all of you."

They spread the red cloth on Dara's little garden table. The mouse moved his wheelbarrow out of the gateway. Rabbit sliced the cake, and Thrush put the daisies in an empty jar.

Dara sat with her back to the sweet peas. She had not planned to have visitors. Beyond the open gate the lane remained sunny and quiet, with no forgotten basket left beside it.

Choose one familiar detail

Let your child choose the cloth tied around the basket handle. If forgotten belongings are an unwelcome topic tonight, say at the start that the owner returns safely. The picnic can borrow one familiar food from your family. Keep Dara at her own garden gate while she waits, since the story's pleasure comes from the visitors gathering there.

Day2Tale creates personalized, narrated stories.

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