It was in the summer of 1897 that I made their acquaintance. I was in
the park to study the home life of the animals, and had been told that
in the woods, near the Fountain Hotel, I could see Bears at any time,
which, of course, I scarcely believed. But on stepping out of the back
door five minutes after arriving, I came face to face with a large
Blackbear and her two cubs.
I stopped short, not a little startled. The Bears also stopped and sat
up to look at me. Then Mother Bear made a curious short _Koff Koff_, and
looked toward a near pine-tree. The cubs seemed to know what she meant,
for they ran to this tree and scrambled up like two little monkeys, and
when safely aloft they sat like small boys, holding on with their hands,
while their little black legs dangled in the air, and waited to see what
was to happen down below.
{Illustration}
The Mother Bear, still on her hind legs, came slowly toward me, and I
began to feel very uncomfortable indeed, for she stood about six feet
high in her stockings and had apparently never heard of the magical
power of the human eye.
I had not even a stick to defend myself with, and when she gave a low
growl, I was about to retreat to the Hotel, although previously assured
that the Bears have always kept their truce with man. However, just at
this turning point the old one stopped, now but thirty feet away, and
continued to survey me calmly. She seemed in doubt for a minute, but
evidently made up her mind that, "although that human thing might be all
right, she would take no chances for her little ones."
She looked up to her two hopefuls, and gave a peculiar whining _Er-r-r
Er-r,_ whereupon they, like obedient children, jumped, as at the word
of command. There was nothing about them heavy or bear-like as commonly
understood; lightly they swung from bough to bough till they dropped to
the ground, and all went off together into the woods. I was much tickled
by the prompt obedience of the little Bears. As soon as their mother
told them to do something they did it. They did not even offer a
suggestion. But I also found out that there was a good reason for it,
for had they not done as she had told them they would have got such a
spanking as would have made them howl.
{Illustration}
This was a delightful peep into Bear home life, and would have been well
worth coming for, if the insight had ended there. But my friends in the
Hotel said that that was not the best place for Bears. I should go to
the garbage-heap, a quarter-mile off in the forest. There, they said, I
surely could see as many Bears as I wished (which was absurd of them).
{Illustration}
Early the next morning I went to this Bears' Banqueting Hall in the
pines, and hid in the nearest bushes.
Before very long a large Blackbear came quietly out of the woods to
the pile, and began turning over the garbage and feeding. He was very
nervous, sitting up and looking about at each slight sound, or running
away a few yards when startled by some trifle. At length he cocked his
ears and galloped off into the pines, as another Blackbear appeared. He
also behaved in the same timid manner, and at last ran away when I shook
the bushes in trying to get a better view.
At the outset I myself had been very nervous, for of course no man is
allowed to carry weapons in the Park; but the timidity of these Bears
reassured me, and thenceforth I forgot everything in the interest of
seeing the great, shaggy creatures in their home life. {Illustration}
Soon I realized I could not get the close insight I wished from that
bush, as it was seventy-five yards from the garbage-pile. There was none
nearer; so I did the only thing left to do: I went to the garbage-pile
itself, and, digging a hole big enough to hide in, remained there all
day long, with cabbage-stalks, old potato-peelings, tomato-cans, and
carrion piled up in odorous heaps around me. Notwithstanding the
opinions of countless flies, it was not an attractive place. Indeed, it
was so unfragrant that at night, when I returned to the Hotel, I was not
allowed to come in until after I had changed my clothes in the woods.
It had been a trying ordeal, but I surely did see Bears that day. If
I may reckon it a new Bear each time one came, I must have seen over
forty. But of course it was not, for the Bears were coming and going.
And yet I am certain of this: there were at least thirteen Bears, for I
had thirteen about me at one time.
All that day I used my sketch-book and journal. Every Bear that came was
duly noted; and this process soon began to give the desired insight into
their ways and personalities.
Many unobservant persons think and say that all Negroes, or all
Chinamen, as well as all animals of a kind, look alike. But just as
surely as each human being differs from the next, so surely each animal
is different from its fellow; otherwise how would the old ones know
their mates or the little ones their mother, as they certainly do?
These feasting Bears gave a good illustration of this, for each had its
individuality; no two were quite alike in appearance or in character.
{Illustration}
This curious fact also appeared: I could hear the Woodpeckers pecking
over one hundred yards away in the woods, as well as the Chickadees
chickadeeing, the Blue-jays blue-jaying, and even the Squirrels
scampering across the leafy forest floor; and yet I _did not hear one of
these Bears come_. Their huge, padded feet always went down in exactly
the right {Illustration: But Johnny Wanted to See.} spot to break no
stick, to rustle no leaf, showing how perfectly they had learned the art
of going in silence through the woods.