Forest World (6 page)

“Listen to me,” Manni urged. “I tell you I know Him well. You must trust Him. I've seen every creature that was knocked down in the forest with the thunder-stick. It was always for mercy. And I've told you there's never been a young one among them. Never! And He'll spare yours too.”

An hour passed. As dawn was coming softly, Peter stepped into the barn. He had been expecting Lisa's
calving for days and had been keeping close watch on her day and night. He had a bucket in his hands and a lighted lantern.

At sight of Lisa's crowded stall, he laughed. “Now, look, children, this is impossible. I need room so I can help her. Go away!” He patted the smooth shanks of the horses and added, “Go on. Be reasonable. There, boy—there, good girl—there.”

Obediently the horses returned to their stalls.

The stallion whispered to Witch, “I'm really concerned about the baby.”

“No reason to be,” answered the mare, also in a whisper. “He only wants to help her.”

“Manni, you're in my way,” scolded Peter in a gentle voice.

“That Gray has to meddle in everything,” the stallion muttered.

Peter went to work, relieving the cow's pain as best he could. Lisa felt the relief he brought her, and after another half hour Peter held the little calf in his arms.

He took several handfuls of bran from his bucket and sprinkled them over the small moist body. Then he carefully stood the calf on its unsteady legs near its mother. “There you are.” He gave Lisa a friendly smile. “The rest is
your
affair.”

The calf stood dizzily while Lisa proudly washed it with her tongue. Peter saw that everything was in order and that the calf was muzzling for its milk. He caressed the cow's flanks. “That was pretty well done,” he said, and went out of the barn.

He was no sooner gone than the horses rushed to Lisa's stall.

“Oh, what a cute baby!” cried the mare.

“It's beautiful all right,” the stallion admitted.

Manni asked Lisa, “Now you're happy, aren't you?”

The cow didn't answer, but went on washing her baby.

“Never forget the help that He gave you,” said the donkey.

“He and His help! I don't trust it,” whispered the stallion.

Lisa lifted her head and uttered a loud cry of despair. Her big dark eyes showed returning fear.

“
Must
you frighten her?” the donkey scolded Devil. “You ought to be grateful yourself and you talk like a base ingrate!”

“I'm only warning her, that's all,” Devil defended himself. “Just in case—”

“Well, your warning isn't needed!” Manni grew angry. “He was good to the milk-giver. He's always good to us, always does the very best He can for us.” He turned back to Lisa. “You'd better be grateful and stop being so suspicious! Nobody's going to take your baby!”

“I hope you're right,” Lisa sighed. She resumed her washing.

“How that baby drinks!” Witch said gently.

“It tastes good to him,” remarked Devil, who felt somewhat ashamed now.

Thoughtfully, contentedly, Manni watched the cow and her calf.

T
HE THUNDER-STICK HAD SPOKEN again.

Martin had known that it would, and stayed home.

A dangerous outlaw stag had to be killed. He had run amok. With his two sharp daggers he had threatened to murder or wound every opponent he could find. He had been attacking all the other stags—until Peter found him.

And now Arilla, the dead outlaw's mate, would not move from beside his body.

Even when Peter lifted his victim up and carried him away, Arilla slipped along too, hidden in the thicket. She looked mournfully at the dangling head of her mate. When it finally disappeared from sight, she sent forth a trembling farewell.

“How beautiful he was! How wonderfully beautiful and proud!”

She wept, for she thought she was alone.

“Proud?” Rabot, a young buck, joined her. “Proud as evil!”

“No!” she contradicted him. “He was brave—the bravest of all!”

“With a crown like his it was easy to be brave.”

Arilla broke into fresh tears. “That crown! Long, straight as a fir, and so richly pearled! With points as blindingly white as sapling wood when he had rubbed off their covering!”

“Those sharp points were deadly and he threatened everyone with them!”

“Yes.” Arilla straightened up proudly. “You feared him. Everyone feared him.”

“Does that seem good to you? That is certainly a worthy ambition to have! To make everyone afraid of you!”

“Well, it
is
.” Arilla tossed her head. “Then you're respected. No one attacks you. No one dares to.”

“You're wrong, Arilla. Listen, I'm your friend—we're all friends together, aren't we?”

“Ye-es.”

“All right, then tell me: who was his friend? Not a single one of us!”

“He didn't need any friends!”

“Oh, now you're wrong again. Everybody needs friends. Having friends gives a fine feeling of security. Friends make life happy.”

Arilla kept her head turned away. “He had a feeling of security. Because—”

“Because he fought so? Wait a minute. Wait a minute. He might have been secure against attack without so much violence. None of us ever thinks of attacking another one of us. We fight a little bit in mating time, yes. But apart from that we're always peaceful.
You think he was respected? Well, he wasn't. Fear isn't respect. When I'm afraid, I avoid the one who makes me afraid, but to my mind he was a bad fellow and I pay no respect to a bad fellow!” Rabot ended emphatically.

“He
wasn't
bad,” Arilla protested; “not to me. He was good to me.”

“Now you
are
mistaken!” Rabot retorted sharply. “You can hold it against me if you want to. But I say you're badly mistaken. Every one of us knows he was rude to you. Domineering and ill-tempered! A bully! Deny it if you can!”

Arilla dropped her head. “I can't,” she whispered. “But I loved him. His death hurts me.”

“That's something else again, Arilla. But you're alone in your love and your sorrow.”

“You mean nobody liked him at all? Nobody is sorry he's dead?”

“No one! In fact everybody's pleased he's gone!”

Arilla shuddered. “How horrible!”

“Yes, it
is
horrible to have no friends to mourn you.
Now you see, Arilla, what it really means to be ‘proud,' and ‘brave,' and everything else that you say about him. He was a ruffian, a terror to all who wanted to live peacefully. An object of hatred! Now he's gone and we all feel relieved. So you must stop grieving. He was never worthy of your love and he's not worth your sorrow.”

“Is this just your queer way of consoling me?” Arilla whispered in distressed suspicion.

“No! But it
should
console you—to learn the plain truth. If you don't believe
me
, wait and see whether anybody else has a bit of regret for him.”

Arilla stood wretchedly. Then she broke out with, “I never thought—I never believed that He would do anything to him! That He would kill him with His thunder-stick—He, who was always so gentle!”

“And just. Gentle and just. Do you deny that He's just?”

“Yes! Yes! I do! I can never have confidence in Him again!”

A fawn came up to join in the talk. “Don't be bitter, Arilla. You forget how good He has always been to us.”

A few others, bucks and fawns, arrived.

“We're all grateful for His generosity,” a strong roebuck said decisively.

Members of the group around him agreed loudly.

“That's right!”

“He deserves our confidence!”

“Yes, even our love—”

“Why, in the winter He sees to it that we don't starve!”

Arilla looked pleadingly around the circle. “But you aren't
all
glad He killed my mate—?”

A chorus of “Yes! Yes, we are!” answered her.

“He's given us peace from a murderer,” a handsome buck declared.

“Just as we've hoped He would,” added another. “We've all been hoping for this very thing. We expected it of Him. We trusted Him to come and help us. And now He's done it—He's put an end to the wretch.”

The last speaker pushed forward. “Look, Arilla, look at me.” He showed his flank along which ran a wide scar. “That's a little token your mate gave me. Only a
miracle saved me then! I was sick and weak for a long time and suffered horrible pain!”

“Are you still surprised, Arilla?” Rabot asked quietly. “Or do you think we're cruel?”

She shook her head silently.

And then, all at once, they were saying: “We're sorry for you, Arilla! . . . We always pitied you. . . . You were blinded. . . . You can begin a new life now. . . . Yes, yes, a new life, no longer enslaved . . . no longer mistreated . . . no longer intimidated. . . . You'll learn of love . . . of tenderness, from another mate. . . .”

But Arilla would not listen anymore. She made a sudden leap and fled.

“Poor fool,” was Rabot's judgment. Still, for a long time he gazed after her.

The buck with the scar concluded: “Well, anyway, we're rid of that tyrant. Now we can live without fear again.”

O
FF AND ON FOR A long time Shah the Persian tomcat had been ranging the forest. Peter had tried hard to ambush him, but the cat had succeeded in outwitting his master. At length Peter laid a snare and caught him. Shah was now facing his last moment on earth, for the tender-hearted Peter had steeled himself to execute his pet for preying on the little forest folk.

But Shah sprang out of the box trap so gracefully and
innocently, and purred around Peter so lovingly, that he was not condemned, but pardoned instead. Martin and Babette welcomed the tomcat into the house again as if a beloved prodigal had returned, repentant.

Shah, however, did not know he had sinned and knew even less of repentance. So he accepted the welcoming caresses of his master as his just due. Condescendingly, in an offhand manner, he renewed his friendship with Treff, the hunting dog.

“Come on,” Shah whispered. “I want to see the horses again and Gray and the cow.”

“The cow's just had a calf.”

“That's fine,” Shah said casually.

Treff sniffed the tomcat. “You smell of the forest. You smell interesting.”

“I had a nice time there,” Shah admitted.

They stole out of the house and ran to the stable.

At sight of Shah, Manni exclaimed, “You back again?”

“We thought you'd died,” Devil neighed.

Shah swaggered around the stallion's legs. “On the contrary, I lived richly and happily.”

“Who fed you?” asked Witch naïvely.

Shah gave himself still greater airs. “No one! I fed myself. A pheasant one day, a hare the next. In between, sometimes a squirrel or a jay. I tell you, it was a wonderful life!”

“Murder,” grumbled Lisa, “murder . . .”

Shah arched his back and challenged the cow. “I dare you to say that again!”

“Don't listen to her,” Devil soothed him. “She's stupid.”

“I can't understand what's so wonderful about killing other creatures,” Manni put in. “But since I don't understand it I won't express an opinion.”

“No,” Witch agreed, “I won't give my opinion about it either.”

Devil shook his mane. “Such things are strange to us.”

“Right!” chuckled the Persian; “you're soft grass-eaters. But
this
one's my friend.” Shah rubbed tenderly along Treff's flank. “He understands me. He envies me!”

“Maybe I do,” Treff admitted. “I can imagine how
happy you were. But I could never do anything like that myself. I have too much conscience.”