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IT was quite late in the
fall. And Blue Mountain looked very different from the way it had looked all
summer. The leaves had turned to brown and yellow and scarlet, except where
there were clumps of fir-trees, as there were around Mr. Bear's house. Indeed,
Blue Mountain looked almost as if it were all aflame, so bright were the autumn
colors. Mr. Bear remarked as much to Mrs. Bear one day.
"For goodness' sake,
don't say that!" she exclaimed. "Don't mention fire to me. The very
thought of it makes me nervous. Everything's so dry! I shall be glad when it
rains again."
"It is dry," Mr.
Bear agreed. "But don't worry. It's like this every fall." And he
went slowly down the mountain.
Cuffy and Silkie were
playing together that morning. Cuffy was teaching Silkie to box, though, to be
sure, he knew very little about boxing. But he found it easy to tap Silkie on
the nose. And he had tapped her so hard that Mrs. Bear heard a sound very much
like quarreling; and she came to the door to see what was the trouble.
Mrs. Bear was just going to
call to her children, when she noticed a peculiar odor in the air. And she stood quite still, and
sniffed, just as Cuffy had when he smelled the haymakers' lunch. You remember
that the more Cuffy sniffed, the less alarmed he had been. But it was different
with Mrs. Bear. The longer she stood there, with her nose twitching, and
snuffing up the air, the more uneasy she became. And pretty soon she saw
something that gave her a great start!
It was something white that
Mrs. Bear saw, and it hung over the tree-tops; and where the wind had caught it
it was spun out thin, like a veil.
It was exactly what Mrs.
Bear had feared — it was smoke! The forest was afire! And Mrs. Bear was very
much alarmed. She sent Cuffy and Silkie into the house, because she wanted to
be sure that they wouldn't wander off into the woods. And then their mother
stood in the doorway and watched. She was looking for Mr. Bear. While she
waited there the smoke kept rising more and more until there were great clouds
of it; and at last Mrs. Bear could see red flames licking up to the tops of the
trees.
Several deer came bounding
past, and a great number of rabbits and squirrels. And then followed other
animals that couldn't run so fast — such as raccoons, and skunks, and
woodchucks. Not for years had Mrs. Bear seen so many of the forest-people — and
they were all so frightened, and in such a hurry to get away from the fire,
that not one of them noticed Mrs. Bear as she stood in her doorway.
"Where are they going,
Mother?" It was Cuffy who asked the question. He had crept up behind his
mother and had been looking at the strange sight for some time.
"They're going over to
the lake, on the other side of the mountain," Mrs. Bear said.
"Are they going
fishing?" Cuffy inquired.
Mrs. Bear shook her head.
And then Cuffy squeezed past her and saw what was happening.
"Oh-h, hurrah!
hurrah!" he shouted. His mother looked at him in astonishment.
"It's father's
birthday!" he cried. You remember that Cuffy's mother had told him that
Mr. Bear was born on the day of a great forest fire, and that he never had a
birthday except when the woods caught fire again. "Now maybe father will
bring home another little pig for a feast!" Cuffy said hopefully.