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

yourself, if you don’t want to get hurt.”

Prickly Porky didn’t step aside. He kept right on coming. He didn’t hurry, and he didn’t appear to be in the least afraid. It was plain that he expected Boxer to get out of his way. Boxer drew back his lips and showed all his little white teeth. Then he slowly reached out one paw and prepared to strike Prickly Porky on the side of the head if he came any nearer.

XXX Boxer Is Sadder but Much Wiser

Experience is not a preacher,
But has no equal as a teacher.

Mother Bear

Sammy Jay happened along in the Green Forest just in time to see the meeting between Boxer and Prickly Porky the Porcupine. He saw at once that this was the first time Boxer had seen Prickly Porky, and that he had no idea who this fellow in the path was.

“If that little Bear has any sense at all, he’ll be polite and get out of Prickly Porky’s way,” muttered Sammy. “But I’m afraid he hasn’t any sense. He looks to me all puffed up, as if he thinks he knows all there is to know. He’ll find out he doesn’t in just about a minute if he stays there. Hi, there! Don’t do that! Don’t hit him!”

This last was screamed at Boxer, who had stretched out a paw as if to strike Prickly Porky as soon as he was near enough. But the warning came too late. Prickly Porky had kept right on coming along that little path, and just as Sammy Jay screamed, Boxer struck.

“Wow!” yelled Boxer, dancing about and holding up one paw, the paw with which he had struck at Prickly Porky, and on his face was such a look of amazement that Sammy Jay laughed so that he nearly tumbled from his perch.

“Wow, Wow!” yelled Boxer, still dancing about and shaking that paw.

“Pull it out. Pull it out at once, before it gets in deeper,” commanded Sammy Jay, when he could stop laughing long enough.

“Pull what out?” asked Boxer rather sullenly, for he didn’t like being laughed at. No one does when in trouble.

“That little spear that is sticking in your paw,” replied Sammy. “If you don’t, you’ll have a terribly sore paw.”

Boxer looked at his paw. Sure enough, there was one of Prickly Porky’s little spears. He took hold of it with his teeth and started to pull. Then he let go and shook his paw. “Wow! that hurts!” he cried, the tears in his eyes.

“Of course it hurts,” replied Sammy Jay. “And if you don’t do as I tell you and pull it out now, it will hurt a great deal more. That paw will get so sore you can’t use it. It is a lucky thing for you, young fellow, that you were in too much of a hurry and struck too soon. If you had waited a second longer, you would have filled your paw with those little spears. What were you thinking of, anyway? Don’t you know that no one ever interferes with Prickly Porky? It never pays to. Even Buster Bear, big as he is, is polite to Prickly Porky.”

Boxer sat down and looked at his paw carefully. That little spear, or quill, was right in the tenderest part. It must be pulled out. Sammy Jay was right about that. Boxer shut his teeth on that little spear and jerked back his head quick and hard. Out came the little spear. Boxer whimpered a little as he licked the place where the little spear had been. After he had licked it a minute or two, that paw felt better.

Meanwhile Prickly Porky had paid no attention whatever to the little Bear. He had slowly waddled on up the little path, quite as if no one were about. He was attending strictly to his own business. But inside he was chuckling.

“That scamp got off easy,” he muttered. “It would have been a good thing for him if he had had a few more of those little spears to pull out. I guess that in the future he will take care to leave me alone. There is nothing like teaching the young to respect their elders.”

XXXI Boxer Meets a Polite Little Fellow

Because another is polite
Pray do not think he cannot fight.

Mother Bear

The memories of little folks are short, so far as their troubles are concerned. Hardly was Boxer, the runaway little Bear, out of sight of Prickly Porky the Porcupine than his eyes, ears and nose were so busy trying to discover new things that he hardly thought of his recent trouble. To be sure that paw from which he had pulled one of Prickly Porky’s little spears was sore, but not enough so to worry him much. And there were so many other things to think about that he couldn’t waste time on troubles that were over.

So the little Bear wandered this way and that way, as something new caught his eyes or some strange sound demanded to be looked into. He was having a wonderful time, for he felt that he was indeed out in the Great World and it was a wonderful and beautiful place. If he thought of his twin sister, Woof-Woof, at all, it was to pity her tagging along at Mother Bear’s heels and doing only those things which Mother Bear said she could.

By and by something white moving about near an old stump caught his attention. At once he hurried over to satisfy his curiosity. When he got near enough he discovered a little fellow dressed in black-and-white. He had a big plumy tail and he was very busy minding his own business. He hardly glanced at Boxer.

Boxer stared at him for a few minutes. “Hello,” he ventured finally.

“Good morning. It is a fine morning, isn’t it?” said the little stranger politely.

“What are you doing?” demanded the little Bear rudely.

“Just minding my own business,” replied the little stranger pleasantly.