And they forget, too, that in babyhood, when they did not know the language of men, and only babbled it clumsily, they understood the speech of all innocent creatures. This understanding, word for word, vanishes forever; even the memory of it vanishes, and animals become to them what they are to everyone else—dumb friends.

Today Annerle understood the squirrel’s terrified plea: “Help me!” She understood also the shouting of jays and magpies in the branches of the beech: “He’s still there! He’s lying in wait, the robber! Little girl, help the squirrel mother! You can save her.”

Annerle asked the poor creature, “Have you any children?”

And the squirrel replied sorrowfully, “I had five. Only one is left. Two the marten got; one the Owl caught at night; one the sparrow hawk flew off with. That’s the way it goes; it can’t be helped. Now I have only my little Perri. But who knows if she’s still alive?”

From the hazel bush a finch called out, “Yes, she’s alive; calm yourself.”

The squirrel sat up. “Thank you, kind finch.”

“If you want to thank me,” the finch called, “leave me and my brood alone.”

“Leave you alone?” said the squirrel. “Who spares me and my brood? You’ll have children again, my kind finch friend,” she called after the bird, which had taken wing, “and I shall have children again,” she added. Then the squirrel went on, turning to Annerle: “You just have to be careful not to fall victim to someone stronger. It’s easy enough to get away from owls and sparrow hawks and other winged enemies. But the marten is worse. He can climb a tree as well as I. Then I have to move like a flash, or I’m lost. Do you know how far he chased me? All the way over here from where I live. The beech was the third tree I jumped to. I was dreadfully tired and out of breath, and my strength was used up. In desperation I came down to the ground. Luckily I landed in your lap.”

Annerle laughed, and the squirrel, who had been smiling politely, said with a sigh, “Yes, this is a lovely world, but not an easy one.”

From the beech tree the magpie chattered, “He’s gone!”

The jay screeched, “Gone away!”

And the woodpecker said with a piercing laugh, “By day that fellow always crawls away and hides.”

“Then I’ll go look after Perri,” the squirrel decided. She hopped to the ground, leaped wide-legged through grass and bushes, and was high up the trunk of the nearest oak in an instant. She whisked like a flash through the treetops, and vanished.

The sun had risen magnificently. In the sky the clouds scattered, and the pale green of the heavens was overspread with a delicate blue.

There was a sharp crack in the distance.

After some time Annerle’s father came home with the owner of the forest.

She and the dogs ran to meet them. Her father at once picked her up in his arms to caress her.

Then he patted the two dogs. “Work for you, Fido,” he said.

“Well,” said the owner, “it will hardly be much work. The buck is not thirty paces from the opening in the underbrush.”

“A little practice never does any harm,” replied the gamekeeper. “That’s what I wanted the dog to have, or I’d have fetched the buck right away.”

“First let’s have breakfast,” the owner decided.

The two sat down at the table in front of the house, with Annerle between them. Grandmother soon brought coffee, bread, butter and eggs.

Meanwhile Annerle began to talk, and as they ate she went on eagerly about the squirrel that had fled to her; what it had said; about the warning cries of the magpie and the jay; about their reassurance when the marten had gone, and about the good news of Perri which the finch had brought. Her speech was childish, full of those imperfect, often homemade, words peculiar to children.

“I don’t quite understand what the little one is talking about,” the owner whispered.

Annerle heard him and began again at the beginning with redoubled enthusiasm.

Her father smiled. “The child is so lively she imagines whole fairy tales. I don’t know just what she’s trying to tell us either.