Lessons in Cub Care

Paw made Jeb and I stay in the wagon watching the cubs while he went in to see the vet. After a dew minutes, during which Jeb tried to make friends with the smallest one, Doc Harkin came bustling out of his surgery following Paw and looked at the cubs, shaking his head.

“I reckon that city schoolma'am don’t know what she’s asking. Who in heaven’s name would want a couple of varmints that will grow up to eat them one day, just for sport?”

“Come on Doc,” said Paw. “Jake’s future at school depends on us finding a home for them.”

“Can’t we just shoot them and say a travelling circus took them?” asked the Doc.

“No!” chorused Jeb and I together. “She’d keep me in detention for evermore,” I added.

“And she’d probably add me to her list,” piped up Jeb. “Or else she’d take Jake out and find another Mamma bear to feed him to.”

Doc Harkin mumbled and grumbled for a few minutes, then said, “I’ve got nowhere I can keep bears like them, but I tell you what. Deputy Deakin has an old impound barn he uses for confiscated items. You’ve all got your moonshine gear back, so it’ll be empty right now. If he’ll keep them penned up in there for a day or so, I’ll telegraph around and see if there’s a zoo that can take them. Otherwise, they either take their chances back in the wild, or take their chances with a bullet here. A bullet might be kinder on them, as their Maw won’t have had time to teach them to hunt yet, and starvation or attacks from older bears are a certainty.”

“Don’s gonna love that,” grumbled Paw. “Well, I guess we don’t have a choice. Come on boys, let’s git.” We got.

I always thought Deputy Don Deakin was a friend of Paw’s. but that morning I swear the air turned blue as he told Paw just what he thought of him for bringing those two bear cubs to stay in his impound barn. And I know Paw isn’t stupid, and that Grandpaw and Grandmaw Barton were really married.

Jeb asked what a bastard was, and Deputy Don looked ashamed of himself for using such language in front of kids. I told Jeb it was a type of half round file used in carpentry. I reckoned to tell him the truth later out of Paw’s hearing. Well, it didn’t do to let on how much I knew in front of adults.

“You say that city slicker teacher wants to save them? Who does she think she is, coming down here with her fancy ideas? Critters is for eating, not for making household pets out of!”

“You’d think that after seeing how their Maw grew up she’d have more sense,” agreed Paw. “But she’s a blasted female,” he made it sound like the devil incarnate. “And she thinks they’re cute. So common sense don’t come into it.”

“Hell, I’m the law in these parts, and if I say we shoot ‘em, we shoot ‘em, and ain’t no citified schoolma’am going to stop me.” He wasn’t wearing his deputy badge, but I could see it plain as day.

“Aw, come on Don, just a couple of days, for the boys’ sake.”

“Please sir, couldn’t you just keep them in there for a week? Please? You wouldn’t have to look after them. Jake and I can come in and feed them until Doc Harkin finds a home for them. You won’t even know they’re there.” Jeb was at his most beguiling, and Deputy Don was a sucker for kids with angelic faces, especially when he hadn’t caught Jeb out in any mischief. Yet.

His face softened. “I must be outa my mind,” he growled. “OK, two days and no more. I need that barn to do my job, and if word gets back to the Sheriff that I’ve got bears in there, he’ll take a branding iron to me as he runs me out of town.”

Shaking his head, he turned away and walked around to the barn where he usually put Paw’s still when the revenuers came around. They’d been round a couple of months back, so the place was empty except for the odd pile of rubbish that old barns generate easier than kids do. There were fenced off stalls at the back where he sometimes had to keep horses and other livestock until their owners claimed them, usually by paying outstanding fines.

“You can put them in the stalls for now. Good job I don’t have anybody’s horse in there, or it’d be bullets for two. Just kidding!” he added hastily, as he saw Jeb’s face cloud over.

Paw and Deputy Don stood by and watched as Jeb and I unloaded the two struggling, scared bear cubs from the back of the wagon and manhandled them into the two end stalls. We collected a few more scratches along the way, and it wasn’t long before Paw and Deputy Don were holding their sides laughing at our antics.

“Now, what do you two plan on feeding them?” asked the deputy when he got his breath back.

“Aw, roots and berries I guess.” I was a little vague about the details, but Jeb knew more about animals than I did.

“We can catch them some fish in the river, and we’ll have plenty of windfall fruit on the farm, and we can bring them branches from the blackberry bushes. They won’t go hungry. Can I get water from you? I don’t want to haul water all the way from the farm.”

“I guess so Jeb; just don’t ask me to help. So how’s Doc Harkin going to go about finding permanent quarters for these two varmints?”

“He’s going to contact the Memphis Zoo first, as they are the closest. If they don’t want them he’ll try other zoos a bit further away,” said Paw.

“I hope he never finds homes for them,” muttered Jeb to me. “Then we’d have to keep them. I bet I could teach them to grow up not to hurt people.” I had faith in Jeb, and knew he could do it too, but they’d never allow it.

The next couple of hours were busy, as we had to get Paw back to the farm and round up a couple of buckets for the cubs’ water. Miss Taylor helped us pick up some of the windfall fruit and nuts around the trees and loaded them into an old sack. Somewhere in there we managed a rather late lunch, and endured Maw tut tutting over our fresh scratches.

Paw was still feeling sore about his wishes being overturned, and commented sourly that Jeb and I couldn’t expect to be excused from our duties around the farm, and that we’d do our chores even if we had to stay up until midnight. There was wood to chop, eggs to collect, butter to be churned, vegetables to be harvested, the vegetable patch weeded and so on, and after dinner we’d need to take Miss Taylor home after her weekend on the farm. “And don’t forget to wash out the bear smell from the wagon or we’ll have Sam so spooked he’ll never come near the wagon again.”

“I thought they abolished slavery in the last century,” I grumbled, but I said it out of earshot of Paw.

His attitude took the sparkle out of caring for the bear cubs, and in one fell swoop, it plummeted from being a grand adventure into being just another chore, for me at least. Jeb never lost his enthusiasm, and if he’d been big enough to handle Sam and the wagon alone, he’d have done the feeding and watering all by himself, happily.

We got the buckets and food loaded onto the wagon and made our weary way back to the impound barn. Once there we filled the buckets at the outside tap and opened the barn door, to be met by a cacophony of squeals. “I guess they don’t like being locked up,” said Jeb. The cubs rushed across toward us as we entered. “I think they like us,” said Jeb, happily, his voice almost drowned out by the thumping of the cubs against the wooden partitions.

We lowered the buckets of water over the partitions, and the cubs immediately knocked them both over. Hmmm! That cost us half an hour, finding rope to tie the buckets to the partitions, then scrounging around for another bucket to fill them with. Then we amused ourselves by throwing apples for the cubs to catch until I remembered the chores still to be done, and dragged Jeb away from his pets. We left them plenty of food to last them until morning, when we’d stop by and feed them on our way to school. That meant an extra couple of miles to walk, so we’d have to be up before the sun, then have to carry sacks of fruit all the way, enough to feed them after school too.

It was going to be a long couple of days! At least Miss Taylor would understand when I fell asleep in class again!