“What a handsome bird! Oh, that shimmering neck—”

Manni started in fresh surprise as a hare sat up before him. The hare’s whiskers vibrated with busy sniffing.

“Greetings, little friend,” the donkey addressed him. “Did I wake you up?”

“Greetings,” whispered the hare. “Wake me up? Oh, no. I mustn’t sleep. I can hardly ever sleep. I must always protect myself!”

“Why?” Manni asked sympathetically.

The hare suddenly pricked up his ears, darted between the legs of the startled donkey and sped off. Manni turned his neck to stare after the wildly fleeing fellow, only to see him disappear.

A sharp scent penetrated the donkey’s nostrils. Before he could gather his wits there was a violent snapping of small branches and a fox came loping through the underbrush. The pheasant screeched and tried to fly, but too late. The fox fell on the back of his prey, pressing the bird flat to the ground. His bared teeth bit hard into the pheasant’s neck.

Manni was terribly frightened by the scream of the pheasant. He saw the wings jerk wide and helpless, saw blood gush from the fatal wound. He tried to control his horror.

“You treacherous murderer!” he cried.

But the fox glared back at him, his jowls drawn up so that his teeth could be seen. “You fool!” he snarled. “You stupid grass-eater! Don’t you know what hunger is? Get away! Interfere with me and you’ll be sorry!”

The hair on Manni’s back rose. He stared hypnotized at the raving red animal.

The fox completed the kill and then yapped at the donkey, “Did you understand? I said get out of here!”

Manni fled, speeded by the horror of what he had seen. The rank odor of the fox stayed in his nostrils. He was trembling. “Enough!” he told himself. “I’ve had enough of the forest—the murderous forest!”

He ran faster and faster, his galloping a flight. When he reached the gate and saw the garden, the roofs of the house and the barn, he breathed a deep sigh of relief.

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Chapter 4

IS MARTIN PORING OVER HIS books again?” Babette, the forester’s wife, inquired.

“No,” old Peter reported. “He’s sketching.”

“Where is he?”

“In the barn or somewhere around.”

“Call him in. He must eat something.”

“When he wants to eat, he’ll come in of his own accord.”

“What a way to live!” sighed Babette good-humoredly, pushing back her fluffy gray hair. “Always alone.”

“But that’s what he prefers,” Peter said.

“I know. He really never feels lonely at all.” Babette sighed again. “How often we’ve said these same things. . . .” She brushed her eyes with the back of her hand. “Ever since that time when he was still a schoolboy—you remember, Peter. When he came trudging up from school, after the children had teased him so. His father and mother dead, poor lamb, and he a poor orphan with a hump on his back—and those children teasing and making fun of him. . . .