The Bear Hurried in Hot Pursuit
This game was so much larger than the field-mouse that he thought it well worth while, and after that whenever he scented a chipmunk about a log or stone wall, he would spend an hour, if need be, until he was satisfied that he could not get at it.
Finally the summer passed and the autumn came, and the bear-cub followed the children to the woods for chestnuts, beech-nuts and walnuts.
He, too, learned the secret of the sweet meat under the hard exterior. Beechnuts he would discover and eat by himself, but walnuts and butternuts he could not crack, and as for chestnuts, he wanted them taken out of their prickly jackets before he could eat them. Here in the deep woods the bear also discovered several roots which were to his liking, so he was always nosing about in the dead leaves, for if he didn't find nuts, he would find roots.
Thus passed the cubhood of Black Bruin, and, from a fuzzy mite, whining for his saucer of milk, he grew into a sturdy cub, strong and self-reliant, able to forage and hunt for himself.
Without training from any parent, he learned some of the things that it was necessary for him to know in the fields and forest. Thus the instinct of his bear ancestors asserted its power in the pampered and spoiled pet of the farmhouse, and if he had chosen, he could probably have taken care of himself as a real wild bear. But he did not care to do so, although he had every chance to run away; there was something always calling to him at the farmhouse.
The people there had been good to him. In the wood-shed was his nest, and no matter how far away he roamed during the daytime, night always found him back at the house, begging for milk, and taking caresses at the farmer's hands.
These good people had been so large a part of his helpless days that he could not leave them now, although the deep green depths of the woods were probably calling to him, as this was his natural home.