The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlöf (i can read book club TXT) 📕

behind the rocks and climbed the birches, but the cubs hunted him out, go where he would. The instant they caught him they let him go, so that he could run away again and they should have the fun of recapturing him.

At last the boy got so sick and tired of it all that he threw himself down on the ground.

“Run away,” growled the cubs, “or we’ll eat you up!”

“You’ll have to eat me then,” said the boy, “for I can’t run any more.”

Immediately both cubs rushed over to the mother bear and complained:

“Mamma Bear, oh, Mamma Bear, he won’t play any more.”

“Then you must divide him evenly between you,” said Mother Bear.

When the boy heard this he was so scared that he jumped up instantly and began playing again.

As it was bedtime, Mother Bear called to the cubs that they must come now and cuddle up to her and go to sleep. They had been having such a good time that they wished to continue their play next day; so they took the boy between them and laid their paws over him. They did not want him to move without waking them. They went to sleep immediately. The boy thought that after a while he would try to steal away. But never in all his life had he been so tumbled and tossed and hunted and rolled! And he was so tired out that he too fell asleep.

By and by Father Bear came clambering down the mountain wall. The boy was wakened by his tearing away stone and gravel as he swung himself into the old mine. The boy was afraid to move much; but he managed to stretch himself and turn over, so that he could see the big bear. He was a frightfully coarse, huge old beast, with great paws, large, glistening tusks, and wicked little eyes! The boy could not help shuddering as he looked at this old monarch of the forest.

“It smells like a human being around here,” said Father Bear the instant he came up to Mother Bear, and his growl was as the rolling of thunder.

“How can you imagine anything so absurd?” said Mother Bear without disturbing herself. “It has been settled for good and all that we are not to harm mankind any more; but if one of them were to put in an appearance here, where the cubs and I have our quarters, there wouldn’t be enough left of him for you to catch even a scent of him!”

Father Bear lay down beside Mother Bear. “You ought to know me well enough to understand that I don’t allow anything dangerous to come near the cubs. Talk, instead, of what you have been doing. I haven’t seen you for a whole week!”

“I’ve been looking about for a new residence,” said Father Bear. “First I went over to Vermland, to learn from our kinsmen at Ekshärad how they fared in that country; but I had my trouble for nothing. There wasn’t a bear’s den left in the whole forest.”

“I believe the humans want the whole Earth to themselves,” said Mother Bear. “Even if we leave people and cattle in peace and live solely upon lignon and insects and green things, we cannot remain unmolested in the forest! I wonder where we could move to in order to live in peace?”

“We’ve lived comfortably for many years in this pit,” observed Father Bear. “But I can’t be content here now since the big noise-shop has been built right in our neighbourhood. Lately I have been taking a look at the land east of Dal River, over by Garpen Mountain. Old mine pits are plentiful there, too, and other fine retreats. I thought it looked as if one might be fairly protected against men⁠—”

The instant Father Bear said this he sat up and began to sniff.

“It’s extraordinary that whenever I speak of human beings I catch that queer scent again,” he remarked.

“Go and see for yourself if you don’t believe me!” challenged Mother Bear. “I should just like to know where a human being could manage to hide down here?”

The bear walked all around the cave, and nosed. Finally he went back and lay down without a word.

“What did I tell you?” said Mother Bear. “But of course you think that no one but yourself has any nose or ears!”

“One can’t be too careful, with such neighbours as we have,” said Father Bear gently. Then he leaped up with a roar. As luck would have it, one of the cubs had moved a paw over to Nils Holgersson’s face and the poor little wretch could not breathe, but began to sneeze. It was impossible for Mother Bear to keep Father Bear back any longer. He pushed the young ones to right and left and caught sight of the boy before he had time to sit up.

He would have swallowed him instantly if Mother Bear had not cast herself between them.

“Don’t touch him! He belongs to the cubs,” she said. “They have had such fun with him the whole evening that they couldn’t bear to eat him up, but wanted to save him until morning.”

Father Bear pushed Mother Bear aside.

“Don’t meddle with what you don’t understand!” he roared. “Can’t you scent that human odour about him from afar? I shall eat him at once, or he will play us some mean trick.”

He opened his jaws again; but meanwhile the boy had had time to think, and, quick as a flash, he dug into his knapsack and brought forth some matches⁠—his sole weapon of defence⁠—struck one on his leather breeches, and stuck the burning match into the bear’s open mouth.

Father Bear snorted when he smelled the sulphur, and with that the flame went out. The boy was ready with another match, but, curiously enough, Father Bear did not repeat his attack.

“Can you light many of those little blue roses?” asked Father Bear.

“I can light enough to put an end to the whole forest,” replied the boy, for he