UNCLE ISAAC’S BEAR STORY.
After supper they sat around the fire consulting as to future
movements. Bears were very abundant in those days.
In 1783 no fewer than ten thousand five hundred bear-skins were sent to
England from the northern ports of America.
In 1805, eleven years subsequent to the date of our story, the number
had reached twenty-five thousand.
“It is going to be a great deal of work,” said Uncle Isaac, “to get
these beavers now. The ice is thick in the pond, the houses are seven
or eight feet thick, and frozen as hard as a stone. It will be hard
work to break them up--a great deal of ice to cut, and frozen dirt.
If we dull our tools, we’ve nothing but a file to sharpen them with.
I think we’d better make a lot of dead-falls and box-traps, and set
them for minks and sables, cut holes in the ice, and set steel-traps
for the beaver and otters; and while we are tending them, go into the
muskrats, coons, and bears, till the weather begins to get warmer; then
the sun will thaw the south side of their houses, and the ice in the
ponds, and we can get what beavers are left with half the work. What do
you think, Joseph?”
“I think just as you do; but we must have fish to bait the otter traps.
I have got hooks and lines in my pack. We can also make nets of willow
bark, and set them under the ice.”
“Yes, and we can set for foxes. If we could get a silver-gray, it would
be worth a lot of money.”
“I thought of that, and have brought some honey. That will tole them.
A fox loves honey as well as a bear; so does a coon, and a coon is out
every thawy day. I count heavy on bears. A bear’s pelt is worth forty
shillings; and we may find a yard of deer. Just as soon as we begin to
have carcasses of beaver and fish round, it will draw the foxes, and we
can trap and shoot them on the bait.”
Uncle Isaac now brought out his pack, and began to remove some of the
contents, laying them one by one on the table, while the boys looked on
with great curiosity. The first thing he took out was a bunch of the
largest sized mackerel hooks.
“What in the world did you bring them clear up here for?” asked John.
“There are no mackerel here.”
“They are to make a wolf-trap.”
“How do you make it?”
“O, you’ll see.”
He next took two slim, pointed steel rods, nearly three feet long, from
the outside of his pack, where they were fastened, as they were too
long to go inside.
“What are those?” asked Charlie.
“Muskrat spears,” said Joe. “That will be fun alive for you boys.”
The next articles were three little bottles filled with some liquid.
“What are these?”
“That’s telling,” said Uncle Isaac, laying another vial on the table.
John removed the cork, and smelt of it. “That’s aniseseed. What’s it
for?”
“To tole foxes and fishes.”
“What’s this?”--taking up another.
“That’s telling.”
“O, how it smells!--like rotten fish. What is it for?”
“To tole minks.”
“And this?”--taking up another.
“To tole beavers.”
“What is in this little bag?”
“If you must know, Mr. Inquisitive, it is some earth that I got from
the place where Joe Bradish kept some foxes, and that they laid on all
summer. I’m in hopes to get a silver or cross fox, with it.”
“Uncle Isaac, do give me some of that honey!--just the least little bit
of a taste!”
“Well, I’ll give you all just a taste; but I want it to tole foxes and
coons.”
He gave them all a little on the point of his knife.
As they were going to devote much of their time to hunting bears, it
was a matter of course that the habits and methods of taking that
animal should, to a great extent, afford matter for conversation around
the camp fire.
“A bear,” said Uncle Isaac, drawing up his knees, clasping his hands
over them, and resting his chin upon them, as his habit was when he was
about to tell a story, “is a singular critter.”
John threw some fresh fuel on the fire, and squatting down on the
ground, with both arms on the deacon’s seat, and his mouth wide open,
sat with his eyes riveted on the old hunter’s face, drinking in every
word, while Charlie and Joe Griffin disposed themselves in attitudes of
attention.
“I don’t,” continued Uncle Isaac, “bear any malice against a bear, as
I do against a wolf, though they have done me a deal of mischief in my
day, because they are not a bloodthirsty animal. A wolf will bite the
throats of a whole flock of sheep, just to suck their blood.”
“Why, Uncle Isaac,” said Joe, “didn’t a bear kill little Sally
Richards only last summer? and all they found of her was just her
clothes, feet, and shoes? He had eaten all the rest of her up, and was
gnawing her skull when they found and shot him; and wasn’t she my own
cousin?--pretty little bright creature as ever lived! I’m sure I should
think that was being bloodthirsty.”
“That was a she bear, and had cubs following her; and _then_ they are
savage; but at other times a bear will let you alone if you will let
him alone. They will always turn out for a man. A woman might pick
blueberries all day in a pasture with a bear, and if she let him alone
he would let her alone. But if they have young ones, or are starving,
or you pen them up, then look out! I’ve heard the Indians say that in
the fall, when they are fat and getting sleepy, you may put a stick
in their mouths and lead them anywhere; and my mother has picked
cranberries in a swamp with six bears, because she wanted the berries
before they eat ’em all up, and they never meddled with her. Then they
are such comical critters! Why, you can learn a bear anything. When I
was a boy, I used to have a cub ’most every winter; and when, by the
next fall, they began to be troublesome, and father would shoot them,
I cried as if my heart would break.
“There was one,” said he, stirred by the recollections of his youth,
unclasping his hands, rising up, turning round, then sitting down
again, “that I loved better than all the rest. I used to call him
Cæsar, after an old black slave who belonged to one of our neighbors.
Father was a great hunter, and so were all the old folks, for they
would have starved to death, when they first came, if it had not been
for their rifles, and powder was so scarce they could not afford to
waste shots. Well, one fall the frost cut off all the acorns, berries,
and cranberries, so there was not a berry to be found. The bears were
starving. They came down clear from Canada, and swarmed all along the
salt water after clams, lobster, flounders, and raccoons. O, I never
knew the strength of a bear till then! Captain Rhines was a young man,
and mate of a vessel then. My father, and a good many of the neighbors,
had sent out fowls, and butter, and cheese, as a venture by him, and
got molasses for it. Mr. Rhines, as he was then, had brought it down
from Salem with his things, landed it at our point, rolled it up on the
beach out of the tide’s way, and left it till the owners could haul
it off. It staid there a day or two. One morning father and Uncle Sam
Edwards went to haul it up, when they found the head of every barrel
smashed in, just as if it had been done with an axe. The bears, which,
as I told you, were as thick as hops, had done it with their paws,
and upset, eat, and wasted the whole of it. As they were going home,
lamenting their hard luck, they met a bear--drunk! John Carver had put
up a story-and-a-half log house the day before, and they had left a
pailful of new rum, sweetened with molasses, sitting on some boards in
the garret. This bear had smelt it, climbed up, and drank it all up.
How he got down I don’t know; but it operated so quick he couldn’t get
off, and there he was, all stuck over with molasses, where he had been
with the rest of them down to the shore. He had got it all over his
ears and breast, and the chips, where they had hewed the frame, all
stuck to him, and he was the queerest sight you ever saw! He couldn’t
walk, but would sit up and look at us, and then roll over on one side,
then get back again, and looked so comical, that notwithstanding their
sorrow for their loss, they all burst out laughing; and Uncle Sam
Edwards, who was a jolly, funny creetur himself, carried on so with
him, and made such queer observations, that father laughed till he had
to lie down on the ground. None of them had a gun, but they took the
stakes out of the sleds, which they had brought to haul the molasses
on, and pounded him on the head till they killed him. Uncle Sam, who
himself drank a good deal more than was good for him, said, when he
gave him the last blow, ‘You see now what stealing and hard drinking
will bring a bear to.’ After skinning him, they had a long consultation
as to whether he was fit to eat. Father said he didn’t want to eat
anything that died drunk; but Uncle Sam said he didn’t die of liquor,
for they had killed and bled him, and as for himself, he would eat
him; so said John Carver; but father said he wouldn’t; so they gave
father the skin, and they took the meat. Father carried the skin home,
and mother washed and combed out the fur, and in the cold nights that
winter she used to put it on my bed, and it is in our house yet.
[Illustration: UNCLE ISAAC’S BEAR STORY.--Page 253.]
“A bear is a master strong creature. To see what a rock they would turn
over that fall to get a lobster! It was great fun to see the bears
catch coons; they would go round till they saw two or three coons in a
tree; one bear would climb the tree, and the coons, seeing him, would
run clear up to the top, where the limbs were small, and wouldn’t bear
the weight of the bear; but the bear would follow as far as he could
go, then shake off the coons, and the ones below would catch them; they
would dig them out of holes, or crush up a log if it was rotten. They
are bewitched after anything sweet, especially honey, and if they find
a hive they will surely rob it.
“Old Mr. John Elwell, Sam’s father, had a hive of bees: they swarmed,
and took for the woods, and got on a tree; he followed them and hived
them. There were two maple trees, that grew within three feet of each
other; so he put a plank between them, and set a hive on it, meaning to
carry them home in the fall, when it was cold and the bees got stiff.
“One night he was going after his cows, and thought he would take a
look at the bees. He found the hive on the ground all stove to pieces;
every drop of honey licked clean out of it. The bears had got well
stung, for the bark was torn off the trees all around where they had
bitten them in their rage and anger. But a bear is so covered with fur,
that only a small part of him is exposed to the sting of the bees; and
no matter how much anguish it causes them, they will have the honey.
“They plagued us terribly that fall; you couldn’t get a wild grape,
nor a choke-cherry, for them, and it kept us at work all the fall
watching the cattle and corn, and setting spring-guns and dead-falls.
There was one old she bear that father swore vengeance against. We had
the sheep for safety in a log sheep-house in the yard, but she climbed
over the fence, tore off the roof, and carried away the old ram. She
had two white stripes on each side of her nose, and was well known;
she had been hunted again and again, and once had been wounded by a
spring-gun and tracked by the blood; but she could not be overtaken,
nor could her den be found. We had six hogs that year, that lived in
the pasture, and every day at low water went a clamming. We had put
them up for fear of the bears. One old sow was in a pen by herself,
fatting. We were going to kill her in a week. We had just fed the
cattle, and set down to supper, when we heard a terrible squealing, all
the hogs squealing as if to see which could squeal the loudest, and
the rooster crowing. We ran out. There was that old white-nosed bear,
with the sow hugged up in her fore paws, walking off on her hind legs,
just as easy as a man would walk with a baby. Father ran back, caught
the gun out of the bracket, but before he could load, the bear was in
the woods. It had got to be dark, and the old sow’s cries could no more
be heard. He raised the neighbors. They took firebrands and searched
the woods; but the ground was froze too hard to find the trail, and so
the bear got off with her booty. You may well think father was greatly
enraged, not only at the loss of his property, but he was greatly vexed
that so distinguished a hunter as he was should be thus insulted by a
bear. He did nothing else but scour the woods for that bear, and as
nearly all the neighbors had some cause of complaint against her, he
had assistance enough, but all in vain. He had set a steel bear-trap,
dead-falls, and spring-guns for her, but she was too knowing to be
caught. She sprung the steel-trap, which he had baited and covered
up in chaff, by going all round the bait and trap in a circle, and
thumping on the ground with her fore feet, coming nearer and nearer
till she jarred it off.
“On the last of that winter there came a great thaw, and took off
all the snow on the open ground. It was so warm the old bear came
out, and begun her depredations. Father went and borrowed three steel
bear-traps, set one in the middle, and baited it, and the others round
it, and put no bait on them, covered them up in dirt, and put a long
chain to them, with a grapple to it.
“The second night one of the outside traps was gone--chain, grappling,
and all. The bear, too cunning to go into the trap where the bait
was, had stepped into one of those that was covered up, while trying
to jar the other off. Father sent me right off for John Elwell, while
he loaded his gun and got ready. Uncle John came, and with him Black
Cæsar. Cæsar was a master powerful man, and as spry as a cat. I cried
and roared to go, but father refused, saying I might get hurt, and
there was no knowing how far they might have to go, nor when they
should get back; but Cæsar, with whom I was a great favorite, said
he would take care of me, and that he didn’t believe the bear could
carry that chain and grappling a great way. Finally father yielded.
There was no trouble in tracking the bear, for the grappling had torn
up the ground where it had hitched into the cradle-knolls and bushes.
Sometimes they lost the trail for a good while, when it was evident
that the bear had taken up the grappling, when it got fast, and
carried it; and father said she must be caught by her fore paws, as he
knew by her track that she walked on her hind legs, sometimes half a
mile--trap, grappling, and all. They followed her into the woods nearly
two miles, Cæsar helping me over the windfalls, and sometimes taking
me on his shoulder, till finally, at Millbrook, we lost her track
altogether. In vain they searched the woods. There was no sign of bear
or trap. Discouraged, they gave it up, and sat down on the bank of the
brook.
“Uncle John said she had got the grappling caught trying to swim the
river, and was drowned, and he hoped she was. They had all about come
to that conclusion, when I, who was playing on the bank, was attracted
by some beautiful white and yellow moss growing at the roots of a
black ash, and going to get some, saw the grappling hooked over
the main root of the ash. I instantly ran back, crying with fright,
and feeling in fancy the bear’s claws on my throat. It was the most
singular place for a den you ever saw. You might have gone within three
feet of it, and never suspected its existence.
“The stream, which had formerly flowed under a high bank, had shifted
its channel in some freshet, and the frost, working on the bank after
the water was gone, had thrown down a great rock, which, catching one
corner on the butt and the other on the roots of the big ash, was thus
held up, while the earth beneath crumbled away. Under this shelf, with
a very little work, the bear had made her den; and there she was, with
her right fore leg in the trap, on a bed of pine boughs, with the
grappling,--which she had not had time to bring in, we had followed
her so closely,--caught in the roots at the mouth, which, had it not
happened, we should never have found her. Father, with the greatest
satisfaction, put two balls through her head, and then, taking hold
of the chain, they dragged her out. When they found three cubs, you
may well think I was delighted. I hugged, kissed, and patted them,
and thought they were the prettiest things I ever saw in my life.
They were less than a foot long, had no teeth, and had not got their
eyes open. O, how I begged to carry them all home! Father wouldn’t
hear to it, but allowed me to have one, and take my choice. I took the
one that had a white face, like the old one, and cried well when they
knocked the others on the head. Cæsar carried the cub home for me, and
in gratitude I called him after him. How I loved that cub! I got some
cow’s milk, put it in a pan, and then put my finger in his mouth, and
he would suck it, and thus suck up the milk. We carried him out to the
barn, and tried to have him suck like a calf; but as soon as the cow
smelt him, she was half crazy with fear, kicked, roared, broke her bow,
and ran out of the barn. We never tried it again.
“He soon began to have teeth, and then would eat bread and potatoes,
and most anything, but sugar and molasses was his great delight. He
soon made friends with the dog and cat, and would play with them by the
hour together.
“In the summer he would catch mice, frogs, and crickets, and get into
mud-holes in the woods, and roll over till he was covered with mud; and
when the wild berries, acorns, and hazel-nuts came, he lived first
rate. In the first part of the spring he would eat the young sprouts
and tender leaves of the trees,--anything that was juicy,--and would
rob birds’ nests. As mother used to make me churn, I learned him to
stand on his hind legs and help me, which he would sometimes do for
half an hour, at other times but a few minutes. He would haul me on
the sled as long as he liked, but when he thought he’d done it enough,
there was no such thing as making him do any more. If I tried to force
him, he would take me up in his paws and set me on a log, or leave me
and run up a tree. He was very quick to imitate, and seeing me one
night carrying in the night’s wood, he took up a log in his paws,
and, standing on his hind legs, walked in with it, and laid it by the
fireplace. Ever after that he brought in all the night’s wood,--that
is, all the logs,--but he wouldn’t touch the small wood, seeming to
think that beneath him. He would take a log that three men couldn’t
move, and walk off with it. Indeed, I believe a bear is stronger on his
hind legs than in any other way, for they always stand up for a fight.
“It was no small help to have him carry in the great logs, three feet
through, that I used to have to haul on a sled, and the backsticks and
foresticks; but I hated to do chores as bad as any boy ever did, and
used to try to coax him with bread and molasses, and even honey, to
carry in the small wood, but it was no use. He would eat the bread and
honey, but wouldn’t touch the wood.
“I believe, if we’d only thought of it, we might have taught that bear
to chop wood; for a bear will handle his paws as well as a man his
hands. You throw anything to a bear, and he’ll catch it; and there’s
not one man to a hundred can strike a bear with an axe. He will knock
it out of his hand with a force that will make his fingers tingle.
“But the greatest amusement was in the summer nights. In the daytime he
would lay round and sleep; but as night came on, he grew playful and
wide awake. He would chase the dog, and then the cats till they would
run up into the red oak at the door, then follow them as far as the
limbs would bear him, pull them in, and catch them or shake them off.
“We kept him three years, and then had to kill him. It was a sad day
to me. It was the first real trouble I ever had, and I don’t know as I
could have felt any worse if it had been a human being. When I found it
was determined on, I went over to Uncle Reuben’s, and staid a week. I
think all our folks felt almost as bad as I did.”
“But what on earth did you kill him for, Uncle Isaac?”
“Why, we had to. He was always mischievous; but as he grew older, he
grew worse. He would dig up potatoes after they were planted in the
spring, and also in the fall; and he would break down and waste three
or four bushels of corn to get a few ears to eat, when it was in the
milk. Did you ever see how a bear works in a cornfield?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, he gets in between the rows, spreads his fore paws, smashes down
three or four hills, and then lies down on the heap and eats.
“He wouldn’t kill the hogs, but would chase them all over the pasture,
and into the water, and two or three were drowned. You couldn’t put
anything out of his reach, for there was no place he couldn’t climb to,
a door in the house he couldn’t open, nor scarcely anything he couldn’t
break. Though spry as a cat, he wouldn’t climb over a pair of bars, but
would take them down, and leave them, go ranging round nights, and let
the cattle into the fields. He would steal yarn, that was put out to
whiten, to make a bed of. He was the means of our keeping bees. He came
home one day in April with his nose all swelled up, and half blind. He
had found a swarm of bees in a hollow tree, and tried to get at them;
but the hole in the tree was so small that he couldn’t get his paw in,
and the bees stung him till he was glad to retreat, finding he could
get nothing. We tracked him in the snow that was still in the woods,
cut the tree down, and brought it home. He used to plague us to death
in sap time, drinking the sap and upsetting the trough, and we had to
chain him up. But the crowning mischief, and that which cost him his
life, was stealing butter.”
“Stealing butter!” said Charlie.
“Yes: father had long been sick of him, and threatened to kill him; but
mother and I begged him off. My sister Mary was going to be married;
mother was making and selling all the butter she could, to get her a
little outfit: it was hot weather, and she put some butter she was
going to send to market in a box, tied it up in a cloth, and lowered
it down the well, to keep cool. In the morning I saddled the horse to
go to market; mother went to the well to get the butter, but there was
no butter there. As soon as she could speak, for grief and anger, she
exclaimed, ‘That awful bear!’
”We went to his nest under the barn, and there was the box, licked as
clean as a woman could wash it. The wicked brute hauled it up, bit the
rope in two, and carried off the butter. That sealed his fate: mother
said she wouldn’t intercede for him any more, and I couldn’t say a
word, though I wanted to; and so ‘he died of butter.’
“I felt so bad that I never cared to have any pets after that.”