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[Illustration]
Bear Brownie
_The Life of a Bear_
_From Animal Autobiographies by H. P. Robinson_
REVISED BY
JANE FIELDING
NEW YORK
A. L. CHATTERTON CO.
Copyright, 1913
A. L. CHATTERTON CO.
BEAR BROWNIE
CHAPTER I.
HOW I TUMBLED DOWNHILL.
It is not easy for one to believe that he ever was a cub. Of course, I
know that I was, and as it was only nine years ago I ought to remember
it fairly clearly.
It is not so much a mere matter of size, although it is doubtful if any
young bear realizes how small he is. My father and mother seemed
enormous to me, but, on the other hand, my sister was smaller than I,
and perhaps the fact that I could always box her ears when I wanted to
gave me an exaggerated idea of my own importance. Not that I did it very
often, except when she used to bite my hind-toes. Every bear, of course,
likes to chew his own feet, for it is one of the most soothing and
comforting things in the world; but it is horrid to have anyone else
come up behind you when you are asleep, and begin to chew your feet for
you. And that was Kahwa--that was my sister, my name being Brownie--was
always doing, and I simply had to slap her well whenever she did.
But, as I said, cubhood is not a matter of size only. As I look down at
this glossy coat of mine, it is hard to believe that it was ever a dirty
yellow color, and all ridiculous wool and fluff, as young cubs' coats
are. But I must have been fluffy, because I remember how my mother,
after she had been licking me for any length of time, used to be obliged
to stop and wipe the fur out of her mouth with the back of her paw.
Every time my mother had to wipe her mouth she used to try to box my
ears, so that when she stopped licking me, I, knowing what was coming
next, would tuck my head down as far as it would go between my legs, and
keep it there till she began licking again.
Yes, when I stop to think, I know, from many things, that I must have
been just an ordinary cub. For instance, my very earliest recollection
is of tumbling downhill.
Like all bears, I was born and lived on the hillside. In the Rocky
Mountains, where my home was, there is nothing but hills, or mountains,
for miles and miles, so that you can wander on for day after day, always
going up one side of a hill and down the other, and up and down again;
and at the bottom of almost every valley there is a stream or river,
which for most of the year swirls along nosily and full of water.
In the winter the whole country is covered with snow many feet deep,
which, as it falls, slides off the hillsides, and is drifted by the
winds into the valleys and hollows till the smaller ones are filled up
nearly to the tops of the trees. But bears do not see much of that, for
when the first snow comes we get into our dens and go half asleep, and
stay hibernating till springtime. And you have no idea how delightful
hibernating is, nor how excruciatingly stiff we are when we wake up, and
how hungry!
The snow lies over everything for months, until in the early spring the
warm west winds begin to blow, melting the snow from one side of the
mountains. Then the sun grows hotter and hotter day by day, and helps to
melt it until most of the mountain slopes are clear; but in sheltered
places and in the bottoms of the little hollows the snow stays in
patches till far into the summer. We bears comes out from our winter
sleep when the snow is not quite gone, when the whole earth everywhere
is still wet with it, and the streams, swollen with floods, are
bubbling and boiling along so that the air is filled with the noise of
them by night and day.
Our home was well up one of the hillsides, where two huge cedar-trees
shot up side by side close by a jutting mass of rock. In between the
roots of the trees and under the rock was as good a house as a family of
bears could want--roomy enough for all four of us, perfectly sheltered,
and hidden and dry. Can you imagine how warm and comfy it was when we
were all snuggled in there, with our arms round each other, and our
faces buried in each other's fur? Anyone looking in would have seen
nothing but a huge ball of brown fluff.
It was from just outside the door that I tumbled downhill.
It must have been early in the year, because the ground was still very
wet and soft, and the gully at the bottom full of snow. Of course, if I
had not been a cub I should never have fallen, for big bears do not
tumble downhill. If by any chance anything did start one, and he found
he could not stop himself, he would know enough to tuck in his head and
paws out of harm's way; but I only knew that somehow, in romping with
Kahwa, I had lost my balance, and was going--goodness knew where! I went
all spread out like a squirrel, first on my head, then on my back, then
on my tummy, clutching at everything that I passed, slapping the ground
with my outstretched paws, and squealing for help. Bump! bang! slap!
bump! I went, hitting trees and thumping all the wind out of me against
the earth, and at last--souse into the snow!
Wow-ugh! How cold and wet it was! And it was deep--so deep, indeed, that
I was buried completely out of sight; and I doubt if I should ever have
got out alive had not my mother come down and dug me out with her nose
and paws. Then she half pushed and half smacked me uphill again, and
when I got home I was the wettest, coldest, sorest, wretchedest bear-cub
in the Rocky Mountains.
Then, while I lay and whimpered, my mother spent the rest of the day
licking me into the semblance of a respectable bearskin again. But I was
bruised and nervous for days afterwards.
That tumble of mine gave us the idea of the game which Kahwa and I used
to play almost every day after that. Kahwa would take her stand with her
back against the rock by our door, just at the point where the hill
went off most steeply, and it was my business to come charging up the
hill at her and try to pull her down. What fun it was! Sometimes I was
the one to stand against the rock, and Kahwa tried to pull me down. She
could not do it; but she was plucky, and used to come at me so
ferociously that I often wondered for a minute whether it was only play
or whether she was really angry.
Best of all was when mother used to play with us. Then she put her back
to the rock, and we both attacked her at once from opposite sides, each
trying to get hold of a hind-leg just above the foot. If she put her
head down to pretend to bite either of us, the other jumped for her ear.
Sometimes we would each get hold of an ear, and hang on as hard as we
could, while she pretended we were hurting her dreadfully, growling and
shaking her head, and making as much fuss as she could; but if in our
excitement either of us did chance to bite a little too hard, we always
knew it. With a couple of cuffs, hard enough to make us yelp, she would
throw us to one side and the other, and there was no more play for that
day. And mother could hit hard when she liked. I have seen her smack
father in a way that would have broken all the bones in a cub's body,
and killed any human being outright.
But to Kahwa and me both father and mother were very gentle and kind in
those first helpless days, and I suppose they never punished us unless
we deserved it. Later on my father and I had differences, as you will
hear. But in that first summer our lives, uneventful, were happy.