My name is Benny, and I am a bear. I am telling you my story so you can know that bears are not all alike. Some bears do the right thing, while others don’t seem to care.
One morning in the Mystic Forest, I heard the news: a whole herd of reindeer had wandered into our home and were eating all our food that we bears had stashed away in various places. Some of my cousins grumbled, saying it was too bad, and, for my part, I was glad of their coming.
“Let them eat up everything,” said I, “then we can have all new food. Besides, they can’t stay here always.”
I decided to go down to where they were feeding to see what they were doing. So I set off down the road through the forest, thinking I would find something to eat on the way. While I was wandering about, I came across a crowd of my bear friends sitting around talking excitedly.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
“It seems that our mothers have told us many stories about the Old Haunted Place up in the forest, and some of us want to go and explore it and see what is there,” said one bear.
“What’s the use of going there?” said another. “Nothing but bad animals live there. I have been down to see Jacko the monkey and he told me that their mothers told them about the place as a haunted one, and that we bears had better never go near it.”
“That itself makes me think that we ought to go,” said old Grizzly. “And we shall never be sorry either. Anything that other bears are afraid of is often worth seeing.”
“But we shall be lost,” cried some of my cousins.
“Whoever likes can stay here,” said old Grizzly. “But we will have an expedition to the Old Haunted Place.”
All these bears getting together made it hard for me to get my share of breakfast, so I refused to take any portion in the expedition myself.
The rest of them took the old pathway through the woods that led to the Old Haunted Place, and the sun had gone down before they came back.
“I hope there weren’t any bad animals there,” said I.
“Oh, there weren’t horns in the religious place,” said one bear, meaning that they had not found anything to frighten them, “and they wouldn’t let you go through the door if they let us. There was nothing there but good food and trees, and they did all kinds of pranks when we wanted to sleep, so it was no place for us, a peaceful and orderly family.”
I was sorry I hadn’t gone too, although for my part I would never have camped there. The reindeer were gone from the forest, so I had nothing to cry over. I don’t know what some bears want besides a quiet life.
We found after that, too, that the Old Haunted Place wasn’t nearly the bad place we had always heard it was. So sometimes a few of us go over there to eat that good food they have on the trees.