After a little while Cuffy remembered that there was
an old tree over in the pine woods—just
the finest tree to climb that anybody could want.
“Let’s go over to the old tree and play,”
Cuffy said.
“But Mother told us not to go far away,”
Silkie reminded him.
“Oh! I don’t care,” Cuffy said.
“Besides, we’ll be back before she knows
it.”
But Silkie would not go with him. So naughty
Cuffy started off alone for the pine woods. He
found the old tree. It seemed smaller than he
expected. The reason for that was because Cuffy
himself had grown tall during the months that he had
spent in sleep.
He climbed the tree to the very top and as he looked
down over the snow he saw something moving a little
way off. Whatever it was, it was much smaller
than Cuffy himself, so he was not afraid. And
he scrambled down to the ground and ran as fast as
he could go to the place where he saw the small thing
moving. Cuffy wanted to see what it was.
He was always like that.
Cuffy found a little animal covered with stiff, sharp
quills and he knew that it was a porcupine. And
all at once Cuffy felt very hungry. He remembered
that his father had sometimes brought home porcupine
meat and—yes, Cuffy actually smacked his
lips! His mother was always telling him not to
smack his lips, but Cuffy forgot all about it now.
As Cuffy came running up Mr. Porcupine rolled himself
into a round ball and lay perfectly still. Now,
Cuffy remembered that his father had often told him
never to touch a porcupine, because if he should he
would get his paws stuck full of quills. But
now Cuffy decided that he would show his father that
he too was clever enough to kill a porcupine.
So he stepped close to the little round, prickly ball
and gave it one good, hard cuff.
The next instant Cuffy gave a howl of pain. He
was so angry that he struck the porcupine once more
with his other front-paw.
Again Cuffy howled! Now both his front-paws were
full of quills. They looked just like pincushions.
And as Cuffy saw what had happened he began to cry.
He wanted his mother.
So home he started. All the way he had to walk
on his hind legs, because it hurt him terribly whenever
he put one of his front-paws on the ground.
Cuffy wept very hard when Mrs. Bear pulled out the
quills. And his paws were so sore that he could
not feed himself. His mother had to put into
his mouth bits of the frozen turnips that his father
found in Farmer Green’s field. And though
afterward Cuffy did many things that he ought not
to have done, he never, never touched a porcupine again.
CUFFY AND THE WONDERFUL SPRING
The pricks of the porcupine’s quills made Cuffy
Bear’s paws so sore that it was several days
before he could run about again. And during all
that time Cuffy was a very good little bear.
He did not cuff his sister Silkie once. You see,
he knew it would hurt his sore paws if he did.
