Part 2

“Gee, I wish you’d taught me that way,” said Twinkly Eyes.

“I’m going to teach you something else now,” said Mother Black Bear, “Come!” and she started up a water maple that grew hard by.

“Oo—ee! I can’t climb,” Twinkly was just beginning, when he heard a curious rustling in the grass behind him. Turning his head he spied Writho, the Black Snake, making straight toward him!

[Illustration:

“He found himself staring straight at Writho the black snake.”

—Page 23 ]

VIII WRITHO, THE BLACK SNAKE

Now Twinkly Eyes had been perfectly certain a moment before that he could never climb that tree after his mother.

The next instant there had been a queer little rustling in the tall grass, and he found himself staring straight at Writho the Black Snake.

He had never seen a black snake before, but he would have known just from the smell of him that he was some one to avoid.

“Climb! Climb!” rumbled Mother Black Bear from the water maple. Had he needed warning, her anxious tone would have been enough.

And Twinkly Eyes climbed—my, how he scrambled up that tree! He didn’t once stop to wonder if he might fall off. He just drove his sharp little claws into the bark and up he went, faster than he would ever have dreamed possible!

Mother Black Bear smiled to herself. She had learned something from watching Mrs. Porcupine dive from under the little porcupines. She had learned that if a youngster is given his choice of sinking or swimming he will find a way to swim. Of course, she could have leaped to the rescue the instant Writho became dangerous. She wouldn’t have let him hurt her cub! But when she saw him wriggling through the grass she knew that Twinkly Eyes would need no coaxing to take to the tree. In that she was not mistaken.

Meantime, where was Woof? He had climbed the tree on the other side of the trunk, quite without urging, and he now came out on a limb some distance from the ground.

“Good boy!” said Mother Black Bear, patting him fondly.

This was too much for Twinkly Eyes. Had not Woof caused all of his troubles that afternoon by rolling him into the water? Then, too, he felt that he was a good boy himself for having scrambled up the tree so readily. To have his brother get all the praise!

Fat little Woof was just licking up a delicious big black ant when Twinkly crept up behind him. The next instant he received a blow in the ribs that fairly knocked the breath out of him.

The wrestling match that followed sent both cubs spinning from their branch. But so fat they were, and so roly-poly, that they minded their fall about as much as they would have a box on the ear. They just rolled over and over and over in each other’s arms all over the ferns and bracken, still punching and biffing one another.

In fact, they rolled about so fast that the first thing they knew they had come down on something cold and slippery that writhed out from under them with an angry hiss.

Woof, ever the quicker of the two, was back up his tree in a twinkling, but poor Twinkly Eyes was for the second time staring straight into the angry eyes of Writho. And the snake was between him and the tree!

[Illustration: [Bear & snake]]

IX “WHOOF! WHOOF!”

“Trouble again!” thought Twinkly Eyes, as he found himself staring into the angry face of Writho, the Black Snake.

“You rolled right on me,” scolded Writho. “Haven’t you any consideration for other people at all?”

“I’m sorry,” pleaded the cub, “I had no idea—”

“You want to look where you’re going,” scolded Writho. “I could bite you for what you did!”

“Oh, please don’t,” squealed Twinkly Eyes, retreating toward the pond, as Writho wriggled closer. Then he remembered Mrs. Porcupine and her family, whom he could hear grunting “unk wunk” as they nibbled lily pads. It would never do to back up too close to those prickly creatures. Neither would it do to turn his back on Writho, whose red forked tongue hissed at him from between two of the sharpest looking fangs he had ever seen.

“Truly, I didn’t mean to step on you, Mr. Writho,” said the little bear, and his voice sounded very sorry and very much afraid.

But he kept backing around nearer and nearer his tree, until it was right behind him.

“Whoof, whoof!” he suddenly roared at the snake, stamping a fore foot loudly.

Writho was so amazed that he stood stone still, and in that instant the cub had raced up his tree in safety.

“Why didn’t you think of that before?” laughed Mother Bear. “Writho is an awful bluffer. He didn’t really mean to bite at all. The trouble was, it hurt his pride to be stepped on.”

“So was I a bluffer,” confessed Twinkly Eyes.

“No, you weren’t, my son. You could have killed him with one blow on the back of his neck, had he really tried to bite you.”

“Wish I’d known,” sighed the cub. “I certainly had a bad scare.”

“Now climb up here in the sun and dry your fur,” said Mother Black Bear, “while I talk to you. As a rule I don’t advise bluffing. I don’t advise making any threat you cannot back up with tooth or claw. Because once people find you out, they will have no more respect for you.

“But with a coward and a bluffer like Writho it often works. Most snakes are cowards. All they want is to be left in peace. They’ll only attack a big animal like you when you step on them and make them mad. They hiss and stick out their tongues at us just for a bluff.

“I’ve never seen Writho attack any animal larger than a hare or a chipmunk in all my life.

“But you’ll do well to keep clear out of the way of Mrs. Porcupine and the whole porcupine family, big and little,” and she peered back into the pond, where the three prickly babies were just following their mother out of the pond.

“Hello, there! I do believe they are making for our tree!”

[Illustration: [Porcupines]]

X THE BETTER PART OF VALOR

Mother Black Bear sighed as she saw Mrs. Porcupine making for her maple tree.

“If she wants it, I suppose she will have to have it,” she told the cubs. “Wisdom is the better part of valor.”

“What is wisdom?” asked Woof, the larger of the fat cubs.

“Wisdom,” said Mother Black Bear, “in this case is giving up our tree rather than having a fight with Mrs. Porcupine about it.”

“But we got here first,” shrilled Twinkly Eyes, the smaller cub. “She has no right to it.”

“That makes no difference with Mrs. Porcupine,” growled Mother Black Bear. “She has no sense of right and wrong. She is too well armed with those awful quills to value other people’s rights. She just about has things all her own way in the Deep Woods, because few of us care to fight with her. It’s lucky that all she wants is her own stubborn way. She is a ve-ge-tarian, you know. She eats no meat.

“Just why she should decide on our maple tree—of all the trees she has to choose between—is more than I can see. Though, of course, it IS easy for the little ones to climb.”

“Will they have to climb up there in the sun and dry off, too?” asked Twinkly Eyes.

“Where else would they get any sun?” asked Woof, gazing up at the forest roof. In this part of the woods the trees all grew so high and so close together that their upper branches interlaced, so that one only got a patch of the sky here and there.

Woof, peering through the green gloom, could see Mrs. Porcupine and the three little Porcupines slowly making toward their maple.

“Don’t let her have it,” he begged Mother Black Bear, who loved nothing better than to see a scrap. “You could lick her, Mother!”

“Well, no, I shouldn’t like to try it, not with you youngsters along,” she answered, swinging her long head from side to side uneasily, as she prepared to lead the way to the ground. “Your father might, but I shouldn’t like to try it.”

“Why, the old ‘Unk Wunk!’”

“First she chased us out of our pond, now out of our tree,” complained Twinkly Eyes. “Can’t we bluff her off, the way I did Writho, the black snake?”

“I should say not,” said Mother Black Bear in alarm. “Nothing on this earth could frighten Mrs. Porcupine. Come along here,” and she reached up and gave each cub a spank that sent them hurrying to the ground. It was not a moment too soon, for as they landed on one side of the trunk the Porcupine family started up the other, though for all the sign they made, Mother Black Bear and the cubs didn’t even exist.

But the latter’s peace of mind was short-lived.

“We are certainly going to have a thunder-storm,” exclaimed Mother Black Bear, as she sniffed the air.

“Are you scared, Mother?” asked Twinkly Eyes.

“Well, that all depends on how fast you cubs can beat it out of these woods!”

XI A TIP ON THUNDER-STORMS

“No sir-ee! I certainly don’t like the looks of things,” said Mother Black Bear, hurrying the cubs through the green gloom of the forest aisles.

“Mrs. Porcupine is welcome to our maple tree! There’s going to be a thunder-storm, and it’s going to be a big one,” and she pointed her nose skyward to sniff.

Out over the lake the black clouds were banking up over the sky at a great rate. The cubs crowded close to her sides, as the rolling and rumbling of clouds banging together came to their ears.

The air was full of the peculiar fresh odor you always notice before a shower.

“Are you scared, mother?” Twinkly Eyes kept asking.

Mother Black Bear glanced about, this way and that.

On every side, as far as she could see, there were just five or six kinds of trees, oaks, poplars, willows, maples, elms and ash trees, all growing to nearly the same height. Here and there was a blackened trunk standing gaunt and naked where the lightning had struck. For these trees, as every woodsman knows, are the very ones most likely to be struck.

“I don’t like to get caught in these woods,” insisted Mother Black Bear, starting off at a brisk pace along the southern border of the lake. It was all the cubs could do to follow, paddling along on their chubby legs with panting breath and red tongues lolling from their little black muzzles.

“I can’t keep up,” whispered Twinkly Eyes who brought up the rear.

“Lightning waits for no one,” rumbled Mother Black Bear, refusing to slow down even a mite. A nearer crash of thunder, as the first big raindrops began to fall, sent her forward on the run.

“Where are we going?” asked Woof, who rather enjoyed the excitement.

“We’re going to find the kind of trees lightning doesn’t strike,” Mother Black Bear flung behind her without stopping.

“Beech, birch, chestnut, basswood!” She broke into a run.

“Oh, mother—those white birches over behind Pollywog pond,” gasped Woof, trying his best to keep up with her through the pelting rain.

“Just where we are headed,” rumbled Mother Black Bear. “If only—we can reach them—in time!”

A blinding flash of lightning darted down the trunk of a huge old oak to the left. This time the thunder seemed to come at the same instant.

Mother Black Bear looked back over her shoulder. Woof was close behind,—but where was Twinkly Eyes?

She turned instantly to find out.

XII A WILD MOTHER’S LOVE

At the instant of the lightning flash that came so near, Mother Black Bear had been racing for dear life to get to the safe shelter of the birch grove.

She knew that lightning is not so apt to strike in a birch grove as in the giant oaks where the storm had found them.

But then the cubs had both been close at her heels. The instant she missed Twinkly Eyes she turned back to find him. He lay flat on the ground, his heels in the air, just where he had tumbled when the big crash came. He was so frightened that he could scarce regain his feet. His legs trembled till he could go no further.

Mother Black Bear tried her best to carry him in her mouth, but he was so fat and roly-poly and wiggled so at every clap of thunder that she had to give it up.

Woof, who was close at her heels every minute, was all for climbing the tallest tree they could find, but Mother Black Bear selected a comparatively open patch with no tree higher than its neighbors; and there she crouched beside the cubs, covering them with her own body when the big drops turned to hailstones.

“It’s bad to be caught among the oaks in a thunder storm,” she told the cubs as they waited. “It’s bad to be caught under any tall tree. Better far, when a storm comes up, abandon your tree and wait out in the open where there is nothing to attract the lightning.

“There are only two things in all the Deep Woods that a bear ought really to be afraid of, and one of those is lightning—for there’s no fighting back,” said Mother Black Bear.

“What is the other thing you are afraid of, Mother?” asked Woof, “Mrs. Porcupine?”

“No, I’m not afraid of Mrs. Porcupine, if I did think best to let her have our tree. I just believe in keeping out of her way, that’s all.”

“Then what is the other thing you are afraid of?” asked Twinkly Eyes, whose trembling had ceased as the storm passed around to the south.

“Men with guns,” said Mother Black Bear im-press-ive-ly. (When you say a thing im-press-ive-ly, you try to impress it on other people’s minds, so they will never forget.) “You can’t fight men with guns. That is once when a bear just simply has to run away.”

“That would suit Twinkly Eyes, all right,” laughed Woof, poking his brother in the ribs. “Eh, there?”

The smaller cub gave a growl. “Just because I didn’t want to learn to swim!—I’ll teach you to be afraid yourself, one of these days! You see if I don’t!” he growled in his baby throat, as he thought of how Woof had pushed him into the lake.

XIII TWINKLY EYES GETS EVEN

He’d get even, somehow, Twinkly told himself, seizing his brother’s nose; and as the fat cubs clinched the storm was forgotten.

Mother Black Bear gave them each a cuff, then stalked away, leaving them unprotected in the pelting hail.

Such clawing and biting and squealing as followed you never did see!

The clouds rolled away toward Mount Olaf and the hail changed to rain, and the rain suddenly gave way to a red glow in the West where the sun goes to bed. But the cubs fought on.

Mother Black Bear stood and watched, feeling that they were gaining a training in the use of their muscles that would stand them in good stead later on. She would interfere only if she saw that one of them was really getting hurt.

[Illustration:

“Such clawing and biting and squealing—you never did see!”

—Page 38 ]

Now just behind the circle of brushwood in which they had sought safety from the thunder storm there was an old root that sloped straight down a 15-foot incline.

To this Twinkly was trying his best to shove his brother, and though he was somewhat lighter than Woof, weighing a bare six pounds to Woof’s six and a half, he was also quicker on his feet, and he did finally succeed in backing the other up to the incline.

True, there was no lake at the bottom, as there had been when Woof shoved him down the bank in his sleep, but at least the teaser should find out what it felt like to be sent rolling in a helpless ball.

With a sudden wrench he sprang free, just as he had the larger cub humped up at the top of the slide, defending his head with all four paws. The result was that fat Woof rolled like a rubber ball straight down the incline, whirling around and around till he came up, plunk, against the trunk of a tree.

But to Twinkly Eyes’ surprise Woof not only picked himself up with a laugh of enjoyment, but he raced back up the slope to try it again, ducking his tiny head and doubling up into a ball for the purpose.

Again and again he tobogganed down that slope, Twinkly staring after him wide-eyed. So that was the way he had thought to get even!

He was so surprised that he stood clear up on his hind legs, staring. Then he tried it himself!

[Illustration: [Bears]]

XIV A DIFFERENT TWINKLY EYES

Summer passed, with its lessons. And thanks to Mother Black Bear, there wasn’t an animal his size in all the Deep Woods that Twinkly Eyes was afraid of, when at last the long sleep came.

Emerging in the spring from the snug den in which he and his brother had drowsed away the long months, snuggled close into their mother’s furs, he was a different Twinkly Eyes.

He was both older and wiser,—and oh, so much thinner! His voice had deepened, too.

Soon he began hunting by himself. For Mother Black Bear now had two new little roly-poly cubs. And sometimes he didn’t find much to eat.

One morning he met Tattle-tale the Jay.

Now Tattletale was not really a mean fellow: he was just mischievous. He loved to play pranks. His tattling was for the most part a warning to the smaller forest folk of the approach of their enemies, Cooper the Hawk and Bobby Lynx, and Mother Black Bear.

When any of these were out for game, he would fly from one tree-top to another just ahead of them, screaming his warning at the top of his lungs, till there wasn’t a hare or a wood mouse anywhere that did not have a chance to run to hiding.

Now, though, he was so furious with the Red Squirrels for smashing two of Mrs. Jay’s pretty eggs that he made up his mind to get even. It never once entered his head that he was the first offender. For if he hadn’t begun the quarrel by robbing Shadow Tail, of his poor little hoard of seeds, Mother Red Squirrel would never have harmed the eggs.

If he had thought, he might have called it square, instead of making a bad matter worse. But Tattletale didn’t stop to think. All he could see was his own grievance. Besides, Mrs. Jay felt so bad about the eggs that he had to promise her something that would soothe her ruffled feelings.

The very next morning, just as the first pink rays of the rising sun began glinting off the dew-wet leaves in the open places, he was flitting about after grasshoppers when he spied Twinkly Eyes, the little Black Bear, slouching along the little trail to Pollywog Pond.

“Good morning, Mr. Bear,” he chirped.

“Good morning,” rumbled the yearling cub, peering and blinking into the treetops at the flash of blue wings. Twinkly’s eyes are very poor, though his ears are so sharp and his nose sharper. He could hear the squeak of a wood mouse a long way off, and he could tell just by sniffing whether or not he would find those delicious sour-tasting ants underneath a fallen log.

“How do you find the hunting these days?” asked Tattletale politely.

“Oh, nothing extra—nothing extra at all,” grumbled Twinkly Eyes. “Haven’t had much of anything but roots and frogs so far this spring. Blueberries aren’t ripe yet, there won’t be any nuts till fall, to say nothing of green corn. And a bear of my size can’t make much of a living off of grubs and mice, of course. I do wish I could find a bee tree!”

“I don’t suppose, now,” ventured the Jay, “that you’d be interested in a nest of young squirrels?”

“Try me—just try me once!” chuckled the little bear.

“All right; see that old oak?” directed Tattletale, flying on ahead.

[Illustration: [Bear]]

XV THERE’S MANY A SLIP

Fortunately for most of us, there is many a slip ’twixt the cup and the lip, which only means that many a plan is laid that doesn’t pan out just as it was expected to.

It was so in the case of Twinkly Eyes, the little Black Bear. It was lucky for him and it was lucky for Shadow Tail, the Red Squirrel, and it was lucky for Tattletale, the Jay. For if Tattletale had really been the means of leading the little Bear to Mother Red Squirrel’s nest, she’d never have forgiven Tattletale, but surely would have gone back and broken the rest of the eggs on which he had left Mrs. Jay sitting so patiently.

And if Twinkly Eyes had really caught the squirrel babies, as he wanted to, he’d have made such an enemy of every squirrel in all the woods around that he’d never have known peace again. For they’d have followed through the treetops, everywhere he went, scolding him and warning the mice and frogs and snakes to beware of his coming.

But there was one thing Tattletale the Jay had not stopped to consider when he led Twinkly Eyes to the tree in which Mother Red Squirrel had located. He didn’t stop to realize that the squirrel babies were far too clever to be caught napping.

No sooner did Shadow Tail and his brothers hear Twinkly’s great claws scrambling up the tree trunk than they promptly leaped into another tree, and the bear had his climb for his trouble.

Sliding down the trunk like a bag of meal, he tried the next tree, on the Jay’s advice, but with the same success. The little squirrels raced from branch to branch around him, hurling taunts and laughter at him, till he really began to be angry. But it was Mr. Jay he was angry with!

“See here,” he grumbled, “I do believe you have just been playing a prank on me!”

“Oh, no, I assure you,” began Tattletale, flying down beside the bear.

But Twinkly Eyes would have none of it. He suddenly remembered how often the Jay had warned his quarry away from him by flying just overhead and shrieking, “Look out, look out! A bear!”

With this memory bitter upon him, he made a sudden slap at Tattletale with his great barbed paw. But the bird was too quick for him. He was back in the tree tops before the little Bear knew what had happened.

“All right,” said Tattletale, “if you feel that way about it! You can’t do me any harm,” and he was off with a flash of his blue wings.

For a while Twinkly wandered on, hungrily listening for the squeak of a shrew mouse. Then suddenly he pricked up his ears. It was—it certainly was the buzzing of a honey bee! It came from a little wild rose bush.

Now a honey bee meant but one thing to Twinkly Eyes—a bee tree, and a bee tree meant honey. He would follow the sound when the bee flew home, and then—Um! His mouth fairly watered.

XVI THE BEE TREE