Then somebody called his name. Cuffy was so surprised
that he looked up, and there was his father standing
on the edge of the stream. Cuffy was so
glad to see him!
Mr. Bear seemed very cross, but Cuffy did not mind
that, he was so glad to see his father.
“Oh, Father! What shall I do?” Cuffy
cried.
Mr. Bear said just one word. It was "Jump!"
Cuffy could hardly believe his ears.
"Jump!" said Mr. Bear again.
“I don’t know how to swim,” Cuffy
whined.
"Jump, jump, jump!" Mr. Bear repeated very
sternly.
Still Cuffy did not jump. He was so afraid of
that rushing water!
Then Mr. Bear became very, very angry. He gave
a great roar and plunged into the icy water.
With a few strong strokes—for Mr. Bear was
a fine swimmer—he reached the middle of
the river. And as he swam close up to Cuffy he
reached out and gave that naughty, frightened little
bear a shove that sent him flying into the stream.
Cuffy started to scream. But his shriek was cut
off short as he sank, head and all, into the cold,
cold river. In another moment his nose came up
out of the water. It was only an instant, but
to Cuffy it seemed a long, long time before he could
breathe again. And now, to his great surprise,
he found that he was swimming as well as his father.
Now, little bears are different from little boys and
girls. They don’t have to learn
to swim. Cuffy didn’t know it. But
his father did. That was why Mr. Bear told him
to jump. He knew that as soon as Cuffy found
himself in the water he could swim as well as anybody.
In another minute Cuffy and his father were safe on
the bank, and in another second after that they were
running toward home as fast as Cuffy could go, so
they wouldn’t take cold, you know.
Cuffy had to go to bed for the rest of the day, as
a punishment. And as he lay on his little bed
he could hear his father and mother laughing in the
next room. He didn’t see how they could
laugh. But you know, Cuffy didn’t realize
how funny he had looked, floating down the river on
the cake of ice.
A SURPRISE
One day Cuffy Bear and his little sister Silkie had
been making sand pies. And now, having grown
tired of that, they were squatting down on the ground
and had covered their legs with the clean white sand.
Perhaps they would have heaped the sand all over themselves,
if Silkie had not spied her father as he came climbing
up the mountain. When they noticed that he was
carrying something they both sprang up and ran to see
what Mr. Bear was bringing home.
Mr. Bear’s mouth was stretched quite wide in
what Silkie and Cuffy knew to be his most agreeable
smile. You and I might not have felt so comfortable
if we had looked past Mr. Bear’s great white
teeth into his big red mouth. But it was different
with Cuffy and Silkie. They saw at once that
their father was feeling very pleasant.
