BRUNO IN BELMONT 81 
Toward midsummer, when the cub was seven 
months old, there came a very rapid change in his 
appearance. His brown woolly coat was soon 
hidden beneath a heavy growth of straight black 
silky hair. This outer fur first made its appearance 
as a dark line down the middle of his back; then 
quickly it spread, until it covered his. whole body 
and he became a typical black bear. 
One day, as he played about on the lawn, he 
came across the shining brass nozzle of a garden 
hose, propped up on a stick in the grass. The valve 
had been partly shut off and only a small trickle 
of water gurgled forth from the opening. Bruno 
approached it cautiously a step at a time, twisting 
his head and viewing it first from one angle and 
then from another. The noise of the stream seemed 
to give him the idea that the thing was alive. I 
was standing at the farther end of the hose, and 
when at last he reached the nozzle and put his paw 
out to investigate, I turned the valve full open and 
the stream rushed forth. Instantly the bear re- 
coiled and, standing upright, looked with astonish- 
ment at the spectacle of water running up hill. 
Never had he seen the like of this before. When he 
grew older, he learned to admire the cool flow of 
water. 
On a hot day in August he loved to sit on the 
lawn and let the gardener play the hose upon him 
