one nice, warm sunny day, when it was too hot to stay inside the den among the rocks, the nice bears were all out in front, lying in the shade of the woods.
“oh, my! how hot it is!” cried dido, and he opened his mouth wide, and let his red tongue hang out, for animals, such as dogs and bears, cool themselves off that way. you must have seen your dog, when he had run fast, after a cat, perhaps, open his mouth and breathe fast, with his tongue hanging out.
“let’s go swimming in the lake again!” cried dido to his brothers.
“all right,” agreed gruffo.
“we’ll all go,” said mr. bear. “come along.”
so off through the woods walked the family of bears toward the cool, blue lake, high up in the mountains. dido could hardly wait to get there, and as soon as he saw, through the trees, the sparkle of the water he began to run. he ran so fast that he stumbled over a stone, and fell down.
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“oh, dido!” called his mother. “you must be more careful. you must not go so fast. something will happen to you some day if you do not look where you are going.”
“i didn’t hurt myself that time, anyhow,” answered dido, as he got up, and jumped into the lake. there he swam about, as did the father and mother bear, and the other two cubs. dido splashed his brothers every time he came near them, but they did not mind, for he was such a cute little fellow and he meant no harm. besides, it was so warm that the more water they had on them the better gruffo and muffo liked it.
“it makes me hungry to go in swimming,” said mrs. bear. “i am going off in the woods to look for some berries.”
“i’m coming, too,” said dido. “for i am hungry myself.”
soon mrs. bear found a bush on which were growing some big red berries. these she pulled off with her forepaws, which were, to her, almost like our hands are to us, and the mother bear filled her mouth with the fruit. dido did the same, and soon he was not as hungry as he had been. then along came mr. bear, with gruffo and muffo, and they, too, ate the red berries off the bushes.
all at once mr. bear stopped eating, and, lifting
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his nose up in the air, sniffed very hard two or three times.
“what is the matter?” asked mrs. bear quickly.
“i think i smell a man,” answered the papa bear. “see if you can smell anything.”
mrs. bear lifted her nose up in the air and she, also, sniffed. bears, you know, as do most wild animals, use their noses as much as they do their eyes to tell when there is danger. and to wild animals a man, nearly always, means danger. if you were out in the woods, and could not see any one, you could not tell, just by smelling the air, whether some person was near you or not—that is, unless they had a lot of perfume on them, and then, if the wind was blowing toward you, why you might smell that.
but bears have much better noses for smelling than have we, and they can smell a man in the woods even if he has no cologne on him.
“sniff! sniff!” went mr. bear.
“sniff! sniff!” went mrs. bear.
“yes, i can surely smell a man,” the papa bear said in a low voice. “it is the first time i have known them to come around here.”
“and so can i smell a man,” added mrs. bear. “we had better get away from here.”
then the bears ran off through the woods to their den. for though big bears are very strong
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and can fight well, they would much rather run away from a man than fight him, unless they find they can not get away. for when a man goes into the woods where there are bears he nearly always has a gun with him, and while bears know they are stronger than a man they also know that a gun is stronger than a dozen bears.
when dido, with his brothers and father and mother, got back to the den in the rocks, the little bear cub saw that his father was worried about something. mr. bear walked up and down in front of the pile of rocks, sniffing the air, and looking on all sides.
“what is the matter, papa?” asked dido, in bear talk, of course.
“it’s that man i smelled in the woods,” said mr. bear. “i fear he may find our den.”
“well, what if he does?” asked dido.
“then it would not be safe for us to stay here,” answered mrs. bear. “if men are coming into our woods it is time for us to go away.”
“what! go away from our nice den?” asked gruffo. for though the den was only a hole in the rocks, with a pile of leaves in one corner for a bed, still, to the bears, it was as much a home as your house is to you.
“yes, it would not be safe to stay while men are around,” said mr. bear. “that is the first time i have ever smelled them in our woods.
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though a friend of mine, mr. lion, who lives farther down the mountain, said he has often seen men near his cave. once some men on elephants chased him, but he got away.”
“have you ever seen a man?” asked dido of his father.
“oh, yes, often, but always afar off. and the men did not see me.”
“what does a man look like?” asked dido, for he had never seen any, though he had heard of them.
“a man is a queer creature,” said mr. bear. “he walks up on his hind feet, as we do sometimes, but when he walks on his four feet he can only go slowly, like a baby. even you could run away from a man on his four feet, dido.”
“how queer!” said the little bear.
“but don’t try it,” said mrs. bear quickly. “keep away from men, dido, for they might shoot you with one of their guns.”
“what else is a man like?” the little bear asked.
“well, he has a skin that he can take off and put on again,” said mr. bear.
“oh, how very funny!” cried dido. “take off his skin? i should think it would hurt!”
“it doesn’t seem to,” said the papa bear. “i don’t understand how they do it, but they do.”
of course what mr. bear thought was skin
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was a man’s clothes, which he takes off and puts on again. but though bears are very wise and smart in their own way, they don’t know much about men, except to be afraid of them.
“i do not like it that men are coming up in our woods,” said mr. bear. “it means danger. so be careful, dido, and you, too, gruffo and muffo, that you do not go too far away. perhaps the man has come up here to set a trap to catch us.”
“what is a trap?” asked dido.
“it is something dangerous, to catch bears,” his mother told him. “some traps are made of iron, and they have sharp teeth in them that catch bears by the leg and hurt very much. other traps are like a big box, made of logs. if you go in one of these box traps the door will shut and you can not get out.”
“what happens then?” asked dido.
“then the man comes and gets you.”
“and what does he do with you?” the little bear cub wanted to know.
“that i can not say,” answered mrs. bear. “perhaps your father knows.”
mr. bear shook his head.
“all i know,” he answered, “is that the man takes you away if he finds you in his trap. but where he takes you i do not know, for i was never caught, and i hope i never will be.”
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“i hope so, too,” said dido, and he sniffed the air to see if he could smell the man, but he could not.
for a number of days after that the bears did not go far from their den in the rocks. they were afraid the man might shoot them.
but, after a while, all the berries and sweet roots close by had been eaten, and the bears had to go farther off. besides, they wanted some fish, and they must go to the lake or river to catch them. so after mr. bear had carefully sniffed the air, and had not smelled the man-smell, the bears started off through the woods again to get something to eat.
dido ran here and there, sometimes on ahead and again he would stay behind, slipping up back of his brothers to tickle them. oh, but dido was a jolly little bear, always looking for fun.
the bears found some more red berries, and a few blue ones, and some sweet roots, and they also caught some fish, which made a good dinner for them. then they went swimming in the lake again before going back to their den.
in the afternoon, when gruffo was asleep in the shade, dido went softly up to him, and poured a paw full of water in his brother’s ear.
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but dido climbed up a tree to get away.
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“wuff! ouch! what’s that? is it raining?” cried gruffo, suddenly waking up. then he saw that dido had played the trick on him, and he ran after the little bear. but dido climbed up a tree to get away, and he did it in such a funny way, his little short tail going around like a fourth of july pinwheel, that gruffo had to sit down and laugh.
“oh, you are such a funny cut-up bear!” he said, laughing harder than ever, and when a bear laughs he can’t very well climb a tree.
“come on down, i won’t do anything to you,” said gruffo, after a while, so dido came down. then he turned somersaults on a pile of soft leaves. next he stood on his hind legs, and began striking at a swinging branch of a tree with his front paws, as you have seen a kitten play with a cord of a window curtain.
“dido is getting to be a real cute little cub,” said mrs. bear.
then, all of a sudden, dido struck at the tree branch, but he did not hit it and he fell over backward.
“look out!” cried mr. bear. “you’ll hurt yourself, dido.”
“i didn’t hurt myself that time,” said the little bear, “for i fell on some soft, green moss.”
“well, there will not always be moss for you to fall on,” his mother said. “so look out.”
one day, when mr. bear came back from a long trip in the woods, he brought some wild
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honey in his paws. and oh! how good it tasted to dido and gruffo and muffo!
“show me where the bee-tree is, papa,” begged dido. “i want to get some more honey.”
“it is too far away,” answered the papa bear. “besides, i saw a man in the woods as i was getting the honey out of a hollow tree. it would not be safe for you to go near it when men are around.”
but the honey tasted so good to dido that the little bear cub made up his mind that he simply must have more.
“i know what i’ll do,” he said to himself. “when none of the others are watching me i am going off by myself in the woods and look for a bee-tree to get some honey. i don’t believe there’s any danger.”
so about a week after this, one day, dido saw his two brothers asleep outside the den. mr. bear had gone off to the lake, perhaps to catch some fish, and mrs. bear was in the den, stirring up the leaves that made the bed, so it would be softer to lie on.
“now’s my chance,” thought dido, in the way bears have of thinking. “i’ll just slip off in the woods by myself, and find a honey-tree. i’ll bring some honey home, too,” said dido, for he was not a selfish little bear.
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walking softly, so as not to awaken his brothers, and so his mother, making the leaf-bed in the den, would not know what he was doing, away slipped dido to the woods.
he shuffled along, now and then finding some red berries to eat, or a bit of sweet root, and every little while he would lift his nose up in the air, as he had seen his father do, and sniff to see if he could smell a man-smell.
“but i don’t smell any,” said dido. “i guess it’s all right.”
then, all at once, he felt a little wind blowing toward him, and on the breeze came the nicest smell.
“oh, it’s honey!” cried dido. “it’s honey! i have found the honey-tree! oh, how glad i am!”
he hurried on through the woods, coming nearer and nearer to the honey smell all the while, until, after a bit, he saw in among the trees something square, like a box, made of little logs piled together. and inside the thing like a box was a pile of honey. dido could see it and smell it. but he did not rush up in a great hurry.
“that doesn’t look like the honey-tree father told about,” the little bear cub thought. “he said he had to climb a tree. this honey is low down. still it is honey, so this must be a honey-tree,
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and if it is low down so much the better for me. i will not have to climb.”
dido sniffed the air again. he wanted to see if there was a man-smell about. but all he could smell was the honey.
“oh, i guess it’s all right,” said the bear cub. “i’m so hungry for that honey i can’t wait! here i go!”
dido fairly ran into the box and began to eat the honey on the floor of it. but, no sooner had he taken a bite, than suddenly a queer thing happened.
bang! went something behind dido, and when he looked around he saw that the box was shut tight. a sliding door had fallen down and poor dido was a prisoner.
