Cuffy and Silkie were playing together that morning.
Cuffy was teaching Silkie to box, though, to be sure,
he knew very little about boxing. But he found
it easy to tap Silkie on the nose. And he had
tapped her so hard that Mrs. Bear heard a sound very
much like quarreling; and she came to the door to
see what was the trouble.
Mrs. Bear was just going to call to her children,
when she noticed a peculiar odor in the air.
And she stood quite still, and sniffed, just as Cuffy
had when he smelled the haymakers’ lunch.
You remember that the more Cuffy sniffed, the less
alarmed he had been. But it was different with
Mrs. Bear. The longer she stood there, with her
nose twitching, and snuffing up the air, the more
uneasy she became. And pretty soon she saw something
that gave her a great start.
It was something white that Mrs. Bear saw, and it
hung over the tree-tops; and where the wind had caught
it it was spun out thin, like a veil.
It was exactly what Mrs. Bear had feared—it
was smoke! The forest was afire! And Mrs.
Bear was very much alarmed. She sent Cuffy and
Silkie into the house, because she wanted to be sure
that they wouldn’t wander off into the woods.
And then their mother stood in the doorway and watched.
She was looking for Mr. Bear. While she waited
there the smoke kept rising more and more until there
were great clouds of it; and at last Mrs. Bear could
see red flames licking up to the tops of the trees.
Several deer came bounding past, and a great number
of rabbits and squirrels. And then followed other
animals that couldn’t run so fast—such
as raccoons, and skunks, and woodchucks. Not for
years had Mrs. Bear seen so many of the forest-people—and
they were all so frightened, and in such a hurry to
get away from the fire, that not one of them noticed
Mrs. Bear as she stood in her doorway.
“Where are they going, Mother?” It was
Cuffy who asked the question. He had crept up
behind his mother and had been looking at the strange
sight for some time.
“They’re going over to the lake, on the
other side of the mountain,” Mrs. Bear said.
“Are they going fishing?” Cuffy inquired.
Mrs. Bear shook her head. And then Cuffy squeezed
past her and saw what was happening.
“Oh-h, hurrah! hurrah!” he shouted.
His mother looked at him in astonishment.
“It’s father’s birthday!”
he cried. You remember that Cuffy’s mother
had told him that Mr. Bear was born on the day of
a great forest fire, and that he never had a birthday
except when the woods caught fire again. “Now
maybe father will bring home another little pig for
a feast!” Cuffy said hopefully.
THE RAIN COMES
Cuffy Bear was disappointed. For when at last
his father came galloping up to his house he brought
no pig with him. Indeed he seemed to have forgotten
that it was his birthday.
