Page:Bambi A Life in the Woods (1928).pdf/163

ant’s wife. She was sitting on the ground, hovering over her eggs. “My husband was terribly frightened,” she went on in an irritable tone. “And so was I. But I don’t dare stir from this spot. I wouldn’t stir from this spot no matter what happened. You could step on me and I wouldn’t move.”

Bambi was a little embarrassed. “I beg your pardon,” he stammered, “I didn’t mean to do it.”

“O, not at all,” the pheasant’s wife replied. “It was nothing so dreadful after all. But my husband and I are so nervous at present. You can understand why. . . .”

Bambi didn’t understand why at all and went on. He was quieter now. The forest sang around him. The light grew more radiant and warmer. The leaves on the bushes, the grass underfoot and the moist, steaming earth began to smell more sweetly. Bambi’s young strength swelled within him and streamed through all his limbs so that he walked around stiffly with awkward restrained movements like a mechanical thing.

He went up to a low alder shrub and, lifting his feet high, beat on the earth with such savage blows that the dirt flew. His two sharp-pointed