The unfortunate hunter - From "Fables on the TELEPHONE" - Gianni Rodari - 1961
“Get the gun, Giuseppe, take a rifle and go hunting,” that woman one morning said to her son. “Tomorrow your sister is getting married and wants to eat polenta and hare.”
Giuseppe took the gun and went hunting. He saw immediately a hare leaping from a fence and running into a field. He pointed his rifle, took aim and pulled the trigger. But the gun said Pum!, with a real human voice, and rather than shoot the bullet, dropped it on the floor.
Giuseppe picked it up and looked astonished. Then he looked closely at the gun, and it seemed just the same as ever, but in the meantime instead of shooting it had said: Pum!, with a cheerful and fresh little voice. Giuseppe also looked into the barrel, but how could it be, come on, that there was someone hiding? In fact, inside the barrel there was nothing and no one.
“And mom who wants the hare. And my sister who wants to eat it with polenta ...”
At that moment the hare from before reappeared before Giuseppe, but this time had a white head scarf, and orange blossoms on the veil, and kept his eyes down, and walked with mincing little steps.
“Look,” said Giuseppe, “even the hare is going to get married. Patience, I'll shoot a pheasant.”
A little farther into the woods, in fact, he saw a pheasant who was walking on the path, not at all frightened, as on the first day of the hunt, when the pheasants do not yet know what a rifle is.
Joseph aimed, pulled the trigger, and the gun did Pam!, it said Pam! Pam!, twice, as a child would with his wooden gun. The cartridge fell to the ground and frightened some red ants, which ran to take refuge under a pine tree.
“Very well,” said Giuseppe, who was beginning to get angry, “mother will be really happy if I come back with an empty game bag.”
The pheasant, who upon hearing that pam, pam, had dived into the bushes, reappeared on the path, and this time I followed his little ones, in a line, with a great desire to laugh at him, and behind all walked the mother, proud and happy as if they had been given the first prize.
“Ah, you're happy, you,” muttered Giuseppe. “You've been married for a while. And now what do I shoot at?” He reloaded the gun with great care and looked around. There was only a blackbird on a branch, and it whistled as if to say: “Shoot me, shoot me."
Giuseppe fired. But the gun said, Bang! as children do when they read the comics. And it added a little noise that seemed like a chuckle. The blackbird whistled merrily as before, as if to say: "You’ve shot, you’ve heard, you have a bit of a stubble beard."
“I expected it,” Giuseppe said. “But you see, today the guns are on strike.”
‘You had a good hunt, Giuseppe?” his mother asked him when he returned.
“Yes, Mum. I took three fine fat angry ones. Who knows how good they will be, with polenta.”