1282. Under what circumstance does a teacher tell one of her students her entire life story? If you assume it happened after class that would be very nearly the truth. So I debated in my mind if I should tell them more about Mrs. Festini, but to gain time to consider the question, and to think about how I might tell her story without saying too much about myself in the process, I put them off by asking also about the fate of Otis, and the blacksmith's boy.
1283, So the Duck said. "The wolves lay dead in the path and Otis and the blacksmith's boy stepped over their bodies and continued on their way. It was their habit to stop just before reaching the boys home, and spend several minutes playing boy-dog games before separating for the day; these were the standard dog-boy games consisting of fetch, head butting, and wrestling.
1284. It happened that on this particular fateful day, several members of Otis' extended family were spying on them from a nearby wood. What they saw filled them with understandable consternation. They could accept watching fetch-a-stick, and they were untroubled by head butting, but the wrestling was very upsetting for them.
1285. Perhaps it was seeing Otis having so much fun, whereas their lives consisted of unending desperate frustration. The sight filled them with understandable envy. Here they were, half starved as always, wondering where their next meal was coming from, and the eternal question of if they would be killed it the process of acquiring it; and then here was Otis fetching sticks in the grass with wild abandon.
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