The Black Fawn Part 2

"How about getting back to work?"

"Yes, sir."

"Delbert," Gram said sharply, "that boy should rest."

"Pshaw. He'll rest better after he works harder. How 'bout it?"

"Yes, sir," Bud said without enthusiasm.

The morning had been hard and the afternoon was torture. But Bud stayed grimly with the weeds until the sun lowered and Gramps called to him that it was time for supper. Bud was almost reeling with fatigue and he was grateful when Gramps pumped a basin of water for him to wash in.

Although he happily stuffed himself with Gram's supper, only his resolution to show no weakness kept him from dozing once supper was over.

Evidently as brisk as he had been in the early morning, Gramps bounced from his chair. "If you're done, Bud, how 'bout giving me a hand with the milking?"

"Delbert," Gram said, "you're a . . ."

"I'm a what?" Gramps asked innocently.

"A Simon Legree. You're working that youngster a sight harder than you ever worked yourself."

Gramps said piously, "The Lord said there shall be a day and there shall be a night. Man shall work for as long as day shall last. Right offhand, I can't rightly recall if He said anything 'bout working nights, but I expect He didn't know much about farmers or He would have. Anyhow, those cows got to be milked."

"Until now you've managed very nicely to milk them yourself."

"But now I got a boy to help me with all the ch.o.r.es I used to do,"

Gramps said. "C'mon, Bud."

Bud trailed the old man to the barn where Gramps flicked on the switch that lighted it. The first thing Bud noticed was the barn's odor, pungent and sweet, with only a faint suggestion of rancidness.

Locked in their stanchions, the four cows were either nibbling grain from the boxes that stood beside each of them or l.u.s.tily chewing hay.

Bud stood back. Pulling weeds had been strange enough. The cows in their stanchions were as alien as visitors from another planet.

Gramps went to the end of the stable, opened a small door and disappeared through it. He returned with two milking pails. He kept one and thrust the other at Bud, who took it although he hadn't the faintest notion of what he was supposed to do with it.

"Ever do any milking?" Gramps demanded.

"No, sir."

"You'll never learn any younger. I'll show you."

He pulled a stool up beside a placid red and white cow that was so used to being milked that she did not even move when Gramps began to strip her udders. It looked easy. But when Gramps rose and motioned for Bud to take his place, the best Bud could do was to coax a trickle from one teat and a few drops from another. Gramps watched for a moment without comment and went to milk another cow.

Bud continued the uneven struggle but there was less than an inch of milk in the bottom of the pail when Gramps returned. He watched a moment and said,

"Let me do it."

Bud was thankful, but he tried hard not to show that he was as he surrendered the milking stool and let Gramps sit down. Milk hissed and foamed into the pail as Gramps took every last drop of milk from the cow's swollen udders. Bud went with him to the little room at the end of the stable and, feeling guilty and ashamed, watched him pour the milk into a can that stood neck-deep in cold water.

Back in the house he fell asleep as soon as his head struck the pillow.

He was too tired to notice the room or anything except that he was in bed.

He seemed scarcely to have fallen asleep when he felt someone shaking him awake. Bud opened his eyes to see the murky dawn at the windows and Gramps standing over him.

"Come on," Gramps said. "We don't lay abed on farms."

Bud waited until Gramps had gone, for now that he was awake, it didn't seem possible that he could hurt in so many places and all at the same time. Then he climbed stiffly out of bed and dressed. When he walked downstairs to breakfast, his head was high and his step was as firm as he could make it.

The second day was a repet.i.tion of the first, except that when the beans were finished, Gramps set him to weeding onions. But more and more often Bud raised his head to look at the surrounding forest, and he renewed his promise to himself to find out what lay behind those trees at the edge of the forest.

Bud looked resentfully down at his empty pie plate and, as much as he wanted to, he could not look up again.

"I guess," Gram said, "that a body needn't tell all he knows and is a fool if he does. Whatever it is you mustn't do, don't do it. I'm sure Delbert will do the milking tonight. Why don't you go for a walk in the woods?"

He sprang up with renewed energy and went outside. Shep rose to tag along with him and together they entered the cool forest.

Bud walked slowly. He did not know how to interpret the things he saw and heard around him, but he did not doubt that all of it was wonderful.

He jumped when an owl cried, was frightened for a moment when a dead snag crashed with an unearthly noise and laughed when a jay shrieked.

His confidence mounted so that when he heard two sharp, blasting snorts, he continued to advance.

Two minutes later he stopped in his tracks. Not twenty feet away, its wobbly feet braced to keep it from falling, a tiny fawn no more than two hours old stared at him in wide-eyed wonder.

chapter 2

The fawn trembled on legs so new and untried, and so slender that they seemed scarcely able to support his jack-rabbit-sized body. His ears were ridiculously long and his staring, fascinated eyes were all out of proportion to his tiny head. The white stripes and spots that mark the young of all white-tailed deer stood out against an undercoating of hair that was abnormally dark; on the neck and shoulders it was nearly black.

The gentle Shep wagged his tail and took a step nearer this tiny wild baby. Raising a front foot, the fawn tapped a hoof no bigger than a twenty-five-cent piece and looked back over his shoulder at the laurel copse where the doe had left him. Scenting the approach of a dog and a human being, she had fled. The little buck should have stayed in hiding, but his natural curiosity had overridden the doe's warning not to move.

For a moment Bud was too bewildered and delighted to think clearly. Then he was lifted on a cloud of ecstasy and sympathy. He was sure the fawn had been abandoned by his father and mother or that they were dead. Like Bud, the little buck was left to s.h.i.+ft for himself in a cheerless and friendless world, and Bud felt that he was forever bound to this tiny deer. There was a bond between them that nothing else could share and nothing could ever break. As long as either endured, Bud decided, each would love the other because each understood the other. They were brothers.

"Hi, little guy," Bud said softly.

Shep, tail wagging, head bent and ears tumbled forward, stayed beside him as he took the fawn in both arms. Soft as a cloud, the fawn surrendered to his embrace and gravely smelled his arm with a nose as delicate as an orchid.

"Don't be afraid," Bud crooned. "You won't be hurt. Nothing will ever hurt you."

He spoke almost fiercely, mindful of his own many hurts, and stared into s.p.a.ce as he cradled the fawn. Shep sat near, his jaws parted and beaming approval as only a dog can. Bud's heart spiraled upward. Now, at last, he had found a true friend.

He was unaware of pa.s.sing time or of long evening shadows. He only knew that he wanted to stay with this little black buck forever.

"What'd you find, Bud?"