CHAPTER VI

"Little Nanny Etticoat, In a white petticoat And a red nose; The longer she stands The shorter she grows!"

Timmy Whoof, the little fat bear cub, had never heard that nursery riddle, the answer to which is "a candle," as most children know. He did not even know what fire was, much less a candle.

And on his first night in a camp with shepherd men he did not feel like learning anything new, because he was so lonely without his mother and little brother.

He just moped and whined and cried all the time. And it was as much for that reason,--to give the lonely little fellow something to think about besides his loneliness,--as for the amusement it would afford the two men, that Shepherd Timothy prepared the candle game to play with him.

"He can't miss his mother very much while he's having a boxing-match with lighted candles," said Timothy, the shepherd; "and I'll see that he doesn't scorch his little paws enough to really hurt him!"

So the shepherd man who had lost all his flour (he had procured some more by this time) went to work and prepared what he called a little "corral."

It was a small, square patch of grass upon the hillside, fenced in by sticks and bushes woven together into a fence strong enough to prevent a bear cub of two months old from getting through it. Neither could that bear cub climb over it.

Into this enclosure Shepherd Timothy put the little furry, four-legged Timmy Whoof, whom he had named after himself.

Then he warmed some sheep's milk over the camp-fire which the shepherds had built to cook their supper and set it in a tin dish before the cub, in the middle of that little corral or fenced-in patch of ground.

Timmy Whoof lapped it up like a kitten and licked his jaws and little black nose after it, just as he had licked them after the taste of wild honey which his mother had given him out of the bee-tree.

"Whoof! That's very good!" he purred. "But I don't like the look of those two big animals, with frills of hair round their necks, who are staring at me and growling through the fence. The sheep and lambs I don't mind! I know they won't hurt me."

The frilled animals with waving, curly tails, were, of course, the two sheep-dogs, Glen and Watch, which had chased Timmy's mother. And they didn't like Timmy any better than he liked them. But they were very wise and very obedient, and when Shepherd Timothy explained to them that they must behave in a friendly way toward the lonely little cub, who was his pet now, they ceased their low barking and growling, and went and lay down by the sheep who were cuddling down upon their bedding ground, with their noses on each other's backs and many a sleepy "Baa-aa-a!"

"And now for the candle game," said Shepherd Timothy, "now that we've got the dogs out of the way!"

So while the ring of red lanterns burned brightly around the sheep's bedding ground, with a larger lantern on a pole in the center, Man Timothy lit some other twinkling lights.

He took four white candles and placed them at the four corners of the little square corral or enclosure in which the bear cub was.

Then he struck a match or two and lighted all four.

And then, oh, then, the fun began!

For little Timmy Whoof directly he saw those candles on all sides of him, sat up and blinked at them in great wonder.

They were as great a riddle or puzzle to him, as the rhyming riddle about a candle, with which this story opens, would be to a child.

You see, he had never seen any lights down low, near the earth before, no lights at all, save the beautiful daylight which wrapped him all around, the moonlight and lightning in the sky.

So he didn't know what to make of the four candles in four corners, the upright white sticks, each with a little red flame growing out of it, twinkling like a star.

Flickering, too! But it was a still night, and, although the candles flickered, here in the open air upon the hillside, they didn't go out.

"Whoof! Whoo-oof!" said Timmy, sitting up straight like a kitten or a fat puppy, in the middle of the little square corral, and blinking hard at them, at those four stars which he didn't understand.

"Whoof! Let me get at them! I'm going to kill them! Booitt! They must be bad lights, if I don't know what they mean. Whoof! Whoof!"

This was silly, but not sillier than the thoughts of some little children--and grown people, too--who think things aren't good because they don't understand them.

So little Timmy Bear-cub, spitting and growling like a kitten there in the middle of his corral set out to kill the harmless candle flames.

He made a dash at the nearest one, his eyes glaring, the hair standing up on his little hunched back "like a tooth-brush," and struck at it with his fat paw.

"Oo-oo-oo! Me-oo-ow!" He cried like a hurt kitten then, for the candle flame singed the fur on that paw and stung him hotly, as the wild bees had done, but not so sorely as the bees.

"Oo-oo-ooo! Me-oo-ow! ... Booitt!" he growled, and sat up and licked his furry paw, whining sadly.

But he was more than ever convinced that it was a naughty light that flickered on under his blinking wondering eyes.

He was a brave little bear cub. He wasn't going to let himself be beaten by a naughty star! In this he might be a lesson to some little children who would have given up at once, because they were hurt, or imagined they were.

Not so, Timmy Whoof! As soon as he had got through licking his singed paw, he just danced up to the bright, starry candle again, stood on his hind legs for an instant, as he had seen his mother do, and struck at it with the paw that wasn't scorched.

This time he hit straight at the flame and put it out.

Though he had two singed paws now--slightly singed, you know--oh, he felt so proud of himself then!

"Whoof! Hurrah!" he said, sitting up and growling with delight. "Look at me! Did you ever see such a bear cub? Why! I'm almost as strong as my mother was! I killed that light, so that it won't wink and glare at me any more, and now I'm going to put out another!"

So he made a dash for the harmless candle in another corner and boxed the red flame of that one, too, striking it, blow after blow, now with one soft, furry paw, then with another, in betweenwhiles whining and licking those little flame-stung paws, until he quenched that candle, also.

Oh, how the two shepherds, Timothy and the other man, laughed at him!

"Bravo, Timmy Whoof! You're a little bear that will never be beaten," cried Shepherd Timothy; "and though your paws may be a trifle scorched and stung, yet I guess fighting candle-light has made you forget that you are in a strange camp, without your mother and little brother!"

Indeed, the little bear cub had forgotten everything save the feeling that there wasn't another bear like him in the world because he had killed two naughty stars--two harmless candle-flames!

He swelled out, growling with pride, standing upright on his hind legs in the middle of the corral, until he looked ready to burst.

But there still remained two other candles, in two other corners, alive, that is, burning.

And Timmy Whoof resolved that these naughty stars must be put out of business, too!

So he charged up to them, one after the other, and boxed them, in turns, until his two little fore paws were scorched and stinging all over. But he wouldn't give up until, funny, as it is, he had put out those remaining candles, also.

Then there wasn't left alive and lighted a single

"Little Nanny Etticoat, In a white petticoat, With a red-flame nose,"

to burn and grow short.

Timmy Whoof just crowed and hurrahed to himself in bear talk, and felt that there wasn't a single light in the whole world, not even the lightning in the sky, that could stand up against him.

He would put it out and bring darkness where it had been, he was such a strong, little, growling bear, or knock down the thing it grew out of, as he had knocked down two of the flaming candles.

Then, just as he had felt himself the biggest, proudest bear cub in the whole country, lo and behold! a strange thing happened. All the four naughty stars that stung his paws and singed them suddenly came to life and glared at him again.

For Shepherd Timothy, laughing as if his fat sides would split, at the little bear cub growling with pride in himself, had again gone around with a match and lit all four candles in all four corners, and picked up the two which Timmy had knocked down, that lay on the ground like fallen soldiers.

Then the boxing candle game began all over again, Timmy Whoof growling fierce little growls and striking out, first with one angry little fore paw, then with another, at the burning candles which couldn't box at all, only sting back!

Until after every sheep and little lamb upon the hillside was asleep--and the dogs, too--the game of killing candle flames went on! At last little Timmy Bear-cub, alone in his small corral fenced in with twigs and bushes, got so tired that he couldn't box any more or slay another star.

He curled down in a corner beside one fallen candle which he had knocked over and went to sleep, having forgotten, for the last hour, to miss his mother a bit, or his twin brother, either.