don't
stand under the bear when you cry out. If he is a little fellow, he will
shoot up the tree, faster than ever a jumping jack went up his stick,
and hide in a cluster of leaves, as near the top as he can get. But if
he is a big bear, he will tumble down on you before you know what has
happened. No slow climbing for him; he just lets go and comes down by
gravitation. As Uncle Remus says--who has some keen knowledge of animal
ways under his story-telling humor--"Brer B'ar, he scramble 'bout
half-way down de bee tree, en den he turn eve'ything loose en hit de
groun' _kerbiff_! Look like 't wuz nuff ter jolt de life out'n 'im."

Somehow it never does jolt the life out of him, notwithstanding his
great weight; nor does it interfere in any way with his speed of action,
which is like lightning, the instant he touches the ground. Like the
coon, who can fall from an incredible distance without hurting himself,
Mooween comes down perfectly limp, falling on himself like a great
cushion; but the moment he strikes, all his muscles seem to contract at
once, and he bounds off like a rubber ball into the densest bit of cover
at hand.

Twice have I seen him come down in this way. The first time there were
two cubs, nearly full-grown, in a tree. One went up at our shout; the
other came down with such startling suddenness that the man who stood
ready with his rifle, to shoot the bear, jumped for his life to get out
of the way; and before he had blinked the astonishment out of his eyes
Mooween was gone, leaving only a violent nodding of the ground spruces
to tell what had become of him.

All these plans of ready action in Mooween's head, for the rare
occasions when he meets you unexpectedly, are the result of careful
training by his mother. If you should ever have the good fortune to
watch a mother bear and her cubs when they have no idea that you are
near them, you will note two characteristic things. First, when they are
traveling--and Mooween is the most restless tramp in all the woods--you
will see that the cubs follow the mother closely and imitate her every
action with ludicrous exactness, sniffing where she sniffs, jumping
where she jumps, rising on their hind legs, with forearms hanging
loosely and pointed noses thrust sharp up into the wind, on the instant
that she rises, and then drawing silently away from the shore into the
shelter of the friendly alders when some subtle warning tells the
mother's nose that the coast ahea