CHAPTER V

It was only two days after little Timmy Bear-cub lost his mother--all through her chasing a shepherd and putting her head in a flour-bag--that he got his name of Timmy.

The reason why his mother, Mrs. Cinnamon Bear, never came back to her two little lonely cubs who waited and watched for her on the mound of the wood mice, was that she got caught in a snare, or trap, set by a bear-hunter in the glen to which the sheep-dogs drove her.

It was a very cunningly made trap of twigs. Although Mrs. Bear was as mad as a hatter at finding herself caught in it, she wasn't hurt very much, for the hunter wanted to catch her alive, to take her away to a city, put her in a great cage, feed her well, and show her off to people as a wild cinnamon bear from the woods.

But when he found her in the trap and discovered that her shaggy fur was still all powdered with the flour which had lodged in it, that, though her flour mask was broken, it still stuck to the inside of her ears and over her head, he laughed and laughed so that you could hear him a mile off.

Ah! but all this was no laughing matter to the two hungry little cubs, waiting and watching, all alone, on the mound among the white-footed mice.

They got so cold and famished at last that they crept into the hollow of the tree which lay on the ground, where the nest of the mousie white-foots had been.

They cuddled close to each other in there and whined and believed that, although their mother was late, she would surely come, sometime, as she had come to them so often in the cave.

However, after they had been a night and day in the hollow of the tree, somebody else did come. And do you know who that somebody was? Why, it was the kind-hearted shepherd man in blue overalls, with the very fat legs, whom the mother bear had chased over the plain, so that he was forced to drop his bag of flour.

This man's name was Timothy. I have told you that he was a good shepherd who loved God and men and all living things. He was sorry afterwards that he had let foolish fear get the better of him when he looked up and saw the bears on the mound, so that he ran away, instead of walking along quietly with his full flour-bag on his back, in which case the mother bear, probably, wouldn't have chased him at all.

When he heard about that mother bear being caught in a trap in the glen to which his dogs had chased her, and that she had been carried off, alive, to a big city, he felt awfully sorry for the two cubs she had had with her.

"Now, I'm going off to try to hunt up those bear cubs," he told the other shepherd man on the hill. "They must be starving and cold, left all alone on the mound where I saw them, mouse hunting. If I can find them I'll bring them here to our camp on the hill among the sheep and lambs. I'll feed them, and we can have a whole lot of fun with them, for they're more playful than kittens. I'll play a funny candle game with them!"

So Timothy, the kind shepherd, started off to find the two little yellow cubs, to bring them to his camp and play a candle game with them.

But when he came to the mound of the wood mice and climbed to the top of it, lo and behold! there wasn't a bear cub to be seen!

He searched all round everywhere among the trees and bushes and was just going away, back to camp, when he heard a sorrowful little whine and a growly "Whoof! Whoof!" from the deep hollow in the fallen tree, where the nest of mice had been.

"Ha! Ha! So I've found you, at last, have I, you two poor, hungry little cubs, left alone by your mother when she ran after me?" he gasped.

And he put his right hand, which had on a thick glove, down, down into the deep hollow of the fallen tree trunk and pulled out one bear cub.

It was cold and very hungry, but it struck at him with its two furry little paws which, in time, would wear sharp claws like its mother's--struck and tried to scratch him.

Timothy, the shepherd man, only laughed.

"Well, upon my word, you're a strong little cub and a pretty one, too," he said. "I'm going to take you back to camp with me, to the hill where the ring of lights burns all night long. And I'll play a funny candle game with you. And I'll name you after myself, Timothy or Timmy. I'll call you 'Timmy Whoof,' because I never would have found you in the tree hollow but for your making that funny, growly whoof-whoof noise. Now, I wonder if you have any little brothers or sisters hidden away in the tree, with you."

Then he put in his hand again and pulled out the second cub, Timmy's twin brother.

But that little bear baby had become so cold and hungry that it couldn't live, although Timothy, the shepherd, did all he could to feed it up and warm it.

So man Timothy put little Timmy, whom he had already named after himself (and that was how Timmy Whoof came by his name when he was about two months old), into a bag and carried him back to camp, to the hill where the sheep and lambs and the rosy ring of lights were.

And he told the wise sheep-dogs, Glen and Watch, who had chased Timmy's mother, that they mustn't bark at or frighten this baby bear, "because he's going to be a pet of mine!" said Shepherd Timothy. "I'll bring him up tame and he'll stay tame until he grows to be a big bear; then, perhaps, he'll want to go back and live in the woods again. And to-night, to-night, I'm going to play a candle game with him and have a whole lot of fun! Why, this camping out on a lonely hill, with sheep, won't seem dull any more, now that we'll have a bear cub to play with. He'll make more fun for us than a barrel of monkeys, especially if we put him into a corner with a lighted candle. Ha! Ha!"

And Shepherd Timothy laughed a jolly laugh that seemed to come up out of his fat legs--laughed as he had done when he saw the mother bear wearing a white plaster mask of flour. And all the rest of that day, while he watched his sheep, he thought of the game which he was going to play with Timmy Whoof, his namesake, when evening fell.

But I must tell you about that exciting candle game in another chapter.