Fervently did poor little Ben thank God who had thus provided for him a friend when he most needed one, and least expected to find one! With wonder, the orphan silently traced the steps by which his heavenly Father had led him. What a mercy it was that he had passed near the school,—that he had heard the hymn,—that he had resolved to be honest,—and that his resolution had brought him to the cake-woman's stall when the sailor was standing beside it! Had Ben delayed but for ten minutes, he would never have met his uncle! Yes, in future life, the orphan frequently owned that all his earthly comforts had sprung from the decision which he had been strengthened to make when, at the turning-point of his course, he had stood at the door of the infant school, listening with a penitent heart to the hymn which his mother had taught him!
"HE is just like a bear!" That is a very common expression when we talk of some ill-tempered man or boy, who takes a pleasure in saying rude things, and who seems bent upon making every one near him as uncomfortable as he can.
But we may be unjust even to bears. Could you have gone to wintry Greenland, and seen Mrs. Bruin amidst her family of little white cubs, each scarcely bigger than a rabbit, you would have agreed that a bear can be a kind and tender mother, and provide for her four-footed babies a snug and comfortable home.
You would, indeed, have had some difficulty in finding Bear Hall, or Bear Hole, as we rather should call it. Perhaps in wandering over the dreary snow-covered plains of Greenland, you might have come upon a little hole in the snow, edged with hoar-frost, without ever guessing that the hole was formed by the warm breath of an Arctic bear, or that Mrs. Bruin and her promising family were living in a burrow beneath you. *
* See "Homes without Hands."
How wonderfully does Instinct teach this rough, strange-looking creature to provide for her cubs! The mother bear scrapes and burrows under the snow, till she has formed a small but snug home, where she dwells with her baby-bears during the sharpest cold of an Arctic winter. So wonderfully has Providence cared for the comfort even of wild beasts, that the mother needs no food for three months! She is so fat when she settles down in her under-snow home, that her own plumpness serves her instead of breakfast, dinner, and supper; so that when at last she comes out to break her long fast, she is not starved, but has merely grown thin. I need hardly remind my reader that the Arctic bear is provided by Nature with a thick, warm, close-fitting coat of white fur; and the snow itself, strange as it seems to say so, serves as a blanket to keep the piercing air from her narrow den.
Yes, Mrs. Bruin was a happy mother, though her cell was small to hold her and her children, and the cold above was so terrible that water froze in the dwellings of men even in a room with a fire. Mrs. Bruin found enough of amusement in licking her cubs, which was her fashion of washing, combing, and dressing, and making them look like respectable bears. She let them know that she loved them dearly in that kind of language which little ones, whether they be babies or bear-cubs, so soon understand.