Bambi's Children Read online

  “See, smarty!” Geno gibed at Gurri.

  The fox finally drew back from the cooling water, the drops shining on his whiskers and spilling over from his jaws.

  “That was good!” he said, licking his nose. “Makes me feel like a new fox!”

  “I’m afraid you’ll never be that!” the heron said dryly.

  The fox started to grin again in what he thought was a way to gain favor; but, remembering that his thirst was slaked and that there was no further need to placate the heron, turned truculent instead.

  “Think you’re funny, don’t you!” he sneered. “Well, let me tell you . . .”

  The heron opened an eye that had suddenly become piercing. As though it were a little thing to which he gave no thought at all, he brought down his other leg and stood upon them both.

  “Tell me what?” he inquired in a voice like an engaging buzz-saw.

  The fox’s eyes fell. “Nothing,” he mumbled. “I was about to say—er—it looks like thunder!”

  “Really!” The heron took a high and dignified step forward. “I thought you were in too great a hurry to waste time talking of the weather!”

  The fox turned his back, glancing suspiciously over one shoulder.

  “You’re quite right,” he snarled, “far too busy to spend time arguing with you! I’ll wish you good morning!”

  Together, from their respective places, the heron, the hare, the two ducks, Faline, Geno and Gurri watched him trot swaggeringly away until distance made him seem quite small and insignificant.

  The heron returned to calm contemplation of the water’s depths; the hare scurried round the pond and back to the wood, muttering:

  “Cunning and treachery! Oh, my soul and whiskers, what a terrifying experience!”

  He shied when he saw the roe-deer and only hurried on the faster, his white cotton-spot of tail gleaming as he went. The two ducks lurched arrogantly back from the reeds. They re-embarked upon the water, flirting their stubby tails, dipping their bills and shaking the drops from them.

  “Wa-ak, wa-ak!” they squawked derisively.

  “Come,” Faline said, “it’s time to sleep.”

  Silently the deer returned to their tiny clearing, but Geno could not sleep. He felt the oppression and tension in the air and he fancied that the trees and plants spoke together.

  The leaves of the trees hung supine, without life or moisture.

  “Whisper, whisper!” they went dolefully; and like an echo returning through the forest glades: “Whisper, whisper!”

  At last he thought he understood what it was they said with such long sighs and stealthy rustlings:

  “Rain . . . please give us rain!”

  He heard a dead branch fall somewhere, and the leaves seemed to shudder at the foreboding sound. Only the great poplar remained, dark and inviolable, towering undisturbed above them all.

  Geno felt his own eyes growing heavy when he heard again that patient prayer:

  “Rain . . . please give us rain!”

  There was, Geno decided, something awesome in this patience. There was no upbraiding, no hysteria; yet it was remorseless.

  The great oak said sternly, “Two hundred years have I remained in this place, following the precepts of our kind. Shelter I have given to the earth and to all living creatures. I have borne my fruit in season. My arms are strong, but only in the cause of peace. The nourishment lent me by the earth in time of growth I returned with proper interest with the fall of leaves in autumn. . . .”

  “It is so,” agreed the maples. “If this is evil, we should die for it.”

  “It is not evil,” said the chestnut, calmly firm.

  This, Geno realized, was where terror lay: it was the terror of the final truth. Trees were without passion, malice, fear or envy. Moveless, invincible and uncomplaining, they spent their lives in service.

  In his half-dream a poison ivy spoke in purring tones. It twined about a slender sapling that had its stunted growth within the shadow of the oak.

  “How can you listen to such nonsense?” it began. “You have your rights! Better that these smug trees should die; then you can grow.”

  The sapling shivered.

  “Quiet, parasite!” interposed the sturdy beech. “We can do without agitations of your sort!”

  All at once, as though in an ecstasy of excitement, the poplar high above them swayed and threshed its branches. Geno cried silently:

  “What is it, poplar?”

  Again he thought he heard that ghostly echo:

  “Yes . . . what is it, poplar?”

  But the poplar only answered incoherently. Its leaves and branches hissed with urgency above them all. It swayed and trembled high above them in the gray.

  For the first time Geno noticed that the morning did not get brighter as it should. There was a darkness in the sky, a new and livid color of dark that seemed to bring the treetops closer to the ground, and that seemed to be filled with the scent of sulphur and a great humming force.

  Now the other trees began to tremble in the order of their size: the tall elms first, the maples and the oaks that shivered on their sturdy trunks, and then all of them were trembling, their dry leaves shaking and sometimes falling, spiraling, to earth.

  Geno was afraid. Like the trees, he shivered also. He woke Faline in fear.

  “Mother!” he cried urgently. “Wake up, Mother! Something terrible is going to happen!”

  Then came the rain.

  It came like lances hurled by an evil host. It beat with a loud drumming in the trees. It hurled itself on the lesser plants, pressing them down. It was dark as night until the thunder came.

  A bolt of lightning tore the sky. It lighted the tortured trees, it lighted the hidden avenues where nothing moved. It flashed also on Bambi, standing before them like the spirit of the storm, his great antlers proud against it, his coat aflame with fire reflected in the rain. He trumpeted, piercing the mêlée of the storm:

  “Don’t be afraid, nothing will hurt you! Faline, avoid the higher trees, above all the poplar. Keep among the outer bushes of the wood!”

  Lightning and thunder died. Darkness returned. They could not see him, but they knew that he had gone.

  Faline said, “Come! Let us hurry!”

  They went without care, at a full, stretched gallop, from the swaying canopy of trees; and as they left there came a dazzling flash. They faltered, blinded, peering fearfully back.

  Lightning had struck the poplar, splitting it from top to bottom. The smell of burning added the last impetus to their flight.

  The wind dropped. Huddling closely in the underbrush, they watched the rain beat straight down around them, splashing and leaping in the puddles that it made.

  The air became cooler; the sky less gray. The smell of sulphur went altogether from the air.

  Trees seemed to sigh and stretch. The little plants revived. Fern scent refreshed the air again.

  “Poor poplar!” Geno sighed.

  “It’s the penalty of greatness,” Faline said with gravity.

  The sun burst out, turning the last shower to sparkling crystal. Gurri leaped joyously into the air.

  “Let’s go to the meadow to dry!” she cried. “I’m cold. A run would be fun!”

  “Listen!” Faline commanded gravely.

  A jay screeched twice. A magpie gave a warning chatter. From somewhere in the field a crack rang out.

  “The thunder-stick!” Geno quavered.

  “This is the most dangerous time,” Faline told them. “Your father taught me that.”

  Gurri gave no answer. She stood motionless, her head thrown back, her ears twitching. The jovial chorus of the birds, which momentarily had ceased, began again. From afar, but faintly audible, came a second crack.

  “I’m hungry!” Gurri complained peevishly; but she had to wait.

  Not until full darkness had fallen did Faline move into the open with her children.

  Chapter Five

  WEEKS FLEW BY: WEEKS OF
fine, warm sun and cooling showers, of happy play-nights spent in the meadow, of restful days of muscle-building sleep. The coats of Geno and Gurri lost their youthful dapple, became a deep and even red like Faline’s.

  Complete contentment would have been the youngsters’ lot, if Geno at least had not noticed that his mother was preoccupied. Day by day she seemed to leave more to him. It was he, now, who searched the thicket; he, more and more, who scented out the field at evening and led them in.

  He was aware of a double sense of pride and nervousness. He tested his muscles now, not from a sense of childish arrogance, but from a newly acquired feeling of responsibility.

  When he galloped in the meadow he checked his speed, measuring himself against a flying bird. He turned rapidly, side-stepped, glided into cover.

  He listened to the sound he made when he moved through brush, trying to reduce it, trying to become a shadow of flesh and blood that made no more noise than a real shadow.

  And when he was not so engaged, he thought of Faline, of how absent-minded she seemed and what it boded.

  He tried to discuss the matter with his sister Gurri, but she did not seem to be impressed. She changed little, he thought; gaining no sense of responsibility, becoming, if anything, more willful, less imbued with the creed of care and watchfulness.

  He was thinking of this one night when he stood alone near the rushes by the pool. An old, gnarled apple-tree shaded him. He was all but invisible.

  Gurri was in the open, playing with Lana; but Boso seemed to have his own solitary and anxious thoughts for he, too, was not to be seen. Faline and Rolla couched together amiably, conversing quietly, chewing absent-mindedly on mouthfuls of tender grass.

  Deeply immersed in thought, Geno started with terror when a screech-owl cried immediately above him:

  “Oo-y, oo-y!”

  Geno glanced upward and saw the bird wheel upon stiffened, outspread wings and perch on a limb of the apple-tree.

  “Hi!” said the screech-owl. “Did I frighten you?”

  Geno flicked his ears impatiently. In his thoughtful mood he had no desire for banal conversation with the screech-owl.

  “Ho, ho, ho!” chuckled the bird. “I did, didn’t I?”

  “Not in the least!” lied Geno. He bent his head and nibbled at the sward. “I should think,” he went on distantly, “that you’d be too old to amuse yourself with such nonsense.”

  The screech-owl blew out his feathers irritably. “Let me tell you,” he snapped, “that everything is relative. You may be old at the age of two. As for me, I live longer.”

  “What do you mean, ‘Everything is relative’?” Geno became very sarcastic. “Do you mean you’re an aunt of mine or something?”

  “I mean . . .” The screech-owl shuffled along the branch until his outline disappeared in shadow and all that was left in Geno’s sight was a pair of steady, blazing eyes. “How could I be your aunt?” he demanded indignantly. “I never laid an egg in my life, and don’t expect to. Much speech makes little sense, if you ask me, and—er—er—”

  “It seems to me,” mocked Geno, “that to sit around and say nothing is an easy way to get a reputation for wisdom.”

  “You think so, do you!” said the bird huffily. “Well, let me tell you, if I cared to talk I could say plenty. Like—empty vessels make the most sound, and much ado about nothing, and little pitchers have big ears, and children should be seen and not heard, and lots of other shafts of wisdom.”

  “It seems to me I’ve heard them all before,” remarked Geno. “There’s not an original remark among the lot.”

  “Oh, indeed!” puffed the screech-owl. He was beginning to breathe a little hard. “Then how about this one: in case of fire, walk, do not run, to the nearest exit!”

  “I never heard that before,” admitted Geno.

  “No. I’ll say you didn’t! But I get around.” The screech-owl blinked his eyes rapidly so that it looked as though there were two fireflies in the tree and not a bird at all.

  “Still,” Geno rejoined musingly, “it doesn’t seem to make much sense. I’m sure if it did my mother would have told it to me as she did all the rest.”

  There was silence between them. Finally the screech-owl said weightily:

  “I think you’re a very rude boy and you’ll probably come to a bad end.”

  Neither of them noticed that Faline had left her feeding and was standing near them in the dark. When she spoke, they both jumped.

  “That wasn’t a very kind thing to say, screech-owl!”

  “Kind! Ho, kind you say, Ma’am! Let me tell you, if that was a child of mine I’d give him a good pecking!”

  “Would you indeed!” mocked Geno.

  The bird fell into a moody silence.

  “Come, screech-owl,” Faline begged, “you mustn’t be angry.”

  “Angry, Ma’am! Let me tell you . . . !”

  But words failed him. He drew his feet closer together and remained hunched down in stern silence.

  “He’s trying to repair his reputation for wisdom,” Geno said; but Faline rebuked him.

  “Remember what your father said about courtesy, my son. Come, Gurri is waiting, we must go home.”

  When they were almost out of hearing the screech-owl cried after them:

  “Oo-y tempora! Oo-y mores!”

  He drew his hooked beak deep into the ruffled feathers of his breast and prepared to wait for the sun to look him in the eye.

  “That sounded all right,” he muttered distrustfully.

  Geno was about to ask Faline what the owl’s cry meant when he noticed a darker shadow waiting in their clearing. He stopped, giving the sign for danger, but a deep and mellow voice reassured him:

  “It’s all right, my son. It’s your father.”

  They trooped in together, forgetting caution, fully aware that had there been danger Bambi would have sensed it.

  After the greetings were over, Bambi said:

  “The reports I have of you please me, my son. You are still, perhaps, not as polite as you should be, but you are learning the way of life. Very soon, now, you will be able to put your knowledge to the test.”

  “What do you mean, Father?”

  “Your mother must go on a journey with me.”

  “We shall be alone?”

  Faline said in a troubled voice, “Are you sure they’re ready, Bambi?”

  “You have taught them all you can. Sooner or later they must meet the dangers of the forest for themselves.”

  Gurri shivered: “I shall be frightened, Father.”

  “I wish I could believe that.” Bambi’s voice was grave. “It seems to me that you are scatterbrained and overconfident. When you are alone, you must be twice as watchful and ten times as cautious. Never move unless it is up-wind. Never ignore the warnings of your friends. You know who they are?”

  Geno recited: “Magpies, jays . . .”

  “Crows, squirrels, blackbirds . . .” Gurri chimed in.

  “At the first sign of danger,” Bambi admonished them, “make for the bushes where they’re thickest. Beware, above everything, of Him. He is the only one who can kill from a distance. He and His dogs are the most dangerous things in the forest, but they nearly always hunt by day. Night-time is safe time, remember; and one more thing: do not, in any circumstances, call for your mother.”

  “Why not, Father?” faltered Gurri.

  “It is the law of our kind and it must not be broken. Later, she will return. I hope she will receive a good accounting of all you have done.”

  “Very well, Father,” Geno said resignedly. He gazed at his father with proud eyes. Faline sighed. They were very alike in that moment, she thought.

  Bambi turned.

  “I shall see you again, Faline,” he said, and was gone.

  * * *

  One morning near noon, when the sun was just about to reach its zenith, Geno was awakened by the swish of leaves. Faline was dashing through the bushes. Gurri stumbled to her feet.
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  “Mother, Mother!” she cried.

  Geno fixed her with eyes that shone with new purpose and authority.

  “Quiet!” he commanded. “Do not call.”

  “But she is going without us . . . !”

  “It is what Father said. Lie down, now. We must get our sleep.”

  Reluctantly Gurri obeyed him. But they were young, and soon, while the birds sang joyfully, they slept.

  Chapter Six

  THE DAYS AFTER FALINE HAD gone were filled with bright excitement. Geno and Gurri played at being grownups. They behaved always with the greatest circumspection, sniffing and analyzing the wind, peering closely into every shadow, leaving their hideaway only when the thicker evening shadows gathered, and returning with the first shaft of morning sun.

  Perri the squirrel watched them with approval, her merry, beady eyes twinkling with recollection.

  “Ah, me,” she said, “how well I remember the finding of my first nut alone! It was, I assure you, a magnificent nut. A very prince of hazels. The taste of it still lingers round my teeth.” She sucked at them longingly.

  “Do you hear anything of our parents?” Geno asked.

  “No. But be sure that if anything bad happened, I should hear at once. Bad news travels rapidly. . . .” She stopped and cocked her ears to listen, her tail bushing up higher than her head. “It’s very peculiar,” she said worriedly. “I’ve had a feeling all day that something wasn’t as it should be!”

  “With our parents?” Geno cried, startled.

  “Oh, no! Nothing to do with them. But hereabouts.”

  “Nonsense,” Gurri snapped. “Geno and I have been peering and poking around for three days now, and we haven’t seen a thing more threatening than a polecat. And all the time the days are wasting and the meadow spreads out cool and green. It makes me quite tired!”

  “Oo-y, oo-y!” cried the screech-owl very loudly, flying overhead.

  He still remembered Geno’s rudeness and he had not forgiven it. Geno was becoming quite hardened to a sudden, evil screech just above his head when his nerves were lulled to peace and calmness.