Unit 6: This is Jody’s Fawn

Penny Baxter allowed Jody to go find the fawn and raise it because he was feeling guilty about taking away its mother, whose organs were used to cure his snake bite. He agreed to Jody’s interest in bringing the fawn home as he did not want the little deer, who was orphaned for no fault of its own, to die from starvation. Penny felt a sense of responsibility towards the fawn when Jody requested him if they could raise the little deer.

Penny had killed the doe to save his own life. Therefore, he felt a moral responsibility to take care of the fawn, which may otherwise die out of starvation. He felt it would be ungrateful to leave the little deer all alone in the forest. Hence, when Jody asked to bring home the fawn, he readily agreed to it. Hearing this, Doc Wilson said to Jody’s mother that both Jody and Penny were right in their decision, i.e., ‘Nothing in the world comes quite free.’

Jody took very good care of the fawn when he accepted its responsibility. He would gently stroke its neck slowly and wrap his hands around its soft neck. While taking it home, he picked up the little fawn and walked through the thick bushes of the forest, shielding its face from the sharp vines. When Jody became tired, he stopped by on his way home and took some rest. He allowed the little deer to follow him and carried it up the staircase on reaching home. When he offered it milk to drink from the gourd, the deer initially didn’t know how to respond. However, the deer slowly started drinking milk from Jody’s hands when he dipped his fingers in the milk and thrust them into the fawn’s soft wet mouth.

Jody’s mother was astonished when she heard that Jody wanted to bring home the young fawn. But when she came to know that the doe which saved Penny’s life was the little fawn’s mother, she was left speechless. She gasped with surprise and held the coffee pot in mid-air. She was not in favour of bringing a wild animal home. She told Jody that they had nothing else to feed the fawn except milk, which he would need to sacrifice in order to feed the little deer.