Cottage on the Curve

Chapter Twelve
The Bear Who Loved Apple Pie

Dad laughed. “It would appear,” he said, “that I’m being ousted as the storyteller of the evening. Janie, run and get your mother.”

Mom was standing on the stepladder tacking paper edging on the cupboard shelves. She had a hammer in one hand and a handful of tacks in the other. “Me?” she asked, gesturing with a hammer. “You’ve got the champion storyteller of McWade county down there right now. Why don’t you have him entertain you?”

“It’s James,” said Jane patiently. “He’s got it into his head that he wants to hear your story about the big brown bear, and I was sent to fetch you.”

“Why,” said Mom. “I’m flattered. I’ll find my sweater and be right with you.”

“Welcome to the powwow,” said Daddy rising and bowing low. “These mighty braves,” he explained, “would like to hear an Indian story and a bear story.”

Mom joined in the play. She wrapped her sweater around her shoulders, making believe it was an Indian blanket, and accepted a cushion near the fire.

“I think I know the story that James is referring to. It’s a true story about Indians that your Grandmother told to me.” She leaned back against the willow tree, and made designs in the sand with a willow twig as she talked.

“It was about a hundred years ago when the Murrays first moved to Wisconsin. Your Great-grandfather bought a farm up in Door county. I shouldn’t say a farm, because it was really a forest. Before it could be a farm they had to chop the trees down, uproot the stumps, and carry off the stones. They built a little cabin in the clearing, and there they lived and worked.

“You’ve seen pictures of Great-grandmother in Grandma’s album. She looks very prim and sedate in her stiff silk dress, and her little children look as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths, but they were just the same sort of people that we are now. I think that Great-grandfather must often have been tired and discouraged at the end of the day, and Great-grandmother must have been frightened and lonely at times, but they worked on and on and lived to see the forest disappear and beautiful cherry orchards bloom in its place.

“There were no neighbors near by, but the Indians were friendly. One of their trails led past the cabin, and the Murrays used to watch them padding along on their way to the settlement at Sturgeon Bay. Great-grandfather knew two of the braves.

“‘That’s Ninnecons,’ he would point out. ‘He has no fingers on his left hand. He says that a bear bit them off, but most likely he got them caught in a beaver trap. The tall one is Shabeno. He’s a good Indian. They’re walking down to the settlement to sell those baskets you see piled on the squaws’ heads.’

“Summer was a busy time. The entire family helped to grow and gather food for the winter. The children helped in the garden patch, and little Nick pulled trout out of the brook as fast as he could bait his hook. Blackberries as big as thimbles glistened in the sun at the edge of the clearing, and thick clusters of wild grapes gave promise of being jelly in the fall. There were raspberries in the woods, but Great-grandfather didn’t want them to go picking berries without him.

“‘A big brown bear lives in the neighborhood,’ he said. ‘He has a sweet tooth. Remember how he stole the wild honey you wanted, Mother? He likes raspberries. You’d most likely meet him in the berry patch.’

“‘He wouldn’t hurt us,’ said Great-grandmother. ‘He might like raspberries. He might even make off with a lamb or a young pig, but he wouldn’t hurt a person.’

“‘I wouldn’t be too sure about that,’ said Great-grandfather. ‘Folks around here say that he’s the one who bit off Ninnecons’ fingers.’

“Great-grandmother laughed and turned back to her work. There was always work to be done in the little clearing. She made her own soap out of ashes and lye and waste fat, and she dipped candles and grew herbs in a tiny garden at the side of the cabin, so that she could make some of her own medicines.

“When the summer turned to fall the air was fragrant with the odor of smoked hams and slabs of bacon. Pumpkins were gathered, and dried corn hung from the rafters like ripe bananas. The forest turned scarlet and yellow and orange, and the slender birch trees at the outskirts looked like a lady’s white fingers held up to the blaze. Indian summer was a little breath of quiet and content, a Thanksgiving at the end of a meal. Just a moment of drowsing in the sun, listening to the ripened nuts falling from the trees and to the partridge rising, and then fall was over, and the northern winter roared in across the Great Lakes.

“During the winter the men worked in the woods cutting down the tall trees, and the women spent most of their time indoors. There was always a fire in the fireplace, and Great-grandmother would sit there spinning and knitting. She taught the children and entertained them, and she cooked and mended and baked and kept the cabin tidy. She sprinkled crumbs for the birds, and once when the snow was deep they tamed a chipmunk.

“Often, on moonlit nights, they looked out to see deer feeding in their garden. The gentle creatures would dig down into the snow with their dainty hooves and nibble at the frozen stumps of cabbages and the remains of corn and chard.”

“Why did they eat that old stuff?” asked Davey.

“Because they were hungry,” said Bill. “Very hungry. Deer almost starve in the wintertime.”

“That’s right,” said Mom. “All the creatures in the forest were hungry, but the wolves sounded hungriest of all. When they howled at night it seemed that they were right on the edge of the clearing, and Great-grandmother would pull the pieced quilt up over her head and shiver.”

“How did the children play in winter,” asked Bill. “Could they go coasting and skating like we do?”

“Yes, but they had neither skates nor sleds as we have now. Nick coasted on barrel staves and he had his own trap line, but Katy and Nell spent most of their time inside the cabin playing with calico dolls.

“One day Great-grandmother looked out to see Ninnecons and Shabeno filing past. They were followed by their patient wives who had baskets piled on their heads and papooses strapped on their backs.

“‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I feel so sorry for those poor women and for those little babies. How cold they must be. I’m going to ask them to come in to get warm.’ She threw a shawl over her head and ran to the door.

“‘Ninnecons,’ she called. ‘Shabeno, won’t you stop for a while and get warm?’

“Without answering the four of them turned off the trail and started up the path to the cabin. Nelly and Katy darted under the beds like frightened rabbits, and the baby started to cry, but Great-grandmother and Nick stood there as if they were giving a reception, and the braves walked in. The squaws stopped at the door and unfastened their papooses.”

Mom paused and looked around at the faces in the firelight.

“Do you know what they did then?” she asked.

Three mouths made circles saying “No.”

But James knew the answer. “I know, Mom,” he said with his eyes sparkling. “I remember now. They parked them outside in the snowbank.”

“That’s right,” said Mom smiling. “The squaws propped their children against the side of the cabin and followed the braves inside. The men walked over close to the fire and sat on the floor without saying a word. Great-grandmother offered chairs to the women, but they declined modestly and sat on the floor near the door. You’ve often heard the expression, ‘Like a wooden Indian.’ Well, that’s just what they were like. They sat there absorbing the heat without moving a muscle. After a while the girls picked up courage and edged out from under the bed. Little Nick was braver than the others. He came over and stood beside his mother and looked and looked. At last his curiosity got the better of his good manners. Pointing to the fingerless hand, he said to Ninnecons,

“‘Did a bear do that?’

“‘Ugh,’ said Ninnecons, ‘bear.’

“That was the extent of the conversation. In another few minutes the braves got up and walked out. The squaws picked up their baskets and babies and followed them down to the trail and then away through the silent forest.

“Many times before spring came, the Indians passed that way, but they never needed another invitation to come in to get warm. They just walked in. They weren’t being impolite. They were really being very logical and reasonable. If the white squaw wanted them in on one cold day, why not on any cold day? Great-grandmother would hear the latch click, and she’d look up from her spinning to see her brown-skinned friends glide in. Occasionally she gave them something to eat, hot tea and corn bread. Sometimes they gave her a present in return. Once she got a basket, and toward spring there were gifts of maple sugar that delighted the children.

“Great-grandmother longed for spring. She watched the buds grow large on the maple trees. Morning came earlier and evening stayed longer. One day she looked out to see a great flock of geese, with their necks outstretched, flying in perfect formation to the Canadian lakes. She called to the children to watch them.

“‘See,’ she said. ‘Spring is here at last.’

“The snow melted and it rained. It rained and rained. The road to the settlement was impassible. It was so muddy that the oxen would have bogged down at every step. Great-grandmother didn’t mind except that the sugar barrel was empty. The flour barrel was almost empty too. There was a little tea in the canister over the fireplace, and part of a slab of bacon hung from the rafters.

“‘We won’t be hungry for another week or so,’ said Great-grandmother as she poured corn meal into a bowl and stirred away at the all too familiar johnnycake.”

“What’s a johnnycake, Mom?” asked Davey.

“It’s another name for corn bread,” said Mom and she kept right on with her story.

“At the side of the cabin rose a brown hump of earth with a wooden ventilator sticking out of the top. It looked like a fat brown man sleeping with a pipe in his mouth. Do any of you children know what it was?”

They looked puzzled, but Janie had a gleam in her eye. “I think I know,” she said. “It must have been a root cellar. We saw them in New Salem where Abraham Lincoln once lived. Weren’t they used for storing potatoes and things like that?”

“That’s right,” said Mom. “It was a root cellar. Great-grandmother searched carefully, but the potatoes were gone, and the carrot bin was empty. The last of the turnips and pumpkins had been used in March. There never was a root cellar that looked more like Old Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. She picked up her candle and started to leave when she spied a crock jar in a far corner.

“‘Why they’re apples,’ she exclaimed. ‘Enough dried apples to make a pie, if only I had some sugar.’ She didn’t tell her husband about what she had found. I’ll wait until the sugar barrel comes, she thought, and surprise him.

“At last the rain stopped and the sun and the wind dried the fields and the trails. The road to Sturgeon Bay was open, and Great-grandfather started off with the ox team and the big-wheeled wagon. The trip took two days, and on the evening of the second day the creaking of the wagon wheels and the lowing of the oxen announced his return.

“How happy they were to be all together again. Great-grandfather picked the children up and swung them in the air. The little girls each got a stick of striped peppermint candy and Nick got a mouth organ. Great-grandmother got a length of calico for a new dress.

“After supper they sat in the dooryard enjoying the mild spring evening. Nick almost learned to play Yankee Doodle, and he entertained them while his father talked of the news at the settlement.

“‘I saw a Boston paper,’ he said. ‘The Texas treaty of annexation has been signed. Tyler will find himself in trouble over that. The Mexican government says it means war. The Indians have pulled out of the country along the shore of Lake Superior, and the white men are moving in fast. Bob McIntyre says that iron has been discovered at Marquette and copper at Kewanaw Point.’

“Great-grandfather leaned over and knocked the bowl of his pipe against a rock. ‘I heard something amusing, Mother,’ he said. ‘Folks say that a dentist in Hartford, Connecticut, has discovered a painless method of pulling teeth. Laughing gas, they call it. Ha! Ha! Did you ever hear of anything so far fetched?’

“‘What are they reading?’ asked Great-grandmother with her hand on her cheek.

“‘Reading, indeed,’ said her husband. ‘Sure, and they’re all too busy for that, but if it was reading they had time for it would be a book by a Frenchman, Alexander Dumas.’

“‘Yes,’ said Great-grandmother, leaning forward. ‘What is the name of the book?’

“‘It’s a novel,’ said Great-grandfather, ‘by the name of “The Count of Monte Cristo”, but that,’ he continued, ‘is of no real importance. Something wonderful and strange has happened that will conquer the space of loneliness of this great country more than anything that has happened so far. A man by the name of Morse has built a telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington. Imagine that, over forty miles.’

“‘Did he send a message?’ asked Great-grandmother. ‘What did he say?’

“Great-grandfather looked up at the first star. He said, ‘What hath God wrought?’

“Bright and early the next morning Great-grandmother took a hatchet and opened the sugar barrel. She sent Nick to the root cellar for a crock of dried apples, and she worked busily at her pie. The children stood around and watched her. My! it smelled good.

“Just as it was time for the pie to come out of the oven there was a click of the latch and who should walk in but Ninnecons and Shabeno. Oh bother, thought Great-grandmother. They will sit here all day unless I give them some, and if I cut it up there won’t be enough for Johnny when he comes home for his dinner. There are no apples to make another. Perhaps it will go around if I give them extra small pieces. She bent over the oven and lifted out the most luscious, mouth-watering apple pie that you ever saw. The Indians had never smelled anything half so good. Their nostrils widened, and their black beady eyes shone.

“‘Stop!’ she cried, picking up her rolling pin. ‘Don’t you dare run off with my pie!’

“The solemn Indians and the goggle-eyed children followed her outside. Across the clearing they raced, the great upright bear with the pie in his paws, and the angry little woman brandishing her rolling pin.

“‘Stop! Stop!’ she called out. ‘Put that pie down this instant!’

“Then something wonderful happened. The heat of the pie tin penetrated the thick leathery paws of the bear and burned him. With a roar of fright, he dropped the pie and disappeared into the woods at the edge of the clearing.

“Triumphantly, Great-grandmother picked up the pie with the edges of her apron, and bore it back to her admiring family and friends. She cut a small piece for each of the Indians and they went their way. When her husband came in for dinner he roared with laughter.

“‘Janey, Janey,’ he cried, slapping his knee with the palm of his hand. ‘What a wonder you are! I knew that you had complete mastery over me and the children, but I didn’t know that the wild beasts of the forest obeyed you!’

“Ninnecons and Shabeno were profoundly impressed. The story spread through all that part of the country, and from then on, when the Indians spoke of Great-grandmother, they called her Wee-a-gon-hee-meechie, which means ‘small squaw who chased large bear.’”

The fire was almost out. The children stirred sleepily. Daddy rose and helped Mom to her feet.

“Thank you, my dear. That was a very fine story. How does it happen that you know so much about my family?”

“Why that’s very easily explained,” answered Mom. “During the long summer evenings when Grandma and I are sitting on the porch she tells me everything of interest that has happened to the family as far back as she can remember.”