The Bear Story

A lady on a forest border found a half-dead bear cub and raised it on the bottle with the cook. It grew huge but gentle.

In an old manor-house bordering a forest, a lady and cook bottle-fed a starving cub found years ago. The bear grew mighty yet amiable, harming neither man nor beast.

The bear sat outside his kennel, let children ride him and dogs play with his ears. He ate bread, porridge and vegetables - never meat.

Cattle, ponies and dogs accepted him; children slept between his paws. He shared the dogs' plate - bread, porridge, potato, cabbage - and loved fruit, especially fallen apples.

He was chained at night and on Sundays when the lady visited her sister. Once punished for touching beehives; otherwise he roamed freely.

Beehive trouble earned two days on the chain with a bleeding nose. Like a dog, he was chained at night and Sunday afternoons when temptations of the forest were unsafe.

One Sunday the lady heard a bear shuffling behind her in the forest. Angry and late, she hit him hard with her parasol and broke it. The bear turned back.

Half-way to her sister's house she heard branch-cracking and saw a bear catching up fast. She scolded him, noticed his missing collar, and struck his nose so hard the parasol broke. He seemed to want to speak, then shuffled away.

At home her pet bear sat sorry outside the kennel. She scolded him for following and said he would stay chained two more days.

Evening found the familiar bear meek at the kennel looking guilty. Still angry, she scolded him and extended his chaining.

The cook rushed out angrily - the bear had been good as gold all day, sitting toward the gate waiting for his mistress.

The cook, who loved the bear like a son, insisted he had sat quietly on his haunches all day watching the gate - meek as an angel.

The bear in the forest was a wild bear without a collar. The tame bear was wrongly punished though he never left home.

The reader understands the forest bear was another animal - likely wild - while the pet never moved. The comedy lies in unjust blame and the lady's failure to recognise her own bear.