Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 May 1898 — Hawthorne’s Bear Story. [ARTICLE]

Hawthorne’s Bear Story.

In “Hawthorne’s First Diary,” begun at his home in Raymond, Maine, when he was a small boy, he tells a bear story, which is vouched for by his editor. Hawthorne gives it as follows: Mr. Henry Turner of Otisfield took his ax and went out between Saturday and Moose ponds, to look at some pinetrees. A rain had just taken off enough of the snow to lay bare the roots of a part of the trees. Under a large root there seemed to be a cavity, and on examining closely, something was exposed very much like long black hair. He cut off the root, saw the nose of a bear, and killed him, pulled out the body, saw another, killed that, and dragged out the carcass, when he found that there was a. third one in the den, and that he was thoroughly awake, too; but as soon as the head came in sight, it was split open with the ax, so that Mr. Turner alone, with only an ax, killed three bears in less than half an hour, the youngest being a goodsized one, and what the hunters call a yearling. This is a pretty good bear story, but probably true, and happened only a few weeks ago; for John Patch, who was here with his father, Gapt. Len Patch, who lives within two miles of Saturday Pond, told me eo yesterday.