THE TWINS MEET THEIR FATHER
Beware the stranger with a smile
Lest it but hide a trickster’s guile.
_Mother Bear._
Boxer and Woof-Woof had begun to wonder if they and their mother were
the only Bears in the Green Forest. So far they had seen no other.
Then one day as they were playing about near the Laughing Brook, while
Mother Bear was busy a little way off tearing open an old stump after
ants, Woof-Woof discovered a footprint. She showed it to Boxer. Then
the two little cubs sat up and stared at each other and their little
eyes were very round with wonder.
“Mother Bear didn’t make that footprint,” whispered Boxer as if he were
afraid of being overheard. “Who do you suppose did?”
Woof-Woof moved a little nearer to Boxer. “I haven’t any idea,” she
whispered back, and hurriedly glanced all around. “It wasn’t Mother
Bear, for there is one of her footprints right over there, and it is
different. There must be a great big stranger around here.”
The twins drew very close together and stood up that they might better
stare in every direction. They were a little frightened at the thought
that a big stranger might be near. Then they remembered that Mother
Bear was only a little way off, and at once they felt better. They saw
no stranger. Everything about them seemed just as it should be. They
cocked their little ears to listen. All they heard was the sound of
Mother Bear’s great claws tearing open that old stump, the cawing of
Blacky the Crow far in the distance, the gurgle of the Laughing Brook,
and the whispering of the Merry Little Breezes in the tree tops.
Now not even Peter Rabbit has more curiosity than has a little
Bear. Presently Boxer dropped down to all fours and approached that
footprint. Already he had learned that his ears were better than his
eyes and his nose was better than his ears. His eyes had told him
nothing. His ears had told him nothing. Now he would try his nose.
He sniffed at that footprint and the hair along his shoulders rose a
little. His nose told him that that footprint was made by a Bear he
never had seen. There wasn’t any question about it. It told him that
the stranger had passed this way only a short time before. A great
desire to see that stranger took possession of Boxer. Curiosity was
stronger than fear.
“Let’s follow his tracks; perhaps we can see him,” whispered Boxer to
Woof-Woof, and started along with his nose to the ground.
Now whatever one twin did, the other did. So Woof-Woof followed her
brother. One behind the other, their noses to the ground, the twins
stole through the Green Forest. Every once in a while Boxer sat up to
look and listen. When he did this, Woof-Woof did the same thing. It was
very exciting. It was so exciting that they quite forgot Mother Bear
and that they had been told not to go away. So they got farther and
farther from where Mother Bear was at work.
And then, without any warning at all, a great Bear stepped out from
behind a fallen tree. He wore a black coat, and he was just about the
size of Mother Bear. Of course you know who it was. It was Buster Bear.
For the first time in their short lives the twins saw their father and
he saw them. But the twins didn’t know that he was their father, and he
didn’t know that they were his children. Things like that happen in the
Green Forest.