Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1895 — A BEAR’S CHRISTMAS GIFT. [ARTICLE]

A BEAR’S CHRISTMAS GIFT.

The Dude Was Not Warned by Words of Man or Growls of Beast. It was Christmas Eve in Moscow, and every one was busily preparing for the great festival of the next day, when a tall man, so muffled in a thick sheepskin frock that he might almost have been mistaken for a woolsack, came tramping over the crisp snow past the red, manytnrreted wall of the Kremlin, leading after him by, a chain a huge brown bear, which plodded gravely at his heels without taking any notice of the admiring stares and pointing fingers of the countless groups that eddied carelessly to and fro through the “Krasnaya Ploshtchad” (Red Plain). “Hello, brother,” cried a stout, redfaced, blue-frocked izvoshtchik (hackman), who was driving slowly past in search of a fare. "Where are you going with Meesha?” (i. e., Michael, the Russian nickname for a bear).

“They’re going to have him and me in a Christmas show at one of the big circuses,” replied the bear leader, “and to give us twelve rubies (nine dollars) a night. Not bad, eh?” “And by what name are you two going to appear in the bills?” asked a dandified young fellow in a smart new fur cap. “You’ll be ‘The Renowned Bear Brothers,’ I suppose.” “That’s it, my lad,” said the beast tamer; “and as bears generally have a monkey to perform along with them, hadn’t you better come and join us?” The laugh was now turned against the jester, who, irritated by the retort, took off his fur cap, and began to tease the bear by flipping him in the face with it. “You’d better stop at that game, my fine fellow,” said’ the bear’s guardian, warningly. “Meesha’s a good-natured creature enough in his way, but he don’t understand being joked with by strangers, though he doesn’t mind it from me. He’s got teeth of his own, I can tell you; and if he makes one bite at you, I rather fancy you’ll find your sum comes out wrong the next time you try to count on your fingers.” But the dude was not to be warned, either by the words of the man or the low growls of the beast, and was continuing to plague the bear, when all at once the shaggy head was thrust forward, and the huge jaws opened and shut with a snap like the falling of a steel trap. The joker drew back his hand just in time to save it, but at the same moment he saw his fine new fur cap (which had cost him seven dollars) vanish like a pill into the bear’s capacious mouth, amid a roar of laughter from the crowd. “Serves you right, young fellow,” said the bear tain er, with stern satisfaction. “You’ve made him a nice Christmas present, anyhow; and there’s no fear of your brains catching cold for want of it, for you don’t seem to have any.”