BAMBI HAD A BRIEF CONVERSATION with his family, and then he left to go about his business. Faline, Gurri and Geno remained alone.
Perri came running down a branch toward them. She sat on her haunches, bobbing in their direction, her forepaws together on her shining vest, her button eyes agleam.
“All of us,” she said, in her best elocutionary manner, “take pleasure in welcoming your daughter home, Faline.”
Faline inclined her head. “Thank you,” she said.
A group of tomtits chorused from a lower bush. “Don’t forget the story, Perri. We want to hear the story.”
A blue jay flying by screamed, “No, don’t forget that in your importance!”
The woodpecker made a sound like a roll of little drums. Perri cast a glance of reproof after the blue jay, but went on deliberately:
“We should esteem it an honor, Faline, a very great honor, Ma’am, to hear your daughter’s story.”
Faline said, “Won’t you tell them, Gurri?”
“I’m just dying of curiosity,” Geno added.
“If it doesn’t interrupt your sleep, Ma’am,” the hare quavered, “it would be a great kindness to me. I declare, I had a very bad shock. Upon my soul and whiskers, I really can’t remember when I’ve had a worse!”
“I’ll be glad to tell you,” Gurri said in a clear voice. “After the brown He took me away from the fox, He carried me along the path to a part of the wood I’d never seen before. . . .”
“Oh us! Oh ours!” tittered the tomtits. “Isn’t this thrilling?”
A flock of magpies flew in, chattering busily.
“Oh, look!” rustled the tomtits. “Visitors!”
The magpies flew into a tree, pushing and jostling those who were already there.
“Has she started?” they demanded anxiously. “Are we late?”
An English sparrow looked down his beak at them haughtily. “Ill-mannered hooligans!” he snapped.
Gurri was telling how, when He took her to the place where He lived, He first took the top part of His head off and then His skin.
“I don’t believe it!” A crow sitting on top of the poplar tree spoke in deep, melancholy tones. His little amber-and-black eye roved in search of approval from his sooty-looking mates.
“We don’t believe it either,” they declared unwinkingly.
“Order, up there!” cried a squirrel sharply.
The crows all laughed at once.
“Ho, ho, ho! Listen to the little jackanapes! Order! Ho, ho, ho!”
“They’re visitors too,” whispered the tomtits.
“Ill-mannered hooligans!” repeated the sparrow.
Gurri paused until the commotion had subsided. Then she spoke of the great horned owl. Immediately a furious outcry broke from the magpies.
“Scum of the earth!” they shrilled vindictively. “Robber of nests! Murderer! Assassin!”
“You can’t hate him now!” Gurri cried. “He’s just a poor prisoner who’d gladly welcome death.”
“Death!” croaked the crows. “Ho, ho, ho! If we could only get at him! We’d show him he can’t maim our people and not pay for it! We’d teach him a lesson he’d never forget.”
To her horror Gurri almost found it in her heart to tell them they could find the horned owl tied to his post if they visited often enough; but she repressed a desire more savage than any she had ever felt before, and simply cried:
“His ways are not the ways of our people, but in some things the great horned owl is nobler than any of us!”
“Gurri!” gasped Faline, shocked. “How can you say such things!”
“Oh, dear me,” interposed the hare hurriedly, “is there any need for quarreling? Bless my soul, can’t we proceed with the story? Faline, Ma’am, how did your daughter finally escape from Him?”
“She took her skin off and threw it over the vines and then she crawled through and put it on again!” shouted one of the visiting crows. There was a burst of raucous cawing.
“My father set me free,” Gurri said rigidly.
“Bambi did it!” the whisper went around. “Bambi set her free!”
A respectful silence fell on the audience.
“How did he do it?” Perri asked.
Gurri told them how he had jumped the fence and how the next day He had found his tracks and set her free.
“He was afraid of the great Bambi without even seeing him!” gasped the hare. “Oh, my soul and whiskers, it is quite incredible and wonderful. I shall make it clear to everyone that Bambi is a very good friend of mine, and perhaps the fox will leave me alone!”
Something in the long grass under Perri’s bough started the whisper: “He is afraid of Bambi!”
“Bambi should be King of the Forest!” another voice said.
They broke up into groups to discuss the courage of the amazing Bambi. The visiting crows and magpies flew away.
“I’m tired,” Gurri said spiritlessly.
“You had rather a bad time,” Faline said gently. “I’m afraid it isn’t wise to say things like that about owls and suchlike.”
“I shall never tell that story again,” Gurri said with finality, “and what’s more, I want you and Geno to promise me never to say a word about it either.”
“But, Gurri,” Geno remonstrated, “we shall have to tell Aunt Rolla and the rest.”
“No one,” Gurri told him firmly. “No one at all.”
“Your sister’s tired,” Faline began, with a warning look at Geno. “You’d better get some rest, my dear.”
“But do you promise?”
“Yes, yes! We promise.”
“You agree, Geno?”
“Of course, if that’s how you want it.”
Gurri collapsed onto the moss with a contented sigh. “You don’t know how good it is to be home!”
She fell asleep quickly, and Faline was quite sure that when she awoke she would have overcome her pique at the behavior of the visiting crows and magpies when she told her story. Yet when she met Rolla, Lana and Boso in the meadow that evening, she showed no sign of weakening in her resolution.
Faline was anxious for this meeting. It was, in a way, a chance to disprove the thoughts she had felt Rolla was thinking when Gurri first disappeared. She walked proudly, therefore, carrying her head high, even forgetting, in her pride and happiness, some of her normal caution.
She was thinking that the children were really growing up. There was little shyness or awkwardness left in Geno’s deportment, and Gurri was becoming quite lovely—except, of course, for the scars on her shoulder, which would heal. She had admirable poise, too, for one so young. Her adventures did not seem to have affected her spirits. She was still carefree and gay.
Rolla, Boso and Lana were hardly able to believe their eyes when they saw the procession of three file back into the meadow.
In their amazement they all cried out at once: “Gurri, Gurri, Gurri!”
“How wonderful to see you again, my dear,” Rolla said, “and what a fright you gave us!”
“I’m sorry if you were frightened,” Gurri said calmly.
“Look at her, she’s like ice in winter!” Rolla said. “Aren’t you excited to get back?”
“Of course I am. So glad to see you and Boso and Lana again. Can you still run as fast, Boso?”
“You bet I can! Want to see?”
“I want to hear all about Gurri’s adventures,” Lana said.” We can see Boso run at any time.”
Geno looked uneasy. “Tell them, Gurri.”
But Gurri pretended not to hear. She ran off, frisking her heels, seemingly enraptured with action. The others ran after her.
“What did happen to the child?” Rolla asked comfortably, preparing to settle herself on the turf.
“Why really . . . !” Faline looked nonplussed. “You’ll have to ask her.”
“Ask her! Why surely you can tell me?”
“Why really . . . !” Faline took a self-conscious mouthful of grass. “I’m afraid I don’t know much about it myself,” she concluded weakly.
“Oh, I see!” Rolla said tartly. “You weren’t present at the meeting this afternoon, I suppose?”
“The meeting . . .” Faline repeated helplessly.
“I suppose you think the whole forest’s not talking about Bambi’s latest exploit.”
Faline remained silent for a long time. Finally she said, “You see, Rolla, it was the crows . . .” but before she could proceed further, Gurri dashed up with Geno close behind her.
“Mother,” she said, “I can’t play any longer tonight. I guess I’m still tired.”
“You poor child!” Faline sprang to her feet. “We’ll go back to the clearing at once. It is a little chilly, anyway,” she said, looking hard at Rolla.
Geno followed his mother and sister from the meadow, puzzled, but happy to see them together again. Rolla, Boso and Lana watched them go in silence.