Frazer, laughing, as she noticed the earnest expression on the face of her
little charge. She then continued her account of the ursine family.

"The bear retires in cold weather, and sleeps till warmer seasons awaken
him; he does not lay up any store of winter provisions, because he seldom
rouses himself during the time of his long sleep, and in the spring he
finds food, both vegetable and animal, for he can eat anything when
hungry, like the hog. He often robs the wild bees of their honey, and his
hide being so very thick, seems insensible to the stings of the angry
bees. Bruin will sometimes find odd places for his winter bed, for a
farmer, who was taking a stack of wheat into his barn to be threshed in
the winter time, once found a large black bear comfortably asleep in the
middle of the sheaves."

"How could the bear have got into the stack of wheat, nurse?"

"The claws of this animal are so strong, and he makes so much use of his
paws, which are almost like hands, that he must have pulled the sheaves
out, and so made an entrance for himself. His skin and flesh amply repaid
the farmer for any injury the grain had received. I remember seeing the
bear brought home in triumph on the top of the load of wheat. Bears often
do great mischief by eating the Indian corn when it is ripening; for
besides what they devour, they spoil a vast deal by trampling the plants
down with their clumsy feet. They will, when hard pressed by hunger, come
close to the farmer's house and rob the pig-sty of its tenants. Many years
ago, before the forest was cleared away in the neighbourhood of what is now
a large town, but in those days consisted of only a few poor log-houses, a
settler was much annoyed by the frequent visits of a bear to his hog-pen.
At last he resolved to get a neighbour who was a very expert hunter to come
with his rifle and watch with him. The pen where the fatling hogs were was