Adventure Book:
|
|
“Oh,” said Maggie, “I’ve run out of names and here is my mother bear with no name and no stuffing. Such a pity.”
“Well, a bear is a bruin, and she’s a lady bear. How about Brunhilde, a name of mythic proportions. She is a woman warrior in Wagner’s ring operas. Does that bear have horns?... because Brunhilde wore a helmet with horns.” Papa Joe would have gone on but Maggie stopped him.
“Now you’re just making things up. A woman warrior with horns?”
“Who sings!” Papa Joe laughed. “I’m telling the truth...” and he was.
|
“OK, I’ll call her Brunhilde but no more silly stories.” So Maggie stuffed her bear with her stuffing tool. First the feet and paws and then the belly. She drew the drawstring closed and tied it off. Brunhilde headed out the door toward the sunshine and sat down.
“What a lovely day,” she said, looking out into the woods. “How I wish the children were here to see it. They just love wrestling in the sunshine, knocking each other about.”
“You have children?”, asked Maggie.
“Oh several. I have them every other year... one or two and sometimes three.”
|
|
|
“I give birth in my cave in the winter. They don’t even wake me up as they are so tiny when they’re born. Then they drink my milk and when we get very crowded in the cave because they’ve grown... out we come! Roly-poly they chase and roughhouse. I get exhausted watching them, but they get stronger with the play.”
“I roughhouse with my sisters until I cry. Papa Joe is the worst. He’s a terrible tease.”
“My goodness, why would you cry? You must need toughening up. If those cubs ever cried I’d be ashamed, and if their father hit them, they’d be lucky to live through it.”
Maggie’s eyes got very big.
|
|
“Well,” said Brunhilde, “shall we take a stroll in the woods? It will be cool there.”
And off they went. The bear’s great behind moved from side to side and Maggie’s little behind just followed herself. Every once in awhile Brunhilde would use a tree as a back-scratcher.
|
Brunhilde spotted some berries and stopped to eat. Maggie sat on a rock and drew her. She noticed that she was always eating. First berries and then grub worms. Maggie loved berries on her cereal. She was far less enthusiastic about the grub worms, but she was not a bear.
“When the cubs are small, I teach them how to follow the bear trail and find food and water along the way. Bears make a trail for other bears to follow. They leave their claw marks on trees and old stumps. The trail is very old.” Maggie took notes.
|
|
|
Brunhilde started to climb a nearby tree. “You can’t do that,” said Maggie.
“And why on earth not?” snapped the bear.
“Because you are entirely too big.”
“Well,” huffed the bear, “I’ve been climbing them since I was a girl. My mother taught me. A tree was my refuge in danger and my babysitter. But you’re right... I am a little too big for climbing now.”
|
“If there was danger, my mother would call us. We always did what our mother told us.”
“Well mostly I do what mom says, but not always... and sometimes I make a bit of a fuss, before I do.”
“Well my baby bears never make a fuss. If they hesitate for one minute I give them such a cuff they never forget it.”
“Boy, I’m lucky I’m just a kid. Papa Joe and Mama don’t hit me.”
“Humph” sniffed Brunhilde. She obviously had her doubts about humans and the way they raise their young.
|
|
|
Brunhilde sniffed the air. “I smell honey,” she said. And sure enough, down the path was a stump with bees buzzing round. She didn’t have to share the honey with Maggie because Maggie was on her way back to the house, as fast as she could go, for a peanut butter sandwich with honey on it and no bees.
|
“Well Maggie, how is your day going?”
“Splendid!” said Maggie and she told her mother all about the babies and the berries and the roughhousing and the tree climbing, but she left out the part about the cuffing for disobedience because she didn’t want to give her mother any ideas.
|
|
|
After a bit of a nap Maggie went back into the woods to find Brunhilde so she could ask her more questions. Papa Joe always said that Maggie was very good at asking questions. Her sisters felt she was rather too good at that.
She found the bear fishing in the stream and she sat herself down on a
rock to draw Brunhilde as she moved like lightning to catch one fish after another... eating them raw.
“Sushi!” declared Maggie.
|
The other animals sat next to her, admiring Brunhilde as she caught fish after fish.
“She must be getting ready for winter,” quipped Aunt Millicent the beaver. “Bears line their bodies with fat so they can sleep through the winter in their cave.”
At this, the other animals became a bit uncomfortable as they did not wish to be anyone’s lining of fat.
|
|
|
“What a day,” sighed Maggie. She snuggled Brunhilde who gave her a lovely, gentle, motherly hug. Little girls, who are named Maggie are very hard to resist.
| | Written and illustrated by elinor peace bailey |
