Back Aa

Bear Family at Home

[Pg 89] <h2>THE COMING OF THE ANIMAL WITH THE LONG NOSE</h2> The next morning the animals got up early, and the elephant said he thought that they ought to go down where the circus train had been wrecked, and see if there was anything more that they could bring up and put in the cave, as they had plenty of room now. But while they were talking about the way they would do the work, they heard the beaver's tail go "B-a-n-g, b-a-n-g!" and they all looked up, and what do you think they saw? The queerest kind of an animal. He looked like a small bear, but he had very long hair on his back and hind legs, and his front legs were much shorter than his hind legs. But that was not the queerest thing. The little Cub Bear said, "Oh, see his nose! It looks as if he had caught the end of his nose in a trap, and had pulled and pulled until he had stretched his nose like a piece of taffy, and had made it as long as my leg. Did you ever see such a long nose in the whole world?" The elephant said that he had a very long nose. But the little Cub Bear said that he wasn't talking about trunks that had fingers and thumbs on the[Pg 90] end of them, but that he was talking about real noses. Then the Papa Bear and Mamma Bear said they never, never in the world thought that any animal would have such a nose. The Papa Bear asked the Circus Bear what the animal was? The Circus Bear said, "That is a bear. He is called an ant-bear." "Oh!" said the Cub Bear, "I have two aunt-bears, and they don't look a bit like that." "Please don't interrupt me when I am talking," said the Circus Bear. "This is an 'a-n-t'-bear, not an 'a-u-n-t'-bear. He is called an ant-bear because he eats ants." "Oh, I want to see him eat some of these ants that got into the honey, that papa brought home the other day." As soon as the ant-bear came near, the little Cub Bear ran to him and asked him to show how he ate the ants. The ant-bear said that he would be very glad to do so, because he had not had a good meal of ants for the longest while. In the circus he said they fed him on meat. The ant-bear said that he liked the taste of ants ever so much better. I would not, would you? Well, the little Cub Bear showed the ant-bear where the ants lived in a hole in the ground. Then he saw why the ant-bear had such strong claws, for he dug into the ground very quickly. Then what do you suppose that ant-bear did? He ran the point of his long nose into the hole[Pg 91] where the ants lived, and then stuck out the longest tongue you ever saw, way, way down in the hole, until it was covered with ants that had stuck to it. Then the little Cub Bear saw why the ant-bear had such a long nose, and a long tongue that looked like a pink rope. Do you see why? As soon as the ant-bear had eaten all of the ants, the little Cub Bear said, "The ants are such little things, I should think you would not get enough to eat." But the ant-bear said, "Down in South America, where I came from, the ants are larger; they are as big as the big red and black ants, and they live in houses that are as large as a haycock. I dig into these with my strong claws, and eat up bushels and bushels of ants at a time." While they were talking they heard the beaver go "B-a-n-g, b-a-n-g!" several times, and each time the solemn old owl would say, "W-h-o? w-h-o-o-o-o? w-h-o-o-o-o?" The little Cub Bear counted four times, and thought that there must be four animals coming, and sure enough, when they came to the den, there were four new animals. There was the raccoon with his striped tail. He was always washing his face. There was a great striped tiger almost as large as a lion, and quite as fierce looking. There was a leopard, that looked something like the tiger, but was not quite so large,[Pg 92] and instead of stripes, he was covered with black spots. <div class="center"><ANTIMG src="images/i092.jpg" alt="The raccoon was always washing his face" /></div> The raccoon was always washing his face. Then, over in a corner, was a little thing that looked like a soft and beautiful round ball. It looked so nice that the little Cub Bear ran right over to play with it, and before the Circus Bear could stop him, the little Cub Bear had given the little ball quite a hard slap. "Ouch! Ouch!!" How the little bear did scream and cry. And his poor little foot was full of stickers. The Circus Bear scolded the Cub Bear. "Didn't you know that that was a porcupine, and that he was covered with quills, on purpose to stick into people that touched him? You ought to have known better." But the little Cub Bear did not see how he could have known better, for no one had ever told him before, and he had never seen a porcupine before, and it looked like a nice ball for little Cub Bear to play with. So the little Cub Bear thought to himself, "I hope my papa will tell me about all of the things that hurt little bears, so that I will not get hurt so badly again. I am afraid that papas sometimes forget to tell their little cubs about the things that hurt. How am I going to get these awful quills out, anyway? I've tried as hard as I can, and I can not get hold of the little slippery things with my clumsy claws." The Papa Bear came and tried, and he could not[Pg 93] get the quills out. Then the Mamma Bear tried, and she worked ever so much longer than the Papa Bear, but she could not get the quills out of the little Cub Bear's foot. The Mamma Bear was very angry with the "miserable little porcupine," and wanted to give him a hard slap; but she knew that she would get her foot full of the quills, and that would be worse than ever. The porcupine did not care at all, for he said to himself, "If they don't want to get hurt, let them leave me alone." But I do not think that was right, do you? Of course, they did not want to get hurt. Not long after, the monkey came and said, "What is the matter?" The little Cub Bear then told the monkey how he had just touched that mean old porcupine and had got his foot full of quills, that no one in the whole world could ever get out. But the monkey said, "I can get them out all right, for you know that I have two hands with fingers on them, just like a little boy." So the monkey pulled out all of the quills, and after that the little Cub Bear could walk all right. But he said to himself, "After this I will let other people alone, until I get acquainted with them." I think that is a good rule, don't you? That evening, after dark, the little Cub Bear heard the beaver go "Bang, bang!" and he rushed to[Pg 94] the mouth of the cave to see who was coming. He saw a very strange looking animal coming up the path. He said, "I see an animal that is about the size of a rhinoceros, only he has no horns on the end of his nose, and he has the biggest nose I ever saw. It is not a long nose, but it is a short, stubby nose, about the size of the seat of a chair; the two big nostrils in the nose are almost as big around as a base ball. I can't see why the nose is so big. Oh, yes, I can, too, for he has just yawned, and he has the longest and largest teeth of any animal in the whole world, I guess. They are as big around as the leg of a chair. His mouth is so large that a little bear could sit inside of it. His legs are almost as big around as an elephant's legs, only they are very short." Just then the owl said, "Who-o-o-o? who-o-o-o?" The animal did not say a thing, but he gave a great snort. The Circus Bear said, "I know who that is. That is Mr. Hippopotamus. In the circus they called him Sam." Just then the hippopotamus came up to the door of the cave, and the little Cub Bear said very politely, "Come in, Mr. Hittopotamus." You see, it was such a long word he could not pronounce it right. So Mr. Hippopotamus came into the cave, and as he did so, he gave a great yawn, which frightened[Pg 95] the little Cub Bear so that he ran way back to the back part of the cave. The hippopotamus said, "Don't be afraid, little Cub Bear, because your brother was very good to me when we were in the circus, and I wouldn't hurt you for anything." So the little Cub Bear came back, and he looked the hippopotamus over, and saw that he did not have any hair on his body at all, and that he was about the color of an old slate, and that he had a very fierce looking mouth. After a little while the little Cub Bear plucked up courage, and he said: "Mr. Hittopotamus, we are going to fix up the cave for all the animals, and we want to know if you can help us?" The hippopotamus said, "I would be very glad to help you if I can, because your brother was very good to me when we were in the circus." And the little Cub Bear said, "What can you do?" "Well," he said, "I don't know. I can't dig in the dirt, because when I am at home I live in the water. Sometimes I stay all day in the water, with nothing but the end of my nose above the surface, and then I can stay under the water a long while without coming to the surface at all." The Cub Bear said, "That is just like the whale." And the hippopotamus said, "Yes, just like the whale; only when I come to the surface, I don't make such a big blowing sound as the whale does." [Pg 96] Well, the little Cub Bear thought a long while, and he couldn't think of anything the hippopotamus could do. So he said to his papa, "Papa, can you tell me what the hittopotamus can do to help us in building our house?" And the Papa Bear said, "I don't know. I think if he would go down and live in the lake above the dam that the beaver built, that would be the best place for him, and he could help the beaver to make the dam higher, and then when the beaver went to sleep the hippopotamus could make some kind of a noise to warn us when people were coming." So the hippopotamus agreed that he would do this, and he went down to the lake. Just before he left he said, "I am very hungry, and I would like something to eat." The little Cub Bear said, "We have plenty of meat here, if you would like some meat." The hippopotamus said, "I don't eat meat. I eat grass like a horse, only the grass I eat I get way down under the water." The little Cub Bear said, "Then you will find plenty to eat down in the lake." And the hippopotamus went away to the lake, where he got acquainted with the beaver, and planned to live there as long as the animals were living in the forest. <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.