ALL IS WELL AT LAST
If you are taught not to forget
Your punishment you’ll ne’er regret.
_Mother Bear._
Mrs. Bear is one of those mothers who believe in punishment. She
believes that the cub who is never punished for wrong-doing is almost
sure to grow up to be of little or no use in the Great World, provided
he lives to grow up at all. She doubts if he will live to grow up at
all. So her cubs are promptly punished when they disobey or do wrong,
and they are punished in a way to make them remember.
Now when Boxer, the lost little cub who had had such a dreadful time,
saw Mother Bear and his sister Woof-Woof, he thought all his troubles
were at an end. Perhaps you can guess what his feelings were when he
was stopped short by a growl from Mother Bear. He wanted--oh, how he
wanted--to rush up to her and snuggle against her and feel her big paws
gently patting him.
But there was to be none of that. It was plain that Mother Bear meant
exactly what she said when she told him to come no nearer. And when he
looked to his twin sister, Woof-Woof, she turned up her nose and it was
quite clear that she wanted nothing to do with him.
Poor little Boxer. He didn’t understand it at all at first. You see,
in the joy of being found, he had forgotten that he still carried that
dreadful scent with which Jimmy Skunk had punished him, and so no one,
not even his mother or sister, would want him very near. When Woof-Woof
cried “Phew!” as she turned up her nose he remembered. He hung his head
and meekly shuffled along after his mother and sister, taking care to
get no nearer to them. He didn’t dare to, for every few steps Mother
Bear would swing her head around and grumble a warning.
And this was just the beginning of Boxer’s punishment. Day after day
he tagged along, far behind, but always keeping his mother and sister
in sight. You may be sure he took care to do that. He had had quite
enough of seeing the Great World alone. Not for anything would he be
lost again. But it was hard, very hard, to have only what was left
when Mother Bear found a feast. What he didn’t know was that Mother
Bear always took care that there should be a fair share left. At such
times Woof-Woof took great joy in smacking her lips while Boxer sat up
watching from a distance.
When they slept Boxer had to curl up by himself. At first this was the
hardest of all. But little by little he got used to it. He didn’t know
and Woof-Woof didn’t know, but Mother Bear did, that this was good for
him; it was making him more and more sure of himself. And tagging along
behind as he did every day was doing the same thing. He was always
looking for something that Mother Bear and Woof-Woof might have missed.
And so he learned to use his eyes and his nose and his ears better than
Woof-Woof did, for she depended more on Mother Bear, being right at her
heels.
As the days passed, Boxer’s coat became more and more free from that
dreadful scent. Boxer had become so used to it that he didn’t notice
it at all, so he wasn’t conscious when it began to grow less. At last
it got so that it was hardly to be noticed excepting on rainy or very
damp days. For a long time after Mother Bear had permitted him to
resume his place with Woof-Woof, she drove him away on such days.
So at last Boxer’s punishment ended. Mother Bear gave him a good
talking to and said that she hoped this would be a lesson he never
would forget. “Yes’m, it will,” he had replied very meekly, and he knew
it would. Then he took his place once more, save that now, instead of
following at Mother Bear’s heels, he allowed Woof-Woof to do that and
he followed her. Though Woof-Woof didn’t suspect it, he preferred it
so.
So Buster Bear’s twins grew and grew until every one said that they
were the finest young Bears ever seen in the Green Forest.
Billy Mink says that these cubs have received attention enough and
that there are other people who should be considered. Perhaps Billy is
right, though I suspect he is thinking of himself. Anyway this ends the
Green Forest series and the next book will be the first in the Smiling
Pool series. The title will be Billy Mink.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.
Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
End of Project Gutenberg's Buster Bear's Twins, by Thornton W. Burgess