"As the summer deepened, however, the calf began to feel and act more like a moose calf—to go silently and even to absorb some of her foster mother's smell. The other moose began to get used to her, even quite to tolerate her; and, the wild creatures generally ceased to regard her as anything but a very unusual kind of moose. Of course, she thought she was a moose. She grew strong, sleek and nimble-footed on her foster mother's abundant milk, and presently learned to browse on the tender leaves and twigs of the fresh green shrubbery. She soon, however, found that the short, sweet grasses of the forest glades were much more to her taste than any leaves or stringy twigs. But the lily roots which her foster mother taught her to pull from the muddy lake bottom, as they wallowed luxuriously side by side in the cool water, defying flies and heat, suited her admirably. The great black moose bulls—hornless at this season and fat and amiable as sheep—regarded her with a reserved curiosity; and the moose calves, the strangeness of her form and color once worn off, treated her with great respect. Though she was so much smaller and lighter than they, her quickness on her feet and her extremely handy way of butting made her easily master of them all. Even the supercilious young cow who had been so disagreeable to her at first grew indifferently friendly, and all was peace around the secluded little lake.
"Late one afternoon, however, when the shadows were getting long and black across the forest glades, the peace was momentarily broken. The calf was pasturing in one of the glades, while her foster mother was wallowing and splashing down among the lilies. A bear creeping up through the thickets so noiselessly that not even a sharp-eyed chick-a-dee or a vigilant red squirrel took alarm, peered out between the branches and saw the calf.
"As luck would have it, it was the same old bear! He had recovered from his wound, but naturally he had not forgotten the terrible horns of the little fawn-colored Jersey cow. When he saw the fawn-colored calf he flew into a rage, and hurled himself forth at her to avenge in one stroke the bitter and humiliating memory.
"But the calf was too quick for him. At the first crackling of the branches behind her she had jumped away like a deer. From the corner of her eye she saw the great black shape rushing upon her, and, with a wild cry, half the bawl of a calf, half the bleat of a young moose, she went racing, tail in air, down to the water, with the bear at her heels.
"With a terrific splashing the cow moose hurried to the rescue. She was a very big moose and she was in a very big rage; and very formidable she looked as she came plowing her way to shore, sending up the water in fountains before her. He knew well that a full-grown cow moose was an awkward antagonist to tackle when she was in earnest. This one seemed to him to be very much in earnest. He hesitated and stopped his rush when about halfway down the bank. Caution began to cool his vengeful humor. After all, it seemed there was really no luck for him in a fawn-colored calf. He'd try a red one or a black-and-white one next time. As he came to this conclusion, the indignant moose came to shore. Whereupon, he wheeled with a grunt and made off, just a little faster, perhaps, than was quite consistent with his dignity, into the darkness of the fir thickets. The moose, with the coarse hair standing up stiffly along her neck, shook herself and stood glaring after him.
"Through the summer and autumn the calf found it altogether delightful being a moose. As the cold began to bite her hair began to thicken up a protection against it; but, nevertheless, with her thin, delicate skin she felt it painfully. After the first heavy snowfall she had a lot of trouble to get food, having to paw down through the snow for every mouthful of withered grass. When the snow got to be three or four feet deep, and her foster mother, along with a wide-antlered bull, three other cows, and a couple of youngsters had trodden out a 'moose yard' with its maze of winding alleys, her plight grew sore. All along the bottom edges of these alleys she nibbled the dead grass and dry herbage, and she tried to browse, like her companions, on the twigs of poplar and birch. But the insufficient, unnatural food and the sharp cold hit her hard. She would huddle up beneath her mother's belly or crowd down among the rest of the herd for warmth, but long before Christmas she had become a mere bag of bones."
The Child shivered sympathetically. But, remembering the Snowhouse
Baby, he could not help inquiring:
"Why didn't she make herself a house in the snow?"
"Didn't know enough!" answered Uncle Andy shortly. "Did you ever hear of any of the cow kind having sense enough for that? Well, it's a pretty sure thing, you may take it, that she would never have pulled through the winter if something unexpected hadn't happened to change her luck.
"It was the farmer—the one who had owned her mother, and who, of course, really owned her, too.