I
Johnny was a queer little bear cub that lived with Grumpy, his mother,
in the Yellowstone Park. They were among the many Bears that found a
desirable home in the country about the Fountain Hotel.
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The steward of the Hotel had ordered the kitchen garbage to be dumped in
an open glade of the surrounding forest, thus providing throughout the
season, a daily feast for the Bears, and their numbers have increased
each year since the law of the land has made the Park a haven of
refuge where no wild thing may be harmed. They have accepted man's
peace-offering, and many of them have become so well known to the Hotel
men that they have received names suggested by their looks or ways. Slim
Jim was a very long-legged thin Blackbear; Snuffy was a Blackbear that
looked as though he had been singed; Fatty was a very fat, lazy Bear
that always lay down to eat; the Twins were two half-grown, ragged
specimens that always came and went together. But Grumpy and Little
Johnny were the best known of them all.
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Grumpy was the biggest and fiercest of the Blackbears, and Johnny,
apparently her only son, was a peculiarly tiresome little cub, for he
seemed never to cease either grumbling or whining. This probably meant
that he was sick, for a healthy little Bear does not grumble all the
time, any more than a healthy child. And indeed Johnny looked sick;
he was the most miserable specimen in the Park. His whole appearance
suggested dyspepsia; and this I quite understood when I saw the awful
mixtures he would eat at that garbage-heap. Anything at all that he
fancied he would try. And his mother allowed him to do as he pleased;
so, after all, it was chiefly her fault, for she should not have
permitted such things.
Johnny had only three good legs, his coat was faded and mangy, his limbs
were thin, and his ears and paunch were disproportionately large. Yet
his mother thought the world of him. She was evidently convinced that
he was a little beauty and the Prince of all Bears, so, of course, she
quite spoiled him. She was always ready to get into trouble on his
account, and he was always delighted to lead her there. Although such
a wretched little failure, Johnny was far from being a fool, for he
usually knew just what he wanted and how to get it, if teasing his
mother could carry the point.