Himalayan Black Bear
I am telling you this because you will see very soon what we gain by being friendly even to a wild animal. The Himalayan black bear, like the other black bear, is also very fond of honey, and of everything sweet. In the country where he lives there grows a berry called mawa, which is very sweet—even sweeter than the strawberry; and the people of the villages make jam from it.
These berries grow quite wild, on bushes here and there in the fields, and even in the jungles near by. When the berries are ripe, the people send out their children to gather them from the bushes in the fields; and the children carry baskets so as to bring back as many berries as they can.
But when the berries are ripe, the bears also want to eat them! So it sometimes happens that half a dozen children are picking the berries from a thick bush, when suddenly a bear comes round the bush and starts gobbling up the berries as fast as he can!
Do the children get frightened and run away? Not a bit! They want their share of the berries, too!
By this time the bush may be getting empty, and the children have not quite filled their baskets. The bear keeps on gobbling up the berries, and even pushing past the children to get at a bunch. What then? Why, the children raise their hands, and just spank the wild bear!
"Go away, you have had enough!" they say. "Can't you go to another bush? There must be others right in the jungle, where we can't go!"
And, can you imagine it, a wild bear there has never hurt a child! When the children spank him and push him away, telling him that he has had enough from that bush, he does go away to some other bush. Of course, the spanking does not really hurt him.