I’ll be on watch.” The magpie flew to him and balanced on a branch, promising, “I’ll report even the slightest danger.”

Tambo nodded gratefully. He knew he could count on his sentries.

He would have liked to talk with the lively squirrel and the wise magpie about how shy the roes were toward him. He had often been at the point of mentioning this coolness, which he could not understand. He wanted an explanation very badly. Yet he could never bring himself to talk about it. He was ashamed because they seemed to shun him.

Gently he laid his head on the ground, moved his chin back and forth several times and then fell asleep.

The sun warmed the forest, gradually drank up the dew that sparkled like a million diamonds, and summoned all life to renewal. In answer the grass sprouted with vigor, violets opened their dark blue eyes, lilies of the valley awoke and moved their leaves like long listening ears. Ants scurried busily in the jungle of the turf. Butterflies unfolded their wings to dance playfully in the air. Tiny insects explored, bumblebees buzzed.

Juicy buds appeared on the bushes, so many that it seemed a green veil had been flung over the brown branches. As if by magic, the trees let their foliage emerge. Though still tiny, gay buds clustered on every branch of the chestnuts, oaks and birches, and on the firs new light-green needles breathed a spicy perfume.

The fragrance drawn forth by the sun’s warmth was wonderfully varied and exciting. From the forest floor rose the sturdy smell of the wood of the trees, bursting with sap. From the blades of grass and from the flowers streamed waves of good clean odors and impulses of eager new life.

Martin had been perched for hours on the high platform of his lookout and could not rouse himself to leave. He had watched day come, had seen the sun rise into the heavens and the sky change from pale gray to light yellow, to shimmering green, and to the flame of the dawn. He had watched the does grazing in the meadow, Tambo the stag, the hares, the darting weasels, the awkwardly galloping hedgehogs, the slinking foxes. He had been moved to joy by the blackbirds’ song. The chattering of the magpies and clucking of the pheasants had put him in a glad mood.

He looked close about him, then peered into the distance. This sea of treetops was his property, his world. It always brought him happiness.

Finally he climbed down and passed along the narrow uphill path to his house, the Forest Lodge. It stood in the middle of a large garden against the foot of the hillock. In the upper corner of the parklike acre was the stable.

Martin loved the isolation which the Lodge gave him. His only human companions were his old forester Peter and Peter’s wife Babette. They were enough for Martin. For these two, who had served his parents before him and had watched over him since his childhood, were his friends. Solitary life was no hardship for him; and now that he could hardly remember when he had first chosen it, it had become a matter of course. The hump on his back, and the teasing and mockery that his deformity had drawn upon him as a schoolboy, had made him prefer to be alone. Here in the Lodge he lived completely unnoticed by the world. In this quietness of his own choosing, now so familiar, he was well satisfied.

He was never lonely here. The creatures in the stable, as well as those in the forest, had to be tended and cared for.