At the
word he rises to his hind legs, hunches his shoulders, and lunges
awkwardly round in a circle, while the foreigner sings _Horry, horry,
dum-dum_, and his wife passes the hat.
We children pity the bear, as we watch, and forget the other animal
that frightens us when near the woods at night. But he passes on at
last, with a troop of boys following to the town limits. Next day
Bruin comes back, and lives in imagination as ugly and frightful as
ever.
But Mooween the Bear, as the northern Indians call him, the animal
that lives up in the woods of Maine and Canada, is a very different
kind of creature. He is big and glossy black, with long white teeth
and sharp black claws, like the imagination bear. Unlike him, however,
he is shy and wild, and timid as any rabbit. When you camp in the
wilderness at night, the rabbit will come out of his form in the ferns
to pull at your shoe, or nibble a hole in the salt bag, while you
sleep. He will play twenty pranks under your very eyes. But if you
would see Mooween, you must camp many summers, and tramp many a weary
mile through the big forests before catching a glimpse of him, or
seeing any trace save the deep tracks, like a barefoot boy's, left in
some soft bit of earth in his hurried flight.
Mooween's ears are quick, and his nose very keen.
Pages:
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186