THE WINTRY SUN ENDURED A day or two before a dull cloud heaved itself above the mountains to the east and, like a spreading stain, engulfed the sky. An icy wind blew drearily, in weary gusts.
Gurri, Geno, Lana and Boso shivered in the meadow by the pool. The water was dark; it stirred into sullen ripples and around its boundaries there were already scales of ice.
A robin perched on a branch of the apple-tree, his feathers ruffled, his red chest blazing.
“No need to look so down in the mouth,” he chirruped. “Things’ll get worse before they get better.”
“I don’t know what it is about that tree,” Geno grumbled, “that makes everything that sits in it talk in proverbs.”
“It’s easier than thinking,” the robin stated.
“Thinking’s so much warmer,” Gurri said.
“Maybe it is. But if you’d blow out your feathers as I do and whistle once in a while, you wouldn’t need to think so much.”
“We can’t whistle and we haven’t any feathers,” Boso put in.
“If I had a red blouse like yours—” Lana shivered—“I’d feel warmer too, even without whistling.”
“You can’t have everything, I suppose,” Gurri said. “Lana’s got a nice brown coat, hasn’t she, Geno?”
Geno said nothing, but he breathed so hard on a piece of ice that he was able to get a good-sized drink from the edge of the pool. A flurry of wind carried a scampering flock of late-falling leaves into a pile around the apple-tree.
“It’s an ill wind that blows no tree any good,” chuckled the robin, and flew away.
“The robin’s quite right,” Rolla said, joining the children and nuzzling Gurri affectionately. Boso’s narrow escape from death had drawn them all more closely together than ever before. “If we are patient and careful, we shall pull through the winter all right. Why, Faline and I don’t like to remember how many we’ve been through.”
Faline said, rather peevishly, “I don’t like them any better as time goes on. And now the wind’s dropping. You know what that means.”
Rolla looked up at the sky. “Yes,” she agreed gravely, “I know.”
“What does it mean?” Boso asked.
“Snow.” Faline sampled the still air. “Yes, it’s coming.”
“Snow! Are we really going to see snow?” Geno was quite excited at the approach of this thing which, for so long, had interested him.
A first pale flake lighted on Faline’s nose. “Yes,” she said, tasting it, “this is snow.”
Like the blackbird’s first trial notes, the flakes came stealing through the darkness.
“How wonderful it makes you look,” Geno said to Lana; and Gurri cried:
“Have you tasted it? It’s not like anything you can imagine.”
The screech-owl passed above them, flying hard for warmth and safety.
“It’s a new taste,” he cried. “Tangy, flavorful . . .”
For several days snow fell all the time. For the deer it was no longer a joking matter. Belly-deep, it covered all their earth, blotting out everything that was edible.
With painful leaps, Faline led them to places where it piled less deeply. There they scraped with hoofs ill adapted to the purpose until they discovered some mouthful of sour, half-frozen moss. Gradually they grew thinner. They said little, one to the other, saving their breath for the business of staying alive.
Even the birds kept a sullen silence. Sparrows, usually so lively, perched dejectedly on the naked trees, sleepy with cold.
Finally the brown He came. He built long shelters and erected racks. The sound and scent of Him were constant. Then, when His work was finished, He returned with millet for the pheasants, clover and ripened chestnuts for the deer.
Faline, Gurri and Geno were forced to wait for the Kings to eat their fill before they went near this bounty; but the sparrows and the robins pecked with cheerful impudence among the grain without a by-your-leave to anyone.
Gurri said one day, before a squirrel interrupted her, “I don’t understand about Him. When things are bad, all He seems to think about is keeping us alive; and when things are good, it’s the thunder-stick!”
Geno was thinking about this when a squirrel came bounding down from his home in an oak.
“Hide!” he squeaked. “Oh, my tail and forepaws, hide!”
He streaked into the topmost branches of the mighty pine, hung there a moment and swung into the willowy branches of a near-by birch.
Before Geno and Gurri could follow his advice, a creature they had never seen before streaked past them in pursuit. It was smaller than a fox, more the size of a hare, but rounder and more supple. It was black as night, with glaring, amber eyes. It raced up the pine, its claws scraping at the bark. The squirrel showed himself a master strategist. With nimble bounds he swung himself from tree to tree, using only the thinnest twigs to support himself until he found the safety of his home in the oak.
The black marauder remained quiet in the branches of the pine for some time, as if considering a further course of action. Then, suddenly, it dashed to the ground and disappeared.
“What on earth was that?” demanded Geno, trembling.
The squirrel came to the entrance of his hole in the oak. Never had the roe-deer seen a squirrel so upset.
“I’ll tell you what that was,” he chattered feverishly. “That was the cat. I’ve seen him around once before, but never, glory be, so close!”
“Cat is the opposite of dog!” Geno murmured, remembering the screech-owl’s words.
“And curiosity kills it,” Gurri added.
“What did you say?” asked the squirrel. “What kills it?”
“Curiosity,” Gurri repeated.
“Good gracious,” the squirrel muttered, his eyes big with hope, “do you suppose we could find one around here?”
“I don’t think curiosity is a thing,” Geno hazarded.
“Of course it isn’t,” Gurri said scornfully. “It’s something we all have, like smell or hope. Father says I’ve got too much of it.”
“Who told you about curiosity and about its being bad for the cat?”
“The screech-owl, I think.”
“Oh!” The squirrel patted his stomach nervously. “Well, if Bambi says you’ve got too much of it and you could spare me a little, perhaps the screech-owl would tell me how to use it to kill the cat.” He bobbed back into his hole. “I’d be very much obliged,” he called out to them.
“Perhaps it’s gone, anyway,” Geno said hopefully. “The squirrel’s getting on, and if he’s only seen it once . . . Do you think it would attack us?”
“It looked rather small.” Gurri sighed. “But you can never tell. I think we should be careful.”
It was unusual for Gurri to talk of care, but the sight of the cat, black as a demon, and with dreadful, flashing eyes, had impressed her deeply. Faline was glad that this was so, when the cat’s continued presence in their neighborhood became more dolefully evident. First they heard the death-cry of a bird and then the sharp scream of a tortured hare.
When they heard this pitiful cry, both Geno and Gurri knew unbearable suspense.
“Do you suppose it can be the hare who lives on the path?” Geno faltered.
“Oh,” cried Gurri, “that would be too terrible. We must go and see.”
When they reached the place where the hare lived, they saw a flurry in the snow.
“Are you all right, hare?” Gurri asked softly.
“Eh, what’s that?” came a well-remembered voice. “Oh, it’s you, my dear! I swear I hardly recognize my friends these days, really I don’t.”
“We were afraid . . .” Geno began.
“I should hope you were,” said the hare. “I should just hope you were. Chronic nervous prostration. It’s the only way to be safe, I assure you.”
“We mean, we heard a sound . . . we thought perhaps that the cat . . .”
The hare opened and closed his eyes with great rapidity. “Oh, yes,” he said very sadly, “that was a cousin of mine. We are a very large family, you know. He was a dear boy.”
“You must hate the cat,” Gurri said.
“Hate the cat!” The hare looked tremblingly fierce. “I wish I were a dog, just for a minute. Oh, how I wish I could be a dog! That cat murdered my cousin for the sheer pleasure of it. He wasn’t even hungry.”
The hare said violently, “I’m sorry if such a thought revolts you, my boy, but we hunted creatures must face things as they are. The fox is less horrible than the cat, for the fox is wild and preys for food. The cat kills because he has a liking for it.”
“And the dog is the opposite of the cat!”
“The dog is the cat’s sworn enemy.”
Gurri thought: “I wish the brown He would bring Hector,” but then she trembled at the idea of that great creature roaming in the woods.
Yet surely anything was better than the cat. As time went on, the frozen, mangled corpses of the forest folk became a commonplace sight. No bird or animal dared go to feed on the grain or clover for fear of that slinking shadow and those ripping claws.
Finally the gamekeeper realized what was amiss. He found the paw-marks in the snow.
“H’m!” he murmured. “So that’s the trouble! Well, I guess we can fix that.”
He dropped his load of sweet clover and turned back on his tracks. Geno, Gurri, the hare and the squirrel listened to his retreating footsteps.
“Is He going to do something?” the squirrel asked.
“I don’t know. I think He saw the footprints.” Geno turned as Faline hurried from behind a bush.
“Both of you children are becoming careless now,” she scolded. “You must hide when He comes.”
“We would have,” Geno reassured her, “if He hadn’t turned back.”
The hare interrupted them. “Hush,” he whispered, “I smell something . . . it’s the dog! Oh, my ears and whiskers, hide now in earnest. The dog can be terrible!”
The animals scattered, all of them forgetting that but a short while back they had almost hoped for the dog. Presently the brown He appeared with Hector at His heels.
Faline shuddered. “My poor child,” she said to Gurri, “did you live with that thing?”
Gurri nodded. “He’s His servant. Everything that He wants, he does.”
The gamekeeper showed Hector the killer’s tracks; but in the snow the scent was thin. Hector tried hard, sniffing with his great nose and casting eager glances all around.
The gamekeeper encouraged him in every way he knew.
“Find him, boy!” he urged. “Find!”
Hector sniffed and wheezed obligingly, and ran around in harried circles. If the cat had not had an uneasy conscience, all might have been well for him; but he was nervous. The great dog at times ran uncomfortably close. The cat decided on flight. He sprang from the elbow of a branch where he was hidden and ran. Hector took after him in full cry. The cat took to the trees and ran along their branches, but Hector could see him now. A clearing stopped the chase. There was nowhere else for the cat to jump. He could not go back because of Him. So the cat set his back against the tree trunk and showered abuse on the dog.
Hector, leaping and lunging at the foot of the tree, answered him hoarsely. Even now the cat had a chance. The dog’s eyes, when he jumped, were close. Two lightning strokes of the cat’s claws and that would be that. The cat gathered himself to spring, but He came. The thunder-stick spoke sharply.
When the black body dropped to earth, Hector sniffed at it without much interest. Rage had left him. His job was done.