“How could I think otherwise?” he asked.
“Do you know my brother well?” Gurri inquired. After the introduction Geno had gone on ahead. He seemed to be looking for something.
“We’ve met several times. We are good friends.”
“Then perhaps you would tell me,” Gurri hesitated, “what you think of—his running away from Boso?”
“Oh, that!” Até said dramatically. “A deer does not wish to attack his loved one’s brother.”
“You mean, Geno loves Lana! But he’s too young!”
“How can one be too young for love?” Até asked.
“But is he really in love?”
“I don’t know. But it seems altogether possible.”
“Why” said Gurri. “there is Lana, and Geno is with her.”
Até turned to see Geno and Lana in earnest conversation.
“Well,” he said with a sudden change of tone, “I think this is it!”
“This is what?”
“Well, if Boso comes along now he’s likely to run into trouble!”
Lana and Geno disappeared into the shadows of the trees. Gurri and Até followed.
Suddenly Bambi appeared in front of them.
“Father!” began Gurri; but he quieted her.
“Not a sound,” he said, “I want to see what happens.”
“You know?” Gurri inquired.
“Of course I know.”
He melted into the underbrush. Gurri and a more respectful Até followed in Geno’s path.
They came up with Geno and Lana in a clearing. Lana looked up when she heard their hoofbeats.
“Oh, Gurri,” she cried, “It’s nice seeing you!”
“I’m glad to see you,” Gurri replied sincerely.
“I was just going. Perhaps you’d like to walk with me.”
“I’d like it very much.”
“Perhaps I could escort you both,” suggested Até.
All of them were surprised to hear Perri’s voice again directly above them.
“I followed you,” she said, “to keep a lookout. Boso’s coming.”
“Oh dear, perhaps you’d better stay then, Gurri,” said Lana.
“Not at all. On your way, all of you,” commanded Geno.
Até’s eyes sparkled.
“Come on,” he said. He led them away.
Geno heard Boso’s careless advance a long way off. He dashed into the clearing, looking as fierce as he could.
“Were you talking to my sister?” he demanded.
“I was, as a matter of fact.”
“I forbid it, do you hear? I won’t allow it.”
“I’m afraid it has nothing to do with you.”
“Oh, it hasn’t, eh! You’d better get ready to run again. There are ways of making you do things.”
“I’d like to learn them.”
Boso wasted no more time, but rushed into a charge. Geno waited until Boso was almost on him and stepped lightly to one side. His own impetus carried Boso head foremost into a thick and thorny bramble. He emerged fuming.
“So you still can’t stand up and face me. What do you think this is, a dance?”
“It looked rather like a mole at work. Except that moles have more sense than to bore holes in thorn-bushes.”
“All right, smarty. Look out for yourself.”
Boso charged again; but this time Geno did not move. He remained planted like a rock, his four legs extended like the piers of an arch. Boso bounced off him as a chestnut bounces when it hits the ground.
“You’ll catch a dreadful headache that way,” murmured Geno.
“I’ll kill you!” raged Boso. “I’ll break you in pieces.”
He charged and, turning, charged again. Geno met his onrushes calmly. Head to head they strove together as the Kings had done, except that neither Geno nor Boso had the great entangling antlers to make their efforts deadly.
Boso broke free and charged once more. This time Geno ran to meet him. They met with a terrific shock. Boso reeled. Pouncing on his advantage, Geno smashed into Boso’s flank. Boso gave ground and again Geno charged. The unfortunate Boso almost left the ground. He shot sideways and landed on his back.
Geno retired.
For a time there was no sound save the hoarse breathing of the fighters. Then Boso scrambled dizzily to his feet.
“Boso,” Geno said, “we’ve had our fight. Now let’s be friends.”
Boso did not reply.
Geno went on, “I think you’ve been very badly treated by all of us, and I’m sorry. Can’t things be as they were?”
The moment to make peace had come, but Boso did not take advantage of it. With his head lowered, he staggered blindly away.
Até, Gurri and Lana came out from the undergrowth.
“You watched,” Geno accused them.
“And a very good fight it was,” said Até.
Lana was trembling.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Geno said quietly. “Lana, I’m sorry,”
“Don’t come near me,” Lana cried. “Até, take me home at once, please.”
Gurri softly nuzzled her brother.
“Don’t worry, Geno,” she said. “I’m sure things will come out all right.”
“I hoped no one would see,” he mumbled. “I didn’t want it talked about.”
“You know the forest is always full of eyes,” said Gurri. “You can’t expect to keep a thing like this secret.”
Slowly Geno followed her back to the clearing.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
FALINE KNEW OF GENO’S ADVENTURE before he and Gurri arrived at the clearing. Bambi had hurried to tell her. Both Faline and Bambi congratulated themselves on Geno’s prowess.
“It is not so much the fact that he fought,” mused Bambi, “as that he restrained himself for so long. He tried to obey me in every way he knew and show his friendship for Boso.”
“Of course he did,” agreed Faline, smiling silently. She felt that there was more to Geno’s restraint than even the wise Bambi suspected; but she kept her opinion to herself.
“I am disappointed in one thing,” Bambi confessed. “I admit I thought that a fight between Geno and Boso would lead to their making up. But it seems to have done just the opposite.”
“I’m sure things will come out all right,” murmured Faline, unconsciously echoing the words her daughter was speaking in another part of the forest.
“Lana was most upset.”
“She’ll get over it.”
“I suspect you’re right.”
Bambi rubbed his antlers thoughtfully against the trunk of a tree.
“I suppose I must be going, but I’ll see you again soon.”
“I shall look forward to it,” Faline assured him.
She watched him pick his rapid, skillful way among the trees, her heart light within her.
Nello and Membo also heard the news from the hare.
“Perri told me,” the hare explained. “Bless my soul and whiskers, it was a mighty victory. You know, I’m much against violence, but Geno actually knocked him down.”
The hare boxed with his little forepaws.
Membo grinned.
“I’ll b-bet you were quite a fellow yourself once.”
The hare looked startled.
“Me? Oh, dear no! As a runner, now, I was in a class by myself. Quite a lad, I was, I assure you. I ran a very famous race with a tortoise once.”
“But you didn’t win that.”
“No, it’s true I didn’t win. . . .” The hare ended his recollections abruptly. “Oh, dear me,” he said with a shiver, “I almost forgot the bad news Perri brought me about the fox. It just goes to show you mustn’t let yourself be carried away. Excuse me, I think I’d better go into hiding. It’s been very nice seeing you.”
Membo and Nello turned to leave.
“Be sure to offer Geno my sincere congratulations,” the hare called after them; but when they turned to tell him they would, he had disappeared.
&n
bsp; Geno, in fact, was overwhelmed with congratulations. To escape them and the constant requests by different members of the forest society to repeat his tale of conquest, he took to wandering by himself again.
Always during these trips he at some time felt the need of a drink of water.
One day he went farther afield than usual and retraced his steps over the ground he had covered during his frantic flight from the wolf-dog. Eventually, just when he was becoming unbearably thirsty and was scolding himself for not having quenched his thirst at the pool where the willow-tree grew, he came to the stream which, when he had last seen it, had been reduced by frost to a trickle of its usual self.
Now it ran merrily, hurling itself in joyous abandon over mossy rocks, dashing in tiny cataracts over ledges shaded by tall ferns and finally broadening into a peaceful pool.
A heron stood there, still balancing himself on one lanky leg, absent-mindedly reaching into the water once in a while to swallow some unlucky frog.
“Why, heron,” Geno said, “I didn’t know you’d left the pool in our meadow.”
“I haven’t,” the heron replied with harsh finality.
“Well, I mean—” Geno did not wish to appear to contradict— “you’re hardly there now, are you?”
“I just came here for a change. Any idiot could tell that,” snapped the heron.
Geno thought the heron was rude. He looked around. A couple of full-grown ducks were teaching a squadron of ducklings to swim with a great deal of squawking and flourishing of stubby tails.
“Wa-ak, wa-ak! Wa-ak, wa-ak, wa-ak, wa-ak!” said one mother duck impatiently.
Three small, yellow ducklings executed a left-hand turn.
“Wa-ak, wa-ak, wa-ak—wa-a-a-a-a-k!” said the mother.
The ducklings swam lustily in single file. All except one, that is, who hurried nervously off in the opposite direction.
“Wa-ak, wa-a-ak!” snapped its mother.
The little duckling turned so sharply that it almost rolled over in the water and paddled protestingly after the others.
“E-eek!” it said. “E-eekeek!”
Its mother waggled her tail and snapped her bill a couple of times.
“Wa-ak, wa-ak!” she said abruptly.
The ducklings bustled toward the shore and struggled into cover.
The mother duck dove absent-mindedly and came up right under Geno’s nose.
“Hello,” Geno said.
The duck looked at him suspiciously with round black eyes. “Well?” she squawked impatiently.
The other mother duck who had been putting her fleet of young through much the same movements as her neighbor called out:
“Don’t waste your time talking to him. We’ve a lot to do.”
“I can take a minute for myself, can’t I?”
“How many children have you got?” Geno inquired.
“Of what possible importance can that be?” asked the duck,
“It seems important,” Geno said. “It would be to me.”
“It might be to the fish,” the heron interposed unexpectedly.
“To the fish!” Geno repeated, rather bewildered.
“Certainly. The more ducks, the fewer fish and vice versa.”
“Oh, I see.”
“You don’t,” remarked the heron coldly, “but you would if you were a fish.”
“I suppose that’s true,” admitted Geno.
“Of course it’s true.” The heron changed legs and scooped a frog up in its beak in one and the same motion.
From the cover where the ducklings lay hidden rose an agitated chorus of “Eeks!” The mother duck spun around.
“Wa-ak, wa-ak!” she squawked urgently.
The little ducklings came tumbling into the water.
“You see what you almost did?” she quacked irritably to Geno as she hurried to meet them.
Geno did realize what he had almost done when the scent of the fox reached him. He stiffened nervously.
A young dog-fox came furtively out of cover. He had hardly grown his second coat and his brush was still thin and immature. He took no notice of Geno, but sidled to the water close to the spot where the heron was standing.
“Nice day,” he said in an oily voice.
“Is it?” the heron replied indifferently.
The heron seemed to be quite blind to the fox, but when the fox sprang at him his movements were like lightning. His long beak shot out like a spear.
“You might have got my eye!” the fox said in an injured tone, as he fell back.
“Indeed,” rasped the heron, “I’ll be more careful next time.”
This kind of casual, undeclared warfare amazed Geno; but apparently it was as vicious as any preceded by the proper roarings and stampings to which he was used.
The fox sprang again, and again the wicked bill thrust dangerously. This time the fox yelled with pain.
“I warned you I’d be more careful,” said the heron.
The fox said nothing. He peered at his adversary out of one good eye.
“I’ll be seeing you again,” he threatened somberly.
“Only out of one eye,” replied the heron.
Silently Geno and the heron watched the fox retire. The mother ducks with their broods came out of the reeds where they had hidden.
The heron said, “That fox will learn.”
Geno walked back toward the forest, wrapped in thought. This constant proof of the struggle to survive was almost threatening.
“From the smallest insect up to Him,” he thought, “no safety and no peace. Can He also be afraid of something?”
A voice spoke to him from a near-by hazel.
“You’re a thoughtful fellow,” the voice said.
Geno glanced upward. A finch sat on a branch. He was blowing his breast feathers out to make himself look more important, but under this camouflage the bird appeared to be ill-nourished.
“I try to be,” Geno answered.
“Well, I’ll show you something that will astound you. Look!”
Geno approached the nest which the bird indicated. Inside it sat a fledgling of such size that it completely filled its modest quarters.
“What do you think of that?” the finch inquired proudly. “Isn’t that amazing?”
“I should say it is!” Geno agreed whole-heartedly.
“I’ll bet there’s not another finch like that in the forest. I’ll bet there’s not another finch like that anywhere!” The proud father hopped along the branch and peered at the young one. “My goodness,” he said, “what a bird! Look at that throat, will you?”
The father staggered a little when he mentioned the throat and Geno was afraid he was going to fall right into it.
“Steady!” he cried.
The finch looked a little annoyed.
“I seem to have the staggers,” he fretted. “I think it’s working so hard to get enough food for this child. Great oaks and elder bushes, you never saw such an appetite!”
There was a flutter in the leaves above them. The finch’s mate arrived, carrying a large piece of worm in her beak.
“Go on,” she scolded the father when she had dropped it into the youngster’s mouth. “Don’t stand there gawping! Get some more!”
She rested on the branch watching her son. Muttering to himself, the father flew away.
“That bird’s twice as large as both of you put together,” Geno told her.
“Isn’t he though!”
“Did you have others?” Geno inquired.
“Oh, yes, he was one of five, but the others sickened and died. I don’t know why.”
The mother looked rather crestfallen, but she soon cheered up.
“Well,” she said, “he makes up for them in size, anyhow. He’ll be the most important finch anywhere, if you ask me.”
“You don’t look too well yourself, Ma’am.”
“Don’t I? I guess it’s the heat. Or the humidity, maybe.”
“I think you work too hard for y
our son.”
“Nonsense! How could I do that?” She whistled a little tune deep in her throat.
The young bird’s beak gaped. He made an angry sound.
“All right,” she said, “your father will be back in a minute, and then I’ll see what I can find.”
The father finch returned with a huge grub.
“You’ll upset his little stomach with that rich food,” the mother bird scolded him. “For goodness’ sake, haven’t you any sense?”
“No, my love—I mean, yes, my love!” He watched the grub slide down the gaping throat. “Upset that one?” he added. “I don’t believe you could upset him if you fed him hornets!”
“Don’t you ever eat yourselves?” Geno asked.
“Oh, once in a while. We’re too busy to think much about it.” The mother took a last look at her charge before she flew after more food.
“Well, take care of yourselves,” Geno advised as he left. “You’re important, too, don’t forget.”
He had not gone very far before he met Até. Geno told him about the finches’ amazing offspring.
“Oh,” grinned Até, “that wasn’t a finch! That was a cuckoo.”
“A cuckoo!”
“Certainly.”
“Then what was it doing in the finches’ nest?”
“The cuckoo left it there when the finches weren’t looking. She goes around in spring leaving her eggs in any nest she can and then, when they are hatched out by some other unsuspecting bird, she doesn’t have the bore of rearing them.”
“How perfectly dreadful!” Geno stopped dead in his tracks. “I’m going back to tell the finches at once.”
Até stopped him. “It wouldn’t do the slightest good,” he said seriously. “They wouldn’t believe you. It would make them very unhappy. When the young cuckoo leaves them, they’ll soon forget.”
Geno might have argued further, but he was startled by the sound of a shot.
“The thunder-stick!” he groaned. “My goodness, is the time of peace over?”
“It’s very early for the thunder-stick,” Até muttered, surprise subduing his usually clear tones.
A succession of shots crackled in the distance.
“Well, I guess there’s no doubt about it,” Até concluded resignedly. “We must go home carefully.”
They took to cover. Every now and then the far-off roar of the thunder-stick was heard again.