<TITLE>03. Par 21-27</TITLE>L-21   So, on my road back, there had been an old mother bear and two cubs, and they had got in my little tent. And you talk about rim-wrecking something, you don't know how things could be rim-wrecked till you let a bear get in the tent. He, it's not what they destroy... what they eat, I mean, it's what they destroy. I had a little stove, this little sheepherder's stove in there, and they would get on this little stove and just jump up-and-down, you could hear the pipe rattle, and just mash it to pieces, you know. And when I come up, I had a little old rusty twenty-two rifle laying in there, but I had this axe in my hand.

L-22 And, you know, when I come up, the old mother run off to one side, and she cooed to her cubs. And one cub followed along, all right; but the other one sit, little bitty fellow. In May, you know, just come out. Had his back all humped up to me, like that. And I thought, "What's he doing?" Well, then she looked over at me. And I looked for a tree, to see just how--how close it was, 'cause they can scratch you, you know, about them young ones. And, they, you can't talk them out of it, you know, see. So I watched the old mother a little while, you know. She kept cooing, and making noise, something like a bird. You'd have to know what one sounds like. So she kept cooing that cub, and that cub wouldn't come.

L-23   Well, I thought about my rifle. And I thought, "No, if I'd run in there and grab that rifle, if I'd shoot the old mother, leave two orphans in the woods," and I didn't want to be guilty of that. And, besides, her charging, that twenty-two would be kind of small, you know. And sometimes it didn't go off, have to snap it three or four times to make it go off. So I thought, "Well, I'll just get in that tree there, if she starts over here. I'll get up there in the tree, get me a little switch and just whip them across the nose." Their nose is very tender. And they just squeal, then go down, you know, and they leave you alone. So I thought, "I'll get in that tree."

L-24 But the curiosity of that little fellow, oh, setting up like this. And I thought, "What's he doing?" So I kept slipping around, watching her, you know, getting a little further away, and getting close to the tree, 'cause she kept cooing to that cub. So I got over a little further, and you know what that little fellow had done?

L-25   Now, I like flapjacks, or pancakes, I believe you call them, out here. Down South, we call them flapjacks. And I'm not very good at making them, but I'm sure good at eating them. And, you know, I was a Baptist. I don't like to sprinkle; I really like to baptize them, really put the 'lasses to them. So I had me a can of molasses, about this high, setting there, a little half-gallon bucket for my flapjacks.

L-26 And that little fellow, you know, a bear likes sweet, anyhow. He had got that bucket of molasses open. And he was setting there with that little paw about that wide. And he had it up in his arms, and he was just socking his little foot down, and licking like that, you know. That's right. And he would lick that little tongue. And I started... And if I just had a camera, I'd love to have showed that this morning, just to look at it. And there he was, putting his little foot down there, and licking like that. And I hollered, "Get away from there," like that. And he didn't pay any attention to me, and just kept licking like that. He sopped that bucket out, see.

L-27   And I hollered at him like that, he turned around and looked at me like that. He couldn't get his eyes open, he was just so full of molasses, you know. All over his eyes, his little belly, just as full of molasses as he could be! And then, after a while, he staggered off sideways, run over to his mother. They got him up there in the bushes and started licking him. They was afraid to set at the bucket, but they could lick him.


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