The Youth"s Companion.
by Various.
What amused us most at the Lake House last summer was the performance of a bear in the back yard.
He was fastened to a pole by a chain, which gave him a range of a dozen or fifteen feet. It was not very safe for visitors to come within that circle, unless they were prepared for rough handling.
He had a way of suddenly catching you to his bosom, and picking your pockets of peanuts and candy,--if you carried any about you,--in a manner which took your breath away. He stood up to his work on his hind legs in a quite human fashion, and used paw and tongue with amazing skill and vivacity. He was friendly, and didn"t mean any harm, but he was a rude playfellow.
I shall never forget the ludicrous adventures of a dandified New Yorker who came out into the yard to feed bruin on seed-cakes, and did not feed him fast enough.
He had approached a trifle too near, when all at once the bear whipped an arm about him, took him to his embrace, and "went through" his pockets in a hurry. The terrified face of the struggling and screaming fop, and the good-natured, businesslike expression of the fumbling and munching beast, offered the funniest sort of contrast.
The one-eyed hostler, who was the bear"s especial guardian, lounged leisurely to the spot.
"Keep still, and he won"t hurt ye," he said, turning his quid. "That"s one of his tricks. Throw out what you"ve got, and he"ll leave ye."
The dandy made haste to help bruin to the last of the seed-cakes, and escaped without injury, but in a ridiculous plight,--his hat smashed, his necktie and linen rumpled, and his watch dangling; but his fright was the most laughable part of all.
The one-eyed hostler made a motion to the beast, who immediately climbed the pole, and looked at us from the cross-piece at the top.
"A bear," said the one-eyed hostler, turning his quid again, "is the best-hearted, knowin"est critter that goes on all-fours. I"m speakin" of our native black bear, you understand. The brown bear aint half so respectable, and the grizzly is one of the ugliest brutes in creation.
Come down here, Pomp!"
Pomp slipped down the pole and advanced towards the one-eyed hostler, walking on his hind legs and rattling his chain.
"Playful as a kitten!" said the one-eyed hostler, fondly. "I"ll show ye."
He took a wooden bar from a clothes-horse near by, and made a lunge with it at Pomp"s breast.
No pugilist or fencing-master could have parried a blow more neatly.
Then the one-eyed hostler began to thrust and strike with the bar as if in downright earnest.
"Rather savage play," I remarked. And a friend by my side, who never misses a chance to make a pun, added,---
"Yes, a decided act of bar-bear-ity."
[Ill.u.s.tration (bear-1) The Hostler"s Story]
"Oh, he likes it!" said the one-eyed hostler. "Ye can"t hit him."
And indeed it was so. No matter how or where the blow was aimed, a movement of Pomp"s paw, quick as a flash of lightning, knocked it aside, and he stood good-humoredly waiting for more.
"Once in a while," said the one-eyed hostler, resting from the exercise and leaning on the bar, while Pomp retired to his pole, "there"s a bear of this species that"s vicious and blood-thirsty. Generally, you let them alone and they"ll let you alone. They won"t run from you maybe, but they won"t go out of their way to pick a quarrel. They don"t swagger round with a chip on their shoulder lookin" for some fool to knock it off."
"Will they eat you?" some one inquired; for there was a ring of spectators around the performers by this time.
"As likely as not, if they are sharp-set, and you lay yourself out to be eaten; but it aint their habit to go for human flesh. Roots, nuts, berries, bugs, and any small game they can pick up, satisfies their humble appet.i.te as a general thing.
"But they"re amazin" fond of honey, and there"s no end of stingin" they won"t stand for the fun of robbin" a bee-nest. They"re omnivourous as a hog."
The spectators smiled, while some one remarked,---
"You mean omnivorous."
The hostler winked his one eye knowingly, and replied.---
"I mean omnivourous," with a still stronger accent on the wrong syllable. "I found the word in a book, and it means eathin" or devourin"
all sorts. That"s what a bear does. He likes everything, and a good deal of it. He can"t live on suckin" his paws all winter, neither. That"s a foolish notion."
"Do you mean to say a bear doesn"t hibernate?" I asked.
"He hibernates,--yes. I believe that"s what they call it," replied the one-eyed hostler. "He lies curled up kind o" torpid sometimes in winter; but what he really lives on then is his fat.
"Fat is fuel, so ter speak. He lays it up in the fall, and burns it out the the winter. He goes into his cold-weather quarters plump, and comes out lean; but it"s only in very cold weather that he keeps so quiet. In mild, open winters he"s out foragin" around, and when there comes a warm spell in the toughest winter, you may see him. He likes to walk out and see what"s goin" on, anyhow."
The one-eyed hostler leaned against the pole, stroked Pomp"s fur affectionately, and continued somewhat in this style:
"Bears are particularly fond of fat, juicy pigs, and once give "em a taste of human flesh,--why, I shouldn"t want my children to be playin"
in the woods within a good many miles of their den!
"Which reminds me of Old Two Claws, as they used to call him, a bear that plagued the folks over in Ridgetown, where I was brought up,--wal, as much as forty year ago.
"He got his name from the peculiar shape of his foot, and he got that from trifling with a gun-trap. You know what that is,--a loaded gun set in such a way that a bear or any game that"s curious about it, must come up to it the way it p"ints; a bait is hung before the muzzle, and a string runs from that to the trigger.
"He was a cunning fellow, and he put out an investigatin" paw at the piece of pork before trying his jaws on it; so instead of gettin" a bullet in the head, he merely had a bit of his paw shot away. There were but two claws left on that foot, as his b.l.o.o.d.y tracks showed.
"He got off; but this experience seemed to have soured his disposition.
He owed a spite to the settlement.
"One night a great row was heard in my uncle"s pig-pen. He and the boys rushed out with pitchforks, a gun and a lantern. They knew what the trouble was, or soon found out.
"A huge black bear had broken down the side of the pen; he had seized a fat porker, and was actually lugging him off in his arms! The pig was kicking and squealing, but the bear had him fast. He did not seem at all inclined to give up his prey, even when attacked. He looked sullen and ugly; but a few jabs from a pitchfork, and a shot in the shoulder, convinced him that he was making a mistake.
"He dropped the pig, and got away before my uncle could load up for another shot. The next morning they examined his tracks. It was Old Two Claws.
"But what sp"ilt him for being a quiet neighbor was something that happened about a year after that.
"There was a roving family of Indians encamped near the settlement, hunting, fishing, and making moccasins and baskets, which they traded with the whites.
"One afternoon the Red-Sky-of-the-Morning, wife of the Water-Snake-with-the-Long-Tail, came over to the settlement with some of their truck for sale. She had a pappoose on her back strapped on a board; another squaw travelled with her, carrying an empty jug.
"Almost within sight of Gorman"s grocery, Red-Sky took off her pappoose and hung it on a tree. The fellows around the store had made fun of it when she was there once before, so she preferred to leave it in the woods rather than expose it to the coa.r.s.e jokes of the boys. The little thing was used to such treatment. Whether carried or hung up, pappoosey never cried.
"The squaws traded off this truck, and bought, with other luxuries of civilization, a gallon of whiskey. They drank out of the jug, and then looked at more goods. Then they drank again, and from being shy and silent, as at first, they giggled and chatted like a couple of silly white girls. They spent a good deal more time and money at Gorman"s than they would if it hadn"t been for the whiskey, but finally they started to go back through the woods.