THAT evening, while the others went out to sit by the camp-fire, Silas
Strong put the children to bed and lay down beside them. They begged him
for a story, he had neither skill nor practice in narration, he had, as
the rustic merchant is wont to say, a desire to please. He knew that he
had disappointed the children and was doing his best to recover their
esteem. Possibly he ought to try and be more like other folks. He rubbed
his thin, sandy beard, he groped among the treasures of his memory.
Infrequently he had gone over them with Sinth or the Lady Ann, but
briefly and with halting words and slow reflection. He had that respect
for the past which is a characteristic of the true historian, but, in
his view, it gave him little to say of his own exploits. He was wont to
observe, ironically, that others knew more of them than he knew himself.
Owing, it may be, to his little infirmity of speech, he had never been
misled into the broad way of prevarication. Brevity had been his refuge
and his strength. He regarded with contempt the boastful narratives of
woodsmen.
Now the siren voices of the little folks had made him thoughtful. Had he
nothing to give them but disappointment? He hesitated. Then he fell, as
it were, but, happily, for the sake of those two he had begun to love,
and not through pride. It was a kind of modesty which caused him to
reach for the candle and blow it out. Then, boldly, as it were, he began
to sing a brief account of one of his own adventures. He could sing
without stammering, and therefore he sang an odd and almost tuneless
chant. He accepted such rhyme and rhythm as chanced to drift in upon
the monotonous current of his epic; but he turned not aside for them. He
sang glibly, jumping in and out of that old, melodious trail of "The Son
of a Gamboleer." Strong called this unique creation of his
"THE STORY OF THE MELLERED BEAR.
"One day yer Uncle Silas went for to kill a bear,