A Catch Tale

You don‘t see bears around as often as you used to. But I remember seeing one once when I was out picking raspberries. It was the end of August and it was hot. It was a real scorcher! And there I was, down on my knees making my way around the raspberry canes. Suddenly, I came nose to nose with this great, black bear.

He was doing the same thing, of course. He was eating the raspberries, stripping them off with his big paw and stuffing them in his mouth. He was surprised and annoyed that I was picking his berries, because he growled and got up on his hind legs. Well, I didn‘t hang around.

I took off down the old woods road, and when I looked back he was coming along after me on all fours. Bears can run pretty fast. I can run pretty fast, too. I was running the mile in about two minutes, at least. But so was the bear, and he was right behind me.

I ran and ran and ran. It was awful hot. The sweat was just pouring off me. I’d look back every once in a while, and the bear seemed to be getting a little closer. So I put on a little more effort and I ran for an awful long time. I was getting tired, too. But the bear was still coming on. He wasn‘t getting any farther away. In fact, he was just as close as he could be.

So I ran and ran and ran. I ran for an awful long time. And just when I thought I couldn‘t run another step, I came to this lake. It was frozen over a little bit. There was just an inch of ice over it, and I knew that it would hold me if I ran over it real fast, and I knew if the bear followed me, it wouldn‘t hold him.