Kelly exclaimed, with exasperation: “Confound the bears!” he cried. “If you must spoil my supper weeping over animals, weep over cart-horses. They work. Those bears are loafers. They’re as well fed as pet canaries. They’re aristocrats.”
“But it’s not a free life!” protested Herrick. “It’s not the life they love.”
“It’s a darned sight better,” declared Kelly, “than sleeping in a damp wood, eating raw blackberries——”
“The more you say,” retorted Herrick, “the more you show you know nothing whatsoever of nature’s children and their habits.”
“And all you know of them,” returned Kelly, “is that a cat has nine lives, and a barking dog won’t bite. You’re a nature faker.” Herrick refused to be diverted.
“It hurt me,” he said. “They were so big, and good-natured, and helpless. I’ll bet that woman beats them! I kept thinking of them as they were in the woods, tramping over the clean pine needles, eating nuts, and—and honey, and——”
“Buns!” suggested Jackson.
“I can’t forget them,” said Herrick. “It’s going to haunt me, to-morrow, when I’m back in the woods; I’ll think of those poor beasts capering in a hot theatre, when they ought to be out in the open as God meant they——”
“Well, then,” protested Kelly, “take ‘em to the open. And turn ‘em loose! And I hope they bite YOU!”
At this Herrick frowned so deeply that Kelly feared he had gone too far. Inwardly, he reproved himself for not remembering that his friend lacked a sense of humor. But Herrick undeceived him.