The Happy Hooligan 121 



bthers. For they act just about as bored to death in 

 the woods as they do in the Zoo. I have seen one 

 come along, rip a piece off an old stump, sniff for bugs, 

 find none, stand undecided for a few minutes," and 

 then walk up to a tree and draw itself upright against 

 the trunk, stretching like a cat. It then sat down 

 at the foot of the tree and scratched its ear. It 

 then got up and started off aimlessly, but, happening 

 to straddle a low bush in its path and liking the feel- 

 ing of the branches against its belly, it walked back- 

 ward and forward half a dozen times to repeat the 

 sensation. Then it started back the way it had come 

 and smelling a mouse under a log, suddenly woke up 

 and became all attention. It tried to move the log 

 and failed. It dug a bit at one end but gave that up. 

 It then tried again, very hard this time, to turn the 

 log over, and the log giving away suddenly, the bear 

 turned a complete somersault backward, but instantly 

 recovered itself and rushed around with the most 

 ludicrous haste to see if the mouse had gotten away. 

 It hadn't. It hadn't had time. Which may give you 

 a faint notion of how quick that clumsy-looking bear 

 was when he really got awake. After he had eaten 

 the mouse he was up against it again. He didn't 

 know what to do next. There was a fallen tree near by 

 and he got up on the trunk and walked the length of it. 

 Then he turned around (quite hard to do without 

 touching the ground, but he was very careful) and 



