Perri slipped into the nest, and came back looking worried. “Mother hasn’t been in there for a long time, not for a very long time.”
“Perhaps she lives somewhere else now,” Porro consoled.
Perri was ready to be reassured. “Perhaps that’s it,” she agreed. “Mother often moves to a new place.” But her uneasiness kept reappearing.
The black squirrel was whisking about in the firs. “Ho! The children!” he clucked. “The playmates! The innocents!”
“Do you know where my mother is?” asked Perri.
“Your mother? Oh, your mother! Does the baby want its mother?” He pretended to find this question irresistibly funny. “How should I know where she is? You children loaf around,” he scolded, “think of nothing but your own pleasure, and then I’m supposed to tell you what’s going on—as if I had nothing else to do!” He charged off.
Perri sat ashamed and disconsolate, but Porro scolded: “I never could stand that rough fellow.”
They met the magpie. “Have you seen my mother anywhere?” inquired Perri.
The magpie stammered, “Wait—your mother—yes—no—it seems to me—” and she suddenly flew off as if something had frightened her.
Taking this for a danger signal, Perri and Porro raced for the tree trunk.
Later they met the woodpecker, who was drumming busily. He answered curtly, “No!” And his redoubled hammering plainly showed that he did not wish to be disturbed.
The blackbird too answered vaguely, and the titmice declared they knew nothing.
Perri even asked the jay, who simply grated: “Don’t bother me!”
They met the flame-red squirrel. He whisked toward them from a beech tree, and blocked their path, crying “Hello!”
Porro tried to pass him, but Perri stopped: “Have you seen my mother?”
“I’ve got used to things here,” Flame-Red began to chatter. “I like it here. Everybody knows my story by now—”
Perri interrupted him, “About my mother—”
He caught her up: “Mother? Your mother? Have you got one?”
“She’s the one I’m asking about!” said Perri impatiently.
“Don’t be silly!” he cried. “How should I know who your mother is? When have I ever known your mother? I’m new here—”
“Come on!” said Porro. “The old show-off is talking nonsense.”
“Impudent brat!” Flame-Red began, and when Porro bounded away he yelled after him: “A baby like that, a know-nothing! And that nutcracker dares to be insolent to somebody of wisdom and experience.”
Perri and Porro were out of hearing.
“I’m going to see the human child,” Perri decided. And Porro said, “I’ll go with you.”
She did not think to be surprised at his willingness, but raced down the well-known path, Porro behind her.
They soon found Annerle, surrounded by magpie, blackbird and pheasant. The doe and her fawn were just taking their leave.
Perri hopped into Annerle’s lap.
“Hello!” cried Porro, jumping down beside Perri.
Annerle laughed: “So there you are! Hello!”
The pheasant turned his head contemptuously. “Nice company!”
“Oh,” Annerle objected, “they’re both really very nice.”
Perri began with her question: “Do you know where my mother is?”
“No,” said Annerle, “that I can’t tell you.”
“When did you see her last?”
Annerle reflected: “When? Let me see now, when did I? It’s so long ago I can’t remember exactly.”
“Then something has happened to her,” said Perri sadly.
Nobody said anything. Only Annerle laughed and remarked, “Just because she hasn’t been here? No. Your mother just forgot me.”
“Do you think so?”
“Yes, I do,” Annerle asserted. “Your mother forgets me every now and then. So do you. What could I have told your mother if she’d asked about you? Don’t worry. She’ll come, all right.”
Perri was consoled. “If Mother comes, tell her I’m looking for her.” She bounded off, greatly relieved, with Porro after her.
The pheasant declared, “I could have told her.”
The magpie chattered: “So could I.”
The blackbird fluted, “After all, you don’t want to hurt the feelings of a child that’s looking for its mother.”
“Exactly,” the pheasant agreed. “I found a red tail, but I didn’t want to say anything.”
“She always felt so safe,” Annerle said quietly to herself. “The poor thing. ‘Nobody’ll catch me,’ she always used to say.”
“You can’t let yourself feel safe,” preached the pheasant, “you have to pay for things like that.”
“Who do you suppose it was?” said the blackbird.
“Probably her mother,” remarked the pheasant carelessly. “The tail was all torn and bloody—”
“I meant,” whispered the blackbird, “who could have been the murderer?”
The magpie chattered: “The fox, the marten, the polecat, the owl, the hawk—you can take your pick.”
Annerle grew sad: “What a lot of murderers there are among you!”
The pheasant stretched his neck and said indignantly: “You can’t accuse me!” He went off, looking injured.
“Yes, yes,” fluted the blackbird, “we gentle ones would much rather have peace.”
Perri never saw her mother again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
THERE WAS A CONSTANT WHISPERing in the woods—the farewell of the leaves as they fell. It went on mostly at night and early in the morning.
Perri and Porro seldom left their nests. Only when the sun shone warmly did they romp as they once had. The trees grew barer every day. Now that the creatures could see through two or three trees, it was hard to hide. Caution was more necessary than ever.
But Perri and Porro still kept their good humor. The fallen leaves made a deep, rustling layer. Perri was wild with joy when the rustling surrounded her as she ran along the ground. She loved to tumble about in the dry leaves, playing tag with Porro, and reveling in the noise. Porro suddenly turned morose. “They’re nothing but corpses,” he said, flinging the leaves about. “We knew them all when they were alive.”
Perri shuddered. “Do you know what?” she cried. “All this noise of ours is stupid. We wouldn’t hear if anybody came.”
“Of course we would,” replied Porro. “We’ll hear everything just the same.”
But Perri suddenly thought of the bloodthirsty shrewmouse. It might be hiding in the leaves, and they could never hear it. Horrified, she whizzed up a tree.
Porro jumped after her. “What ails you?”
“The mouse,” stammered Perri, “the mouse—that murderous little beast—it might ambush us down there!”
“All right, then we’ll stay up here,” Porro decided.
A crystal-clear day broke after a stormy night. There was no morning mist, nothing but gentle sunshine and clear skies. One might have thought it was spring again. Even in spring there is sometimes just such a nip to the air.
Perri and Porro enjoyed the fine weather, danced about, and ate their fill of late berries, acorns and beechnuts.
The first cold snap was over; the weather grew warmer. An uneasiness gripped the forest. A fear of something terrible stirred all the creatures, but none of them could have told what it was.
The faint breeze did, it is true, blow a mysterious scent through the forest. This odor usually announced the presence of He, although it was only occasional. It could be avoided, and danger escaped. But today there was no fleeing the hated smell. No matter where the forest creatures turned, He thrust his horrible scent at their noses.
The red deer moved about in alarm. The roe deer wandered restlessly from one covert to another. Confused hares ran about, hopping across forest paths, suddenly fleeing in mad haste, and as suddenly turning to race back. They took no pains to keep out of the
fox’s way.
The fox himself slunk among hares and flocks of pheasants, noticing them as little as they him. He was deep in thought. He crept around with bent legs and sunken head, sniffing here and there. He seemed to be hatching a plan; but in vain.
He was everywhere, and He remained perfectly quiet. He did not stir from the spot, He did not move in any direction. But He seemed to be everywhere; it was an unbearable strain on the nerves. The creatures could do nothing but wait in a torment of anxiety. The birds in the trees were as alert as the creatures on the ground, but all were silent.
When the jay broke out occasionally with a yell: “There He is!” everyone thought he was just being silly. After all, everyone knew that He was in a hundred places at once.
Chapter Twenty-Three
TRARIRA! THE HORN CRASHED OUT. All those hemmed about in the forest felt a sudden terror.
The magpie was sitting with Perri and Porro. She whispered, “Lots of them will die down there.” Then quickly in answer to a sad, terrified look from Perri, “But not you—none of us up here.”
Far away a second hunting horn sounded: Tratatata!
At once there was a wild uproar. Men’s voices, roaring and yelling, pierced the coverts; noisy human feet tramped and rattled through the blanket of dry leaves. Clubs thudded against trees, and pandemonium broke loose with a Hohoho! and a Hahaha!
Bang! The first shot. The next instant, there was a volley—bang! bang! Crack! Bangbangbang!
Red deer charged like mad from the coverts. Roe deer rushed out crazily.
Neither red deer nor roe deer were shot at. They all escaped whole, though some of them had to run for it.
In the coverts deadly terror was loose among hares and pheasants; it drove some of them to the point of true heroism.
Many of the pheasants were hit on the wing, and fell like plummets. Hares somersaulted as they ran, and fell motionless. Others tried to make decisions as they ran back and forth in the bushes; pheasants tripped hesitantly along the edge of the covert.
The yowling, trampling and pounding went on unceasingly, until the forest creatures were stupefied. Crashing shots added their bit to the fantastic noise.
The line of men who had worked into the covert came nearer and nearer.
Two, three, five hares, with the courage of desperation, turned and raced in the very direction of the frightful uproar. They no longer ran, they flew.
They broke through the fearful chain, slipping between the legs of the surprised beaters. They were safe—all but one, whom the hunter’s shot hurled into the grass. The men banged away at the others, but they got safely away.
The pheasants, too, had their great day. The closer the line of men came, the more calmly the birds met the terror. Their muddled running about and their shillyshallying were finished. Almost there seemed to be a plan in the order which they maintained during the final minutes.
Some of them hid in the brush, flattening themselves on the ground and letting people walk over them. This took an iron courage, and those who had it escaped.
A young cock tried this way, but when he saw the boots and heard the uproar above him, he lost his head. He fluttered blindly skyward, forgetting everything except flight; he died in the air, and fell with a soft, dull thud.
A couple, half paralyzed with fright, moved toward the beaters. “When we get to the edge,” said the cock, “I’ll give you a sign. Then we go up—not before.”
As if his speech had merely added to her fear, the hen said, “No waiting! No signals! Everyone for himself!” With a loud rattle of her wings she rose and flew off. She had been terrified for nothing; hens were not being shot at.
The cock, who followed a little later, had a wing shot through; he swerved, and went down in a long glide.
Perri and Porro were confined to two oaks. Intimidated by the angry tumult that surrounded them, they dared only to leap back and forth through these two familiar trees. They saw pheasants tumble from the air, and others get off scot free; they saw hares spinning on the ground, and others making off like mad.
Gradually it dawned upon them that He was seeking only these two creatures. He did not raise his fire-hand against either red or roe deer.
“He won’t do anything to us,” Porro reassured the trembling Perri. But he himself was in a state of tremendous agitation.
“Still, you can never tell what may happen,” said Perri. “We must take care.”
They ducked down close to the trunk of the oak.
“Don’t let them see you,” warned Porro.
“Take care of yourself,” Perri called to him.
A rain of shot rattled down on the oak. The little lead pellets, spent with their journey, splashed against the wood, and a few hit Perri, who was startled to feel their harmless impact. “Something’s wrong here,” she chattered miserably, leaping to the other tree.
“No farther!” warned Porro, flashing after her. “It may get even worse.”
But in the other oak the rain of shot still kept up. Porro was roughly spattered. He sat stock still with his head between his forepaws.
“If a ball like that goes into your body,” said Perri, “you’re done for.”
Porro shook himself. “Probably they have orders not to kill us,” he said.
“But they hurt,” complained Perri.
“Are you bleeding?” Porro was worried.
“No. Are you?”
“Neither am I!” he rejoiced.
Ping! Bang! Crack! Boom! Shot after shot rent the air. Trrr! Prrr! The rain of shot pattered down. In between came the dull thuds of the falling pheasants.
“I can’t stand it!” wailed Perri.
“Patience!” warned Porro. “We have to be brave.”
Two pheasants—another couple—paced through the covert. “As far as the edge,” said the cock.
“Yes,” replied his mate obediently.
“Then we both go up at the same time,” he said in a choking voice. “Do you think that’s all right?”
She could get out nothing but a short, “Yes.”
“Who’s to give the signal?”
She said, “You.”
They went silently on, behind them the roaring and pounding of the beaters, before them the crashing of the guns. They reached the edge of the sheltering brush, and stood still, close together. He poked his little head out unnoticed, took a quick look around, and gently drew back. He had little hope; but there was no other chance.
“Now!” he said.
They rose steeply, with loudly flapping wings, diagonally over Perri’s oak; a fusillade followed them.
Perri saw the two moving faster and faster through the air. “They’re all right!” she rejoiced.
Bang! Crack!
“We hope!” replied Porro.
One more bang. The two pheasants swam onward, and were already far away.
Perri cried, “Saved!” Then she ducked, because a new hail of shot rattled down.
The bellowing increased: “A fox! A fox! Look out there, a fox!”
Perri and Porro could see him only indistinctly. He let himself be chased; he fled the beaters in apparent timidity, yet he was not so easily driven out into the path. He was hunting the narrowest place, where the way to the next covert would be shortest. Even then he hesitated, craftily slipped past it, came back with a sudden turn, and unexpectedly shot out like lightning.
He got halfway across the path before a shot was fired. Then the crashing was frightful. The fox whizzed along, squeezed close to the grass, his brush drooping. Just once he twitched as if hit. But he whisked into the brush without reducing speed.
“He got away,” said Perri.
“He’s the very one that doesn’t deserve it,” remarked Porro.
“But still,” said Perri, “I think he was wounded.”
Twilight marked the end of day. There was a long-drawn blast of a horn. The yelling stopped at once. The crackling of shots ceased.
Heavy horse-carts creaked acr
oss the open spaces. Men’s voices were still heard, but they were subdued and murmuring. At last it was quite still in the woods.
Perri and Porro had already gone to rest.
Chapter Twenty-Four
THAT NIGHT THE FOX SAT in his lair. A shot had hit his left hind leg, and the burning was cruel. He bit at the wound, but the pain grew worse. He licked it, and soon it seemed better.
Now hunger drove him out. The shot hardly hindered his progress, and in fact he forgot it when he found what a rich banquet was set before him.
There lay a wounded hare with a stiff leg. The hare squeaked once when the fox bit through his spine. Then he became a sumptuous meal.
That night the fox did not have to be content with mice and small fry.
Polecat and weasel, who could never catch a pheasant at night because the pheasants slept in the trees, feasted greedily on the dead birds which still lay about.
The owl, too, was in luck. She found a dead hare, and put aside her hunting to stuff herself until she could stuff no more. The remnants she left for other marauders. That night she did nothing but sing, “Haa—haa—hahaha—ha—aaa.” It was a melancholy, mocking song of triumph.
The next morning the hunter and the dogs went through the woods.
Perri and Porro accompanied him, whisking through the treetops. They watched the dogs stop before each dead hare and pheasant, and they jumped when the dogs barked; but their curiosity held them there.
But when the hunter shot a hare which was hobbling painfully away, hurling it into the withered ferns, they fled in horror.
Magpie, blackbird, woodpecker, cross-beak, robin and titmice once more put in an appearance. Even the jay returned.
“Where have you been?” asked Perri.
“Far away,” the magpie declared.
“I wouldn’t stay around in an uproar like that,” laughed the woodpecker.
“We got away in good time,” whispered the titmice.
“Why should I stay to watch the murder?” fluted the blackbird.
“Well—yesterday was a frightful day,” said Perri, “we were right in the midst of it—”
“And were in great danger,” Porro finished.