Bambi's Children

by Felix Salten

  The horned owl said suddenly: “Whoo-hoo!”

  Bambi spun around, prepared for fight.

  “What’s that?” he cried.

  Gurri stopped in front of the great horned owl.

  “That’s my friend, Father.”

  “Your friend . . . !” Bambi began in amazed protest.

  “He’s one of the chiefs of the air and he’s been very kind to me. . . . Poor owl! He’s a prisoner, too, and sometimes I think it’s worse for him than it is for me.”

  “Worse!”

  “Can you imagine,” Gurri said dreamily, “what it must be like not only to run and jump, but also to fly? And then to be shut into a thing like that?”

  “Huh!” snapped Bambi, eying the thing that kept them in. “Flying would be a pretty good idea! You don’t want to stay here, I suppose?” There was some anxiety in his voice. To find his daughter calling a thing that smelled like that her friend was something of a shock. “You seem to have changed your ways. You were sleeping when all your kind should be awake.”

  “Oh, take me back!” Gurri begged. “Don’t leave me here. Take me back.”

  “That’s why I came for you. But now I’m here I’m not sure. . . . Can you jump that thing?”

  “Not in a month of Sundays!” declared the horned owl.

  “Oh yes, I can!” protested Gurri. “I can do anything to get away from here.”

  “Try, then,” urged Bambi.

  Gurri took a run and leaped. The wire caught her squarely in the chest. She tried again and again.

  “If I could lend you my wings!” growled the owl, spreading them wide; but there was nothing to be done. The fence was too high.

  “You must learn,” Bambi told her, himself discouraged.

  “Learn!” the horned owl grunted. “She must grow, you mean!”

  “No!” Gurri cried. “I’ll practice. I’ll succeed. I’m doing better already!”

  “That’s the spirit!” Bambi said hearteningly. “Watch, now.”

  From a standing leap he cleared the obstacle and stood in the open.

  Fear returned to Gurri. “Father!” she faltered. “Don’t leave me!”

  “I’ll return every night,” Bambi promised. “We’ll practice together. Don’t lose heart.”

  She heard the drumming of his hoofs upon the hard and level ground, for suddenly Bambi, too, was nervous. He sped, skimming the earth, for the shelter of the trees. There he slipped silently to cover.

  “Cheer up!” the owl bade Gurri though his voice was still gloomy. “There are worse things than being here, I guess.”

  “Worse!” Gurri cried. “What could be worse? You know what you said yourself. . . .”

  “I talk too much,” the owl muttered. “It’s a fault of mine. Think nothing of it. . . . Anyway, if your father comes back every night, things’ll be better.”

  But Gurri was not listening. Already she hurled herself again at the cruel thing that restrained her. Again and again she beat against the wire.

  “Oh, well,” the horned owl said resignedly. “I guess it’s no good for me to get worked up, too. I may as well get some sleep.”

  He knew he was talking nonsense for he did not sleep at night; he just thought, perhaps, if he could make the suggestion . . . but Gurri took no notice of him.

  When He came in the morning bearing His load of clover, He could not help but notice her new agitation.

  “And what’s the trouble with you now?” He asked as Gurri ran from Him to cower in a corner. He glanced quickly around the corral. His eyes focused on the ground. “Well, for the love of Pete!” He gasped. “A buck! And what a fellow he must be! Those tracks are big enough for a bull-moose!” He walked along the fence. “There’s where he got in. Pretty nice jumping, I’d say.” He turned to Gurri. “So they’re coming for you, are they? You must be pretty important. Well, I guess you’re about healed at that.” He swung a gate in the fence wide open. Gurri didn’t move. “All right, take your time! There’s your fodder if you want it.”

  He went back to the house, plugging his pipe as he went. Hector came leaping to meet him.

  “Down,” the gamekeeper commanded, “and stay indoors, too.” He flung himself into an easy chair, wagging his pipe-stem at the anxious dog. “Hector, my boy,” he said, “you can’t keep roe-deer, so don’t start bringing ’em home as you do those barn rats. You can’t rear ’em. Bucks get vicious, and does degenerate. Pretty creatures, though.” A match spurted above his pipe. He murmured reflectively, “I certainly would like a shot at that buck!”

  Hector lay down, regarding his master, chin on paws.

  The great horned owl said urgently:

  “He’s forgotten to shut it! Run, child, while you’ve got the chance.”

  Gurri stared dazedly at the open gate.

  “Go on!” the horned owl commanded harshly. “Don’t stand there dreaming . . . !”

  He paused as Gurri threw her head up. The scent of the forest blew strong about her.

  “Goodbye!” she said almost inaudibly.

  The great horned owl watched her streak across the field.

  “Goodbye,” he muttered sadly. “Think of me sometimes.” And then, savagely, he let go his call even though it was full day. “Whoo-hoo-oo-oo!”

  A couple of crows flying straight overhead swerved in dismay and fell to quarreling; the last, faint echo of the warrior’s cry reached Gurri as the forest took her into its whispering glades. Bambi sprang to his feet. He heard not only the owl, but the hurrying hoofs.

  “Gurri!” he marveled.

  She was pressing through the forest when he challenged her.

  “How did you do it? How did you make the jump?”

  “I didn’t jump.” Quickly she tried to tell him what had happened, but it was hard. She didn’t know how to explain the place in the vine that had opened.

  Bambi said finally, “It doesn’t matter how it happened, I suppose, so long as it happened. We’d better hurry to your mother.”

  They trotted through a maze of trees unknown to Gurri, but gradually she began to see something here or there that she remembered.

  The hare was sitting nervously beside the path toward the hideaway.

  “Oh, my soul and whiskers!” he stuttered when he saw them coming. “The fox has finally driven me quite out of my head. I’m seeing things, I swear I am!”

  Gurri, trotting by, cried, “Greetings!”

  “Greetings,” he replied faintly. “Oh, my goodness me, I’m hearing things, too!”

  Faline was wakeful in the clearing. Her ears tensed by anxiety caught quickly the sound of hoof-beats on the path.

  “Here we are, home again!” Bambi cried cheerily.

  An instant hush succeeded in the glade. Hundreds of intent and interested eyes peered from every vantage point of tree and hillock.

  “Gurri!” Faline faltered uncertainly.

  Geno gave three bucking leaps. “Gurri!”

  The silence all around was like a benediction.

  Chapter Eleven

  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.”

  “But, Gurri . . . !”

  “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.
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  Chapter Twelve

  ONE DAY YOU’LL TELL ME the story again, won’t you, Gurri?”

  It was almost time to leave the clearing for another night in the meadow. Geno and Gurri talked softly together while Faline still slept.

  It was September now. Toward the end of August there had been days of unusual coolness, but now it was Indian summer.

  The trees about the clearing were weighted down with berries, the hazel bushes heavily laden with bursting golden nuts. The oak trees, too, yielded generous harvest. The countless acorns fell on the ground, providing manna for the deer.

  Geno was chewing on an acorn as he spoke to Gurri. She answered quickly:

  “Why, Geno, of course I will. Any time you like.” She nibbled at an acorn herself. “Poor horned owl!” she added pensively.

  “Is that why you won’t talk about it, because of him?”

  “No . . . I don’t think so.” Gurri did not seem quite sure of herself. “It’s difficult to explain. I think sometimes that the things we value are not the right things. And then there were the enemies. . . .”

  “Whose enemies?”

  “I was thinking of the great horned owl’s.”

  “But how can he have enemies? What is he afraid of?”

  “Nothing in these parts, I think. But don’t you see, that makes things even more difficult to understand, somehow. Things that are not afraid call things that are afraid, enemies. It all seems hopeless.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  Geno stopped suddenly. He had heard something move in the undergrowth and now he saw a giant shape stealthily moving, head lowered as though it was cropping.

  “Ba-oh! Ba-oh!” he shrieked suddenly. “The Kings, Mother. The Kings are here!”

  Faline sprang from sleep, already bleating her distress.

  “Geno! Gurri! The Kings! Run!”

  Gurri ran a few steps after her mother and stopped. She looked around at these great creatures who struck terror simply by appearing. They were quietly nibbling the acorns. She stood her ground, not approaching nearer, but watching.

  “Gurri, come with us!” Geno cried urgently. “Don’t you understand, those are the Kings. You can’t stay there.”