XI
A TIP ON THUNDER-STORMS
“No sir-ee! I certainly don’t like the looks of things,” said Mother Black Bear, hurrying the cubs through the green gloom of the forest aisles.
“Mrs. Porcupine is welcome to our maple tree! There’s going to be a thunder-storm, and it’s going to be a big one,” and she pointed her nose skyward to sniff.
Out over the lake the black clouds were banking up over the sky at a great rate. The cubs crowded close to her sides, as the rolling and rumbling of clouds banging together came to their ears.
The air was full of the peculiar fresh odor you always notice before a shower.
“Are you scared, mother?” Twinkly Eyes kept asking.
Mother Black Bear glanced about, this way and that.
On every side, as far as she could see, there were just five or six kinds of trees, oaks, poplars, willows, maples, elms and ash trees, all growing to nearly the same height. Here and there was a blackened trunk standing gaunt and naked where the lightning had struck. For these trees, as every woodsman knows, are the very ones most likely to be struck.
“I don’t like to get caught in these woods,” insisted Mother Black Bear, starting off at a brisk pace along the southern border of the lake. It was all the cubs could do to follow, paddling along on their chubby legs with panting breath and red tongues lolling from their little black muzzles.
“I can’t keep up,” whispered Twinkly Eyes who brought up the rear.
“Lightning waits for no one,” rumbled Mother Black Bear, refusing to slow down even a mite. A nearer crash of thunder, as the first big raindrops began to fall, sent her forward on the run.
“Where are we going?” asked Woof, who rather enjoyed the excitement.
“We’re going to find the kind of trees lightning doesn’t strike,” Mother Black Bear flung behind her without stopping.
“Beech, birch, chestnut, basswood!” She broke into a run.
“Oh, mother—those white birches over behind Pollywog pond,” gasped Woof, trying his best to keep up with her through the pelting rain.
“Just where we are headed,” rumbled Mother Black Bear. “If only—we can reach them—in time!”
A blinding flash of lightning darted down the trunk of a huge old oak to the left. This time the thunder seemed to come at the same instant.
Mother Black Bear looked back over her shoulder. Woof was close behind,—but where was Twinkly Eyes?
She turned instantly to find out.