CHAPTER VI

THE TWINS CLIMB A TREE

Those climb the highest who have dared

To keep on climbing when most scared.

Mother Bear.

When Mother Bear reached the place where grew the roots of which she was so fond, she led the twins, Boxer¹ and Woof-Woof, over to a big tree, stood up and dug her great claws into the bark above her head. Of course Boxer did the same thing. Mother Bear gave him a push. Boxer was so surprised that without realizing what he was doing he pulled himself up a little higher, clinging² to the tree with the claws of all four feet[33] and hugging the trunk with arms and legs.

“Go right on up,” said Mother Bear in her deep, grumbly-rumbly voice. “Go right on up until you reach those branches up there. There is nothing to fear. Those claws were given you for climbing, and it is time for you to learn how to use them. When you get up to those branches, you stay up there until I tell you to come down. If you don’t, you will be spanked³. Now up with you! Let me see you climb.”

Boxer scrambled⁴ a little higher. Mother Bear turned and started Woof-Woof up after Boxer. It was a strange experience for the twins. Never before had they[34] been above the ground, and it frightened them. They scrambled a little way then looked down and whimpered. Then they looked up at the branches above them. To Boxer and Woof-Woof those branches seemed a terrible distance up. They seemed way, way up in the sky. Really they were not very high up at all. But you remember the twins were very little, and this was their first climb.

So they stopped and whimpered and looked down longingly⁵ at the ground. But right under them stood Mother Bear, and there was a look in her eyes that told them she intended to be obeyed. Having her standing[35] right below them gave them courage. So Boxer scrambled a little higher. Then Woof-Woof, who simply couldn’t allow her brother to do anything she didn’t do, scrambled a little higher. Boxer started again. Woof-Woof followed. And so at last they reached the branches. Then and not until then Mother Bear left the foot of the tree and shuffled⁶ off to dig for roots.

The instant they got hold of those branches the twins felt safe. They forgot their fears. Quite unexpectedly they felt very much at home. And of course they felt very big and bold. For a while they were content to sit and look down at the wonderful[36] Great World. It seemed to them that from way up there they must be looking at nearly all of the Great World. Of course, they really were looking at only a very small part of the Green Forest. But it was very, very wonderful to the twins, and they looked and looked and for a long time they didn’t say a word.

By and by they noticed Mother Bear digging roots some distance away. “Isn’t it funny that Mother Bear has grown so much smaller?” ventured Woof-Woof.

Boxer looked puzzled. Mother Bear certainly did look smaller. Even as he watched she moved farther away, and the farther she[37] went the smaller she seemed to be. Boxer held on with one hand and scratched his head with the other. For the first time in his life he was doing some real thinking. “I don’t believe she can be any smaller,” said he. “It must be she looks smaller because she is so far away. That old log down there looks smaller than it did when we stopped and sniffed⁷ at it. Some of those young trees that looked tall when we passed under them don’t look tall at all now. I guess the way a thing looks depends on how near it is!”

Of course Boxer was quite right in this. He was already[38] beginning to learn, beginning to use those lively wits which Old Mother Nature had put in that funny little head of his.