It was a sound that has made bears smile ever since the first bear licked up his first taste of honey. So Black Bruin crept cautiously forward to investigate. As he advanced, the humming grew louder and presently a small fury darted out at him.
It was not much larger than a fly, but it gave him such a pin-prick in the nose that he was angry, and so struck it down into the grass, and crushed the life out of it with his swift paw. Then he crept closer to the humming and buzzing, which was now quite ominous. Soon more of the little furies came buzzing out, all of which he killed as he had the first.
When the bee-hunter had crushed the dozen bees comprising the nest, he dug down to the secret hidden in the roots of the grass and found that it was much sweeter than the maple syrup which they had given him at the farmhouse. The nest was also full of white eggs or grubs which were quite palatable. After that day, Black Bruin was a persistent hunter for bumblebees' nests.
From the bumblebees' nest to the hives of the honeybees in the orchard back of the house was a very natural step, but the farmer had not dreamed that the bear would discover the secret of the small white houses.
One afternoon he heard a great humming of the bees in the orchard, and, thinking they were swarming, put on his bee-veil and went to investigate. The sight that met his eyes filled him with both mirth and wrath. There upon the ground was one of the hives overturned and pulled apart. Many of the partly filled sections were thus exposed, while others were empty of both comb and honey.
The thief, who was none other than Black Bruin, was holding up a section between his paws, while with his supple red tongue he licked out the contents. Although the bees were swarming about him in a black cloud and doing their best to punish the thief, he paid little attention to them but licked away for dear life.
Upon his droll countenance was a look of such supreme delight, that the angry farmer ended by laughing heartily; but after that experience he surrounded the beehives with a stout barbed wire fence.
About the middle of July, or perhaps a little later, a neighbor's children took Black Bruin to the blueberry lot.
They had often romped and played with him, and he was glad to go, although he could not be coaxed to follow a stranger. He shuffled along in his droll bear manner, often stopping to sniff under a stone or in some corner, where his wild instinct told him that there might be something interesting.
Arrived at the berry-field, the children began picking and for a time Bruin sat upon his haunches and watched them, his red tongue lolling out, for it was a hot mid-summer day.