"You remember that when I was a little bear, one day I disobeyed my
papa. Papa told me that he did not want me to go far away from home
that day, because there were some great grizzly bears coming, and they
might want to take a little brown bear away with them, if they should
happen to see him playing away from his home. I thought that I would be
very careful, for I loved my papa and my mamma very much, and I did not
want to be taken away by a great grizzly bear. But I was interested in
running around, and I thought I would try to see how far I could run
without getting tired, so I ran and ran, on and on, for a long time,
and before I knew it I was several miles from home, and I began to grow
tired.
"Of course, I remembered at once what my papa had told me, and so
started home without waiting for anything. Before I had gone very far
I looked at the ground, and I saw that some very large animal had come
that way. The tracks looked like great bear tracks, and though I had
never seen the tracks of a grizzly bear, I thought that these had been
made by the great grizzly that papa had told me about. Of course I was
sorry that I had been so careless and forgetful. I wanted to get home
without seeing the great grizzly, and just as quickly as I could. I
went another way; but before I had gone far, I heard a sound that made
my heart go pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, for it sounded like a great grizzly
bear, and before I could think what to do, the grizzly had caught me
and told me that he was going to take me a long, long way into the
woods. I asked him to let me go back to the cave to say good-by to papa
and mamma, but the grizzly said that he had not time to let me go, and
besides that, if both the Papa Bear and the Mamma Bear should try to
keep me, he might have trouble in getting me, even if he were bigger
than both of the bears put together.
"So he took me into the far-away land that I am going to tell you
about. It is a beautiful land, and there are the most beautiful trees
there, and many, many caves where bears could live. I learned to love
the land very much, and when I grew up, I married the most beautiful
brown bear in the whole world. And we have four of the dearest cubs
that you ever saw; but I always wanted to see Papa Bear, and Mamma
Bear, and little Cub Bear, and Johnnie Bear, so I have come back, and
it is a dreadful journey across a desert. There is no water to drink,
and nothing to eat, and, as you see, I nearly died."
The animals all wanted to go and see the beautiful land that the
three-legged Jimmie Bear told them of, but they were afraid to go for
fear that they might die of thirst.
While they were wondering how they would cross the desert, they
suddenly heard a loud "Bang! Bang!" and the little Cub Bear ran to the
mouth of the cave.
He said, "I see some very strange animals. They have the funniest
necks--almost as long as the giraffe's, but curved instead of straight,
and their heads are very different from the giraffe. The animals have
long hair on their necks, and on their backs they have two hills--small
ones of course; and they walk very quietly; you can scarcely hear the
animals when they place their feet on the ground."