by Ruth
He was racing toward the edge of the forest, back toward the place where the homeward trail began. At least, he hoped he was running toward that place. He knew the trail was so faint that it would be hard to find.
He glanced back over his shoulder. The bear wasn’t coming after him. Not yet. It was still in the same place.
He stopped a few feet away from the edge of the woods. Now he was near a narrow clearing that cut deep into the forest. Was that where the trail began? He thought so.
As he turned around to watch the bear, the puppy in his arms gave a wiggle. Beanie almost dropped him. He tucked him inside his shirt and buttoned him in and held him with one hand. But he didn’t take his eyes off the bear.
It had eaten up his candy and it was licking its mouth. Then its tongue went sliding over Beanie’s gun. It was looking for more candy.
Next, it took the gun in its jaws, gave it an angry shake, and dropped it. It lifted its head and pointed its nose. It was aiming its nose straight at Beanie and the puppy.
Beanie didn’t wait a second more. Off he started. He went running along in the clearing—the clearing he hoped was the beginning of the trail.
“First my candy,” he thought to himself, “then my gun, then my pup and me. We’re next.”
Weeds switched his feet. Leaves slapped his head and his shoulders. Branches scratched him. His heart was thumping, his breath was coming in gasps.
Was he on the right trail? He didn’t think so now. Was the bear following him? He didn’t know. But soon he got so tired that he had to stop.
He stood till he got back his breath. And as he stood he patted and smoothed Tough Enough, who was having a small fit of the wiggles.
Then Beanie went on again. He was looking for the leafy tunnel through the rhododendron bushes. But he didn’t even see any rhododendron bushes.
He heard a far-off crackling. It sounded like some heavy animal pushing through underbrush.
“It’s that bear comin’ after us,” he whispered.
He started off again as fast as he could go. Blackberry briers tore at his overalls. A sharp twig knocked off his cap. He didn’t stop to pick it up.
When at last he halted and stood listening, the forest was still—so quiet that, when the puppy yawned, Beanie could hear the faint yawny noise he made.
Beanie began to look for the trail again. He went this way and he went that way and he went the other way. But he couldn’t see a sign of the trail.
“We’re lost,” he said to the puppy. “We’re plumb lost.” But he went on just the same.
At last, as he looked toward some locust trees, the forest seemed a little brighter there.
“It must be the edge of the woods over yonder,” he said. “I reckon a cliff drops off there. Reckon, if I scrouge right close to the edge I’ll get a view. If I can just only see where we’re at, we can get goin’ home.”
He began to make his way toward that brightness.
When he knew he must be almost at the edge he stopped. Then slowly and carefully he began to move forward. He was inching across a grassy hump like a green pillow. Trees were hanging their leafy screens all around him.
He leaned forward. He was hoping for a view. He moved one of his feet—pushed it nearer the edge, then still nearer. …
Suddenly he was falling—falling and grabbing at the air with both hands. The green pillow under his feet had given way.
He didn’t drop very far. He landed with a bump on a rocky shelf below—landed sitting down. The jolt threw the puppy out of his shirt—out and spinning, spinning, spinning down.
Beanie watched his puppy fall—watched him wiggling and pawing as he turned over and over. He saw him land in a clump of bushes, he heard his terrified ‘YIPE!”
Out of those bushes the puppy came pushing and twisting and squeezing. He struggled to his feet. Then he ran into the woods below. Beanie couldn’t see him any more.
“Here pup, here pup, here pup!” he shouted. He whistled and he whistled and he whistled. But the little dog didn’t come back.
“He’s gone,” Beanie said. “My puppy’s gone.”
He felt like crying. But he swallowed a lump in his throat and rubbed his eyes with his fists.
And now, for the first time since his fall, he took a long look at the valley beneath.
“Lan’s alive!” he said. “I know right where I’m at.”
Down below lay Sourwood Cove, his home valley. He could see the Tatum farm. He could even see the Tatum cabin.
“But how am I goin’ to get home?” he asked himself. “Can I climb down?”
He looked at the steep rocks below and he knew he couldn’t climb down.
He couldn’t move far to the left, along the rock shelf he was on. He couldn’t move far to the right. On both sides of him that shelf narrowed till there wasn’t any shelf at all.
“Well, up is the only way,” he said to himself. “Now if I can just only skitter up like a squirrel. …”
Over and over and over again he tried to climb the rocks above. Over and over and over he slipped back.
“Whee-ee-ew!” he panted. “How in the world can I ever get home—to my ma and my pa and Buck, and Serena and Irby and Annie Mae, and Sour Bone and Nip and Cookie, and Whizz and Barbie and Pinky Nose? How can I?”
The sun had climbed higher. Waves of heat were dancing around Beanie. He felt hot, he felt thirsty, he felt very hungry.
“I’ve just got to perten up,” he said to himself. “I reckon if I sing I’ll perten up.”
He began to sing part of his Tatum song:
Old bobcat eats the fox,
He eats him smack, smack, smack.
He eats him chomp, chomp, chomp.
He eats him cronch, cronch, cronch.
Old bobcat eats the fox,
But he’s got to catch him first.
He’s a-huntin’ for his supper,
Keeps a-huntin’ for his supper—
That—old—cat.
Old bear he eats the cat,
He eats him smack, smack, smack.
He eats him chomp, chomp, chomp.
He eats him cronch, cronch, cronch.
Old bear he eats the cat,
But he’s got to catch him first.
He’s a-sniffin’ for his supper,
Keeps a-sniffin’ for his supper—
That—old—bear.
Beanie stopped singing. Instead of cheering him up the song had made him hungrier.
He forced himself to start climbing. “This time I’ll do it,” he said. “I’ll do it, I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”
He scrabbled and he scratched and he snaked himself up and up and up—clawing with his fingers, scraping with his knees, digging in with his toes.
Now he had fought his way up much higher than before. But all for nothing, it seemed. He began to slip and slide and slither back again.
His right hand shot up. He grabbed the root of a tree—a root hanging down like a rope. He pulled himself up till his left hand got hold of another root.
Then tug and hoist and haul, he heaved himself into a blackberry bush above the rocks.
Briers were pricking him. He didn’t care. He hardly felt them. He just lay panting and resting, glad he had done it, done it.
Pretty soon he got up. Going home would be easy, now. He followed gentle slopes and took a long roundabout way downward.
After a while he was under the rocks at the place where his puppy had vanished into the woods.
He hunted here and he hunted there. He hunted all around. “Here puppy,” he kept calling. “Here pup, here pup, here pup!”
But he couldn’t find his puppy. No. He couldn’t.
At last he gave up. He made a new start—toward home. His throat felt tight. His feet felt heavy. Tears in his eyes kept making the woods a green blur.
Long early-morning shadows had turned into fat noonday shadows by the time Beanie saw the Tatum cabin sitting snug and weathered gray in its clearing.
All of a sudden the air was full of noise. Tatum dogs, Sour Bone and Nip and Whizz, were barking and running toward Beanie.
Tatums came hurrying from the cabin—father and mother and Buck and Serena and Irby and Annie Mae.
Barbie and Pinky Nose, the cats, didn’t come running, though. They couldn’t. They were busy. They were very busy sleeping.
Cookie, the fat cat, did start to come. But she just took three steps and sat down.
The Tatums and the Tatum dogs gave Beanie a wonderful welcome. And Annie Mae kept telling him he had got home in time for his birthday dinner and his great big choc’laty birthday cake.
Beanie didn’t say much till his mother’s arms were around him. And then he burst right out: “Oh, Ma, I tore my shirt and I tore my overalls and I lost my gun and I lost my cap and I lost my candy and I lost my puppy.”
His mother said gently, “Beanie, you haven’t lost your puppy. He came home all by himself. He was plumb tuckered out and he’s sound asleep, round by the back steps.”
“Yip, yip, yip, yip, yip!” came a lot of excited yippings.
“Well!” said Beanie’s mother. “Look behind you.”
Beanie turned and looked. And there was Tough Enough, himself, running toward him just as fast as he could make his short legs go.
Beanie picked him up and held him close. The puppy licked every bit of Beanie he could reach.
Early that afternoon, Beanie and Tough Enough were on their way to the woodpile. They were full of birthday dinner and choc’laty birthday cake. Tightly and wonderfully full.
Beanie was singing gaily:
Old man he eats the bear,
He eats him smack, smack, smack.
He eats him chomp, chomp, chomp.
He eats him cronch, cronch, cronch.
Old man he eats the bear,
But he’s got to shoot him first.
He’s a-huntin’ for his supper,
Keeps a-huntin’ for his supper—
That—old—man.
Beanie picked up some stovewood sticks—all the sticks he could carry. He began to tote them toward the cabin. He was smiling.
He looked back at Tough Enough. The puppy had a twig in his mouth. His proud head was holding it high.
He dropped it close to Beanie’s feet, then he lay down on his back. His eyes were dancing. He put up his paws and he put up his stomach and he wiggled them at Beanie.
Tough Enough
To
Miss Margaret Hamilton Ligon, Head of Asheville Libraries, Asheville, North Carolina.
Mrs. Bessie Ralston, Children’s Librarian, Pack Memorial Public Library, Asheville, North Carolina.
Miss Margaret Johnston, Librarian, Haywood County Public Library, Waynesville, North Carolina.
BEANIE Tatum lived on a farm high in the Great Smoky Mountains. He had three toys of his very own, but he couldn’t play with any of them. His red express wagon had a broken wheel. The broad rubber band on his slingshot had split in two. And he couldn’t play with a waterwheel his grandfather had whittled out for him, because Tatum Creek was frozen.
But he did have something alive to play with, something of his very own. It was a puppy named Tough Enough.
All the Tatums loved Tough Enough, at first. “Good dog, good dog, good dog,” they said to him. He wanted to be very close to them. He lay on laps and warmed them up because, then, they warmed him up.
If he liked anybody, and he liked everybody, he licked him. He used to lick the Tatums, especially Beanie. He loved Beanie best of all.
He seemed always to be hungry. When he ate, he ate fast and made small gulpy noises. Pa Tatum used to watch him and listen to him. He would laugh and slap his leg and say, “That’s the eatin’est dog!”
Tough Enough was very small, but he grew just a little every day. And the older and stronger he grew, the faster he got around and the bigger ideas he had. Some of the things he thought of, to do, were very bad things to do.
He was so little and so quick that, half the time, the Tatums didn’t see what he was up to until he had done something bad and was ready to do something else. So some of the Tatums started not to love him so much.
Ma Tatum loved him until the time he got into the bookmobile. This was a truck with shelves built into its sides. Rows and rows and rows of books stood on those shelves.
Once, every three weeks, the bookmobile would go pushing up the road toward the Tatum farm. The Tatums and other mountain people would borrow books and keep them till the next time the bookmobile came. So it was really a little library on wheels.
A librarian drove it and she also kept track of the books. The mountain people called her the book lady. She always brought her lunch in a cardboard box.
One time, Tough Enough sniffed out her lunch. He grabbed it. He ran off with it. He tore a hole in the box and he ate up a chicken sandwich, a jelly sandwich, a cup cake and a hardboiled egg.
Ma Tatum looked very sad. She went into the kitchen. She cooked the librarian some cabbage with fatback and ham and fried apples. She said she had never ever felt so mortified. So she didn’t love Tough Enough so much. “Bad dog!” she said to him.
Buck, the oldest Tatum boy, loved Tough Enough until the morning he had trouble in the forest. He was bringing out some logs to be chopped into stove wood. He had piled them on a sled. Pal, the Tatum horse, was pulling it.
Tough Enough ran after Pal and barked and barked and barked at his heels. Pal began to gallop. Buck couldn’t manage him, at all.
Pretty soon Pal slewed the sled into a stump. It turned over and spilled out the logs.
Buck had to unhook Pal’s harness. He had to straighten out the reins and set the sled back on its runners. He had to lift the logs back and hitch up Pal again.
So Buck didn’t love Tough Enough so much. And neither did Pal, the horse.
Serena, the oldest Tatum girl, loved Tough Enough until, one day, she hung out a big wash on a line. Tough Enough liked to chew things. He grabbed a leg of some overalls hanging on the line. He pulled.
Down came the overalls. Tough Enough growled a lot of happy little growls. He shook those overalls. He dragged them across the yard and he got them dirty. Serena had to wash them all over again. So she didn’t love Tough Enough so much.
Irby, the next oldest Tatum boy, loved Tough Enough until Tough Enough dug a hole under the pigpen. The pigs in the pen were Irby’s pigs. Tough Enough wanted to get in and have a good visit with them.
When he finished digging he backed out to scratch a sudden flea. Before he could squeeze into the hole again seven little pigs squeezed out—one by one, push push push, grunt grunt grunt.
Tough Enough had a fine time chasing them. But Irby had a hard time finding them and catching them. So Irby didn’t love Tough Enough so much.
Annie Mae, the youngest Tatum girl, loved Tough Enough until he chewed up the quilt she was piecing. After that she didn’t love him so much. “Bad dog, bad dog, bad dog” she used to say to him.
Grandma Tatum and Grandpa Tatum loved Tough Enough until a little while after Grandma Tatum fried heaps and heaps of chicken for a great big family home-coming. Dozens and dozens of Beanie’s kinsfolk came. There were eleven aunts and fifteen uncles and thirty-one cousins and two other grandparents and seven great-aunts and five great-uncles.
Tough Enough ran round and round smelling the chicken smell. Then he rushed at a pile of chicken. He grabbed a big chicken breast and he scattered a lot of chicken parts around. There were wings and breasts and drumsticks and second joints all over the place.
So Grandma Tatum didn’t love Tough Enough so much. And neither did Grandpa Tatum. And neither did the eleven aunts and the fifteen uncles and the thirty-one cousins and the two other grandparents and the seven great-aunts and the five great-uncles.
Beanie’s teacher loved Tough Enough until Beanie and some other boys and girls in his class were practicing a square dance. Tough Enough was there, too—he had followed the school bus all the way to sc
hool.
He rushed right into the middle of the dance. He ran to Beanie’s feet and caught hold of a leg of his overalls and hung on.
Beanie tripped over him and fell down ker-plop. Beanie’s partner tripped over Beanie and fell down ker-plop. And the other two children Beanie and his partner had been dancing with tripped over Beanie and his partner and fell down ker-plop, ker-plop.
So Beanie’s teacher didn’t love Tough Enough so much.
But Pa Tatum still loved Tough Enough because he had given him to Beanie and because he thought Tough Enough was a funny dog. Sometimes, when Tough Enough did a bad thing, Pa Tatum would slap his leg and laugh and shout, “That little old triflin’, flea-bit’, feisty, no-account, ornery, eatin’est, into-everything hound!”
And Beanie still loved Tough Enough more than anybody else loved Tough Enough.
But there came a time when Beanie was afraid that even his father wouldn’t love Tough Enough any more. That was when he caught his dog doing a bad thing. Really bad. The worst thing Tough Enough had ever done.
It happened early one morning. Beanie heard squawk, squawk, squawk – yipe, yipe, yipe – grr-r-r, grr-r-r, grr-r-r. Those noises were coming out of the barn.
He hurried in. He was so surprised by what he saw that, for a moment, he just stood and looked.
Tough Enough was trying to pull a hen off her nest. She was Little Queen, Annie Mae’s pet bantam hen. He had her by her tail feathers. He was tugging away in the middle of a small feather storm. Flap, flap, flap, she was flapping her wings. Peck, peck, peck, she pecked at him till he caught her by the neck.
