This is a story a hunter told me as we sat by the camp-fire on the top
of the mountain, after a day’s climb through the woods:--
“When I was a child, my home was on the edge of a great forest. There
were but few people near us, and not a town for miles and miles. Many
wild animals lived in the woods, which were so wide and deep that most
of the animals had never seen a human being.
“One day my father and a neighbor were out hunting. There was no
breeze, and the woods were very still. They were walking down a
hillside, stepping quietly over the fallen trunks and dry leaves, when
suddenly, ‘Look! look!’ my father whispered to his companion.
[Illustration]
“A strip of water gleamed through the trees, and a mother bear and
three cubs were walking along the shore. The bear caught the sound or
the scent of some one near, for she stopped, rose on her hind legs, and
snuffed the air, and all the little bears did exactly what she did. ‘We
have surprised Bruin giving her children a lesson,’ said my father. But
as he turned to speak, and before he could say a word to prevent, his
companion had shot the mother bear. She tumbled down on the sand, and
the little bears began to whimper and cry.
“Father never spoke to that man again, though he was a neighbor; and a
neighbor means a good deal when the nearest one lives two miles away.
“The cubs were brave fellows; they did not run away even when the men
went up to them, but stayed by their mother, whimpering a little. ‘It
was pitiful to see them,’ father said. He was not willing to go away
and leave the little fellows, for they were too small to take care of
themselves; and now they had no mother to teach them bear language and
bear ways. He picked up one and carried it, and the others followed. So
he brought the three bears home to be my playmates, and glad I was to
see them. They cried at first and missed their mother; but they soon
became accustomed to living with people. What frolics we had! Every
morning we would scamper up and down the road. When some one called in
to the house and I ran in, they would come running and tumbling after
me. We played house and school and soldier together, and though I often
wished they could talk with me, in every other way they were good
comrades.
“They were always good-natured. You have heard a dog growl over a bone;
the bears preferred lumps of sugar, which they took without growling.
How they liked sweet things! They would come into the pantry and beg
for cake; and when my mother wanted to give us all a treat, she would
make molasses candy.
“Did we sell them? No, sir! Father said their mother had been so
cruelly treated that they deserved extra kindness, and they were free
to come and go as they would.
“One morning I woke up to find that two of them had gone off to the
woods,--their natural home. Only Moween had chosen to stay with us
rather than to go with his brothers. He lived with us until he was a
big bear. Sometimes he would roam into the woods to find honey, but he
always came back. I used to like to go nutting with him, for he would
climb up the tree and shake the branches until the nuts came pattering
down.
“One afternoon a German, leading a bear by a chain, stopped at the
house. He had lost his way, and we asked him to rest and spend the
night with us. He explained in broken English that he had been
travelling about the country with his dancing bear. The bear danced for
us, but Moween seemed frightened and ran away when he saw the newcomer.
The dancing bear, on his part, seemed afraid of Moween. However, at
supper-time, Moween returned, and the bears seemed to make friends.
What they said to each other I do not know, but when morning came both
bears were gone. The dancing bear had slipped his chain. Their trail
led into the forest, and we followed it a mile or two, but did not find
them.
“This time my pet bear did not come back. Every spring I used to expect
him, for when the maple trees were tapped, we had ‘sugarings off’ which
were always feasts for Moween. But I have not seen him since, though I
never see a bear without wishing that he were my old playmate, Moween.”
_By permission of the Outlook Magazine._
--SELECTED.