Chapter 7

THE VAGABONDS

Pedro and Black Bruin were vagabonds, going up and down the country as the spirit moved them, living like two tramps without home, shelter or friends, save as they made them by the way.

Some nights they slept in haystacks, or in old barns. Sometimes they crawled into wagon sheds and slept upon loads of grain or produce that had been gotten ready for the morrow's marketing. More frequently they bivouacked in the open, under the blue canopy of heaven, merely sheltered a little by a friendly spruce or pine, with the silver moon for a lamp, and the bright stars for candles. The great shaggy beast and the little dark man slept in one bed, as it were. Pedro usually pillowed his head upon Black Bruin and so the bear had to lie very still and not disturb his master, for he got a pounding if he did.

Out here in the open all the night sounds came to them with startling distinctness;--the cry of the nighthawk and the chirping of a cricket, the peeping of hylas and the croaking of frogs and the wild, tremulous, mournful cry of the screech-owl.

The night winds blew upon their faces and the fragrance of the dew-laden flowers was in their nostrils. Theirs was not a cramped, stifling existence, but a full free life, and the sense of living, breathing, growing things was everywhere, and it made them glad.

The tan of wind and sun was upon Pedro's skin, making it even more swarthy.

In the morning, when the first faint gray streak lit the east, and robins and thrushes began to sing, they were up and ready for the day's work. Their toilet was very simple,--merely a wash and a drink of water from some neighboring brook, then they were ready for the road.

This was just the hour to find all the thrifty farmers' families at breakfast and it was much easier to get something for themselves when the table was spread for others. So Black Bruin danced and went through all his tricks, to the great delight of the children, that both he and Pedro might share the farmer's hospitality later.

When they were unlucky and had to go without breakfast, Pedro blamed his shaggy companion and swore at him in broken English, or showered blows upon him with the stout stick which he always carried.

Black Bruin soon learned to expect the blows and to cower from them and sometimes even whimper, when his master was unusually harsh; but in his heart, which was that of a wild beast, he was storing up wrath.

But there was something about the Italian that held him at bay as though with chains of steel. When Pedro's small glittering eyes were upon him, his own eyes fell. A kick would send him groveling to earth. In some unexplainable way he felt that this cruel creature was his master. He was subdued and held by a terrible grip.

To the bear the man was always a mystery. There was something fearful about him that he could not fathom and his source of strength the poor beast could not understand.

There was also an evil-smelling dark bottle in the Italian's inside coat-pocket, which was an enigma. It was not ginger pop or beer, or any kind of soda water; Black Bruin knew all of these drinks himself, and this drink was like none of them.

One day Pedro had fallen into a strange deep sleep and the bottle had slipped from his pocket. The bear had at once noticed it, picked it up and pulled out the cork, just as he would have done with a ginger pop bottle, and had taken a small swallow. But the strange stuff had burned his tongue and choked him. So he spat it out and broke the bottle with a single blow of his powerful paw. He finally licked up considerable of the whisky, as it was a hot day and he was thirsty. It had made him sleepy, so man and beast had lain down together in a drunken stupor.

After this day Black Bruin hated the bottle, out of which Pedro drank so frequently. They were also unlucky in getting meals when his master did this, for the simple country folk did not like to lodge or feed them when the dark, sinister-looking man was half drunk. So in many ways the bottle brought them ill-luck.

When Black Bruin and his companion began their wanderings from town to town, it was early spring-time. The buds were just beginning to redden upon the sugar-maple and the grass along sunny southern slopes, was putting on its first faint touch of green. The days were warm and sunny, promising buds and blossoms, but the nights were still clear and cold.

At first they had to lie close together at night for warmth, or rather the man had to cuddle down close to his shaggy warm companion; but spring soon passed and summer came and the two wanderers reveled in the lavish beauty and richness of nature.

In many of the pastures blueberries grew in profusion and Black Bruin needed no teaching to get his share of the palatable fruit. Along all the country roads, growing upon the stone walls and fences, were delicious red raspberries, which are much finer flavored than the cultivated kinds. Later on, when August laid her golden treasures in the lap of Mother Earth, the blackberries ripened in wild profusion. First in the open pasture came the low bushberries, and then the high bushberries along the edge of the forest.

Last of all came autumn with its treasures of harvest, fruits, nuts, melons and grains.

Wild grapes they found in abundance and all the nut-bearing trees rattled down their treasures for them. The melon-patch, the pound sweeting tree, the peach-orchard and the turnip-field all paid toll to the vagabonds. So, in spite of harsh treatment and hard work, Black Bruin laid on his usual layers of fat, against the long sleep of the coming winter.

What wonderful days these were when they wandered lazily from village to village, through long stretches of flaming red and golden forest, where the roadway was spread with a most gorgeous leaf-carpet.

They heard the jay squalling in the corn-field, and the crows gathering in the clan for their annual caucus. The squirrels chattered in the trees above them, but their old friends, the song-birds, had nearly all flown away to the South to escape the oncoming winter.

When Jack Frost and the merry north winds had robbed the trees of the last of their foliage and they stood out grim and gaunt against the bleak November sky; when the last purple asters and the hardiest bright goldenrod had faded, Black Bruin felt the old winter drowsiness slowly stealing upon him.

At last the first snow-storm came and that settled it in both the minds of Pedro and the bear. So the Italian led his companion far up into a wilderness region, and after searching about for half a day among the ledges found a natural cave which was about the size of a small room, and here left Black Bruin to sleep away the winter months.

He stayed in the region just long enough to make sure that the winter drowsiness had clutched him and also took the precaution to roll against the entrance of the cave, a large stone, which he had to move with a lever, that he might be sure of finding his partner in Vagabondia when he returned for him in the early spring. Pedro would take the precaution to come back a few days before the bear would naturally awaken.

A day or two after Black Bruin was left alone in his cavern a heavy storm set in, and before it ceased, a foot of snow had fallen.

It was now so deep that the passer-by would never have guessed that a bear was soundly sleeping a few feet back of the boulder which Pedro had placed at the entrance of the cave. This now merely looked like a white snowdrift that some freak of the wind had piled upon the mountainside.

In the dark and the silence of his underground room Black Bruin slept through the winter blizzards and cold as well as he would have done in warmer and more comfortable quarters. No sound broke the silence of his cave save his own deep breathing. If the sun shone, or the winds howled, or the storms beat, he knew it not.

Perhaps in dreamland he still wandered up and down the country picking blueberries or poking under the dead leaves for nuts, and always and forever doing tricks until his legs and back ached.

As for Pedro, he had no idea of hibernating, so he went away to a distant city and worked for a fellow countryman in a fruit store.

But work was not to his liking and he longed for spring to come that he and his companion might again be upon the road living the old free life.