But just as the old woman had expected he was much too lazy to carry the heavy load back to the forest, even for revenge.
“I will not go away empty-handed,” he growled. “If they would not save me a taste, I can at least get the smell!” And he carried the brass pot away with him.
Now, as the bear left the cottage, he saw the beautiful golden pears hanging from the tree. These were the first pears of the season, and they looked very good to him. So he climbed up into the tree and began to eat the biggest, ripest pear that he could find. My! but it was good! The bear was so hungry, after his hard work in the forest, that he licked his chops and smacked his lips as he munched the pear. And then he thought of a plan.
“I shall take these pears home with me and sell them to the other bears in the forest and with the money I can buy all the khichri that I can eat! Ha! Ha! Ha!” laughed the bear. “I shall have the best of the bargain after all! I will fool that old woodman and his wife, and they will not have even so much as a taste of one.”
Then the bear began to gather the ripe pears as fast as he could and put them into the big brass pot, but whenever he came to an unripe pear he would shake his head and say, “No one will buy this green one, yet it is a shame to waste it.” So he would pop the green pear into his own mouth and gobble it up, though he made wry faces as he ate.
Now all this time, the woodman and his wife had been hiding in the garret and the woodman’s wife was peeking through a little crevice watching the bear. When she saw how furious he was, she held her breath for fear he would discover them. When he climbed the tree and was eating the pears, she was angry at losing their share of the fruit, but she was too terrified to call out. At last from the excitement and the dust in her hiding place, she could hold in no longer, and just when the bear had filled the pot with ripe golden pears, out she came with a most tremendous sneeze: “A-h Che-u! Che-uu-uu!”
The bear was startled by this sound—so much like the explosion of a gun—and off he lumbered into the forest, dropping the khichri pot in the yard as he ran.
Now, as the pot had dropped into their yard, the woodman and his wife got all the pears, as well as the khichri they had eaten, and half a cord of wood, while the poor bear got nothing but a very bad stomachache from eating unripe fruit. So that was the end of the bear’s bad bargain.
