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Bear Family at Home

[Pg 58] <h2>THE TRUE STORY OF HOW TEN MEN DID NOT KILL CLUB-FOOT</h2> "When I was a little cub bear, long before I met your mother, and long before you were born, I lived in a small cave near a store, where men used to meet and talk about the bears that they had killed, and mountain lions that they had seen, and all sorts of stories of that kind. Well, I used to come down in the dark sometimes, and put my ear up to the crack between the logs, and listen to what the men said. "One evening, while the men were telling stories, one of them said, 'Did you ever hear of the big grizzly, called Club-Foot?' "And all the men said that they had heard of Club-Foot, except one of the men that had not lived there very long. He said that he had never heard of this grizzly. The men told this newcomer that Club-Foot was a very large bear, one of the largest that had ever been seen. The men said that a great many men had tried to kill this giant grizzly, because he would kill their little pigs and their little calves and colts. Then, too, they wanted to get his great skin to make a carriage robe. But they had never been able to get the bear. For even if they hit him with bullets from their guns,[Pg 59] it did not seem to hurt him much, but made him very angry. This grizzly, instead of running away from a man with a gun, would run right up to him and knock the gun out of his hand. No one could kill this bear. "They said that the bear lived in the San Bernardino Mountains, and that his great tracks had often been seen, and that all of his toes were missing from one foot. That was the reason they called him 'Club-Foot.' Probably when he was a little bear he had been caught in a trap and lost his toes. They said that the bear made regular trips from Mount San Bernardino to the Antelope Valley, sixty miles away. He had made the trips so often, that he had made a sort of trail through the mountains. This trail, the men said, was only a mile or so back of the store. "While the men were talking, another man came in and said, 'Old Club-Foot has started from his den, in the side of Mount San Bernardino, and is coming this way. He ought to be along here some time to-night.' "Then one of the men that they called 'Alex' said, 'It is a fine moonlight night to-night. Let's all get our guns and go up to the old grizzly's trail, and see if we can't kill him. There is a pig-pen right near the trail, with little pigs in it, so that the grizzly will be sure to stop there long enough for us to shoot him.' [Pg 60] "Then the man that came in last and told about the Club-Foot's coming, said, 'There are two Irishmen that live a little farther on along the trail that are going to do the same thing. They are going to watch near another pig-pen that is farther on, and they think that they will kill Club-Foot.' "'Well,' Alex said, 'there will be ten of us with guns of all sorts, and I think that those Irishmen will never see old Club-Foot, for he will never get as far as they are. We will have his skin by that time.' "All the men said, 'We'll do it. It will be lots of fun, and Club-Foot will not bother the farmer's little pigs and calves, and colts any more.' "All the men got their guns and rifles, and some lunch to eat while they were waiting for old Club-Foot to come along. I was very curious to see what the men would do and how they would kill the grizzly, and then, too, I wanted to see a great grizzly bear; so I followed the men, but I kept so far behind that they did not see me at all. As the men walked along they talked about how they would kill old Club-Foot, as they called the great grizzly bear. The men said they thought they would climb trees, and wait in the tops of them, where they would be safer, and where the bear could not get at them before they had had a chance to kill him. Two men, though, said that they were going to stay on the ground, and that the other men[Pg 61] ought not to be afraid and climb in the tops of the trees; they ought to stay down on the ground and shoot the bear there, and they laughed at the men who said they were going to stay up in the trees. "Finally they came to the path that old Club-Foot usually traveled, and there was the pig-pen with the little pigs in it. All the men but two climbed up into the trees, and there they waited. I went around and hid behind a rock, to see what would happen. "Very soon there came a great crashing noise, and as I looked up along the path I saw old Club-Foot coming very fast. He didn't stop for anything. He went right through the bushes, and jumped over the tops of the small trees, and as he came out into the moonlight he seemed to be as big as Jumbo. I waited and thought I would hear the men shooting; but suddenly I heard the men who were on the ground crying out to the men who had gone up in the trees, 'Don't shoot; don't shoot. If you shoot the old Club-Foot and don't kill him, he will surely kill us.' "And they dropped their guns and ran as fast as they could and commenced to climb trees. They climbed up a little way, but they were so frightened, and so hurried, that they would slip back. "Old Club-Foot came right along, but he didn't notice the men at all, or pay any attention to them. He went right up to the pig-pen, and he hit it one[Pg 62] blow and knocked it all to pieces. He took up two pigs, one in each of his two great forepaws, and off he went down the path, and not one of the men fired a single shot. "Pretty soon the men came down from the trees, and then they all began to scold one another. One man said to Alex, 'Why didn't you shoot?' "'Well,' he said, 'the old Club-Foot looked as big as an elephant, and I thought if I shot him and didn't kill him, that he would come and shake the tree down and eat me up.' "And the other men said that was the reason that they didn't shoot. Then they said to the brave fellows who stayed on the ground, 'Why didn't you shoot?' "'Well,' they said, 'we didn't know the bear was so big.' "After the men had got nearly home, they sat down and talked it all over, and one of them said, 'What will you say to the two Irishmen that were going to kill Club-Foot? You know we thought we would kill him, and he would never get as far as the Irishmen?' "And they all agreed that they would not say a thing about it to any one, but would wait and see what the Irishmen said when they came into the store the next evening. "Well, the next evening, I went down and hid behind the house to hear what the men would say.[Pg 63] And sure enough, very soon in came the two Irishmen. One Irishmen was named Mike, and the other, Pat. The men all said, 'Hello, Mike,' and 'Hello, Pat.' But no one said anything about old Club-Foot. "After a while Alex said, 'Well, Mike, where is the bear skin you were going to bring us?' For Mike had said that he would have a bear skin for them that night. 'Didn't you see old Club-Foot?' "'Yes,' Mike said, 'we saw Club-Foot. He came right by us, and we were sitting on the roof of the pig-pen. He knocked the pig-pen right out from under us, and took a little pig and ran off with it.' "'Well,' Alex said, 'why didn't you shoot him?' "And Mike said, 'Well—well, we couldn't find our guns.' "And so that was the way that the ten men didn't kill old Club-Foot. And it is said that he is still living in the San Bernardino Mountains, and still goes over the same old trail every year. For some reason, no one has ever succeeded in getting him." After Papa Bear had finished the story, little Cub Bear said, "I wish I were a great big grizzly bear, so that I would not be afraid of a gun." But the Papa Bear said, "It is always a good thing to be afraid of a gun, no matter how big you may be." The little Cub Bear ran off to bed in the dark,[Pg 64] and was soon fast asleep. In his sleep he reached out with his paw and gave a great slap, then a moment after he reached out again and gave another slap. Can you guess what he was dreaming about? The next morning the little Cub Bear woke up very early, and rubbed his eyes, and wondered if any animal would come that day. He listened and listened, but he heard nothing. Suddenly there was a loud "Bang! Bang!" and he knew that some animal was coming. The little Cub Bear ran to the mouth of the den, where he could hear a rustling sound. He looked down the path, but could see nothing. He looked again and this time he looked up among the branches of the trees, because he thought it might be a bird coming. And what do you think he saw? Away up among the branches of the trees he could see an animal's head. He said: "I see an animal's head moving among the trees. His head has large ears and very large eyes, and two horns different from any horns I ever saw. They are blunt on the end, and stick straight up, and seem to have hair on the end of the horns. I can't see the animal, but I see a long, long neck, covered with big yellow spots. As the animal comes nearer, I can see more of his neck. And now I can see his legs and his body. His body looks something like a horse, only the hind legs are much shorter than the front legs. If you tried to ride[Pg 65] on his back you would slip off behind, because it is slanting, like a hill, and all covered with those yellow spots." Just then the owl saw this animal, and he said, "Who-o-o-o? who-o-o-o?" The animal did not answer a word, but came right along. Just as he got to the mouth of the den, the Circus Bear said, "I know who that is. That is Mr. Giraffe. Ask him to come in." So the little Cub Bear said very politely, "Come in, Mr. Giraffe." <div class="center"><ANTIMG src="images/i066.jpg" alt="Come in, Mr. Giraffe" /></div> "Come in, Mr. Giraffe." But, of course, the giraffe could not come in. Finally, he knelt down and stuck his long neck into the cave, and the Cub Bear said to him, "We are going to try to build a house big enough for all the animals, so if they come to see us we will have a place for them to stay. Can you help us?" And the giraffe said, "I would be very glad to help you if I could, because your brother was very good to me when we were in the circus." And the little Cub Bear said, "What can you do?" And the giraffe answered, "I don't know. I never built a house in my life. I eat the leaves off the trees and live out-of-doors, just like horses and zebras and cows. I never had a home. But, I have the longest neck of any animal in the whole world, and if there is anything up in the air you want me to look for, or if there is anything a long way off that you would[Pg 66] like to have me see, I think I can look for it for you." And the little Cub Bear suddenly thought of the hole way back in the back part of the cave where the wind came from, and he said, "I wish you would come in and see if you can put your head through a hole in the back part of the cave. Maybe you will find something." And the giraffe said, "I will be very glad to try." And so he wriggled, and twisted, and got into the den, and got away back in the back part, and he found a hole, and it was just large enough for his head and his long neck. He stuck his head farther and farther into the hole, and stayed there so long that the little Cub Bear was afraid something was wrong, so, he and the monkey took hold of the giraffe's tail and pulled just as hard as they could. The giraffe finally pulled his head out of the hole, and the Cub Bear said, "What did you see?" And the giraffe said, "I found it very dark, and I had to keep my head in a long time so that my eyes would get used to the darkness, but I could see that there was a large room—a large cave back of this cave. I couldn't see the end of it at all. I think if we could only get into this room, we would have a place large enough for all the animals in the circus, if they wanted to come here to live." And the little Cub Bear said, "My! Wouldn't that be nice? I wonder, if all the animals would[Pg 67] help, if we couldn't break down the rock and get into this room?" That night, after all the animals had done all they could to get things to eat and to make the cave large enough, the lion and some of the other animals came into the cave. The giraffe was still out trying to get enough leaves to eat, and the elephant was eating the last of the baled hay that had been brought from the train wreck. "Papa, please tell me another story about the 'Little-Club-Foot-Bear-that-would-not-mind-his-papa'." The Papa Bear sighed a great sigh, because he was very tired, but he wanted to please the little fellow so he told the story of: <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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