CHINOOK PLAYS THE CLOWN
Chinook had fished till his sides were rounded with his catch, then he
had curled up in a ball in a tree top and taken a nap, while Snookie was
having her adventure.
When he awoke, he went for a swim in the sunny shallows, and then he was
hungry again, for Chinook was growing fast. Just as the lowering sun
began sending slant bars through the trees that fringed the canyon rim,
he came to where the canyon floor widened into a meadow sweet with
honey-lupin, shoulder high. Bees hummed among the blossoms, and it
occurred to him that there might be a bee tree somewhere near by. Sure
enough, a tantalizing odor came to him on the breeze. It was the work of
but a few minutes to follow his nose till he found the tree where the
bees were going in and out in a black swarm.
The owners objected hotly to his discovery of their hidden stores, but
they couldn’t sting much through his thick fur. They really could do
little harm except about his face, and with slaps of his fore paws he
kept the insects away from his eyes and nose as he climbed the tree.
Then a red hot fellow left a sting in his sensitive nose and several
burned his ears and lips, but he had had experience of bee trees before,
and he managed to keep his eyes protected. Then, oh, joy of joys, he had
his head in the hollow where they kept their honey, and as he sampled
it, he considered it more than worth the stings they had given him. Face
and fore paws quickly became plastered with the sticky mass, and when he
had made very sure he could reach no more, he backed down the tree
leaving sticky paw marks all along the trunk.
Now the ground beneath was strewn with dried pine needles and fallen
leaves, and when he walked, the leaves stuck to his feet. Biting at them
to see what was the matter, he got his sticky face all plastered with
twigs and leaves, and trying to wipe them off with his fore paws, he
only made things worse, until his eyes were too covered with leaves and
he couldn’t even see where he was going. Stumbling blindly about, and
still slapping at the bees who seemed to want to get eaten alive, he
fairly tripped over his clumsy feet, which were now twice as wide as
they ought to have been. He bumped and tumbled about, and wandered
around and around, now pawing at his eyes but only making more leaves
stick to his lids, plastering them the tighter. It was a senseless
predicament to have gotten into. Then his ears pricked to the sound of
running water. Enraged bees still scrambled through his fur looking for
a vulnerable spot in which to leave their stings, but Chinook was headed
for that sound of running water. It would cool the feverish feeling in
his nose.
Just as the little bear had begun to wonder if he were not wandering
around in some bad dream, he stumbled off the bank and went splash into
a deep pool. Striking out as vigorously as if he knew just where he were
going, he began circling around and around, for it was a tiny whirlpool
he had fallen into. It was lucky for him it wasn’t a large one. But the
swift, churning water did its work on him: it washed off the honey and
the clinging leaves.
As soon as Chinook could open his eyes again, he floundered out of that
pool a cleansed and chastened little bear.