Green Forest Stories, Thornton W. Burgess [ebook reader color screen .TXT] 📗

had increased. So Boxer began to run.

“I didn’t think home was so far,” he panted at last, looking fearfully over his shoulder at the Black Shadows. “Ha, there is the great windfall!” he added joyously, as he spied a pile of fallen trees in the distance.

He approached it carefully, stopping often to look and listen, for you know he didn’t want to be seen by Mother Bear or Woof-Woof. At least, he thought he didn’t want to be seen by them, though way down inside that was just what he did want.

He heard no one and saw no one. Presently he was close to that windfall. A great longing for home swept over him. He no longer wanted to get even with anybody. All he wanted was home and mother. Perhaps Mother Bear and Woof-Woof hadn’t returned yet and he could slip in. Then they would never know. Boxer slipped around the old windfall to where he thought the entrance was. There wasn’t any! It wasn’t the right windfall! Boxer knew right then and there that he was lost, that he was a lone, lost little Bear out in the Great World. He sat down and began to cry.

XXVII A Dreadful Night for a Little Bear

A lot of people, great and small,
Are like a frightened little Bear⁠—
Where danger there is none at all
They somehow get a dreadful scare.

Mother Bear

More and more Black Shadows crept through the Green Forest and all around Boxer, the lone, lost little Bear, as he sat crying and wishing with all his might that he never, never had thought of running away. He wanted to be back in the great windfall which had been his home. He wanted Mother Bear. “Boo, hoo, hoo,” sobbed the little Bear, “I would just as soon have a spanking. I wouldn’t mind it at all if only I had my Mother. Boo, hoo, hoo.”

Now there are many keen ears in the Green Forest after dark, and no one can cry there and not be heard. Hooty the Owl was the first to hear those sobs, and on wings that made no sound at all he flew to see what was the matter. Perched on top of a tall stump just back of Boxer, it didn’t take Hooty long to understand that this little Bear was lost.

“He needs a lesson,” thought Hooty. “He needs a lesson. He must have run away from home. There is nothing around here for him to fear, but it will be a good thing for him to think here is. Here goes to give him a scare he won’t forget in a hurry.”

Hooty drew a long breath and then hooted as only he can. It was so sudden, so loud and so fierce, that it was enough to frighten even one accustomed to it. Boxer, who never had heard that call close at hand before, was so frightened he lost his balance and fell over on his back, his legs waving helplessly. But he didn’t stay on his back. I should say not! In a twinkling he was on his feet and running pell-mell.

Again rang out Hooty’s terrible hunting call, and Boxer was sure that it was right at his heels. As a matter of fact, Hooty had not moved from the tall stump. Headlong Boxer raced through the woods. And because it was quite dark and because he was trying to look behind him, instead of watching where he was going, he pitched heels over head down the bank of the Laughing Brook, splash into a little pool where Billy Mink was fishing. The tumble and the wetting frightened the little Bear more than ever, and Billy Mink’s angry snarl didn’t make him feel any better. Without so much as a glance at Billy Mink, he scrambled to his feet and up the bank, sure that a new and terrible enemy was at his heels.

More heedlessly than ever he raced through the Green Forest and just by chance entered the thicket where Mrs. Lightfoot the Deer had a certain wonderful secret. Mrs. Lightfoot jumped, making a crash of brush.

“Oh-oo,” moaned Boxer, dodging to one side and continuing headlong. When he could run no more, he crept under a pile of brush and there he spent the rest of the night, the most dreadful night he ever had known or was likely ever to know again. Old Man Coyote happened along and yelled as only he can, and unless you know what it is, that sound is quite dreadful. Boxer never had heard it close at hand before, and he didn’t recognize it. He was sure that only a great and terrible creature could make such a dreadful noise, and he shook with fear for an hour after.

So all night long the little Bear heard strange sounds and imagined dreadful things and couldn’t get a wink of sleep. And all the time not once was any real danger near him. There wasn’t a single thing to be afraid of.

XXVIII Boxer Gets His Own Breakfast

True independence he has earned
Who for himself to do has learned.

Mother Bear

It seemed to Boxer, the lost little Bear, that that dreadful night would last forever; that it never would end. Of course, it didn’t last any longer than a night at that season of the year usually does, and it wasn’t dreadful at all. The truth is, it was an unusually fine night, and everybody but Boxer and anxious Mother Bear thought so.

Perhaps you can guess just how glad Boxer was to see the Jolly Little Sunbeams chase the Black Shadows out of the Green Forest the next morning. He still felt frightened and very, very lonesome, but things looked very different by daylight, and he felt very much braver and bolder.

First of all, he took a nap. All night he had been awake, for he had been too frightened to sleep. That nap did him a world of good.