The Bear took several long whiffs at his pipe and thus continued:
“My mother took me to a retired part of the forest, and told me that I must now stand alone. She slowly lowered me towards the earth. The height as I looked down seemed terrible, and I felt my legs kick in the air with fear of I know not what. Suddenly I felt four hard things, and no motion. It was the fixed earth beneath my legs. ‘Now you are standing alone!’ said my mother. But what she said I heard as in a dream. My back was in the air, my nose was poking out straight, snuffing the fresh breezes, my ears were pricking and shooting with all sorts of new sounds, to wonder at, to want to have, to love, or to tumble down at,—and my eyes were staring before me full of light and dancing things. Soon the firm voice of my mother came to my assistance, and I heard her tell me to look upon the earth beneath me, and see where I was.
First I looked up among the boughs, then sideways at my shoulder, then I squinted at the tip of my nose, then I bent my nose in despair, and saw my fore paws standing. The first thing I saw distinctly was a little blue flower with a bright jewel in the middle,—a dewdrop. The next thing I saw upon the ground was a soft-looking little creature, that crawled alone with a round ball upon the middle of its back. It was of a beautiful white colour with brown and red curling stripes. The creature moved very, very slowly, and appeared always to follow two long horns on its head, that went feeling about on all sides. Presently, it approached my right fore paw, and I wondered how I should feel, or smell, or hear it, as it went over my toes. But the instant one of the horns touched the hair of my paw, both horns shrank into nothing, and presently came out again, and the creature slowly moved away in another direction. I wondered at this strange action—for I never thought of hurting the creature, not knowing how to hurt anything. While I was wondering what made the horn think I should hurt it, my attention was suddenly drawn to a tuft of moss on my right near a hollow tree trunk. Out of this green tuft looked a pair of very bright, small, round eyes which were staring up at me. I stood looking at the eyes, and, presently, I saw that the head was yellow, and all the face and throat yellow, and that it had a large mouth.
‘What you saw a little while ago,’ said my mother, ‘we call a snail. And what we see now we call a frog.’
The names, however, did not help me at all to understand. Why the first should have turned from my paw so suddenly, and why this creature should continue to stare up at me in such a manner puzzled me very much. I now observed that its body and breast were double somehow, and that its paws had no hair upon them. I thought this was no doubt caused by its slow crawling which had probably rubbed it all off. Suddenly, a beam of bright light broke through the trees and this creature gave a great hop right under my nose and I, thinking the world was at an end, instantly fell flat down on one side and lay there waiting!”
At this all the children laughed; they were so delighted. The Bear laughed, too, and soon went on with his story.
“I tell you these things,” he said, “in as clear a manner as I can, that you may rightly understand them. My dear mother caught me up in her arms, saying, ‘Oh, thou small bear! thou hast fallen flat down, on first seeing a frog hop.’
The next day my mother gave me my first lesson in walking. She took me to a nice, smooth, sandy place in the forest, not far from home, and setting me down carefully, said, ‘Walk.’ But I remained just where I was.
If a child with only two legs feels puzzled which leg it should move first, judge of the many puzzles of a young bear under such circumstances. Said I to myself, ‘Shall I move my right front paw first or my left; or my right hind leg or my left? Shall I first move the two front legs both at the same time, then the two hind legs; or my two hind legs first, and then my two front legs? Shall I move the right front leg, and the right hind leg at the same time; or the left front leg and the right hind leg? Shall I try to move all four at once, and how, and which way? Or shall I move three legs at once, in order to push myself on, while one leg remains for me to balance my body upon; and if so, which three legs should move and which one should be the leg to balance upon?’ Amidst all these confusing thoughts and feelings, I was afraid to move in any way. I believe I should have been standing there to this day, had not my mother, with a slow bowing and bending motion of the head and backbone, gracefully passed and repassed me several times, saying, ‘Do so, child!—leave off thinking, and walk!’
My mother was right. As soon as I left off thinking about it, I found myself walking. Oh, what a wonderful and clever young gentleman I found myself! I went plowing along with such a serious face upon the ground! I soon ran my head against one or two trees, and a bit of rock, each of which I saw very well before I did so; but I thought they would get out of my way or slip aside, or that my head would go softly through them. My mother, therefore, took me up and carried me till we arrived within a short distance of our cave. In front of it there was a large space of high, green grass, through which a regular path had been worn by the feet of my father and mother. At the beginning of this path, my mother placed me on the ground, and told me I must walk to the cave along the pathway all by myself. This was a great task for me. I thought I should never be able to keep in such a straight line. I felt dizzy as I looked first on one side, and then on the other, expecting every instant to tumble over into the high, green grass, on the right or left. However, I managed to get to the cave without any accident.”