Bruno the Bear

From A Bond of Love

I WILL begin with Bruno; my wife’s pet sloth bear. I got him for her by an accident. Two years ago we were passing through the cornfields near a small town in Iowa. People were driving away the wild pigs from the fields by shooting at them. Some were shot and some escaped. We thought that everything was over when suddenly a black sloth bear came out panting in the hot sun.

Now I will not shoot a sloth bear wantonly but unfortunately for the poor beast, one of my companions did not feel the same way about it, and promptly shot the bear on the spot.
As we watched the fallen animal we were surprised to see that the black fur on its back moved and left the prostrate body. Then we saw it was a baby bear that had been riding on its mother’s back when the sudden shot had killed her. The little creature ran around its prostrate parent making a pitiful noise.

I ran up to it to attempt a capture. It scooted into the sugarcane field. Following it with my companions, I was at last able to grab it by the scruff of its neck while it snapped and tried to scratch me with its long, hooked claws. We put it in one of the large jute-bags we had brought and when I got back home I duly presented it to my wife. She was delighted! She at once put a blue colored ribbon around its neck, and after discovering the cub was a ‘boy’ she christened it Bruno.

Bruno soon took to drinking milk from a bottle. It was but a step further and within a very few days he started eating and drinking everything else. And everything is the right word, for he ate porridge made from any ingredients, vegetables, fruit, nuts, meat (especially pork), curry and rice regardless of condiments and chilies, bread, eggs, chocolates, sweets, pudding, ice-cream, etc., etc., etc. As for drink: milk, tea, coffee, limejuice, aerated water, buttermilk, beer, alcoholic liquor and, in fact, anything liquid. It all went down with relish.

The bear became very attached to our two dogs and all the children living in and around our farm. He was left quite free in his younger days and spent his time in playing, running into the kitchen and going to sleep in our beds.

One day an accident befell him. I put down poison (barium carbonate) to kill the rats and mice that had got into my library. Bruno entered the library as he often did, and ate some of the poison. Paralysis set in to the extent that he could not stand on his feet. But he dragged himself on his stumps to my wife, who called me. I guessed what had happened. Off I rushed him in the car to the vet’s residence. A case of poisoning! Tame Bear—barium carbonate—what to do?

Out came his medical books, and a feverish reference to index began: “What poison did you say, sir?” he asked

“Barium carbonate” I said.

“Ah yes—B—Ba—Barium Salts—Ah! Barium carbonate! Symptoms— paralysis—treatment—injections of ... Just a minute, sir. I’ll bring my syringe and the medicine.” Said the doc. I dashed back to the car. Bruno was still floundering about on his stumps, but clearly he was weakening rapidly; there was some vomiting, he was breathing heavily, with heaving flanks and gaping mouth. I was really scared and did not know what to do. I was feeling very guilty and was running in and out of the vet’s house doing everything the doc asked me.

Hold him, everybody! In goes the hypodermic—Bruno squeals — 10 c.c. of the antidote enters his system without a drop being wasted. Ten minutes later: condition unchanged! Another 10 c.c. Injected! Ten minutes later: breathing less torturous— Bruno can move his arms and legs a little although he cannot stand yet. Thirty minutes later: Bruno gets up and has a great feed! He looks at us disdainfully, as much as to say, ‘What’s barium carbonate to a big black bear like me?’ Bruno was still eating. I was really happy to see him recover.

The months rolled on and Bruno had grown many times the size he was when he came. He had equaled the big dogs in height and had even outgrown them. But was just as sweet, just as mischievous, just as playful. And he was very fond of us all. Above all, he loved my wife, and she loved him too! And he could do a few tricks, too. At the command, ‘Bruno, wrestle’, or ‘Bruno, box,’ he vigorously tackled anyone who came forward for a rough and tumble. Give him a stick and say ‘Bruno, hold gun’, and he pointed the stick at you. Ask him, ‘Bruno, where’s baby?’ and he immediately produced and cradled affectionately a stump of wood which he had carefully concealed in his straw bed. But because of the neighborhoods’ and our renters’ children, poor Bruno, had to be kept chained most of the time.

Then my son and I advised my wife, and friends advised her too, to give Bruno to the zoo. He was getting too big to keep at home. After some weeks of such advice she at last consented. Hastily, and before she could change her mind, a letter was written to the curator of the zoo. Did he want a tame bear for his collection? He replied, “Yes”. The zoo sent a cage in a truck, a distance of hundred – eighty – seven miles, and Bruno was packed off.
We all missed him greatly; but in a sense we were relieved. My wife was inconsolable. She wept and fretted. For the first few days she would not eat a thing. Then she wrote a number of letters to the curator. How was Bruno? Back came the replies,

“Well, but fretting; he refuses food too.”
After that, friends visiting the zoo were begged to make a point of seeing how Bruno was getting along. They reported that he was well but looked very thin and sad. All the keepers at the zoo said he was fretting. For three months I managed to restrain my wife from visiting the zoo.
Then she said one day, “I must see Bruno. Either you take me by car; or I will go myself by bus or train myself.” So I took her by car.

Friends had conjectured that the bear would not recognize her. I had thought so too. But while she was yet some yards from his cage Bruno saw her and recognized her. He howled with happiness. She ran up to him, petted him through the bars, and he stood on his head in delight.

For the next three hours she would not leave that cage. She gave him tea, lemonade, cakes, ice cream and what not. Then ‘closing time’ came and we had to leave. My wife cried bitterly; Bruno cried bitterly; even the hardened curator and the keepers felt depressed. As for me, I had reconciled myself to what I knew was going to happen next.

“Oh please, sir,” she asked the curator, “may I have my Bruno back”?

Hesitantly, he answered, “Madam, he belongs to the zoo and is Government property now. I cannot give away Government property. But if my boss, the superintendent agrees, certainly you may have him back.”
There followed the return journey home and a visit to the superintendent’s office.

A tearful pleading: “Bruno and I are both fretting for each other. Will you please give him back to me?” He was a kind-hearted man and consented. Not only that, but he wrote to the curator telling him to lend us a cage for transporting the bear back home.

Back we went to the zoo again, armed with the superintendent’s letter. Bruno was driven into a small cage and hoisted on top of the car; the cage was tied securely, and a slow and careful return journey back home was accomplished.
Once home, a squad of workers were engaged for special work around our yard. An island was made for Bruno. It was twenty feet long and fifteen feet wide, and was surrounded by a dry moat, six feet wide and seven feet deep. A wooden box that once housed fowls was brought and put on the island for Bruno to sleep in at night. Straw was placed inside to keep him warm, and his ‘baby’, the gnarled stump, along with his ‘gun’, the piece of bamboo, both of which had been sentimentally preserved since he had been sent away to the zoo, were put back for him to play with.

In a few days the workers hoisted the cage on to the island and Bruno was released. He was delighted; standing on his hind legs, he pointed his ‘gun’ and cradled his ‘baby’. My wife spent hours sitting on a chair there while he sat on her lap. He was fifteen months old and pretty heavy too!

The way my wife reaches the island and leaves it is interesting. I have tied a rope to the overhanging branch of a maple tree with a loop at its end. Putting one foot in the loop, she kicks off with the other, to bridge the six-foot gap that constitutes the width of the surrounding moat. The return journey back is made the same way.

But who can say now that a sloth bear has no sense of affection, no memory and no individual characteristics?

What motivated the narrator to keep Bruno chained up?

Best Friends

Ever since they were kids, Julie and Max had been best friends. They went to kindergarten together. They went to summer camp together, They hung out together every weekend. But suddenly, things between the two had started to change.

Max started playing on the football team and didn’t have much time for Julie anymore. He was always busy, and he never seemed to make it to study hall, where the two used to swap stories about their favorite (or least favorite) teachers. In class, Julie noticed that Max never seemed to have his homework done on time anymore. She even noticed that he got a D on his last paper. She knew something was going on with him – but what?

At first, Julie decided to play it cool and see how things went. She tried waiting in the hall for Max after class to see if she could ask if he was OK. But days went by, and he never had time to stop. He’d rush right past her in the hall, only to leave her feeling even worse about what was happening between them.

Even though she wasn’t sure she could handle the situation herself, Julie didn’t want to talk to her parents because she was afraid they would tell her not to hang out with Max anymore. She barely saw him as it was, so she knew it would just make things worse if her parents didn’t approve of him. She didn’t want to tell Max’s parents either because she didn’t want him to get in trouble. Still, it seemed like something needed to change.

Julie decided to go to one of her school counselors and let her know she was concerned. When she walked into Mrs. Smith’s room, she was surprised to see that Max was already sitting there.

“I’m sorry, I’ll come back,” Julie said.

“No, stay,” said Max. “Maybe you can help.”

Julie was surprised to find that Max had visited the counselor’s office for the same reason she had: he was starting to feel overwhelmed with all of the things he was supposed to be doing as a student, an athlete and a friend. He needed some guidance on how to determine what truly mattered, and how to divide his time between all of the things that were important to him.

When she realized that Max was still the same old Max (just a little more stressed), Julie was relieved. She was also happy to know that he had come to the conclusion on his own, without her having to talk to someone else about it. She decided it was a sign they were both growing up.

What events in the story did NOT contribute to the character of Max being overwhelmed?

Scouting for Boys

(Excerpt)

Hi! Stop Thief!” shouted old Blenkinsopp as he rushed out of his little store near the village. “He’s stolen my sugar. Stop him.”

Stop whom? There was nobody in sight running away, “Who stole it?” asked the policeman.

“I don’t know, but a whole bag of sugar is missing. It was there only a few minutes ago.” The policeman tried to track the thief but it looked a pretty impossible job for him to single out the tracks of the thief from among dozens of other footprints about the store. However, he presently started off hopefully, at a jog-trot, away out into the bush. In some places, he went over hard stony ground but he never checked his pace, although no footmarks could be seen. People wondered how he could possibly find the trail. Still he trotted on. Old Blenkinsopp was feeling the heat and the pace .
At length, he suddenly stopped and cast around having evidently lost the trail. Then a grin came on his face as he pointed with his thumb over his shoulder up the tree near which he was standing. There, concealed among the branches, they saw a young man with the missing bag of sugar.

How had the policeman spotted him? His sharp eyes had described some grains of sugar sparkling in the dust. The bag leaked, leaving a slight trail of these grains. He followed that trail and when it came to an end in the bush he noticed a string of ants going up a tree. They were after the sugar, and so was he, and between them they brought about the capture of the thief.
Old Blenkinsopp was so pleased that he promptly opened the bag and spilled a lot of the sugar on the ground as a reward to the ants.

He also appreciated the policeman for his cleverness in using his eyes to see the grains of sugar and the ants, and in using his wits to see why the ants were climbing the tree.

Why did the old man rush out of the store?