This is a true story of the woods:
It was afternoon on the day before a holiday, and a boy of nine and a
fat-legged baby of three years were frolicking in front of a rough log
house beside a stream in a forest of northern Michigan. The house was
miles from the nearest settlement, yet the boy and baby were the only
ones about the place. The explanation of this circumstance was simple.
It was proposed to build a sawmill in the forest, and ship the lumber
downstream to the great lake. The river was deep enough to allow the
passage up to the sawmill site of a small barge, and a preliminary of
the work was to build a rude dock. A pile-driver was towed up the river,
but as this particular pile-driver had not the usual stationary
steam-engine accompanying it, the great iron weight which was dropped
upon the piles to drive them into the river bed was elevated by means of
a windlass and mule power. The weight, once lifted, was released by
means of a trigger connected by a cord with a post, where a man driving
the mule around could pull it. The arrangement was primitive but
effective.
A Mr. Hart, the man in charge of the four or five workmen engaged,
lived with his wife and two children, Johnny and the baby, in the log
house referred to. The men had leave of absence, and had left early in
the morning to spend the day in the settlement, about ten miles off.
Later in the day Mr. Hart and his wife had driven there also to obtain
certain things for making the holiday dinner a little out of the common,
and to secure certain small gifts for Johnny and the baby. So it came
that Johnny, a sturdy and pretty reliable youth of his years, was left
in charge of things, with strict injunctions to take good care of the
baby. A luncheon neatly arranged in a basket was likewise left to be
consumed whenever he and his more youthful charge should become hungry.
The pair had been having a good time all by themselves on the day
referred to. Breakfast had been eaten very late that morning, but Johnny
was a boy and growing. It was about one o'clock when he proposed to the
baby that they eat dinner. That corpulent young gentleman assented with
great promptness. Johnny went into the house and got the lunch. The
broad platform of the pile-driver, tied firmly beside the river's bank,
attracted Johnny's attention as he emerged, and he conceived the idea
that there would be a good place for enjoyment of the feast. He helped
the baby to get on board. The great mass of iron used in the work
chanced to be raised to the top of the framework, and in the space
underneath, between the timbers was a cozy niche in which to sit and
eat. The boy and baby sat down there and proceeded to business.
It occurred to the boy that he had done a tolerably good thing. He
didn't analyze the situation particularly, but he had an idea that
eating on the barge was fun. The platform rocked gently, the air was
crisp and keen, a smell of the pine woods came over the river, and
Johnny felt pretty well. He thought this having charge of things all by
himself was by no means bad.
"Whoosh!"
Born in the backwoods though he had been, Johnny did not at first
recognize that sound--half grunt, half snort, and full of a terrible
meaning. He sprang to his feet and looked up the bank. There, gazing
down upon the pair on the platform, was a big black bear!
The beast looked fierce and hungry. The weather had been cold, and bears
which had not gone into winter quarters were all savage. A yearling
steer had been killed by one in the woods a few days before. The
attention of the brute upon the bank seemed fixed upon the baby. There
was something in its fierce eyes indicating that it had found just what
it needed. If there was anything that would make a meal just to its
taste that day it was baby--fat baby, about two years old. It gave
another "whoosh!" and came lumbering down the bank.
For a moment Johnny stood panic-stricken; then instinctively he
clutched the baby--that individual kicking and protesting wildly at
being dragged away from luncheon--and stumbled toward the other end of
the barge. As Johnny and the baby reached one end, the bear came down
upon the other, and shuffled rapidly toward them. There was slight hope
for the fleeing couple, at least for the baby. That personage seemed
destined for a bear's dinner that day. Suddenly the bear hesitated. He
had reached the remains of the dinner.
Part of what Johnny's mother had provided for the midday repast was
bread and butter, plentifully besmeared with honey. If a bear, big or
little, has one weakness in this world it is just honey. He will do for
honey what a miser will do for gain, what a politician will do for
office, what a lover will do for his sweetheart, what some women will do
for dress. For that bear to pass that bread and honey was simply an
impossibility. He would stop and devour it. It would take but a moment
or two, and the baby could come afterward.
The boy gave a frightened glance behind him as he jumped off the
platform and scrambled up the bank with the baby in his arms. He saw
that the bear had paused, and a gleam of hope came to him. He put the
baby down on its feet and started to run with it. But the baby was
heavy; its legs besides being, as already remarked, very fat, were very
short, and progress was not rapid. The bear, the boy knew, would not be
occupied with the luncheon long. He reached the windlass where the mule
had worked, and leaned pantingly against the post holding the cord by
pulling which the weight was released from the top of the timbers on the
barge. A wild idea of trying to climb the post with the baby came into
his head. He looked up and noticed the cord.
Like a flash came to the terrified boy a great thought. If he dared only
stop a moment! If he dared try to pull the cord as he had seen his
father do and release the trigger which sustained the great weight!
There was the bear right under it!
Even as this thought came to Johnny the bear looked up and growled.
Johnny grabbed at the baby and started to run again, but the baby
stumbled and rolled over into a little hollow with its fat legs sticking
upward. In desperation Johnny jumped back and caught at the cord. He
pulled with all his might, but the trigger at the top of the pile-driver
sustained a great burden and the thing required more than Johnny's
strength. "Come, baby, quick!" he cried. "Put your arm about me and lean
back!" The young gentleman addressed had regained his feet again and was
placid. He waddled up, put his arm about Johnny, and leaned back
sturdily. The bear looked up again and growled, this time more
earnestly. The luncheon was about finished. Johnny set his teeth and
pulled again. The baby added, say, thirty pounds to the pull. It was
just what was needed. There was a creak at the top of the pile-driver,
and then--
"W-h-i-r-r! T-h-u-d!"
Six hundred pounds of iron dropped from a height of twenty-five feet on
the small of the back of an elephant would finish him. It is more than
enough for a bear. Over the river and through the forest went out one
awful roar of brute agony, then all was still. A bear with its backbone
broken and crushed down into its stomach is just as dead as a chipmunk
would be under the same circumstances. For a moment the silence
prevailed, to be followed by the yell of a healthy youngster in great
distress. As the trigger yielded, Johnny and the baby had keeled heels
over head backward into the soft moss, and Johnny had fallen on the
baby.
The boy arose a little dazed, lifted the howling infant to its feet, and
then looked toward the boat. The bear was there--crushed beneath the
iron. From one side of the mass projected the animal's hind-quarters,
from the other its front, and there were the glaring eyes and savage
open jaws. It was enough. Johnny grabbed the baby and started for the
house.
Johnny was perfectly convinced that the bear was dead, very dead, but he
didn't propose to take any chances. He liked adventure, but he was
satisfied with the quantity for one afternoon. He was young, but he knew
when he had enough. He dragged the baby inside, bolted the door, and
waited. At about six o'clock in the evening his father and mother
returned. Johnny didn't have much to say when he opened the door and
came out with the baby to meet them, but for a man of his size his chest
protruded somewhat phenomenally. He told his story. His mother caught up
the fat baby and kissed it. His father took him by the hand, and they
went down and looked at the bear. Tears came in the man's eyes as he
laid his hand on Johnny's head.
Along in January or February it was worth one's while to be up in
Michigan where they were building a sawmill. It was worth one's while to
note the appearance of a young man, nine years of age or thereabouts,
who would saunter out of the log house along in the afternoon, advance
toward the river, and then, with his legs spread wide apart, his hands
in his pockets, and his hat stuck on the back of his head, stand on a
small knoll and look down upon the spot where _he_ killed a bear the day
before Christmas. It was worth one's while to note the expression upon
his countenance as he stood there and as he finally stalked away,
whistling Yankee Doodle, with perhaps, a slight lack of precision, but
with tremendous spirit and significance.