by Felix Salten
Chapter Thirty-Four
NO LONGER WAS THE FOREST disturbed by the report of the thunder-stick. The boy, abashed by the way the tables had been turned on him, took to his bed.
Full of excitement, young birds adventured from their nests, fluttering with breathless squeaks from twig to twig. One-Eye, trotting along a forest path, watched them with a contemplative eye. He was not hungry and creatures so weak did not make good sport; yet he felt that, perhaps, one snap at them would give him satisfaction.
He stopped abruptly when he saw the shadow in the underbrush.
“Bambi?” he asked.
It was a long time since Bambi had been seen in the forest. Following his adventure with the young Him, he had vanished from sight. Many had sought him, but none had been able to track him down.
“Quite a stranger!” One-Eye said, grinning.
“That’s how I prefer to be with you,” Bambi remarked.
“Of course!” One-Eye spoke in his oiliest tones. “You’re very famous, now. The whole forest speaks of you as though you were already a legend. I should be honored that you speak to me at all.”
“If it’s an honor,” Bambi told him, “it’s very unwillingly bestowed. What I did, I did because I had to.”
“It was heroic of you,” said One-Eye with sly flattery.
Bambi shook his head. “Is it heroic to do what necessity demands?” He wheeled and disappeared.
One-Eye went on his way thoughtfully. His mouth felt dry and he headed for the pool. Evening was advancing quickly and the birds were silent.
Faline was still lying in the clearing, but she was alone. It seemed to her that this had become almost a normal condition. Geno, Gurri, Nello and Membo had affairs to attend to that took them from her side. She sighed, realizing that as the little birds were now learning to fly, so too her children would be leaving her.
She was thinking of the time of separation that must come to all the people of the forest, when she heard the slightest rustle in the thicket by the oak tree. Perri flirted her tail as she quickly turned to spy out the intruder.
“It’s Bambi,” she said. “Greetings, Bambi.”
“Greetings, Perri.” Bambi came out into the center of the clearing. “So you are alone, Faline.”
Faline rose. “Yes,” she said simply. “I am alone often now.”
“Yes.” Bambi’s voice was grave. “The time has come.”
Faline’s voice quivered. “It is a little hard to see them go.”
“I know. Will you be strong and tell them?”
“I . . .” She hesitated. “Must it be at once?”
“I’m afraid so. Would you rather they told you?” His tone became suddenly gay. “Do you remember how independent we were in our youth?”
“Oh, Bambi,” she cried, “it’s not a joking matter!”
“I know. So you must tell them, in the words only a mother can find.”
“And you—will you be leaving me too?”
He nuzzled her affectionately. “You know better than that, Faline. After you, I have my duties. The children must be taught the lore of the forest, the secrets of woodcraft. But very soon I shall come back. You know that, Faline.”
She knew it. She watched him go with new comfort in her heart.
Beside the pool, Geno, Lana, Boso and Gurri stood in restrained silence.
“The earth looks altogether different tonight,” sighed Lana. “The moon is as bright as hope, the breeze is soft.”
“The grass is so green and smooth I hardly like to eat it,” Geno said.
Boso whispered to Gurri: “I’ll never be as handsome as Até, I know, but I could try to take his place. . . .”
“You’re very modest tonight,” Gurri replied softly.
Geno lifted his head high and sniffed the air.
“Lana’s right. There is a difference. I feel bigger, as though I were a part of everything and everything was locked in me. Father was right. We are one with the trees and they with us. We have the same need to grow and flourish and sink our own roots into the earth; and so long as there is earth, both they and we will go on side by side.”
He stopped when he saw his sister shiver.
“What is it?” he asked.
The screech-owl, lighting on his apple branch, answered him.
“It’s that fox again,” he said.
Geno was able to make out the shadow moving at the forest’s edge.
“So it is,” he said contemptuously. “But don’t be afraid of him, Gurri. He won’t hurt you.”
“I can’t help it.” Gurri shuddered.
One-Eye left the shadows to cross the meadow. Geno met him, head lowered, Boso not far behind.
“Well,” said One-Eye, “if you don’t get more like your father every day!”
“What do you want?”
“A drink. Nothing more, I assure you.”
Geno moved slowly aside.
“Well, all right, go and get it. But don’t imagine you can catch us as you tried to catch the heron.”
“The heron!” One-Eyed murmured, remembering. “Of course, you were there, weren’t you?” His single eye gleamed evilly.
Gurri and Lana cried almost in one breath: “Be careful, Geno!”
Geno disregarded them. He snorted disdainfully.
“Of course I was there and it was then that I learned how to handle you.”
One-Eye managed a grin.
“I really should lose my temper with you, but in view of the respect in which I hold your father . . .” he licked the end of his nose reflectively . . . “I’ll just bid you goodbye.”
The screech-owl chuckled.
“Well, I always did say that time changes everything. . . . Yet, on the other hand . . .”
Geno grinned himself.
“Don’t contradict that one,” he said. “That’s the truth.”
Gurri gave a last shudder as she heard the sound of One-Eye lapping at the pool.
“If only I could get over being frightened of those creatures . . . !” She sighed. “You’re very brave, Geno.”
Geno seemed hardly to notice the compliment.
“Let’s go home,” he said. “Mother is alone.”
He led them trotting back toward the clearing. In the pathway the hare sat upright, a silver statuette of fur and moonlight.
“Greetings, friend hare,” Gurri called.
“Oh, greetings!” The hare jerked nervously to face them as they came. “That fox, now. Have you seen him?”
“He’s safe enough down by the pool. Geno took care of him,” Boso cried.
“Geno!” The hare sat upright as an exclamation point. “Oh, cunning and treachery—Geno!”
He watched them running by. Two crows looked down at them sleepily, their crops were full, their plumage shone. A robin dreamed of the thunder-stick. He dragged it from the ground like a long worm and swallowed it. A magpie stirred.
“I get a message . . . !” she cried in a faint echo of her waking voice.
Faline awaited them in the clearing. The moon was sinking low. It gleamed on the mighty, motionless branches of the oak. It outlined the sapling, stronger now, grown a little now, with poison ivy not so high upon its shoulders. The great pine stood up black and proud, never sleeping, hardly ever rustling. The maple leaves whispered with the passage of some night prowler bent on getting home before the dawn arrived. The owl’s far, melancholy voice was heard.
“Hah-ah, hah-aha!”
“It’s nice to see you children all together,” Faline said. “It’s been a long time. . . .”
“Oh, Mother,” Gurri cried, “we’ve been thoughtless.”
Faline smiled at them lovingly. “Not thoughtless at all. You can’t be tied to me forever.”
Slowly Membo and Nello came through the trees. Faline embraced them with a look.
“All of you,” she said. “All of you together. What a family!”
Impulsively Gurri said, “We’ll never leave you alone again.”
Faline smiled again. “Oh yes, you will. How can I continue to look after such great, hulking children? You are grown up. Why, just look at Geno’s crown . . . !”
She stopped. Geno said soberly:
“You’re sending us away!”
The silence that grew between them was the silence of understanding.
“That’s right,” Faline told them gently. She had it now, all the courage that the forest and the life within it gave to her. “That’s right, my dear. I’m sending you away.”
“N-no!” stammered Membo wretchedly.
“Yes, my son. You and your brother have both grown strong and quick. My task is finished. You, Gurri, will go—and Geno, too.”
Geno said softly, “You are good to us, Mother.”
For a moment Faline gazed at him steadily. “You understand, don’t you, my son?” she said; and then, to their surprise, she left them abruptly.
Boso said, “We must go home. We, too, must be free.” He turned to Membo. “You and your brother must join with me. That is, if Geno . . .”
Geno shook his head. “No,” he said. “I think . . .”
He looked up quickly. A shadow moved where the morning mist hung thickest.
“Father,” he cried, “will you teach me the lore of the forest, how to be a shadow moving in it as you do . . . ?”
“Find your sleeping place, my son, and when night falls we’ll begin.”
Faline stood alone, not so far from the thicket that she could not hear what passed there. She knew them as they went, each one of them: Geno’s eager hooves, the lighter steps of Gurri, the brothers slowly stepping in time like a single animal.
A quiet shape with its long legs tucked behind drifted high above her—the heron going in the morning to his stream. She heard an agitated twittering in the trees above her. Two finches were flying wearily from branch to branch.
“What is it?” she asked gently.
“It’s our son, our great big son. . . .” replied the mother bird.
“Who ate more at a sitting than a regiment of crows in a week,” quavered her mate.
“He’s gone away from us. . . .”
“Without a word . . . except to grumble at the size of the nest and the worms I brought. . . . My goodness, they were as big as garter snakes. I almost broke my neck dragging them out of the ground.”
“You’re always grumbling, finch,” his mate accused him.
“I’m sorry, my love.”
“And so you should be!” Her voice broke. “Such a son he was. We had such plans for him. . . .”
“Well, he’s gone,” sighed the father.
A cuckoo, Faline thought. She felt happy suddenly. All the children of the forest came to the time of leaving, only some of them were good children and some were bad.
Hers were gone, but they would come again and they were good children.
“They go,” she murmured to the finches, “and the better they are, the more we miss them. But they must go. That is the fate of all parents.”
She saw a well-beloved shadow move with usual silence just where the tree trunks stood in mist.
With light and quickened step she went toward it.
Felix Salten was an author and critic in Vienna, Austria. He was the author of plays, short stories, novels, travel books, and essay collections. His most famous work is Bambi.
Richard Cowdrey is well known for illustrating many children’s books, including the New York Times number one bestseller Bad Dog, Marley! Originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, Cowdrey graduated from the Columbus College of Art and Design and is currently a freelance illustrator.
authors.simonandschuster.com/Felix-Salten
authors.simonandschuster.com/Richard-Cowdrey
ALADDIN
Simon & Schuster, New York
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Also by Felix Salten
Bambi
Renni the Rescuer
A Forest World
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
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This Aladdin hardcover edition February 2014
Text copyright © 1939 by The Bobbs-Merrill Company
Illustrations copyright © 2014 by Richard Cowdrey
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
ALADDIN is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc., and related logo is a registered trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
Designed by Hilary Zarycky
Jacket designed by Karin Paprocki
Jacket illustration copyright © 2014 by Richard Cowdrey
The text of this book was set in Yana.
Library of Congress Control Number 2013951051
ISBN 978-1-4424-8746-8 (hc)
ISBN 978-1-4424-8745-1 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4424-8747-5 (eBook)