CHAPTER XV

THE TWINS MEET THEIR FATHER

Beware the stranger with a smile

Lest it but hide a trickster’s guile¹.

Mother Bear.

Boxer² and Woof-Woof had begun to wonder if they and their mother were the only Bears in the Green Forest. So far they had seen no other. Then one day as they were playing about near the Laughing Brook³, while Mother Bear was busy a little way off tearing open an old stump⁴ after ants, Woof-Woof discovered a footprint. She showed it to Boxer. Then the two little cubs⁵ sat up and stared at each other and[87] their little eyes were very round with wonder.

“Mother Bear didn’t make that footprint,” whispered Boxer as if he were afraid of being overheard. “Who do you suppose did?”

Woof-Woof moved a little nearer to Boxer. “I haven’t any idea,” she whispered back, and hurriedly glanced all around. “It wasn’t Mother Bear, for there is one of her footprints right over there, and it is different. There must be a great big stranger around here.”

The twins drew very close together and stood up that they might better stare in every direction. They were a little frightened at the thought that a big stranger might be near. Then they remembered[88] that Mother Bear was only a little way off, and at once they felt better. They saw no stranger. Everything about them seemed just as it should be. They cocked their little ears to listen. All they heard was the sound of Mother Bear’s great claws tearing open that old stump, the cawing of Blacky the Crow far in the distance, the gurgle of the Laughing Brook, and the whispering of the Merry Little Breezes in the tree tops.

Now not even Peter Rabbit has more curiosity than has a little Bear. Presently Boxer dropped down to all fours and approached that footprint. Already he had learned that his ears were better than his eyes and his nose was better than[89] his ears. His eyes had told him nothing. His ears had told him nothing. Now he would try his nose.

He sniffed⁶ at that footprint and the hair along his shoulders rose a little. His nose told him that that footprint was made by a Bear he never had seen. There wasn’t any question about it. It told him that the stranger had passed this way only a short time before. A great desire to see that stranger took possession of Boxer. Curiosity was stronger than fear.

“Let’s follow his tracks; perhaps we can see him,” whispered Boxer to Woof-Woof, and started along with his nose to the ground.

Now whatever one twin did, the[90] other did. So Woof-Woof followed her brother. One behind the other, their noses to the ground, the twins stole through the Green Forest. Every once in a while Boxer sat up to look and listen. When he did this, Woof-Woof did the same thing. It was very exciting. It was so exciting that they quite forgot Mother Bear and that they had been told not to go away. So they got farther and farther from where Mother Bear was at work.

And then, without any warning at all, a great Bear stepped out from behind a fallen tree. He wore a black coat, and he was just about the size of Mother Bear. Of course you know who it was. It was Buster Bear. For the first time[91] in their short lives the twins saw their father and he saw them. But the twins didn’t know that he was their father, and he didn’t know that they were his children. Things like that happen in the Green Forest.