Part 1

THE BEAR FAMILY AT HOME

The Bear Family At Home

AND HOW THE CIRCUS CAME TO VISIT THEM

By CURTIS D. WILBUR

Illustrated By W. R. LOHSE

INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1908, 1923 By Curtis D. Wilbur

_Printed in the United States of America_

PRESS OF BRAUNWORTH & CO. BOOK MANUFACTURERS BROOKLYN, N. Y.

Dedicated to the Memory of RALPH GORDON WILBUR

CONTENTS

PAGE HOW THE LITTLE CUB BEAR GOT BACK INTO THE WOODS AGAIN 2

HOW THE MONKEY WENT TO SCHOOL 6

THE COMING OF THE GREAT BIG ANIMAL AND HOW HE HELPED THE BEAR FAMILY 12

THE "LITTLE-CUB-BEAR-THAT-WOULD-NOT-MIND-HIS-PAPA" AND HOW HE TOOK AN UNEXPECTED BATH 22

HOW THE "LITTLE-CUB-BEAR-THAT-WOULD-NOT-MIND-HIS-PAPA" WAS NEARLY DROWNED AMONG THE LOGS 29

THE "LITTLE-CUB-BEAR-THAT-WOULD-NOT-MIND-HIS-PAPA" 36

THE STORY OF THE "LITTLE-SPLIT-NOSED-BEAR-THAT-WOULD-NOT -MIND-HIS-PAPA" 42

THE "ONE-EARED-BEAR-THAT-WOULD-NOT-MIND-HIS-PAPA" 48

THE LION'S STORY OF HIS NARROW ESCAPE 55

THE TRUE STORY OF HOW TEN MEN DID NOT KILL CLUB-FOOT 58

THE "CLUB-FOOT-BEAR-THAT-WOULD-NOT-MIND-HIS-PAPA"--A GREAT SMASH-UP 68

THE PARROT'S MOST NARROW ESCAPE 73

THE "LITTLE-CLUB-FOOT-BEAR-THAT-WOULD-NOT-MIND-HIS-PAPA" AND THE DYNAMITE 80

THE COMING OF THE ANIMAL WITH THE LONG NOSE 89

THE MONKEY'S STORY OF HIS MOST NARROW ESCAPE 97

THE STORY OF THE LITTLE BIRD'S ESCAPE FROM THE ALLIGATOR 101

HOW THE RACCOON WAS CAUGHT 105

THE ANIMALS PLAN HOW THEY WILL DEFEND THEMSELVES AGAINST THE CIRCUS MEN 112

JIMMIE BEAR'S STORY 116

HOW THE CIRCUS CROSSED THE OCEAN 124

OUT ALL ALONE 131

THE PAPA BEAR'S LULLABY 139

THE BEAR FAMILY AT HOME

And How the Circus Came to Visit Them

Once a little cub bear was caught in a big log trap, and taken on a train to a circus. He lived in the circus a long, long while, and every day a great many people came to see the bear, and the lions, and the tigers, and the leopards, and the elephants, and the camels, and the other animals.

Every night the animals would all be put in the wagons made for them, then the wagons would be rolled on the flat-cars of a railroad train. The train would go all night to another town, where a great many people would come to see the animals and the men and women in the circus. The Cub Bear saw a great many wonderful and strange things while he was in the circus and while traveling on the trains. Once he crossed the ocean in a great ship, and came back again in another ship. This story tells:

HOW THE LITTLE CUB BEAR GOT BACK INTO THE WOODS AGAIN

One night, after the wagons and the animals had all been put on board the cars, the fireman rang the bell, and the engineer started the train, and away it went, whistling and coughing down the track. The animals were so used to the train going rattle-te-bang, rattle-te-bang, all night long, that they all went to sleep, and remained asleep a long while. While the animals and every one on the train, except the engineer and the fireman, were asleep, the engineer looked ahead and suddenly saw a big rock on the track. He blew the whistle, "Toot-toot," to call the brakemen, and the brakemen ran as fast as they could and began to put on the brakes to stop the train, but the train came nearer and nearer to the big rock.

The poor engineer couldn't stop the train, and the brakemen couldn't stop the train, so the engine ran into the rock, and was knocked off the track, and turned a somersault, and was smashed all to pieces, and all the cars ran off the track into a ditch, and the wagons were all broken, so that the animals got out of their cages and found they were free in the dark woods.

They were all so glad to be free that they ran away as fast as they could and hid in the woods; all except the Cub Bear and a friend of his, a monkey named Jim. They ran a little way, and then the Cub Bear stopped and looked around. He saw a path, then he looked at the trees and the mountain and he thought he would wait there until morning. As soon as it was light the Cub Bear looked way up on the mountain side and saw a cave, and where do you suppose they were? In the very same forest where the Cub Bear was born. They walked a little way, and the Cub Bear said:

"Why, here is the path where little brother Jimmie Bear lost his foot in a trap."

They ran up that path as fast as they could to the cave in the mountains. The Cub Bear's heart was beating very fast, pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat, because he knew that this was his old home, and he wondered whether his Papa Bear and Mamma Bear and his little Susie Bear and little brother Jimmie Bear were still there. They went in very quietly, and found a great big brown bear asleep.

When the big brown bear heard them come in, he jumped up quickly and looked at little Cub Bear, and little Cub Bear looked at him. It was the Papa Bear! He ran to the Cub Bear and put his arms around him and gave him a great bear hug. You know bears can hug awfully tight. Papa Bear hugged the Cub Bear, and the Cub Bear hugged the Papa Bear, and they were very, very glad to see each other. The Papa Bear woke up the Mamma Bear, and then the Mamma Bear gave the Cub Bear a great bear hug, because she was so glad to see him. Susie Bear waked up and gave the little Cub Bear a big bear hug. But Jimmie Bear was not there. Did you ever give your papa a bear hug?

After the Papa Bear and the Mamma Bear had talked a little while to the Cub Bear, they said, "We have something to show you," and they took the Cub Bear away back into the back part of the cave and showed him the sweetest, cutest little baby bear you ever saw in your life, and the Papa Bear said:

"We call this little baby bear 'Cub Bear' now. So we will have to call you 'Circus Bear' after this," for the little Cub Bear had told his papa and mamma that he had been in the circus while away.

All this time the monkey Jim had been sitting off by himself in the cave, watching the big bears. They were so big and strong that he was frightened, so he climbed up to the top of the cave, and there he stayed until the little Cub Bear waked up; and the Circus Bear didn't know where he had gone. After a while the little wee Cub Bear waked up and saw the monkey, and said:

"Oh, see that funny little man up there on the root. He has hair all over him, and he has a long tail, and he is making faces at me."

He asked the Circus Bear what it was, and the Circus Bear said:

"It is a monkey, named Jim, a very dear friend of mine. Would you like to shake hands with him?" And the little Cub Bear said, "Yes."

So the Circus Bear told the monkey not to be afraid, and the monkey came down and shook hands with the little wee Cub Bear and they said they would always be good friends. The very first thing this little Cub Bear did was to ask the monkey to tell him a story, for he was the greatest bear for stories you ever saw. He was always teasing his papa and his mamma and everybody that came to the den, to tell him a story. The monkey said:

"All right, I will tell you a story about the time that I went to school."

So that morning when the Papa and the Mamma Bear and the Circus Bear and the little Cub Bear were sitting in the den, the monkey told his story.

HOW THE MONKEY WENT TO SCHOOL

"Now, little Cub Bear, I am going to tell you about the time I went to school, the only time in my whole life that I went to school." The little Cub Bear said he had never been to school in his life, and he would like to hear the story.

The monkey Jim said:

"Well, one night when we were riding on the train, going from one town where the circus had been, to another where they were going to give a show, I was riding in a wagon on one of the cars with a lot of other monkeys. The man who took care of the monkeys forgot and left a door open. A monkey named Joe and I climbed out through the open door and got on top of the wagon, and we just had a lot of fun, jumping around and playing with each other, and pulling each other's hair and climbing down on the car.

"After we had played a long while, the train went into a covered bridge, and I said to Joe, 'Let's jump up and see if we can catch hold of one of those iron rods.' He said, 'All right,' and we gave a great jump, and we caught hold of an iron rod overhead. The train was going so fast that we almost missed the rod, but we hung on, and in a moment when we looked down, what do you suppose had happened? The train had run out from under us, and there was nothing under us except the railway track and ties, and, away down below them a deep, dark river. We were frightened, because it was very dark and very cold. We climbed down as fast as we could, and walked across the ties, until we came to the ground.

"There were a lot of trees near the track, and we ran over as quickly as we could and climbed a tree, but it was very, very cold. We hugged each other very tight and tried to keep warm, but it grew colder, and colder, and colder, until it seemed as though we would freeze, for you know we had always lived in a very warm country, until we came to the circus. By and by, though, it commenced to get light, and when we looked over in the woods a little farther, we saw a little red school house. By and by a man, who took care of the little red school house, came and opened the door and went inside. Pretty soon we saw the smoke coming out of the chimney, for the man had built a fire.

"Joe said to me, 'Let's go down as quickly as we can and run over there, and see if we can get warm by the fire.' So we climbed down the tree, and ran as fast as we could to the little red school house. There we found a window open a little way, and we climbed up and went inside the school house. The man wasn't looking, so we hurried over near the stove, and Joe climbed into one desk where a boy kept his books, and I climbed into another desk where a girl kept her books. The man looked around quickly, for he thought he heard something, but we kept so quiet that he didn't see us. By and by he closed the window, went out and shut the door, and there we were locked up in that little red school house! But the fire was so nice and warm that we were glad to be there.

"Pretty soon Joe said, 'Let's go out and see if we can find something to eat;' so we got out and looked all over the building. We opened the drawer in the teacher's desk, and in it we found an apple that he had taken away from a little boy in school the day before, for you know that little boys are not allowed to have apples in school. I gave Joe the biggest part of the apple, and we ate it all up; and just as we had eaten it up, a great big boy came to the door and made such a noise that we scampered back and got into the desks. We stayed there very quietly.

"Pretty soon another boy came, and then another, and then another, and then a girl came, and by and by all the scholars had come. Some of them were playing in the yard, and some of them in the room, and just then the teacher came. He rang the bell, 'Ding-dong, ding-dong, ding-dong,' and the pupils came into the school room and took their seats. Then the teacher struck a small bell, and the pupils sat up very straight and sang a song. Just then I reached out and grabbed the ear of the boy who was sitting in my seat, and pulled it very hard. He screamed, 'Ouch, ouch!' And just then Joe reached out and pulled the hair of the girl that was sitting in his seat, and she screamed, 'Ouch, ouch!' The teacher pounded the desk and cried, 'Order, order!' The little boy thought it was the boy behind him that pulled his ear, and the little girl thought it was the girl behind her that pulled her hair.

"When everything was still again, the teacher told the boys and girls to take out their books. The boy reached in to get his book and I bit his finger, and he yelled 'Ouch!' just as loud as he could, and jumped out of his seat. And the little girl reached in to get her book, and Joe bit her finger, and she yelled 'Ouch!' just as loud as she could, and jumped out. All the pupils looked over to see what was the trouble; but we kept very still, and the teacher came down quickly to find out what caused the trouble. He reached his hand into the desk quickly, and I grabbed hold of his hand and hung on. Then he jerked his hand out, and I came out with it, and I jumped on his shoulders and began to pull his hair; and Joe jumped out of his desk, and he jumped on the teacher's shoulders, and the teacher yelled and tried to hit us with a stick, and we jumped over on to the teacher's desk, and then we jumped over the pupils' heads. I jumped out of the window, and Joe ran out of the door, and as he ran out he took one of the boys' dinner pails with him. They all screamed and yelled and ran after us as fast as they could.

"We ran over to a tree, and a couple of dogs saw us, and they barked and barked, and ran after us. The boys threw stones, but none of them could hit us, and pretty soon we got to a tree. We scampered up as fast as we could, and all the pupils, and the teacher, and the dogs, came to the foot of the tree, and the dogs barked, and the boys yelled and threw stones, and the girls danced and shouted. The teacher had something that looked like a gun, but I think it was only a stick, because he didn't shoot at all. Just then Joe reached into the dinner pail, and he found a soft boiled egg. He threw this down at the teacher and hit him right on top of his bald head.

"Then we scampered out on the branches, and jumped into another tree, and then into another tree, and then into another tree, and pretty soon we had gone so far that they couldn't find us. Then we opened the dinner pail, and we found a fine dinner, some apples, and nuts, and bread and butter, and a piece of pie. When we had eaten everything there was in the pail, we left the pail up in the tree, and climbed down to the ground. Then we walked and we ran, until we came to a town, and there was the circus tent. For this was the _very_ town where the circus was going to show! We ran as fast as we could, and a lot of dogs got after us. They barked and barked, but we got away from all the dogs but one, because he could run faster than the others. He was a very little dog, and when he came close to us, Joe ran to one side of the road and I ran to the other, and just as he got between us, we grabbed the dog by his tail and his ears, and pulled so hard that he just yelled, 'Ki-yi, ki-yi, ki-yi!' and ran toward the tent as fast as he could; so we both jumped on his back and rode until we came to the tent. Then we jumped off and scampered into the tent under the canvas and found our wagon. The door was still open, and we got into the wagon, and there we went to sleep, for we had been up all night.

"That is the way I went to school," said the monkey.

And the little Cub Bear said, "I will be glad when I am big enough to go to school."

THE COMING OF THE GREAT BIG ANIMAL AND HOW HE HELPED THE BEAR FAMILY

After the monkey had finished his story, Papa Bear and Mamma Bear and the little Cub Bear were talking about the animals in the circus, and the little Cub Bear said, "I wonder where all those animals are?"

And the Circus Bear said, "Why, I think they are somewhere in the woods."

Then the little Cub Bear said, "Maybe these animals will come to see us. I think it would be fine if we had a nice large cave, big enough for all the animals."

The Mamma Bear said, "I think that _would_ be nice," and the Papa Bear said, "That would be nice," and the little Circus Bear said, "I think that would be nice, too," and the Cub Bear said, "Maybe we can have a bigger cave, and have all the animals come and live with us."

And just as he said it they heard a rustling sound, as though something was coming up the path. The little Cub Bear ran to the mouth of the cave and said:

"There is a very strange looking animal coming up the path. It is the biggest animal I ever saw. It has a nose that reaches clear to the ground, and it has a thumb and finger on the end of its nose, and every once in a while it stops and picks up a piece of straw with the thumb and finger and puts it into its great mouth. It has teeth that are so long that they stick way out of its mouth. The teeth are as large as a small tree, and look like great sharp horns growing out of its mouth, and its legs are as big around as a large stump. Its ears are as large as the mouth of this cave. It can move its nose around and scratch its back with the thumb and finger on the end of its nose. It has no hair at all except on the end of its tail."

Just then the animal made a tremendous noise, a sort of a blowing and trumpeting sound.

The Circus Bear said, "I know who that is; it is Jumbo, the elephant from our show. Ask him to come into the cave."

Jumbo came to the mouth of the cave, and the little Cub Bear said to him very politely, "Come in, Mr. Jumbo!" But of course Jumbo could not come into the cave; it was too small. Mr. Jumbo said:

"I would like to come into the cave and see the Circus Bear, because he was very good to me when we were in the circus together."

So the little Cub Bear said, "Try and see if you can not make the mouth of the cave larger."

Mr. Jumbo said, "I will try."

So Mr. Jumbo commenced to dig with his great tusks and pull with his great trunk at the dirt and stones and the roots that were in the way, until the mouth of the cave was ever so much larger than it had been, but it was still too small for the elephant to get in; so the Circus Bear came to the mouth of the cave and told Jumbo how glad he was to see him. Mr. Jumbo took hold of the Circus Bear's foot with his trunk and shook it, just like two people shaking hands. He was so glad to see the bear that had been so good to get things for him when he was in the circus, for there he was tied to a stake by a great chain. (That is the way they keep elephants with the circus, you know.)

When Mr. Jumbo found that he could not get into the cave, he said to the Circus Bear and to all of the bears, "You know that the other animals are trying to find this cave, and as soon as they find it they will want to live here, and we ought to get the cave ready for them."

Then the Papa Bear said, "What do you think that we ought to do? Do you think that we could make the cave larger for all of the animals?"

Mr. Jumbo said, "Well, I think the first thing we ought to do is to go down to the wreck of the train and get some of the things that we want from the wreck, before the men come back and take everything away."

All of the bears, and the monkey, thought that was the best thing they could do. They went down right away, and found that all of the animals had gone, but there were lots of things that they wanted to take up to the cave. Mr. Jumbo found the beautiful howdah that the circus man used to place on his back.

A howdah, you know, is that big saddle they put on an elephant's back for the people to ride in. It was painted with red and yellow paint, and had beautiful red plush cushions in it. It had a top to keep the sun off of any one that was riding in the howdah, on the elephant's back. The bears said that they could put the howdah on the elephant's back, but that they could not fasten it there, for they had no hands to buckle the straps with.

Then the monkey said, "I can fasten the buckles with my hands, for you know that I have fingers just like a man, and a man buckles the straps by using his fingers."

The Papa Bear and the Mamma Bear, Susie Bear, the Circus Bear, and the little Cub Bear lifted as hard as they could, but of course they could not lift the heavy howdah way up on Mr. Jumbo's back, for they were not tall enough, so Mr. Jumbo said, "I will kneel down, and then you will not have to lift so far, and I can help you with my trunk."

So he knelt, and the bears all lifted at once, and Mr. Jumbo helped them with his trunk, and finally they got the howdah in the right place on his back. Then the monkey buckled the straps, and everything was ready to take the howdah up to the cave, where the bears live.

The Papa Bear said, "Let us fill the howdah with the things we want to take up to the cave." And they commenced to hunt for the things that they wanted, and what do you think they found? A great bass drum, so big that a little bear could get into it; and they also found a smaller drum, and a fife and some big brass horns that belonged to the band. Then they found some harness that was used for the beautiful black and white horses that ran the chariot races. They put all of these things into the howdah.

When the howdah was nearly full, the little Cub Bear asked his papa if he couldn't ride in the howdah. Mr. Jumbo heard the little Cub Bear ask, and he said it would be all right, because he was very strong and could carry a great deal more than they had put on his back. When the little Cub Bear climbed into the howdah, Mr. Jumbo straightened out his front legs to get up, and the little Cub Bear nearly tipped out of the rear end of the howdah; and then he straightened his hind legs and stood up, and the little Cub Bear nearly fell out again.

Just as they started up the hill, the monkey said, "You need a driver;" and he grasped Mr. Jumbo's tail and climbed up the tail just as if he were going up a tree; then he scampered along Mr. Jumbo's back, clear over the top of the howdah, until he sat right on top of Mr. Jumbo's head, just as the drivers do, when they drive elephants. Then the monkey asked Mr. Jumbo to hand him a stick with a sharp hook in the end of it, that the drivers used to guide the elephants with. Mr. Jumbo reached over with his long nose that had a thumb and finger on the end of it, and picked up the stick and handed it up to the monkey, for he knew the monkey was not strong enough to hurt him much.

The monkey said very proudly, "Get up, Mr. Jumbo," and away they went to the bears' cave. When they got there, Mr. Jumbo knelt down, and the little bear nearly tumbled out again, but he jumped out all right, and they took the howdah off Mr. Jumbo's back. The bears and monkey took everything out of the howdah and carried it into the cave.

Then the animals all went back again to the place where the train was wrecked, to see if there was anything else they could get. This time they found a chariot, that had two wheels, and it was all covered with gilt and with angels made of gold, and it was very, very beautiful. Mr. Jumbo said that if the bears and the monkey could hitch him to the chariot, they could fill it with things and take them up to the den. So they looked and looked, and finally found a harness, that was used for the elephant. The monkey and the bears harnessed Mr. Jumbo to the chariot, and then they looked for things to put into the chariot.