JIMMIE BEAR'S STORY
"You remember that when I was a little bear, one day I disobeyed my papa. Papa told me that he did not want me to go far away from home that day, because there were some great grizzly bears coming, and they might want to take a little brown bear away with them, if they should happen to see him playing away from his home. I thought that I would be very careful, for I loved my papa and my mamma very much, and I did not want to be taken away by a great grizzly bear. But I was interested in running around, and I thought I would try to see how far I could run without getting tired, so I ran and ran, on and on, for a long time, and before I knew it I was several miles from home, and I began to grow tired.
"Of course, I remembered at once what my papa had told me, and so started home without waiting for anything. Before I had gone very far I looked at the ground, and I saw that some very large animal had come that way. The tracks looked like great bear tracks, and though I had never seen the tracks of a grizzly bear, I thought that these had been made by the great grizzly that papa had told me about. Of course I was sorry that I had been so careless and forgetful. I wanted to get home without seeing the great grizzly, and just as quickly as I could. I went another way; but before I had gone far, I heard a sound that made my heart go pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, for it sounded like a great grizzly bear, and before I could think what to do, the grizzly had caught me and told me that he was going to take me a long, long way into the woods. I asked him to let me go back to the cave to say good-by to papa and mamma, but the grizzly said that he had not time to let me go, and besides that, if both the Papa Bear and the Mamma Bear should try to keep me, he might have trouble in getting me, even if he were bigger than both of the bears put together.
"So he took me into the far-away land that I am going to tell you about. It is a beautiful land, and there are the most beautiful trees there, and many, many caves where bears could live. I learned to love the land very much, and when I grew up, I married the most beautiful brown bear in the whole world. And we have four of the dearest cubs that you ever saw; but I always wanted to see Papa Bear, and Mamma Bear, and little Cub Bear, and Johnnie Bear, so I have come back, and it is a dreadful journey across a desert. There is no water to drink, and nothing to eat, and, as you see, I nearly died."
The animals all wanted to go and see the beautiful land that the three-legged Jimmie Bear told them of, but they were afraid to go for fear that they might die of thirst.
While they were wondering how they would cross the desert, they suddenly heard a loud "Bang! Bang!" and the little Cub Bear ran to the mouth of the cave.
He said, "I see some very strange animals. They have the funniest necks—almost as long as the giraffe's, but curved instead of straight, and their heads are very different from the giraffe. The animals have long hair on their necks, and on their backs they have two hills—small ones of course; and they walk very quietly; you can scarcely hear the animals when they place their feet on the ground."
Just then the old owl said, "Who-o-o-o? who-o-o?"
But the animals did not answer. The Circus Bear said that he knew what the animals were; they were camels.
"How many of them are there?" asked the Circus Bear.
And the little Cub Bear began to count, "One, two, three, four," and so on, until he had counted twelve camels.
When the camels came to the cave, the Circus Bear told the little Cub Bear to tell them to come in. The camels came in, but they said they were not in the habit of living in caves. They lived on the desert.
"How can you live on the desert, when there is no water to drink, and nothing to eat there?" asked the little Cub Bear.
The oldest of the camels replied that the camel was a very strange and peculiar animal, and they were made so that they could live on the desert, where there was nothing to drink and nothing to eat.
Of course, the little Cub Bear wanted to know how it was possible for an animal to live without anything to eat, and with nothing to drink. But the camel told him that they had a place to carry water and a place to carry food. He had ten stomachs for water, and four stomachs for food.
The little Cub Bear thought a while, and then said that it seemed to him that if the camels could live so long on the desert, it would be easy for them to get to that new place where the Jimmie Bear lived. The old camel said that it would be very easy, and that the camels could take not only themselves, but that they could carry some of the other animals, for they were used to carrying big loads. That was why the men wanted them. They used the camels instead of the freight trains. So it was agreed that the little Cub Bear, and some of the other animals, should ride on the camels' backs, and that they would take turns riding. They would start at once, as soon as the camels had a good chance to take a big drink of water, and fill all four of their stomachs with food.
But the camels said, "You must be sure that you do not stick your sharp claws into our backs."
The bears all agreed with the animals that they would be very careful, and not dig their claws into the camels.
So they soon started. All of the animals ate and drank all that they could hold. The little Cub Bear was to ride all of the time, for he was so small and so weak. The three-legged bear, too, was to have a ride most of the way, for he was very tired, and had come so long a journey with only three legs. The lion said that he thought he could walk most of the way. He was used to the desert. And the camel said he was very glad that the lion was going to walk, for his claws were very sharp, and he was afraid that the lion might forget and stick his sharp claws into his back.
Well, you would have laughed to see the little Cub Bear try to get on the camel. The sly old camel knew that the little Cub Bear could not climb up, but the little fellow was in such a hurry to start, that the camel let him try to get on the best way he could.
Finally, the little fellow said, "Dear old camel, please tell me how to get on your back."
Then the camel said, "Why didn't you ask me before? There is only one way that you can get on the back of a camel. I will kneel down and show you."
But as soon as the camel knelt down, the little bear saw at once that he could get on his back, and he scrambled up and said:
"Get up, get up, Mr. Camel."
The camel got up, but it was a very funny way that he did it. When the camel straightened out his hind legs, the little Cub Bear nearly fell off; then the camel gave his hind legs another hump, to get them real straight, and what do you suppose happened to the Cub Bear?
He fell off, and got a great bump on the ground, but it did not hurt him very much, and the camel tried it again. This time the little Cub Bear managed to stick on.
The tiger, the kangaroo, the two rats, the ant-bear, and the leopard all got on the camels.
The hippopotamus tried to get on a camel, and he looked so odd that all of the animals laughed, and told him that he would have to walk anyway, because he was too big to ride on the back of a camel. The hippopotamus said that he thought he would stay in the lake the beaver had made; that he could not go far from water, for he liked to live in the water all of the time. The beaver said that he was going to stay, too, and that if any of the men came, the hippopotamus could hide under the water, and he could go into his little house and stay there out of sight until the men had gone away. So they had to leave the beaver and the hippopotamus behind. But they all said that some time they would come again, to see the hippopotamus and the beaver. The badger, the giraffe, and all of the other animals started on their long journey to that land where the wife and the little cubs of Jimmie Bear lived.
That night they were all very tired, and they had to lie down to sleep without anything to eat or any water to drink. All except the little Cub Bear, who had some berries in a pail that he had carried on the camel's back.
Little Cub Bear wanted them all, but he thought, "Poor papa has walked all day, and has had nothing to eat or to drink, and the way was very hard."
The little Cub Bear was very hungry and very thirsty—hungrier and thirstier than you have ever been; but he said, very sweetly and very politely, "Papa, you may have some of my berries."
But the Papa Bear said that he would not take any of them. Then the little Cub Bear offered some of the berries to the Mamma Bear, but she would not take any of the berries. He offered some to the Circus Bear, and the Circus Bear would not take any. Then he offered some to Jimmie Bear, and Jimmie Bear took just one. Then the little Cub Bear offered some to all of the animals, but no one would take any, except the baby kangaroo.
I rather think that the baby kangaroo would have taken all of them, but his mamma would let him have only three. So the little Cub Bear had all the rest of the berries, and they tasted ever so much better than they would have tasted if he had not been willing to share them with the other animals. Don't you think they did?
The next morning the animals started and traveled all day. That night, just as it was getting dark, they came to the edge of the terrible desert, and they saw a little stream of water and plenty of things to eat, and there they stayed that night. In the morning they started again, and soon came to the most beautiful trees, and grass, and flowers that they had ever seen, and Jimmie Bear pointed up to a cave on the mountain side where his wife and little bears were. And right there were three of the cutest little bears that you ever saw playing in the sun. What a noise they made when they saw their papa and all of the other animals. The Mamma Bear ran to the mouth of the cave, and how happy she was to see Jimmie. The animals were all as happy as could be in the beautiful forest, and what do you think the little bears of Jimmie Bear called the little Cub Bear? They called him "Uncle Cub."
That night the Cub Bear teased the Circus Bear to tell him stories. "I want you to tell me a story about the time you took a ride in a great boat."
And the Circus Bear said, "I will tell you a story about the time we crossed the great ocean and went over to another land."