Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/380

234 cigarette. “It was about the end of the blueberry season when Teddy Bear lost his big, rusty-coated mother and small, glossy black sister, and found himself completely alone in the world. They had all three come down together from the patches to the dark swamps, to hunt for roots and fungi as a variation to their fruit diet. The mother and sister had got caught together in a dreadful trap. Teddy Bear, some ten feet out of danger, had stared for two seconds in frozen horror, and then raced away like mad, with his mother’s warning screech hoarse in his ears. He knew by instinct that he would never see the victims any more; and he was very unhappy and lonely. For a whole day he moped, roaming restlessly about the high slopes and refusing to eat; till, at last, he got so hungry that he just had to eat. Then he began to forget his grief a little, and devote himself to the business of finding a living. But from being the most sunny-tempered of cubs, he became, all at once, as peppery as .”

The Babe wagged his head feelingly. He had once tried tabasco sauce without having been warned of its sprightliness.

“As I have told you,” continued Uncle Andy, peering at him with strange solemnity over the mud patch beneath his swollen eye, “the blueberries were just about done. And as Teddy would not go down to the lower lands again to hunt for other kinds of rations, he had to do a lot of hustling to find enough blueberries for his healthy young appetite. Thus it came about that when, one day, on an out-of-the-way corner of the mountain, he stumbled upon a patch of belated berries, he fairly forgot himself in his greedy excitement. He whimpered; he grunted. He had no time to look where he was going. So, all of a sudden, he fell straight through a thick fringe of blueberry bushes, and went sprawling and clawing down the face of an almost perpendicular steep.

“The distance of his fall was not far short of thirty feet, and he brought up with a bump which left him not breath enough to squeal. The ground was soft, however, with undergrowth and debris, and he had no bones broken. In a couple of minutes, he was busy licking himself all over to make sure he was undamaged. Reassured on this point, he went prowling in exploration of the place he had dropped into.

“It was a sort of deep bowl, not more than forty feet across at the bottom, and with its rocky sides so steep that Teddy Bear did not feel at all encouraged to climb them. He went sniffing and peering around the edges in the hope of finding some easier way of escape. Disappointed in this, he lifted his black, alert little nose, and stared longingly upward, as if contemplating an effort to fly.

“He saw no help in that direction; but his nostrils caught a savor which, for the moment, put all thought of escape out of his head. It was the warm, delectable smell of honey. Teddy Bear had never tasted honey; but he needed no one to tell him it was good. Instantly he knew that he was very hungry. And instead of wanting to find a way out of the hole, all he wanted was to find out where that wonderful, delicious scent came from.

“From the deep soil at the bottom of the hole, grew three big trees, together with a certain amount of underbrush. Two of those were fir-trees, green and flourishing. The third was an old maple, with several of its branches broken away. It was quite dead all down one side, while on the other only a couple of branches put forth leaves. About a small hole near the top of this dilapidated old tree, Teddy Bear caught sight of a lot of bees, coming and going. Then he knew where that adorable odor came from. For though, as I think I have said, his experience was extremely limited, his mother had managed to convey to him an astonishing lot of useful and varied information.

“Teddy Bear had an idea that bees, in spite of their altogether diminutive size, were capable of making themselves unpleasant, and also that they had a temper which was liable to go off at half-cock. Nevertheless, being a bear of great decision, he lost no time in wondering what he had better do. The moment he had convinced himself that the honey was up that tree, up that tree he went to get it.”

“Oh!” cried the Babe, in tones of shuddering sympathy, as he felt at his leg and his ear; “oh! why did n’t he stop and think?”

Uncle Andy did not seem to consider that this remark called for any reply.

“That tree must have been hollow a long way down, for almost as soon as Teddy Bear’s claws began to rattle on the bark, the bees suspected trouble, and began to get excited. When he was not yet much more than half-way up, and hanging to the rough bark with all his claws,—biff! something sharp and very hot struck him in the nose. He grunted, and almost let go in his surprise. Naturally, he wanted to paw his nose,—for you know how it smarted!”

“T guess so!” murmured the Babe, in deepest sympathy, stroking the patch of mud on his ear.

“But that cub had just naturally a level head. He knew that if he let go with even one paw, he would fall to the ground, because the trunk of