"Oh!" said the Cub Bear, "I have two aunt-bears, and they don't look a
bit like that."
"Please don't interrupt me when I am talking," said the Circus Bear.
"This is an 'a-n-t'-bear, not an 'a-u-n-t'-bear. He is called an
ant-bear because he eats ants."
"Oh, I want to see him eat some of these ants that got into the honey,
that papa brought home the other day."
As soon as the ant-bear came near, the little Cub Bear ran to him
and asked him to show how he ate the ants. The ant-bear said that he
would be very glad to do so, because he had not had a good meal of
ants for the longest while. In the circus he said they fed him on
meat. The ant-bear said that he liked the taste of ants ever so much
better. I would not, would you? Well, the little Cub Bear showed the
ant-bear where the ants lived in a hole in the ground. Then he saw why
the ant-bear had such strong claws, for he dug into the ground very
quickly. Then what do you suppose that ant-bear did? He ran the point
of his long nose into the hole where the ants lived, and then stuck
out the longest tongue you ever saw, way, way down in the hole, until
it was covered with ants that had stuck to it. Then the little Cub
Bear saw why the ant-bear had such a long nose, and a long tongue that
looked like a pink rope. Do you see why?
As soon as the ant-bear had eaten all of the ants, the little Cub Bear
said, "The ants are such little things, I should think you would not
get enough to eat."
But the ant-bear said, "Down in South America, where I came from, the
ants are larger; they are as big as the big red and black ants, and
they live in houses that are as large as a haycock. I dig into these
with my strong claws, and eat up bushels and bushels of ants at a time."
While they were talking they heard the beaver go "B-a-n-g, b-a-n-g!"
several times, and each time the solemn old owl would say, "W-h-o?
w-h-o-o-o-o? w-h-o-o-o-o?"
The little Cub Bear counted four times, and thought that there must be
four animals coming, and sure enough, when they came to the den, there
were four new animals.
There was the raccoon with his striped tail. He was always washing his
face. There was a great striped tiger almost as large as a lion, and
quite as fierce looking. There was a leopard, that looked something
like the tiger, but was not quite so large, and instead of stripes, he
was covered with black spots.
[Illustration: The raccoon was always washing his face.]
Then, over in a corner, was a little thing that looked like a soft and
beautiful round ball. It looked so nice that the little Cub Bear ran
right over to play with it, and before the Circus Bear could stop him,
the little Cub Bear had given the little ball quite a hard slap. "Ouch!
Ouch!!" How the little bear did scream and cry. And his poor little
foot was full of stickers. The Circus Bear scolded the Cub Bear.
"Didn't you know that that was a porcupine, and that he was covered
with quills, on purpose to stick into people that touched him? You
ought to have known better."
But the little Cub Bear did not see how he could have known better,
for no one had ever told him before, and he had never seen a porcupine
before, and it looked like a nice ball for little Cub Bear to play with.
So the little Cub Bear thought to himself, "I hope my papa will tell me
about all of the things that hurt little bears, so that I will not get
hurt so badly again. I am afraid that papas sometimes forget to tell
their little cubs about the things that hurt. How am I going to get
these awful quills out, anyway? I've tried as hard as I can, and I can
not get hold of the little slippery things with my clumsy claws."
The Papa Bear came and tried, and he could not get the quills out.
Then the Mamma Bear tried, and she worked ever so much longer than
the Papa Bear, but she could not get the quills out of the little Cub
Bear's foot. The Mamma Bear was very angry with the "miserable little
porcupine," and wanted to give him a hard slap; but she knew that she
would get her foot full of the quills, and that would be worse than
ever.
The porcupine did not care at all, for he said to himself, "If they
don't want to get hurt, let them leave me alone."
But I do not think that was right, do you? Of course, they did not want
to get hurt.