Wild Folk

Then, all in an hour, came the thaw. The ice melted and the snow disappeared, until, one April day, with a slash of her paw the old bear opened the door, and the whole family stumbled out into the blue dawn of a spring day. Around then sounded the sweet minor notes of the white-throated sparrows, and the jingling songs of the snowbirds; while over on a sun-warmed slope a flock of tree-sparrows, on their way to the Arctic Circle, sang a chorus like the tinkling of icicles.

The old bear stood long in the bright sunlight, sniffing and staring with unseeing eyes – then lurched down to a little mountain stream a hundred yards away, followed in small procession by her cubs. Once arrived at the brook, she drank and drank and drank, until it seemed as if her legs would double under her. After she had filled herself to the bursting-point, the cubs had their first taste of water. It seemed to them thin, cold, unstable stuff compared with what they had been drinking. Their birthplace once abandoned, they never returned to it. Thereafter they slept wherever and whenever the old bear was sleepy, cuddled in her vast arms and against her warm fur.

That day, as they turned away from the brook, Mother Bear stopped and stared long at the larger of her two cubs. Unlike the dull black of his smaller sister, he was a rich cinnamon-brown in color. In years past there had been a red cub in her family, and once even a short-lived straw-yellow youngster; but this was her first experience with a brownie, and the old bear grunted doubtfully as she led the way up the mountainside.

At last and at last came the golden month of the wild folk – honey-sweet May, when the birds come back, and the flowers come out, and the air is full of the sunrise scents and songs of the dawning year. The woods were white with the long snowy petals of the shad-blow, and purple with amethyst masses of rhodora, when the old bear began the education of her cubs. Safety, Food, More Food comprised the courses in her curriculum. Less and less often did she nurse them, as she taught them to find a variety of pleasant foods. Because Mother Bear knew that disobedience was death, she was a stern disciplinarian. On their very first walk, Blackie, the littlest of the family, found it difficult to keep up with the old bear’s swinging gait. Little bears that fall behind often disappear. Accordingly, when Blackie finally caught up, she received a cuff which, although it made her bawl, taught her not to lag.

Brownie erred in the opposite direction. Big and strong and confident, he once pushed ahead of his mother, along a trail that led up a mountain-gorge where the soft deep mosses held the water like green sponges. Suddenly, just as he was about to put his small paw into a great bear-print in the moss, he received a left-hand swing which sent him spinning off the trail into a tree-trunk, with the breath knocked clear out of his small body. Then the old bear showed him what may happen to cubs who think they know more than their mothers. From deep under the moss, she had caught a whiff of the death-scent of man. Reaching out beyond the trail, she raised without an effort, on a derrick-like forepaw, a section of a dead tree-trunk, a foot in diameter, and sent it squattering down full upon the paw-print. As the end of the log sank in the moss, there was a fierce snap, and a series of sharp and dreadful steel teeth clamped deep into the decayed wood. Rashe Weeden, the trapper, who trapped bears at all seasons of the year, had dug up a section of moss containing the bear-imprint, and underneath it had set a hellish double-spring bear-trap. Let man or beast step ever so lightly on the print which rested on the broad pan of the trap, and two stiff springs were released. Once locked in the living flesh, the teeth would cut through muscle and sinew, and crush the bones of anything living, while the double-spring held them locked. A vast clog chained to the trap kept the tortured animal from going far, and a week later the victim would welcome the coming of the trapper and the swift death he brought.

A few days later the little family saw an object lesson of what humans do to bears, and what such a trap meant to them. They were following one of the bear-paths which always lead sooner or later to hillsides where there are berries and a view and no flies. Suddenly the wind brought to the ears of the old bear the sound of sobbing. She stopped and winnowed the air carefully through her sensitive nose. There was the scent of bear, but no taint of man in the breeze, and she followed the trail toward where the strange noises came from, around a bend in the path. More and more slowly, and with every caution, she moved forward, while her two cubs kept close behind like little shadows. As the path opened into a little natural clearing, all three of them saw a horrifying sight. There in front of them lay another smaller, younger mother-bear. The cruel fanged jaws of a trap were sunk deep into her shattered left fore-shoulder, while the clog was caught under a stump. The prisoned animal had tugged and dragged and pulled, evidently for long days and nights, as the ground was torn up for yards and yards around her. At last, worn out by exhaustion and the unceasing, fretting, festering pain of the gripping jaws, the captive had sunk down hopelessly to the ground, and from time to time cried out with a shuddering sobbing note. Her glazed, beseeching eyes had a bewildered look, as if she wondered why this horror had come to her. At her knees a little cub stood, and whimpered like a sorrowful baby and then raised his little paws trustingly against the huge bulk of his mother, who could help him no more. Another cub had climbed into a little tree overhead, and looked down in wonder at the sorrowful sight below.

The old bear took one long look while her cubs, terrified, crowded close up against her. Then she turned, and plunged into the depths of the nearest thicket. There was nothing to be done for the trapped one, and she knew that, soon or late, death would stalk along the trail which she had just left. Later that afternoon, when they were miles from the place, the old bear’s keen ear heard two distant shots from far away across the mountain-ridges. As the twilight deepened, she led her little family out in a search for food. All at once there came from below them a strange little distress-note, which made Mother Bear stop and look anxiously around to see if both of her cubs were safe. Again it sounded, much nearer, and then from among the trees a small dark animal hurried toward them. It was one of the cubs they had seen earlier in the afternoon, escaped from the death which had overtaken the others, running wailing and lonely through the darkening woods, looking for its lost mother. At the sight of Mother Bear, it gave a little whicker of relief and delight, and ran straight to her and nuzzled hungrily under her warm fur, quite as if it had a right to be there. Although the old bear growled a little at first, she was not proof against the entreating whines of the little newcomer. As for her own cubs, after carefully sniffing this new sister over and finding her blacker even than Blackie, with a funny white spot near the end of her small nose, they decided to recognize her as part of the family. In another minute Spotty was feeding beside Blackie, and from that day forward the old bear was trailed by three cubs instead of two.

As summer approached, Mother Bear weaned her family and showed them how to get their living from the land, as she did. She taught them all about ants’ nests and grubs, and showed them a score or so of sweet and succulent roots. Only the root of the water-hemlock, with its swollen, purple-streaked stem which tastes so sweet and is so deadly, she taught them to avoid, as well as those fierce and fatal sisters among the mushrooms, the death-angel and the fly-mushroom, whose stems grow out of a socket, the danger-signal of their family.

Teaching the cubs to enjoy yellow-jackets’ nests, one of the delicacies on bear-menus, was a more difficult affair. At first, Blackie and Spotty, after being stung on their soft little noses, would have no further traffic with any such red-hot dainties. Brownie was made of sterner stuff. After he had once learned how good yellow-jacket grubs were, he hunted everywhere for the nests. When he found one, he would dig it out, while the yellow-jackets stung his nose until the pain became unendurable. Then he would sit up and rub the end of it with both paws and bawl with all his might, only to start digging again when the smart became bearable. Sometimes he would have to stop and squeal frantically three or four times, to relieve his feelings – but he always finished the very last grub.

When the weather grew warmer, the old bear took all the cubs down to the edge of a hidden mountain-lake, and there taught them, one by one, to swim, hiding the others safely on the bank. At first, Mother Bear would allow each little swimmer to grip the end of her five-inch tail, and be towed through the water. As soon, however, as they learned the stroke, they had to paddle for themselves. One warm afternoon lazy Brownie swam with her to the middle of the lake, and then tried to get a tow back, only to receive a cuff that sent him two feet under water. When he came to the surface again, he swam beside his mother as bravely as if he had been born an otter and not a bear-cub.

When they were still a long distance from the shore, the old bear raised her big black head out of the water and stared over toward a little bay half a mile away. Her keen nostrils had caught the scent of man across the still waters. Then, to his surprise, Brownie was again given the privilege of a tow, and found himself whirling shoreward at a tremendous rate. From the far-away inlet a lean, lithe canoe flashed toward them as fast as Steve O’Donnell, the lumberjack, could paddle. Steve had come over to the lake to estimate on some lumber, and had seen the swimming bears. Hurriedly pitching into the canoe the long, light, almost straight-handled axe, which was the article of faith of all the woodcutters of that region, he started out to overtake the fugitives.

Steve was not learned in bear-ways, or he would never have started in a canoe after a swimming bear, without a rifle. As he came nearer and nearer, and it became evident to the old bear that she would be overtaken before she could reach shore, she turned and swam unhesitatingly toward the canoe, while Brownie made the best of his way ashore. Steve dropped his paddle and seized his axe, and when the great head was close beside his craft, struck at it with all his strength. He had yet to learn that the bear is an unsurpassed boxer, and that few men are able to land a blow on one, even when swimming. As his axe whizzed downward, it was suddenly deflected by a left turn, given with such force that the axe was torn from the man’s hands and disappeared in the deep water. The next instant both the bear’s paws clutched the gunwale of the canoe, and a second later Steve was swimming for his life in the cold water. Mrs. Bear paid no further attention to him, but started again for the nearest shore. Overtaking Brownie, she gave him another tow, and by the time Steve, chilled to the bone, reached the farther shore, the whole bear family was miles away.

By midsummer the cubs were half-grown, although they looked mostly legs. One summer twilight a strange thing happened. The family had reached one of their safe and pleasant hillsides, when there loomed up before them a vast black figure among the trees, and out into the open strode a blackbear of a size that none of the three little cubs had ever seen before. In their wanderings they had met many other bears. Most of these the old bear passed unseeingly, in accordance with bear etiquette. Sometimes, if the stranger came too close, the hair on Mother Bear’s back would begin to bristle, and a deep, threatening rumble, that seemed to come from underground, would warn against any nearer approach.

To-night, however, when this newcomer lumbered up to the cubs, who shrank behind their mother, Mother Bear made no protest. He sniffed at them thoughtfully, and then said loudly, “Koff – koff – koff – koff.” Mother Bear seemed entirely satisfied with this sentiment, and from that time on the stranger led the little band, and the cubs came to know that he was none other than Father Bear. Bears mate only every other year; but often a couple will join forces in the odd year, and wander together as a family until winter.

Father Bear was a giant among his kind. He would tip the scales at perhaps five hundred pounds, and stood over three feet high at his foreshoulders, and was between six and seven feet long. In all the emergencies and crises of everyday life, he showed himself always a very present help in every time of trouble. Warier and wiser even than Mother Bear, he piloted his little family into the wildest and loneliest corners of all that wild and lonely land. Not for many years had the old giant met his match. Of panther, Canada lynx, porcupine, wolf, wolverine, and all the bears, black and brown, for a hundred miles around, he was the acknowledged overlord. This sense of power gave him a certain grim confidence, and he hunted and foraged for his family, with none to hinder save only man, the king of beasts. Crafty as he was powerful, the old bear fled into his most inaccessible fastnesses at the slightest taint or trace of that death-bringer.

One curious custom he had. Whenever he approached certain trees in his usual fifteen-mile range, he would examine them with great care for several minutes. These trees always stood in a prominent place, and were deeply scarred and furrowed with tooth-marks and claw-marks. Father Bear, after looking them all over carefully, would sniff every recent mark gravely. With his head on one side, he seemed to be receiving and considering messages from unseen senders. Occasionally the news that the tree brought seemed to enrage him profoundly. Thereupon he would claw and chew the unoffending tree frothingly, and then trot away growling deep in his throat. At other times, he would raise his ears politely, as if recognizing a friend; or wrinkle his nose doubtfully but courteously, as a well-bred bear might do who met a stranger. Always, however, before leaving, he would stand up on his hind quarters and claw the tree as high as he could reach, at the same time drawing his teeth across it at right angles to the vertical claw-marks. The cubs soon learned that these lone, marked trees were bear-postoffices and that it was the duty of every he-bear of any real bearhood to leave a message there, with tooth and claw, for friend and foe to read.

When September came again, the family found themselves ranging far to the north, in a country which the cubs had never seen before. There they saw in the soft moss the deep marks of great splay hoofs; while here and there the bark of the striped maple was torn off in long strips seven or eight feet from the ground, and always on only one side, so that the half-peeled tree never died, as did the girdled trees attacked by the porcupine. One of the slow migrations of the moose-folk, which take place only at intervals of many years, had set in. Drifting down from the Far North, scattered herds had invaded the old bear’s northernmost range. Like the witch-hazel, which blooms last of all the shrubs, the love-moon of the moose rises in the fall. The males of that folk take hardly the stress and strain of courtship. Bad-tempered at the best, a bull-moose is a devil unchained in September. As the hunter’s moon waxes in the frosty sky, he neither rests, eats, or sleeps, but wanders night and day through the woods in search of a mate. Woe be to man or beast who meets him then!

As the afterglow died out at the end of one of the shortening September days, the bear family heard faintly from a far-away hillside a short bellowing “Oh-ah! oh-ah! oh-ah!” Suddenly, not two hundred yards away, on a hardwood ridge, came back a long ringing, mooing call, which sounded like “Who-are-you! who-are-you!” It was the answer of the cow-moose to her distant would-be lover. At the sound, the ears of the great bear pricked up, and his deep-set, little eyes twinkled fiercely in the fading light. Without a sound, he shambled swiftly into the swamp toward the call. Hesitating for a moment, Mother Bear followed him, and close behind her trailed the usual procession. The frost in the air and the call, vibrant and pulsing with warm life, had made the old bear hungry for fresh meat. Unfortunately for him, as he approached the little ridge, a tiny breeze sprang up. As the sensitive nostrils of the young cow-moose caught the scent of danger, she drifted away into the woods like a shadow, and was gone.

When the bear reached the ridge, he could not be convinced that she had escaped. Everywhere lingered the warm delicious scent, so fresh that his great jaws dripped as he glided silently and swiftly through the thickets. Then, as he hunted, suddenly, silently, a vast bulk heaved into view, looming high and huge and black above the saplings and against the last red streak of the darkening sky. The cubs shrank close to their mother, and she discreetly retired into the far background, as into the clearing strode an enormous black beast with a brown head and white legs, and with a long tassel of hair swinging from its throat. Seven feet high at the shoulder, and more than ten feet from tail to muzzle, stood the great bull-moose. The antlers measured seven feet from tip to tip. With their vast, flat, palmated[Pg 45][Pg 46] spread, with eight curved, sharp prongs in front, a strong man could not have carried them. Yet the moose switched them as easily as a girl might settle her hat with a toss of her head.

At the sight of the prowling blackbear, all the devilish temper of the thwarted, seeking, brooding bull broke loose. His deep-set, wicked little eyes burned red, and with a roaring bellow he whirled up his vast bulk over the bear. Ordinarily the bear would not have waited for any trouble with a bull-moose in the month of September. To-night, however, he was on his own range. Behind him watched his mate and his cubs. The moose was a stranger and a trespasser. Morever, the blood-hunger had seized upon the bear, and a bear that sees red is one of the most dangerous opponents on earth. Throwing himself back upon his massive haunches, he prepared for a fight to the finish. A moose more experienced in bear-ways would have relied chiefly on his antlers, whose sharp, twisted prongs would cut and tear, while the immense flat plates of spreading horn were shields against any effective counter-stroke. This particular bull-moose, however, had never before met any opponent other than a moose who would await his attack, and he did not know what a deadly infighter a bear is. His only thought was to settle the battle before the other could escape. With a bellowing squeal of rage, he pivoted on his hind legs and struck two pile-driving blows, one after the other, with his ponderous keen-edged hoofs. Such a blow would have disemboweled a wolf, or killed a man, or even have shattered the huge bulk of another moose, if once they had landed full and fair.

Just as the moose struck, the bear slipped forward and, sudden as the smashing leads came, they were not so swift as the lightning-like parries. As each fatal hoof came whizzing down, it was met at its side by a deft snap of a powerful shaggy forearm, and glanced harmlessly off the bear’s mighty shoulders. The force of the leads and the drive of the parries threw the bull off his balance, and for a moment he staggered forward on his knees, pushing against the ground with antlers and forelegs, to regain his balance.

That tiny tick of time, however, was all that the old bear needed. With the dreadful coughing roar that a bear gives when fighting for his life, he pivoted toward the right on his humped-up haunches. Swinging back his enormous left paw, armed with a cestus of steel-like claws, he delivered the crashing, smashing swing that only a bear can give, one of the most terrible blows known to beasts or man. Every ounce of strength in the ridged forepaw, every atom of force and spring from the coiled masses of humped muscles of the enormous hind quarters, went into that mighty blow. It landed full and fair on the long neck, just back of the flat cheek-bone. The weight of the moose approached a ton. Yet that dreadful shattering smash whirled the great head around like a feather. There was a snap, a rending crack, and the whole vast beast toppled over on his side, and, with one long convulsive shudder, lay dead, his neck broken under the impact of that terrible counter. The old bear rolled forward, but the black bulk never quivered as he towered over his fallen foe, still the king of his range.

All that fall the five kept together. Then, one day in November, their leader disappeared. Mother Bear showed no anxiety, for she knew that late to bed and early to rise is the motto of all he-bears, and that her mate had left her only because he intended to stay up for weeks after his family were asleep for the winter. Far up on the mountainside the four found a dry cave with a tiny entrance, and spent the winter there together.

When spring came again, the cubs were cubs no longer. Without Mother Bear’s bulk or shagginess, yet all three of them were sleek, powerful, full-grown bears instead of the sprawly, leggy cubs of the season before. Brownie was still the largest, but Spotty, the starved, whimpering little cub of a year ago, was a close second to him. Not so massive nor so powerful, yet she had a supple, sure swiftness that made her his equal in their unceasing hunts for food. Hurry as he would, a slim black nose with a silver spot near the end would often be thrust in just ahead of him. There must have been some charm about that spot, because Brownie never got angry, although usually any interference with a bear’s food is a fighting act.

As the weeks wore on toward summer, Blackie became every day more snappish. She growled if Brownie came near her. Mother Bear also began to develop a temper. Then came a warm night in late spring, when both Blackie and Spotty disappeared. Brownie sniffed and searched and hunted but no trace of either of them could he find. As the days lengthened into June, the old bear became restless and more and more irritable. One day in the middle of the month, she wandered back and forth, feeding but little, and so cross that Brownie followed her only at a safe distance. He, too, was uneasy and unhappy. Something, he knew not what, was lacking in his life. As the late twilight faded, a great honey-colored moon came up and made the woods so bright that the veeries began to sing again their strange rippling chords, as if the night-wind were blowing across golden harp-strings.

There before them, in a little glade, suddenly towered the black figure of a giant bear. With a little whicker Mother Bear moved forward to meet her mate, and a moment later led the way toward the dim green fastnesses of the forest. Poor, untactful, unhappy Brownie started to follow as of old. Both of them growled at him so fiercely that he stopped in his tracks. As he watched them disappear into the fragrant dark, he felt that the whole Round Table was dissolved. Never again would the little family that had been so happy together be united.

He turned and plunged into a near-by thicket, and hurried away lonely and unhappy. For long he followed a faint trail, until it widened into a green circle where some forgotten charcoal-pit had stamped its seal forever upon the forest. The air was heavy with the drugged perfume of chestnut tassels and the fragrance of wild grape, sweetest of all the scents of earth. Then, under the love-moon of June, in the centre of the tiny circle, there was standing before him a lithe, black figure with a silver spot showing at the end of her slim tilted nose – and all at once Brownie knew what his life had lacked. For long and long the two looked at each other, and he was lonely and unhappy no more.

Then slowly, slowly, the silver spot moved away, ahead of him, toward the soft scented blackness of the deep woods. As he followed, he stopped and rumbled out dreadful warnings to a large number of imaginary bears, to beware that silver spot. While the veeries, whose heartstrings are a lute, sang in the thicket, and a little owl crooned a love-song from overhead, and the last of the hylas piped like pixies from far away, the two followed the path of their honeymoon, until it was lost in the depths of that night of love.