The first time she found this out we 
were going through the woods and see- 
ing a bush filled with thorns and ber- 
ries called her over and she reached in 
nose first and got stuck by the briers. 
HE whined and tried it again, but 
was too eager and was hurt again. 
Then while she was whining about it, 
I picked a hatfull and she ate them in 
about two bites and looked around for 
more. Going further on the trail we 
found some huckleberry bushes and 
when she found that no stickers both- 
ered, she surely made a feast, but did 
not feed off the bushes as a wild bear 
would. A wild bear will strip leaves 
and all from the bush, but she would 
part the bush and pick the berries with 
her mouth a few at a time. I believe 
this was because she had been made to 
be careful of the currant bushes in her 
first home. 
She opens doors as easily as a person 
and is a nuisance in the house. She 
came in one day and walking into a 
room containing two beds immediately 
made a run and jump, landing in the 
middle of one of the beds. Of course 
the spring made it jump up and down 
and she would jump five or six feet 
from one bed to the other until I finally 
had to make her stop it. 
If one would place food in the woods 
expecting to attract wild bear and then 
left burned powder residue near, no 
bear would come closer than fifty feet 
and would be suspicious to the point of 
running in the opposite direction. This 
little bear seems to be fond of the smell 
of burned powder and at every oppor- 
tunity will hold a rifle and try her best 
to get her tongue into the barrel, seem- 
ingly trying to get more of the burned 
powder scent. 
Time and again I have missed her 
and going in search have found her in 
some quiet place in the woods with a 
stick up in her forearms, walking back 
and forth as a man would with a gun. 
She is afraid of horses and one day one 
of the men had occasion to bring a horse 
near her. She was walking sideways, 
looking out the corner of one eye at the 
-horse and the fur around her neck and 
over her shoulders was all standing up. 
If the horse had so much as snorted she 
would have run for the woods. 
| QUIETLY slipped up on the other 
side of her and she neither heard 
nor scented me until I was within two 
feet of her, so absorbed was she in 
watching the horse. All at once she 
seemed to sense that something was 
very near and she whirled and seeing 
me but not waiting to recognize, made a 
jump straight into the air. All four 
feet left the ground at once and she 
was fully two feet from the earth and 
she gave the most scared yell you could 
456 
ever imagine. The sound was almost 
human. I almost went into hysterics 
laughing over it, but she very calmly 
walked over to a dead fallen tree and 
climbing up onto it, sat there and looked 
at me as solemn as an owl but was not 
afraid any more of the horse as long 
as I was near. 
Here is something that I have heard 
all my life in relation to bear. People 
will tell you that black or brown bear 
cannot climb certain trees because the 
tree is either too large or too small. A 
bear will climb any tree as long as it 
will sustain his weight. Topsy has 
done it time and again and I have seen 
wild bear do the same. She has climbed 
cedars six feet through at the base as 
well as shrubs only two inches through, 
going to the tops of the smaller pines 
and bending them down to the ground 
to get the sugary substance exuded 
from the foliage. During a rain you 
would expect her to find a dry place 
and go there and stay until the sun 
shone again. On the contrary she seems 
to take a delight at those times in climb- 
ing to the top of the tallest tree and 
laying there with her head between her 
paws, dozing and getting her hide 
soaked. Any time a bear wants to 
catch you he will do so whether you go 
up a tree or not. 
HEY are bluffers to a certain extent 
and when a black or brown is met 
unexpectedly in the woods they will 
snap their jaws, pound the ground with 
their forepaws just to scare you for a 
moment until they can make a getaway. 
This does not apply to a wounded bear 
nor one in a trap. A black or brown 
bear in a steel trap with a light toggle 
is about as dangerous as a hungry tiger. 
They will rush you at every opportu- 
nity and they mean murder. I saw Top- 
sy one day climb up the front end of a 
weather boarded house. This was 
straight up, remember, and no chance 
for getting the forelegs around any- 
thing. She is just a year old but can 
outrun me anytime she cares to and I 
am some runner myself. 
She is fond of chewing gum but eats 
it for candy and goes through my pock- 
ets looking for it. If she cannot get 
her nose in the pocket, I must take the 
gum out for her, otherwise she will 
claw the pocket until she can get the 
gum. 
During the past summer the dogs had 
pups and they were four cute little balls 
of fur and followed at my heels every 
chance they got. They were curious 
about the cub but she was jealous of 
them. They soon learned not to go too 
close to her when I was not around. 
One afternoon they were all around 
me and Topsy came walking up and 
one could see by her expression that she 
had something all thought up. In a 
moment she very gently, with one paw, 
began to pull one of the pups toward 
her, all the time watching me with one 
eye to see what I was going to do about 
it and as she did not show any signs 
of being ugly I let her go ahead to see 
what would happen. 
Wee the pup was finally under 
her body, she reached down very 
carefully and picked it up in her mouth. 
Knowing the cunning of a bear and her 
jealousy of the pups I let her take a 
step or two away from me and then 
told her to drop it, which she did im- 
mediately. She might not have hurt it 
but I believe that if she had been al- 
lowed to carry it off to the woods that 
very likely the pup would have been 
bitten just once and that would have 
been enough. 
During August she accidentally bit a 
hole in the rubber nipple of her bottle. 
The milk flowed too fast and she got 
mad about it and whined while eating. 
Before the new nipple arrived I tried an 
experiment one morning. I filled a pan 
with milk and sat it down in front of 
her and where before she would have 
turned it over with one paw and cried 
for more, this time she was so disgusted 
with the worn out nipple that she drank 
the milk and has never used a bottle 
since. Meat has never been given her 
and just before she hibernated I of- 
fered her some and received a very dis- 
gusted look in return. 
She has never seen another bear ex- 
cept, of course, her mother. This sum- 
mer I intend to take her where the wild 
bear range and give her a chance to get 
acquainted with them. The result 
should be amusing. The latter part of 
October she began to show signs of ner- 
vousness and I rightly guessed that she 
wanted to hibernate, but being an or- 
phan knew nothing about how to start. 
Scooping out a shallow hole, I covered 
this with cedar shakes and then a layer 
of dirt. On showing it to her I was 
surprised to see her go in and after 
looking it over came out again, and 
walking up on top of it she tore it all 
to pieces. She was more nervous, if 
anything, than ever and cried for sev- 
eral days whenever I came near her. 
A LOG building was near that was 
unused and by cutting off the end 
of one of the ground logs near the 
corner it made a hole which she could 
just nicely crawl through. Then go- 
ing inside I boxed up around the hole 
a space about four or five feet and 
three feet high. Getting a bale of fresh 
sweet hay, I scattered this inside and 
when she was introduced to this she 
was like a child with a new toy. She 
did everything but talk, she was so 
pleased with it and spent half a day 
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