The Little Bear Who Grew

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Title:     The Little Bear Who Grew
Author: Henry Wallace Phillips [More Titles by Phillips]

I was standing at the door of the office one afternoon in August. The office was on Main Street,--a thoroughfare fronting railroad tracks and a long strip of fenced grass, dotted with newly planted trees, called the "park,"--in a North Dakota town. It was hot. I mean, hot. Down that long thin street the shadows of false-fronted stores lay like blue slag on molten iron. Nothing moved: this particular metropolis-to-be of the Northwest was given over to heat and silence. Yet it wasn't muggy, sea-coast heat that turns bone and muscle into jelly--it was a passion of sun-power, light and heat together.

Just to be on a horse out in it over the prairie swells was to taste the flavour of adventure. But no such thing for me. I had to take care of the office. A thermometer inside that office marked one hundred and fourteen degrees. Had it been inside of me it would have marked three hundred and fourteen degrees.

I shall not tell the series of injustices that obliged me to stay in that hencoop, while the rest of the force went gleefully up the line to attend a ball game. I didn't count for much, while the decision in regard to the one who stayed rested in the hands of Fate. It was the manager's own pack of cards I cut. I can recall the look of sophisticated astonishment those rascals wore at my persistent bad luck. I found out afterwards that every mother's son of them had bought his ticket the day before. They had faith in that pack of cards. Most of the town had gone with them; this accounted for the deserted village effect. Several days before this I sat up all night reading H. Rider Haggard's "She." The desire to figure in remarkable events had not yet worn off, but a more unlikely theatre of adventure than that Main Street could not be conceived. I looked up and down the length of it. Hark! What sound is that? 'T is the rattle of wheels, and the "plunkety-plunk" of a farm-horse's trot. Around the corner comes an ancient Studebaker waggon drawn by an old horse, and in it two small boys are seated on a bushel basket--hardly a crisis. I fell to envying the small boys, for all that. They could go and come as they pleased; they were their own masters, free to do as they liked in the world.

As if to show that this was, indeed, the fact, in the broadest meaning of the words, the two urchins suddenly leaped high in the air, uttering shrieks; they landed on the ground and scuttled across the park as fast as legs could carry them. Absolutely no reason for this performance appeared to the eye. The horse stopped, turning his mild gaze after them, then swung his head until he saw me, at whom he gazed with that expression of complete bewilderment always so comical in an equine face. "Account for that, if you can," he said, as plainly as the printed words could do it. Finding no solution in me, he shook his head and blew his nose. He was a kind old horse, always willing to oblige, but to plan an independent campaign was beyond him, so he stood just where he was, probably saying, "Great is Allah!" to himself in the Houyhnhnm tongue, waiting for what was going to happen to get about it. The plot increased in thickness, for the bushel basket began a mysterious journey toward the back of the waggon, impelled by an unseen power. It was a curious thing to see in broad daylight. I felt quite a prickle down my spine as I watched it. Arriving at the end, over it went, disclosing the secret. From out of that basket came a small bear. I swallowed an ejaculation and looked at him. He, entirely unabashed, returned my gaze--a funny little ruffian! On the end of his spinal column he teetered, all four feet in the air, the cock of his head irresistibly suggesting the tilt of a gamin's cap. His tongue hung waggishly out of his mouth, and a sort of loose, dissipated, tough, cynical humour pervaded his person, from the squint of his little eyes to the absurd post of his hind legs. There was less of the immature bear about him than of the miniature bear. I suppose a young wild animal is like a street Arab, in that he receives his worldly knowledge with his milk.

He had on a collar and chain, whereby I recognised he was someone's property. To clear this part of history, the two small boys had been hired to take him to Mr. D----'s menagerie, when, after a struggle, he had been ensconced beneath the bushel basket. They were not the happy youths I had taken them for, these boys,--how often we envy the lot of others unwisely!--for they were obliged to sit on the basket in order to retain their captive, dreading all the time what a moment's carelessness brought to pass, an attack from beneath. When one incautious foot ventured too near the basket, Mr. Bear promptly clawed and chewed it; hence the shrieks, and the flight.

Well, not wishing this piece of live stock to escape, I walked toward him, affecting the unconcern necessary in approaching an animal. He did not retreat; he swayed on his spine and regarded me jeeringly. I grabbed the chain and pulled. Instantly, he nailed me by the leg. He had nothing but milk teeth, or I should have been much the worse for the encounter. As it was, he pinched like a vise with his strong little jaws, and I had all I wanted to pry him loose. I tried to hold him at arm's length, but he turned inside of his baggy overcoat and bit and clawed until I gave that up. I then whirled him at the end of the chain. He flew through the air with spread legs until the chain snapped, when he landed many yards away. He was up and off as soon as he stopped rolling, and I after him. The boy who was running the clothing store several vacant lots from the office came to his door at that moment, and, feeling that a bear hunt was more to his taste than twiddling his thumbs in an empty store, he came along, too, and the flour office and the clothing store were left in the hands of Providence--fortunately there were no thieves in old-time Dakota.

In front was young Mr. Bear, boring a hole in the wind, and behind him two boys, coming strong, but not in his class for speed. Our quarry gained one block in three. We just rounded a barn in time to see him jump into a wood shed behind a real estate office.

I knew a cat with kittens lived in that wood shed, and strained myself to reach there before the fun was over. However, there was ample time. The code of the animal duel is as formal and long-winded as anything the mind of man has devised. Probably everyone has seen two young cockerels, standing with their bills together, apparently lost in a Buddhistic reverie, suddenly broken by violence. They are only an illustration. All animals have their ceremonial of battle, when it is for the fun of fighting, pure and simple, with the dinner question eliminated.

The weird war song of Mrs. Cat, pealing out from the cracks of the wood shed, assured us we would be repaid for our trouble, but the tone indicated that the fell moment had not arrived. We peered through a chink. The cat was in a corner, her family around her. Her eyes roamed all over the wood shed, merely taking the bear in _en passant_. She seemed unconscious of the awful noise which ripped the air.

The bear, for his part, was unaware of the proximity of a yowling cat. He never so much as glanced in her direction, having found a very diverting chunk of coal, which he batted about the floor. A singular thing was that, when the coal moved it always moved nearer the cat.

The cat prepared for trouble, after the manner of her kind, and the bear prepared to cause it, after the manner of his kind. Occasionally, when a blood-curdling screech from his antagonist rang upon his eardrums, the cub would stop a moment and gaze pensively through and beyond the end of the wood shed, as if, indeed, from far off, a certain sound, made filmy and infinitesimal by distance, had reached him. Then he would smile deprecatingly to himself, as if to say, "How easily I am deceived!"

Excellent as was the feigned indifference of Mr. Bear, it must be borne in mind that he was opposed to an animal of parts. Our friend, the cat, was not a whit taken in by the comedy. When the time came for her to leap she was ready, to the last hair of her chimney-cleaner tail. She had been making most elaborate preparations all the while, stretching and retracting her claws, squirming her whalebone body flatter and flatter, her tail assuming majestic proportions, while her ears disappeared in inverse ratio.

Nearer and nearer came the chunk of coal and the slouching little bear, a touch of caution in each pretended careless action. Awful and more awful grew Grimalkin's battle plaint--her eyes blazed demoniacally.

By some subtle assurance, we humans were made aware that, on the floor of the wood shed, an imaginary deadline had been drawn by Mrs. Cat, and, when Ursus Minor advanced so much as the length of a claw beyond that in his orbit, an incident would mark his career. You may believe me or not, but the little bear understood not only this much, but he also knew where that line lay. Fully a minute he tantalised us by coquetting with it. He would advance recklessly, and we would say to ourselves, "Now!" when, lo! he would turn at the fatal point, to lie on his side and amuse himself by clawing at the chunk of coal.

Suddenly he boldly stepped across. An instant of numbing silence fell. A swish! A cat on a small bear's back. A scene impossible! A hairy tornado, rolling, twisting, flopping, yelling, screeching, roaring, and howling, tore, bit, scratched, clawed, and walloped all over the place. An epileptic nebula; a maelstrom that revolved in every way known to man at the same instant; a prodigy of tooth and claw. If that fight were magnified a hundred times, a glimpse of it would kill; as it was, myself and the clothing store boy clung weakly to the wall and wept.

The cat's tough hide easily turned the bear's claws, and his teeth were too tiny to work mischief; while his thick, shaggy coat made pussy's keener weapons ineffectual. As a consequence, the storm raged with unbridled ferocity, the motion of the foemen being so swift none could tell who was getting the better of it. There was energy in that small action and a bitterness of sound altogether indescribable, the mews of the astounded kittens quavering shrilly and loudly through the general frenzy.

At length, in spite of his antagonist's agility, the bear managed to get his "holt," and puss, wrapped in his strong arms, was practically whipped; not without protest--she was a "last-ditch" warrior. The bear settled back as grim and stolid as General Grant might have done, while the chivalry of the wood shed applied her hind claws to his waistcoat. However, the bear could do a little in this line himself. The effect was that each tried unsuccessfully to walk up the other.

The "strangle hold" began to tell. Never shall I forget the desperation in that cat's face as it appeared between the squeezing arms of the bear. Their attitude had such a resemblance to the "Huguenot Lovers" I have not been able since to look at that celebrated picture with proper countenance.

At this point, my companion and I came to the rescue. Finding all attempts at separating them by hand resulted in the usual wages of the peacemaker, we grabbed the chain and hauled the war to the pump. The pump was only a short distance way, yet it took us several minutes to make the trip, as every time we turned and gazed at them, their rigid adherence to their relative positions, no matter what condition as a whole this mode of locomotion caused them to assume, and the leering, bourgeois complacency of the victorious bear, contrasting with the patrician despair of the vanquished, caused such a weakness to come over us that we had to sit upon the ground for a while.

Water is the universal solvent. About half a minute under the pump formed the solution of this problem. A wet and skinny-looking cat, her elegance departed, streaked back to the wood shed and her offspring, while a sober and bedraggled little bear trotted behind his captors to Mr. D----'s menagerie.

This was my introduction to this bear. We called him "Cat-thumper," after the Indian fashion of christening a child from some marked exploit or incident in his career. This became contracted to "Thumper," an appropriate title, for, with the fat pickings of the restaurant, his bearship grew with a rapidity that made it a puzzle how his hide contained him.

Under these genial conditions Thumper developed humour. It became possible for one to romp with him, and in the play he was careful not to use his strength. So exemplary became his conduct that his owner, a man who never could learn from experience, or even from Billy Buck, decided to take him on Main Street. Mr. D----'s novelties were a standing menace to the security of the town and his own person as well. The amount of vanity that fat little man possessed would have supplied a theatrical company. One of his first acts, on entering a town, was to purchase the fiercest white hat, and the most aboriginal buck-skin suit to be obtained, and then don them. Almost the next act on the part of his fellow-townsmen was to hire a large and ferocious looking "cow-puncher" to recognise in Mr. D---- an ancient enemy, and make a vicious attack upon him with blank cartridges and much pomp and circumstance. Still it had no permanent effect on Mr. D----. Badinage could not wither him nor cussing stale his infinite variety. With all his exasperating traits, he had an impassable child-like faith in his doings and a soothing influence that made one smile when one wanted to cry.

The passage up street was made with no happening worthy of note except, of course, that other travellers gave him a wide berth (to Mr. D----'s extreme gratification) until they came to the butcher shop. Here Thumper's first move was to steal a fine tenderloin from the block, and swallow it whole.

"Ye're!" yelled the proprietor, an ex-Indian scout, "whatcher doin' there? Take that critter out of here!"

"I'm willing to pay for the meat," replied Mr. D----, with dignity.

"That's all right, too," retorted the proprietor, "but I promised it to Mr. Smith, and it's the only one I've got. How are you going to square that? What do you mean by toting a brute like that around, anyhow?" he wound up with increasing choler.

"I cannot see but what I have a perfect right to take with me any animal or animals I choose!" said Mr. D----.

"Not into this shop, by Jingo!" said the proprietor, reaching under the counter. "Now you sneak him out of here, quick, or I'll shoot him."

"Very well," said Mr. D----, bowing, but red, "very well. Come, Thumper!"

Thumper was in no mind to move. He liked the situation. Mr. D---- pulled on the chain, and Thumper overlooked it. A small crowd gathered in front of the door and encouraged Mr. D---- by calling, "Pull hard, the man says!" "Now, altogether, yee-hoooo!" and similar remarks. I have always felt that a bear enjoys a joke. In this case I am sure of it. Showing no bad temper, he simply refused to budge, and, by this time, when he had made up his mind, the decision was final, as far as any one man was concerned. Mr. D----'s temper went by the board; it was an embarrassing situation. "Come out of that!" he cried, with a sharp jerk at the chain.

The look of irritation vanished from the proprietor's face. "Why don't some of you fellers help the gentleman out with his bear?" he asked. Thereupon the spectators took a hand and Thumper was dragged into the street. Evidently he thought this one of the usual frolics to which we boys had accustomed him; for, once upon the sidewalk, he began to prance and gambol in the graceful fashion of his kind. It so happened that the nurse-girl of the mayor of the town, a huge Swede woman as broad as she was long (which is almost hyperbole), came trundling her charge up the board walk at the precise moment that Thumper bowled over a gentleman in front and came plainly to her view.

One Norwegian war-whoop and away she galloped, the perambulator before her, as it was not in the mind of the Vikingess to desert her duty. Screeching, she tore up the walk, the carriage bouncing and rattling, and the baby crowing with delight. An Indian stepped out of a store directly in front of her. Him Telka rammed with such fury that he landed on his neck in the road, with his feet in the air. But, as he regained his balance, resentment was drowned in unbounded amazement. "Wakstashoneee!" he said, "wakstashoneeeee!" which is the limit in the Sioux tongue. Never had the Dakota warrior expected to see the day when he would be made to bite the earth by a Swede woman and a baby carriage. Around the corner for home whirled Telka, making the turn like a circus horse. Arriving at the house, she placed one fairy foot against the door with such spirit that the lock-socket hit the opposite wall, picked up carriage and baby and went upstairs with them three rises to a leap. At the top she burst into a wild oratory of "tanks" and "Eenyens" and "beejjeerens" and "yoomps," scaring her mistress into the belief that the Sioux had attacked the town in force--an event she had long anticipated.

Thumper was led back to his pole in the park, and fastened with an ox-chain, this step being taken at the request of an informal committee of citizens. "Chained bear or dead bear" was their ultimatum, for, while they enjoyed Telka's performance, they didn't propose to make it a custom to obtain their fun from frightened women. So Thumper's freedom of the city lasted but a day. To make amends for this, we boys used to go in and tussle with him more often than before. The play was the bright spot in the life of the captive. He would begin his double shuffle of joy whenever a group of boys made their appearance. At first, this went well enough. As I have said, the bear's nature revealed its better side, under the benign influence of plenty to eat, and I cannot remember that he once took advantage of his vast and growing strength. Mr. D---- encouraged the performances, as the menagerie's purpose was to attract the attention of travellers who had a half-hour's wait at the station, and thus to spread the fame of his railroad eating-house. But misfortune came, through the applause of the passengers. Several young men of the town embraced the opportunity to show off. One of these, a brawny young six-foot Irishman named Jim, used to punch old Thumper pretty roughly, when he had a large audience. Jim was neither a bad-hearted nor cruel fellow; he simply had a body too large for his disposition. In the phrase of the West, he was "staggering with strength," and in Thumper he found a chance to work off his superfluous nervous energy--also to occupy the centre of our local stage for the brief time of train-stop. If it is love that makes the world go round, certainly vanity first put it into motion. "All is vanity," said the Preacher. From the devoted astronomer's austere lifework to the twinkle of a fairy's glittering tinsel; from the glories of the first man up the battle-swept hill to the infamous assassin, all is vanity. Such a universal attribute must necessarily be good, except in abnormal growth. Jim showed his overdevelopment of the faculty, while the abused Thumper modestly sat still and grew. And still he grew, and still he grew--with a quiet energy that made the fact that he had passed from a large bear to a very large bear go by unnoticed.

Several times, when Jim was showing more skill than Thumper, the memory of a mauled cat came to my mind. The ursine look shot at Jim now and then recalled it. I even went to the length of remonstrating, but it was without effect. It was on a Sunday morning that Nemesis attended to Jim's case. Circumstances were propitious. An excursion train, crowded with passengers, pulled up at the station. Jim had a new suit of black broadcloth, due to a temporary aberration of our local Solomon who ran the clothing store. Because of this victory, Jim was in an extraordinarily expansive mood as he swaggered down the platform.

"I guess I'll try a fall out of the bear," he announced to his companions, in a tone that informed all of his intention. Gaily he swung his long legs over the fence and advanced upon Thumper, who, by a strange coincidence, was poised on the end of his spine, with his feet in the air and his tongue lolling humorously out of his mouth, as when I first made his acquaintance. The bear noted the approach from the corner of his eye, stretched out his paws, examined them critically, seemed satisfied with the inspection, shook himself thoroughly, and resigned affairs to Fate.

Jim, stimulated by the remarks of the passengers and their eager interest in his doings, marched up to Thumper, struck a sparring attitude, and shuffled around, making sundry little passes and jabs which the bear ignored.

"Punch him!" cried a voice in the crowd. Jim lunged; the bear ducked, lazily, but effectually, and the crowd laughed. Jim drove right and left at his antagonist; the bear parried, ducked, and got away, until the crowd shrieked with merriment and the Irishman was furious. He lived to punch that bear, and, at length, he succeeded--square on the end of Thumper's snout. The bear sneezed, dropped his head, and stared fixedly at Jim.

"Run!" I yelled--alack! too late. Up rose Thumper to a paralysing height, higher still went his trusty paw, and down it came, with a swinging, sidewise blow on the Irishman's neck.

I will maintain, by oath, affirmation, or combat, that Mr. Jim made six complete revolutions, like a button on a barn door, before he struck mother earth with the dullest of thuds.

Ten to one that the town was out one Irishman would have seemed a good business proposition, and, to clinch the assurance, the bear began to walk on Jim. While the bear kneaded him like a batch of dough, some of us woke and rushed to the scene of action.

I do not remember clearly how we got out of it. Some pulled at the bear's chain, and some grabbed Jim by whatever offered a hold. At length James was rescued, alive and weeping, though three-quarters of the new suit, including the most useful portion of the nether garments, remained in Bruin's paws as the spoils of victory. The crowd on the platform was charmed. This was precisely the thing it had travelled miles to see.

Poor Jim! He was a spectacle. Tears, scratches, and dust robbed his face of all humanity; the scant remnants of the Sunday suit fluttered in the breeze; his shaking knees barely supported him. We gave him a stimulant, a blanket, and some good advice. Mr. D----, for once in his life on the right side of the question, was especially forward in furnishing the last necessity. So passed Jim from the field of his glories, and, barring some scratches, bruises, and a stiff neck (not to mention the Sunday suit, as that loss really fell upon Solomon), he was as well as ever inside of a few days. The only lasting result of the encounter for him was that, when the small boy of the town thirsted for excitement, there would arise a cry of "Hey, Jim! bin down ter pet cher bear?" and then . . .

When the train departed, and the crowd had disappeared, I went down and looked at Thumper. He seemed unchanged. I offered him a cracker; he stretched out the back of his paw, having learned that people shrank from the sight of his five-inch claws, in acceptance. This gobbled, he eyed me, as he leaned back against his pole, like an absurd fat man. Humour shone on the outside of him, but I fancied that, deep in his eyes, I could see a dull red glow, Indian style. "Now," said I to myself, "from the pangs of Jim I shall extract a moral lesson. Whenever I feel like showing off at somebody's expense, let me use caution not to select a grizzly bear."

What Thumper thought no man can tell.

[The end]
Henry Wallace Phillips's short story: The Little Bear Who Grew

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