Arthur Scott Bailey

The Tale of Cuffy Bear Arthur Scott Bailey

For a few minutes Cuffy stood in the doorway and blinked and blinked. He rubbed his eyes, for thebright sunlight hurt them. But soon he and Silkie were frisking and tumbling about in the front-yard. After a little while Cuffy remembered that there was an old tree over in the pine woods-just thefinest tree to climb that anybody could want."Let's go over to the old tree and play," Cuffy said."But Mother told us not to go far away," Silkie reminded him."Oh! I don't care," Cuffy said. "Besides, we'll be back before she knows it."But Silkie would not go with him. So naughty Cuffy started off alone for the pine woods. He foundthe old tree. It seemed smaller than he expected. The reason for that was because Cuffy himself hadgrown tall during the months that he had spent in sleep. He climbed the tree to the very top and as he looked down over the snow he saw something movinga little way off. Whatever it was, it was much smaller than Cuffy himself, so he was not afraid. Andhe scrambled down to the ground and ran as fast as he could go to the place where he saw the smallthing moving. Cuffy wanted to see what it was. He was always like that. Cuffy found a little animal covered with stiff, sharp quills and he knew that it was a porcupine. Andall at once Cuffy felt very hungry. He remembered that his father had sometimes brought homeporcupine meat and-yes, Cuffy actually smacked his lips! His mother was always telling him not tosmack his lips, but Cuffy forgot all about it now. As Cuffy came running up Mr. Porcupine rolled himself into a round ball and lay perfectly still. Now, Cuffy remembered that his father had often told him never to touch a porcupine, because ifhe should he would get his paws stuck full of quills. But now Cuffy decided that he would show hisfather that he too was clever enough to kill a porcupine. So he stepped close to the little round, prickly ball and gave it one good, hard cuff