Bear Read Free Page A

It’s through here.Remember the damerrson a wood stove?” “No.” “When you’ve had the grand tour I’ll show you.You’ll need it for a little heat in the morning. You could still get snow up here, you know.“The kitchen took only one plane of the octagon, as opposed to the parlour’s two. There was a modern propane stove beside the wood stove, a roll-top kitchen machine, and a tin sink with a pump.“There’s a better one outside,“Homer said.“We always had trouble with the leatherson this one.Now this next room’s a sort ofcombination woodshed and back hall, leads out to the real woodshed. There’s a yard out there, and a backhouse. Lucy’s cleaned the place up real good, hasn’t she? In here, this next room’s the masterbedroom, like.The bed looks kinda saggy. She’s laid you a fire. Here, I’ll light it for you, and take you along out back and show you what’s where.Come out the front doorand around.The back steps are bad at night.”
    It was considerably darker now, and the air was damp and chilly. She shivered as she followed Homer around the south side of the house, where he showed her the long-handled outdoor pump, and the outhouse that was one of a collection of sheds off the back yard. It was a two-holer and she noticed with amusement that its seat-covers were old-fashioned enamel streetlight reflectors pinch-frilled like pie-edges.She made as if to go inside the house again, for it was dark and she was tired and cold, but Homer stood looking at her uneasily, shifting from foot to foot.She wondered if he was going to touch her or to denounce her. She wanted to get in and get settled. There had been so much day; she had a lot to think about. She was impatient.“Did anyone tell you,” he asked, “about the bear?”

Chapter 3
    There had always, it seemed, been a bear. That Lord Byron the first Colonel was so stuck on had kept a bear.The Colonel kept a bear. There was still a bear. Joe King’s aunty, Lucy Leroy, a hundred years old, if you could believe them,looked after the bear after the Colonel died. But she was gone. It was out back now. It would be asleep. But she ought to know about the bear.“I don’t hold any brief for bears. I don’t like pet animals much, to tell the truth. I like a dog if he’s a good retriever, and the odd time I’ve taken in some critter that’s been hurt but the Carys had this thing about keeping a bear and when the Colonel died what could you do about it? There it was. So without saying much to the lawyers we kept it. Joe and Lucy took care of it. It’s got a shed of its own back there—the original log house. You’re from Toronto, you’ll love a log house. It’s kind of an old bear, but not too bad-tempered.“I didn’t know what to do when they said they were sending a woman up here. I’d expected a man, I dunno why. “It’s there, and it belongs to the place. I don’t know where they got it, there aren’t any bear around here. Maybe Lucy knows, but she went off to her daughter-in-law. I didn’t know what the hell to say to you about it, but you look all right.You treat it like a dog,Joe said. I asked him before he went away.But don’t get too friendly before the bear knows you because he’s kind of old, nobody remembers how old, but they live to twenty-five or thirty so he can’tbe too young.I came right back here after the war, and I can’t remember a cub, but of courseI wasn’t here much. Cary didn’t like company except an order of groceries once in a while.“Joe’s left a hundred pounds ofdog chow in the shed. Whatever else is there came out of the money the Institute sent us when they said you were coming. “I don’t know what I’d do if anybody laid a bear on my shoulders. All I can say is, Lucy says he’s a good bear and you know some people don’t like Indians and they can’t hold their liquor, but around here we respect Lucy, and if she says it’s a good bear, maybe I can ask you to feed it and water it while you’re