So the little Cub Bear started out for the very first time in his
life all alone, and he did enjoy everything so much. He finally found
a patch of berries, and there he ate all he wanted, and then he went
over behind a log and lay down and went to sleep. When he awoke, it was
nearly dark, and he knew that he must hurry home. He started, but had
gone only a few steps when a little animal scampered across the path
and ran up a tree.
The Cub Bear thought he would like to see this animal, and so he
climbed up the tree after it, and there he found a strange looking
animal. It had a tail something like a rat, but it was a great deal
bigger than a rat, and bigger than a cat. It had long soft fur; but as
soon as the little Cub Bear touched it, it rolled itself into a ball,
and fell to the ground. Cub Bear clambered down the tree as fast as he
could, and there at the foot of the tree he found this strange animal
all rolled up like a ball. The Cub Bear smelt of it, and rolled it over
very carefully, and looked it all over, but it seemed to be dead, and
he felt so sorry to think that this little animal was dead.
And when he went home, the first thing he told his papa was, "Papa
Bear, I saw the strangest little animal to-day, and I am very sorry
that I killed it."
[Illustration: "I saw the strangest little animal to-day."]
Then he told the Papa Bear how the little animal scampered up the tree,
and how it rolled up into a furry ball, and how it dropped from the
tree and seemed to be dead. The Papa Bear said:
"My dear little Cub Bear, the animal was not dead at all. That was just
his way of fooling you, and making you think that he was dead, so that
you would not bother him any more. The animal was an opossum. That is
the way they always do when they are frightened, or when they think
some one is going to take them and hurt them."
Then the little Cub Bear told his papa what a fine time he had had, and
how he had found the berries and had eaten all he could, and that he
was nearly ready to go to sleep.
Next morning, bright and early, the Papa Bear called the little Cub
Bear again, for he wanted to teach him that he must work for himself,
and find his own living, and he said:
"Little Cub Bear, do you want to go again into the woods to-day, and
see if you can find some more berries?"
And the little Cub Bear said, "Yes, papa, I want to go, because I want
to learn to work for myself, and take care of myself."
So the Papa Bear again told him to be very careful, and if he saw any
men or any large animals, he was to come home as quickly as possible.
The little Cub Bear said that he would do this, and then he started
out joyously in the early morning light, while dew was on the ground,
to see if he could not find another berry patch. And sure enough,
before he had gone very far, he found a patch full of beautiful
blackberries. He ate all he could of these, but he got scratched many
times on his nose and on his paws. It did not hurt him any on his paws,
because they were thick, but on the end of his nose, where the skin was
very thin, sometimes the little Cub Bear was so badly scratched that he
felt like crying. But he was a brave little fellow, and did not cry,
and thought that as soon as he had enough to eat, he would go back and
tell the Papa and Mamma Bear where they could find all they wanted to
eat.
Pretty soon he left the berry patch, thinking he would go home a new
way, and so he started, and very soon came to a beautiful lake, larger
than the lake that the beaver had made near the den where they used to
live. It was so wide at some places that he could hardly see across the
lake. It was one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and the most
beautiful lake that this little Cub Bear had ever seen. The little Cub
Bear sat down near a log to look at this lake, for it made him very
happy and contented to see such a beautiful sight.
While he was waiting, he saw in the air a very large bird, larger
than a hawk and larger than an eagle. This bird seemed to be flying
about over the water, and around, and around; and the little Cub Bear
wondered what this bird was trying to do. The most peculiar thing he
noticed about the bird was that he had such a long bill. The bill was
over a foot long, much larger than the bill of the ostrich, and larger
than the bill of a goose, or any bird that the little Cub Bear had ever
seen.
All of a sudden, this peculiar bird turned a sort of somersault and
fell head downward into the water. While falling, the bird's wings were
outstretched, and when it struck the water, there was a great splash
and the bird disappeared, but soon reappeared floating on the surface,
and shaking his head in a most peculiar way. The little Cub Bear
wondered and wondered what the bird was doing. He waited until this
strange bird began flying again, and then he noticed that there were a
number of other birds which looked just like this one, and that they
were flying about, and every once in a while one of these birds would
turn a sort of a somersault and fall with outstretched wings into the
water with a great splash, and then come up, and always bob his head in
just that peculiar way, as though he were nodding at some one.
The little Cub Bear thought that when he got home he would tell the
Papa Bear about it, and try to find out what kind of a bird it was. So
he hurried and got home just as the sun set.
And when his papa asked him how he got along that day, he told him
about the blackberry patch, and said that he hoped they would all go
the next day and get something to eat, for there were plenty of berries
for all the bears, and for any of the other animals who wanted to eat
the berries.
The lion and the tiger both said that they did not care for berries,
and the hippopotamus, too, said that he did not want any berries; the
rhinoceros did not care for berries, but all the birds and the monkey
thought it would be fine to go and get some of the berries the next day.
Then the little Cub Bear said:
"Oh, papa, I almost forgot. I want to tell you about the strange bird
that I saw to-day, at a big lake in the mountains; it was bigger than
a hawk, or an eagle. The bird had a long bill, and circled around, and
around, and then turned a somersault, and fell with outstretched wings
_ker-splash_ into the water; and then the bird came up and shook his
head as though he were nodding to a friend."
The Papa Bear said, "Why, I know what that was; that was a pelican, and
if you had been nearer to him, you would have seen a strange bag under
his bill."
The little Cub Bear said, "Well, what was he nodding his head about
when he came up out of the water?"
And the Papa Bear said, "You see, the pelican dived into the water to
get a fish, which he saw when he was flying about above the water, and
he dove down into the water so straight, that he caught the little
fish in his bill; and put it in the pouch under the bill, before the
little fish could get away. And then when he came to the surface, he
was nodding his head, so he could throw his bill up into the air, and
try to get the fish down his throat."
Then the Papa Bear said that one time he saw a pelican swallow the head
of a fish that he had found on the beach at the seashore, and this
head was larger than two baseballs, and when the pelican got the head
half way down his throat, it stuck there, and the poor pelican was in
great distress, for he could not get the fish's head up or down. The
Papa Bear said he did not know what happened to the pelican, for at
that time two men came up, and the Papa Bear had to leave as fast as he
could; but he thought perhaps these men might have helped the pelican
to get the fish's head in his throat either up or down.
The little Cub Bear said, "I think it was very foolish of the pelican
to try to swallow something so big without knowing whether he could get
it down or not."
The Papa Bear said, "You see, we never can tell what we can do, until
we try, and that is a good way to learn, if we are careful enough about
our trying."
Again, the next morning, the Papa Bear called the little Cub Bear very
early, and told him that he would like to have him go out again that
day, and that if he would be very careful he could go farther than he
had ever gone before.
So this time the little Cub Bear went a long, long way, and came to a
place he had never been before, either with his papa or without him,
and there was a great oak tree, and he saw high up in this tree little
squirrels running about on the limbs of the trees, with their bushy
tails over their backs. And the little Cub Bear, after he had found
something to eat, came back and watched the squirrels, and he saw that
they were gathering nuts and carrying them in their little paws into
holes in the top of the tree. He noticed, too, that sometimes these
little squirrels would sit on the end of the limb, just as the 'coon
did, and take in their little forepaws a nut and bite through the shell
of the nut very quickly, and get out the meat and eat it. He thought
this was very, very nice, but he wondered why they did not eat all the
nuts, and why they took some of them in the hole of the tree.
So that night, when he returned home, he talked to his papa about the
little squirrels he had seen that day, with their beautiful bushy tails
curling up over their backs, and their bright little eyes, and their
sharp little teeth and soft fur; then he said:
"Papa, why do the little squirrels take some of the nuts into the hole
in the tree?"
Papa Bear told him that it was because they were saving the nuts for
the winter, when the snow was on the ground and there were no nuts
to be had, and that the little squirrels spent all the winter time
inside the tree, where it was warm and cozy; and that whenever they
were hungry, they had this store of nuts to eat, and that the little
squirrels seemed to know whether it was going to be a long, hard
winter, or whether the winter was going to be mild, and that they knew
just how many nuts to put away for the winter, whether it was short or
long.
When it was night time, the little Cub Bear cuddled up in a ball and
said:
"Papa, I want you to tell me a story before I go to sleep, about the
inside of a nice warm tree, where the squirrels live."
And so the Papa Bear told this story: