Now, there is one thing, Children, which often plays a sorry part in
the lives of two-legged men! Often it leads them a worse dance than
the dogs led the bear! That is fear.
And in this case fear, foolish and unreal, not only proved to be bad
for the shepherd man who was starting to cross the plain with the
full bag of flour on his back, but it made trouble for the mother
bear, too, who, snorting around among the bushes with her cubs,
watched him from the top of the mound.
If she had been alone, if she hadn't had two little baby bears with
her, she never would have thought of chasing that fat shepherd man at
all.
But, all of a sudden, as she looked down at him, a queer, false fear
took hold of her and made her hunch her back up; it was that, if she
didn't chase him, the two-legged man might do some harm to her cubs,
whom she loved so much.
But still he looked so harmless, walking slowly upon the plain, with
the flour-sack upon his back, that I really don't think she would
have done it; I think she would have let him go on his way quietly to
the hill of the sheep and the starry lights, if he hadn't looked up
and seen her.
However, this is what happened: he did see her. And although he was
a good shepherd man who prayed to God, was kind to his sheep and
lambs, and tried to reflect divine Love in his heart and life, fear
took hold of him when he looked at that great mound of earth above
the swamp and saw a big, brown animal, with a hunched-up back moving
around there among the bushes.
"A bear!" he gasped to himself and the flour-sack shook upon his
back. "A she-bear--and cubs with her! Oh! my fat legs! I c-can't
run very fast. Maybe, maybe, she'll chase me!"
Then the foolish fear shook his fat legs so much that he couldn't
just keep quietly and calmly walking on, with his bag of flour.
He began to run, himself, away from the bear--away from the mother
bear that wasn't yet chasing him! To run faster and faster on his
fat legs, just as fast as he could without dropping the bag of flour.
Of all the foolish things that he could have done, this was the most
foolish, for fear was in the mother bear's heart, too, as you know,
fear for her cubs. And when she saw that shepherd man running,
jogging along--joggetty-jog--as fast as he could over the plain, why,
then she was sure that he meant some mischief to her two cubs.
Perhaps she felt without reasoning about it, that if he had a good
conscience and didn't mean any harm to her yellow bear cubs, he
wouldn't have been running away from her, that he would just have
walked quietly on, without taking any notice at all of the bears on
the mound, which was what he ought to have done.
But now, she was so full of blind fear herself, that she didn't
hesitate another minute, she just ran after him as fast as ever she
could.
Down the mound she galloped, snorting like an angry pony, with her
back curved and her eyes glaring.
She didn't stop when she got to the soft swamp of mud and dark
stagnant water at the foot of the mound, but, sliding, rolling,
galloping, plunged right into it.
When she came out at the other side, on the plain, she was wet all
over and plastered with mud, a sorry sight! And, O my! she was to be
a sorrier sight--or a funnier sight--still, before the blind fear and
anger which were driving her forward got through with her.
Such a funny sight she was bound to be that it makes me laugh even to
think of it, before I tell you of her further doings, at all.
She did not stop chasing the man because she was wet and muddy. Not
a bit of it! She ran after him all the faster over the dim plain on
which the evening shadows were falling, while her two fat, whining
cubs, left alone among the scampering wood mice, looked down at her
from the mound.
As for the shepherd man, with the heavy bag of flour on his
shoulders, he became so frightened when he heard her growling and
galloping behind him, that his fat legs felt as thin and weak under
him as your little finger. And no wonder!
He didn't want to drop the bag of flour, which he had brought all the
way from that distant house on the other side of the river, because
he knew that, if he did, both he and the other poor shepherd man who
was waiting for him on the distant hill, with the sheep, would have
to go hungry for days.
"Oh!" he groaned to himself. "Oh, if I can only reach that hill
where the lights are and the sheep and sheep-dogs! Oh, if I can only
reach it without losing all my flour! But I haven't a gun or even a
stick with me, to fight the mother bear who is chasing me, because I
don't like fighting wild animals; I'd rather be friends with them!"
This ought to have made him braver at the beginning. But now, as he
raced on over the plain, he was becoming weaker in those fat legs of
his and more scared every instant.
His heart was jumping up and down inside him. The full flour-bag
seemed to weigh a ton upon his shoulders.
But still, you never saw a fat man run so fast. Now and again, he
tripped over a bush or a stone upon the darkening plain and rocked
from side to side under his load of flour, waddling like a goose
before he could straighten up again.
I think the two little bear cubs, Timmy and his twin brother, left
alone upon the mound of mice, must have laughed to see him.
But no matter how fast he ran, the mother bear galloped faster. In
spite of the fact that he had pretty good odds to begin with--and
every child knows what odds are in a race--his hair was just combed
with shivers until it stood up and his skin turned cold, for now he
heard the angry old mother bear's growls only a dozen feet behind him.
Another instant, and he could feel the gusts of her hot, panting
breath blowing out before her on the plain.
"Oh!--Oh! there's no help for it--the flour must go," panted the poor
shepherd man. "I just must drop my bag of flour that I've carried so
far! The other shepherd who is waiting for me on the hill with the
sheep--and I, too--will have to go hungry to bed to-night!"
So he let the full, bulging flour-bag fall from his shoulders, on to
the plain. And, as he did so, he threw back his head, gathered all
his panting breath and gave a long shrill whistle. Then another! A
whistle which sounded as if he were calling with all his might upon
some unseen friends to come and save him from the chasing bear.
Now you wonder why he whistled, don't you?--why he whistled so hard,
looking off toward the hill where were the sheep and the ring of red
lights,--the hill he was trying to reach, which was, at the moment
that he dropped the flour-bag, only about half a mile away.
Well, I'll tell you, presently, why he whistled, although, knowing
that there are sheep-dogs on that hill, you can, perhaps, guess for
yourselves. But first, I must tell you what happened to the mother
bear--shaggy Mrs. Cinnamon Bear--and the shepherd's bag of flour.
Do you remember my saying that bears are curious by nature, that is,
as eager as little children to find out all there is to know about
the things they see? that they ask questions with their noses and
keep poking those noses into everything? That is very true! And
although this mother bear was so angry by now, with the fleeing
shepherd man (just because she was filled with such a false fear
about her cubs) that she wanted to scratch him with her claws, yet
she couldn't help stopping to tear open the flour-bag first to find
out what was in it.
So she checked her heavy, lumbering gallop and sniffed at the full
bag as it lay on the ground. Then she rolled it over curiously.
Next, she struck at it with her paw which had those five sharp claws
on it that cut the canvas bag open, like a knife.
O my! Out streamed the shepherd's precious white flour and sprinkled
the plain!
But Mrs. Cinnamon Bear wasn't satisfied with tearing the flour-bag
open; she thrust her nose into it, just as she had thrust it into the
bee-tree, to sniff at the wild bees' honey.
She was as hungry as the shepherd men, for she hadn't caught many
mice for supper; and she thought that the dry flour might do for an
evening meal.
Finding that it didn't sting her as the wild bees did, she thrust her
whole shaggy head into the bag, nosing around there.
"Boo-oo-itt!" she growled. "This dry stuff is not good to eat! It
only fills my eyes and ears and my big throat, and chokes me!
Oo-oo-oo-o! Honk! Booitt!" she grunted, nosing and snorting.
But now, Children, the funniest thing of all happened, brought about
by false fear!
For now--now--there was a white bear where a brown one had been!
Do you remember my saying that I would tell you about a bear in a
white mask?
Well, if you, little Boys and Girls, had been on the wide plain that
evening, you would have seen a bear in a white mask.
For Mrs. Cinnamon Bear's shaggy light-brown fur was very thick over
her head and face, as it was over all her body, although her face was
smoother than the rest of her.
And it was wet, too, that thick, brown fur, wet and miry, for she had
plunged through a swamp.
So the dry flour just stuck in a white plaster over her face and
head, even to the tips of her ears, so that never since time began
did anybody see such a funny-looking body in the shape of a bear!
She was floured all over, even to her short tail, with the white,
dusty contents of the shepherd's bag.
I declare to you that, as she whisked around upon the plain, growling
and rolling the flour-bag over until there wasn't a pinch of flour
left in it, she looked more like a white donkey than a cinnamon bear.
It was funnier, still, when she stood upon her hind legs for a moment
and growled savagely, because she was very cross at finding that she
could not eat the raw flour, it was too dry and powdery.
Then she might have been a boy dressed up in a light-colored, furry
skin, with an animal mask on.
For that caked flour, thickly sticking to her, made a snow-white mask
over her face and head which shone in the dusk of the plain.
So there you have your bear in the white mask.
Really, her own cubs wouldn't have known her.
Why, even the scared shepherd man whom she had been chasing, when he
looked back over his shoulder, nearly fell to pieces with laughing at
her.
"O my fat legs!" he gasped. "O my fat sides! Surely, I shall split
them because I don't dare stop, not for a minute, to laugh as I want
to! Did anybody ever before see a bear like that--floured all over?
Huh! Huh! He! He! Ha! Ha!"
But the next moment he had something else to think of, besides his
fat sides. For Mother Cinnamon Bear, choking with the dry flour in
her throat and nostrils, suddenly remembered the dark, running figure
of a man on the plain ahead of her and that she had been chasing him.
"Whoo-oof! Ouk-k!" she snorted and started after him again. But
that flour-bag had saved the fleeing, frightened shepherd man.
He was nearer to the hill of the lights now and he had kept
whistling, whistling shrilly and piteously, as he ran, puffing, along.
And now, at last, he got an answer, the answer he wanted.
It wasn't the voice of the other shepherd man, coming to frighten the
bear off with a gun.
No, it was the bark of a dog! The howling bark of a sheep-dog! The
very bark which the mother bear had heard on the evening when she
came back late to the cave, when her biggest cub trotted out to meet
her.
Then another, a different bark chimed on.
Down, down from the hill of the lights, like the wind, came Glen and
Watch, the two strong, wise sheep-dogs, who had chased this very bear
away before and prevented her carrying off a little lamb.
"Uf! Uf! Ou-ouf! Wou-ouf! We're coming, Shepherd Man!" they
barked. "We're coming as fast as we can! We'll save you from the
bear! We're your own Glen and Watch, whom you trust to drive home
your sheep and to watch them all night through! ... Uf-f! Wouf-f!
We're blowing along like the wind--to--meet--you!"
Oh! how glad the poor, tired, puffing shepherd was, jogging on,
joggetty-jog, upon his fat legs, at hearing their brave, barking
answer.
But the bear wasn't. She slackened speed and began to look around
for a place to hide in, because she didn't want to be made to dance
like a white madcap all over the plain, with two saucy dogs barking
and snipping at her heels.
Glen and Watch were too quick for her, however. They were upon her
before she could hide, those two frilled sheep-dogs.
"Ow-ow-o w-w!
Dance, White Bear Woman, dance,
Dance to our music, ow-w!"
they barked at her wildly, while Glen took a nip at her heels and
sprang away before she could catch him, although she galloped this
way and that, shaking and ducking her white head in its mask of flour.
"Dance, Bear Woman, dance,
Dance to our game of tag,
Woof! What a bear are you,
To put your head in a flour-bag!"
barked Watch, with another nip.
It really seemed as if the dogs were laughing at the mother bear for
putting her head in a bag.
And so, as night came on, the game of tag which they played with her
went on all over the plain.
The tired shepherd man shook his fat sides again at seeing it.
But then, as he jogged on, joggetty jog, toward the hill of the
lights, he suddenly felt more like crying than laughing, for,
although he had been saved from the bear, he had lost all his flour
which was scattered over the plain, as much of it as wasn't powdering
that bear's thick fur.
He would have to go to bed, starving, without any pancakes for
supper; and so would the other hungry shepherd who was waiting for
him on the hill where the sheep and little lambs were already asleep
upon their bedding ground, with the rosy ring of lights burning
around them.
That was what false fear brought to him, for if he hadn't run away,
ten to one the mother bear wouldn't have chased him, at all.
And what did blind, angry fear bring to that Mother Cinnamon Bear?
Well, after an hour of playing tag and dance with her, the sheep-dogs
chased her away from the plain altogether, off into a narrow glen, or
gully, a long way from the mound of the mice where she had left her
two little cubs when she set out to chase the shepherd with his
flour-bag.
All night long little fat Timmy and his twin brother whined and cried
for her. But she didn't come.
And the truth is, although I hate to tell you, Children, that those
two fat bear cubs, left alone among the mousie white-foots, the
singing wood mice, never saw their mother again.