There were many mornings and evenings after that when little Timmy
Bear-cub and his shaggy mother heard the sheep-dogs bark, away off
upon the hill of the stars.
Sometimes, the barking sounded nearer, then Mother Cinnamon Bear
would lead her two fat cubs back into the farthest corner of their
cave home and purr and growl to them softly while they snuggled up
against her, trying to tell them what dogs and a dog dance were in
the experience of a bear.
But generally the shrill voices of the sheep-dogs were so far off,
hardly more than an echo across the wide plain which lay between her
and them, that, by and by, she paid less attention to their barking.
And she became accustomed, too, to the far away glimmer of that ring
of hillside lights, which twinkled out like stars directly twilight
came on, and shone steadily all night through, to wink themselves out
in the morning.
They were much too far off, as I have said, to dazzle the eyes of the
little bear cubs who didn't bother about them at all, or about the
dog's voices either, when they grew old enough to leave the cave and
go on excursions with their mother.
First of all, she took them berrying. I have told you that there was
a river running through the wide plain, not far from the bear's cave.
On the bank of this river there was some swampy ground which sloped
up into a tall bluff, meaning a great mound of earth, many feet high.
All up this mound grew berry bushes,--blueberry and huckleberry. And
there Mrs. Cinnamon Bear took her two yellow cubs to train them to be
berry pickers, to pick and eat the tiny fruit.
She ate such quarts of them, herself, that it really seemed as if the
bushes would be stripped bare.
She was rather thin and hungry just now, for she had been so busy
looking after her cubs that it was long since she had gone on a bee
hunt, to find a hollow bee-tree and get wild, white honey; for a
bee-tree was the bear's candy store, you know, where they got their
sweets.
However, when Timmy and his twin brother were about two months old,
she did, on a fine day, lead them off into some woods that bordered
one side of the plain and smell out a bee-tree for them. It was a
tall maple-tree, flaming red, with a deep, deep hollow in the trunk
just packed full of quarts and quarts of the most delicious honey,
rich and sweet.
Mother Cinnamon Bear thrust her shaggy, brown paw, with the curved
claws on it, down into the hollow of that bee-tree and brought it up
all sticky and dripping with the handfuls of honey that she drew out.
Then she licked that sweet, sweet paw all over and thrust it into the
tree again. The angry bees which had made the honey just flew out in
the greatest rage, swarmed all over her and stung her.
But she was so hungry and greedy for sweets that she didn't mind that
very much, besides, a bear's skin is so thick that the bees had to
sting hard to get through it. She didn't care even if her dull-black
nose, the color of rubber, did swell up on being stung, and become
broader than it ought to be.
But it was a different matter when the wild bees began to sting her
cubs. The third time that she thrust her paw into the hollow
bee-tree and brought it out dripping deliciously she gave it to
Timmy, the biggest cub, to lick.
"Whoof! Whoof!" she grunted to him. "You just taste this! It's
honey. Wild bees' honey! Very sweetest thing in all the woods!"
"Woo-oof!" answered Timmy, and he greedily licked his mother's sticky
paw.
Oh, it tasted so good, so sweet! He thrust out his pink tongue,
licked his own smeared jaws, like a kitten who has got at the cream
pitcher, and whined impatiently for more, more, more!
But just then, a big bee buzzed up and stung him right on his tender
little nose which was all honey-smeared.
"Wz-wz-wz-z-z-z!"
Said the bee,
"Take that with the honey
You're stealing from me!"
Timmy, the fat cub who hadn't got his name yet, struck out at the
angry "buzzer" with his furry paw on which some of the honey had
dripped. But he couldn't hit the bee. Then he put down his head and
cried and rubbed his nose with that little sticky paw, whining and
whining and whining; rubbed his blinking eyes, too.
At that his mother drew her paw out of the tree, for she was fonder
of two little cubs than she was of wild honey, although she just
loved that. And she was afraid of angering the wild bees any more.
"Boo-ooitt!" she growled, rubbing her own brown nose which was all
shiny, sweet, smeared, and stung. "Boo-oo-ooitt! I guess we won't
rob the bees' store any more to-day, children. Let's get back to our
cave. To-morrow, or next day, I'll take you on a mouse hunt. That
will be real fun, for the little wood mice which scamper round so
quickly on their tiny white feet can't sting you; and, maybe, I'll
show how to catch them. Oo-oo-oo-o! Booitt! My nose doesn't feel
at all comfortable; it's all fiery hot, and as sting-y as it's sweet!"
Right there she stopped, in the act of leading her two cubs away from
the bee-tree, out of the woods, back toward their cave home on the
edge of the plain, stopped and rubbed her stung nose in some soft,
wet mud to cool it off.
Oh, but it was a funny-looking nose when she held it up high again,
for the dark swamp mud stuck thickly to the honey with which it was
already smeared; and, caked all over her brown face, she looked as if
she had a muddy mask on.
But she was to wear a white mask later, before we get through with
her story, this Madam Cinnamon Bear; for, to tell you the truth, Boys
and Girls, bears are the most curious creatures on earth, with the
exception of little children.
And by "curious" I mean being eager to find out all they can about
things in general, asking questions about everything.
If children put questions with eager little tongues, wild bears ask
them with their noses. So, often they poke their noses into things
where they had much better have kept them out. Perhaps there are
little people who do that, too.
At any rate, that is how Timmy's brown bear mother came later to wear
a white mask.
What! A bear in a "white mask," you say? Who ever heard of such a
thing?
Wait, and see!