Barrru had come. Somehow, he had escaped the storm and he had come for her. He scratched at her window with his paw then began digging joyfully at the snow around the window frame the moment he saw her. Barrru dug at the snow from the outside while she pressed against the frame from the inside. Soon the window was opened just a little. With only a little extra push from the excited girl, it swung free suddenly. The wolf bounded through as though carried on a stiff wind, right onto her little bed.
He sat on her little bed and greeted her in the way he always did, “Barrru, barrru!” And she replied as always with her best effort to mimic him, “Arrrooo, arrrooo!” She wondered if the mama or the papa would come up the ladder to see who was in her room but the snores continued undisturbed from below.
Barrru pawed at her bed somewhat impatiently and she instinctively sat down opposite him. He looked deeply into her blue eyes for a few minutes until she began to see pictures in her mind. A wolf cub was hurt, caught under a fallen tree and slowly freezing because he was stuck fast. She saw Barrru and another wolf digging wildly at the snow but their efforts were useless. The more they dug, the more snow fell in heavy plops from the over burdened branches of the trees all around them. So these small avalanches from overhead only packed the snow around the little cub a little tighter. She understood almost in an instant that Barrru believed she had some magic to save his cub. He had come to her for help.
She thought for a moment then turned and scampered down the ladder. She returned a minute later with two flour sacks into one of which she had placed a quantity of jerky, some biscuits, some hickory nuts, some fried bacon from the pantry and a few boiled eggs. Into the other she put the nightshirt that she had been wearing, the dolly, and her other treasures. She slipped into her dress, pulled on her coat and her heavy shoes then tied the ends of the two sacks together and slung them around her neck. She smiled and nodded to Barrru. With amazing agility, he turned and bounded back through her window, almost floating as if some magic wind kept him slightly aloft. She was not so sleek and lean as he. The girl was weighed down with supplies and broader than usual. She struggled to fit both her parcels and herself through the small window and so became stuck fast.
The pressing nature of their mission propelled whatever fears any small girl might have in a similar situation right out into the still twilight forest beyond. She steeled herself against fear and focused every feathery shred of power within her small form on the need to pass through. She wiggled and wriggled with a strength in her body that she had never felt before and popped through like the weasel in the children’s song. Plop!
They slid a short distance from the peak of the roof, landing lightly on the snow that had been packed tightly against the back wall. Barrru gallantly paused and offered the little girl his back to ride upon. He was large enough to be her steed and she recognized how much more quickly they could go if she accepted his offer. So up she climbed. She wrapped her small arms around his soft neck then he broke into an elegant and gentle gallop as fine as any horse.
They traveled briskly through the trees. Barrru artfully chose a course that avoided the low branches. Branches now hanging even lower than usual because of the deep snow. The girl also took no chances. She kept her face buried in Barrru’s warm soft fur, her head lower than his during the whole ride. She barely saw where they went. Certainly, she knew that she’d never find her way back alone.
At times, the urgency of their passing disturbed an owl or some other large bird who would scold them soundly from above though they passed by most of her sleeping kingdom with very little notice. She spied a group of elk snugly huddled together in some brush, their heads reverently bowed nose to nose with their little ones in the center. She saw a raccoon snoozing in the hollow of a massive tree. She was sure when he had gone to bed for the night that his den had been a good deal higher off the ground. Wouldn’t he be surprised when he woke this morning? She giggled at the thought of the raccoon’s shock when he sleepily crawled out of his bed and discovered that snow was now his doorstep.
Her subjects seemed to all have found good ways to shelter themselves and their families from the storm. Though she worried about Barrru’s cub, her heart was very much lightened by the evidence that most of her friends had survived the storm admirably. She took another look around again and was surprised how much the light had changed already. The dawn had come again without her or her feathers!
She was a little disappointed that the sun could rise without any help from her but still she was glad to see the sun. The heavy clouds of the night and day before had brought all of the trouble. Now the warm sunlight could help with the clean up.
Barrru came to a stop so abruptly that she tumbled over his shoulders and landed with a soft plop in a snow bank. She was still slightly cross about the dawn so she took a couple of moments to compose herself before seeing the humor. She chuckled at her foolish dismount and Barrru seemed to chuckle with her very briefly. Then he looked very somber and nodded his head toward a fallen tree.
Her eyes scanned the length of the tree several times but she saw no sign of a cub. Barrru sniffed the ground carefully then walked confidently to the very spot where his son slept, now a very weak boy from the cold and the struggle. His small hips were firmly wedged between two very thick and snow crusted branches which in turn were lodged against a large rock, much larger than even the largest elk. She could see how no amount of gnawing or digging would free the little fellow.
What she could not see at first was how she could help. She had not thought to bring along any of the papa’s tools but she knew she had no idea how to use them anyway. She didn’t have the strength to break the branches or move the rock and no amount of wiggling was going to extract the cub from his predicament. She sat down and thought deeply for a little while.
She jumped to her feet, shocked by her foolishness and how she had allowed Barrru’s son to suffer. She could have offered him comfort and life saving warmth all that time she’d been pondering and it was still slung around her neck. She reached into her supplies and drew out a small blanket which she gingerly and gently tucked around the little cub’s ice cold body. He was startled at first by those blue eyes, her strange smell, and appearance. His father knelt down near him. Barrru spoke something softly into the little cub’s ear and the cub nodded to his father then he relaxed, even managing the shadow of a smile for the girl. An unmistakable smile of gratitude. She felt warm head to foot then.
Next she took out some lengths of twine she had found hanging from a peg in the big room of the cabin. She pulled the smaller branches away from the cub and tied them with the twine so that sunlight could warm him also. Finally, she pulled out a small amount of bacon and biscuit and had breakfast with the now extremely grateful cub. Barrru beamed at her, his eyes twinkling, his tail swishing in great sweeps from strong emotion. He whispered one sound in her ear, “Rrru”. By this, she knew he meant it was his son’s name. She repeated the sound and gave the cub a warm smile to let him know that she would think of something.
And think she did. Almost without rest, she sat and pondered the problem for two whole days. She thought so hard that tears began to well in her eyes. And she tended the child. Melting snow with the warmth of her own hands so he could have a little warm water to drink and feeding him from her meager rations. She was very grateful when little Rrru seemed so much stronger and more hopeful than when she arrived. She had realized that starving the little fellow wasn’t going to allow him to slip from this trap. The branches held him snugly at the middle so that neither his hips nor his shoulders could become lean enough to fit through.
That night she was so tired she simply could not think anymore. Barrru saw how worn the child was and knew she must rest. He wrapped himself around her for warmth as they did in the pack on cold nights and the two fell sound asleep until the sun rose.
She knew she needed some strong friends to help her with the idea that came into her mind while she slept. She looked deeply into Barrru’s eyes and did her best to put pictures in his mind as he had done for her. She wanted to ask him if he had any close friends who were strong enough and willing enough to lend their strength to the rescue.
She could only assume his answer was positive, because he ran off full speed without any sort of reply. She spent her time searching for a strong branch while he was gone. The idea she had would require Barrru’s muscular friends to take the branch and wedge it somehow under the large rock then using it to roll the rock very carefully away from the cub.
She was overjoyed when she discovered exactly the right piece of wood just as she heard Barrru’s familiar call approaching her rapidly. He appeared first then his three strong friends came crashing along heavily behind him. They were bears! Three hulking, heavily muscled, ferocious looking brown bears.
The girl showed him the limb she had found. Then concentrating very hard, she did her best to communicate her idea to him. Barrru began to bark instructions to the bears who seemed to comprehend what was needed because they took the heavy branch over to the rock at once.
With amazing alacrity, bears are seldom speedy except when running from bees or accepting a free meal, the three deftly maneuvered the branch between a medium sized cleft at the bottom of the big rock and the frozen ground below. The girl watched the three in awe. She never guessed that a bear could be anything but clumsy, strong but clumsy. These three appeared to be the usual mass of animated muscle, but clearly they had brains beneath those flat broad faces and some skill with those big, heavily clawed, dangerous looking paws.
They took very great care that the boulder moved away from the cub, almost gently they rolled the rock away. Very tenderly, the largest of three plucked the little cub from the trap, held him very close to his considerable nose, and sniffed.
The girl held her breath. She was terrified for the boy. The boy though was not the least bit afraid. He even broke into the wolf cub equivalent of giggling. So piercingly high were these sounds he made that some of the sun warmed icicles in nearby trees came crashing down about them.
Barrru turned a shrewd eye to the girl when he heard her sigh with relief. It was his turn to sigh and then break into a canine belly laugh, complete with rolling on the cold ground. Now she was a bit indignant. She suspected that part of his amusement was directed toward her. The suspicion entered her mind when she caught that look in his eye just before he melted into laughter. She was just a shade angry. She marched right up to his convulsing form and caught his eyes. She focused her mind deep into those inky pupils of his and asked, “Just what is SO funny?”
Barrru returned her fierce gaze only with a kindly smile and warmth in his eyes. She heard him say, “You thought he was going to EAT him. Didn’t you? Admit it, you did! You’re prejudiced! So now you know, bears are friends. They eat fish and honey mostly, a few other small things here and there but NOT wolf and certainly not little girls!”
Barrru returned to a state of helpless convulsive laughter while she returned to her resting spot and pouted. His laughter died down, but soon enough, the bears joined him. They were laughing from deep in their furry bellies all because she was sure Barrru had explained the joke to them. They were all laughing at her. She pouted.
She was feeling terribly sorry for herself. She felt a fool but she also felt they were terribly ungrateful subjects. Here she’d spent all this time figuring out how to save the little cub and even feeding him her own food and what do they do? They laugh at her, that’s what. She even started to cry a little because she felt so sorry for herself. Then between sobs an awful thought occurred to her. It had been two suns and one moon now since she left the little cabin. She had never been gone for even a whole day from the mama and the papa. She had left them sleeping. She had left them snowbound. The little window in her room was barely large enough for her small form. Certainly neither of her parents could squeeze through. They were trapped in the little cabin. They were no doubt very much afraid and wondering what might have happened to her.
The laughter had stopped and now they were all looking at her with sincerely concerned eyes. Barrru strode up to her and looked into her tearful eyes with deep apology in his own. She sent her thoughts urgently to him. All the thoughts that had flooded her mind poured into his like an unexpected spring. Barrru nodded. She scrambled onto his back and off they went like a thought through the trees.
Chapter Four
He sat on her little bed and greeted her in the way he always did, “Barrru, barrru!” And she replied as always with her best effort to mimic him, “Arrrooo, arrrooo!” She wondered if the mama or the papa would come up the ladder to see who was in her room but the snores continued undisturbed from below.
Barrru pawed at her bed somewhat impatiently and she instinctively sat down opposite him. He looked deeply into her blue eyes for a few minutes until she began to see pictures in her mind. A wolf cub was hurt, caught under a fallen tree and slowly freezing because he was stuck fast. She saw Barrru and another wolf digging wildly at the snow but their efforts were useless. The more they dug, the more snow fell in heavy plops from the over burdened branches of the trees all around them. So these small avalanches from overhead only packed the snow around the little cub a little tighter. She understood almost in an instant that Barrru believed she had some magic to save his cub. He had come to her for help.
She thought for a moment then turned and scampered down the ladder. She returned a minute later with two flour sacks into one of which she had placed a quantity of jerky, some biscuits, some hickory nuts, some fried bacon from the pantry and a few boiled eggs. Into the other she put the nightshirt that she had been wearing, the dolly, and her other treasures. She slipped into her dress, pulled on her coat and her heavy shoes then tied the ends of the two sacks together and slung them around her neck. She smiled and nodded to Barrru. With amazing agility, he turned and bounded back through her window, almost floating as if some magic wind kept him slightly aloft. She was not so sleek and lean as he. The girl was weighed down with supplies and broader than usual. She struggled to fit both her parcels and herself through the small window and so became stuck fast.
The pressing nature of their mission propelled whatever fears any small girl might have in a similar situation right out into the still twilight forest beyond. She steeled herself against fear and focused every feathery shred of power within her small form on the need to pass through. She wiggled and wriggled with a strength in her body that she had never felt before and popped through like the weasel in the children’s song. Plop!
They slid a short distance from the peak of the roof, landing lightly on the snow that had been packed tightly against the back wall. Barrru gallantly paused and offered the little girl his back to ride upon. He was large enough to be her steed and she recognized how much more quickly they could go if she accepted his offer. So up she climbed. She wrapped her small arms around his soft neck then he broke into an elegant and gentle gallop as fine as any horse.
They traveled briskly through the trees. Barrru artfully chose a course that avoided the low branches. Branches now hanging even lower than usual because of the deep snow. The girl also took no chances. She kept her face buried in Barrru’s warm soft fur, her head lower than his during the whole ride. She barely saw where they went. Certainly, she knew that she’d never find her way back alone.
At times, the urgency of their passing disturbed an owl or some other large bird who would scold them soundly from above though they passed by most of her sleeping kingdom with very little notice. She spied a group of elk snugly huddled together in some brush, their heads reverently bowed nose to nose with their little ones in the center. She saw a raccoon snoozing in the hollow of a massive tree. She was sure when he had gone to bed for the night that his den had been a good deal higher off the ground. Wouldn’t he be surprised when he woke this morning? She giggled at the thought of the raccoon’s shock when he sleepily crawled out of his bed and discovered that snow was now his doorstep.
Her subjects seemed to all have found good ways to shelter themselves and their families from the storm. Though she worried about Barrru’s cub, her heart was very much lightened by the evidence that most of her friends had survived the storm admirably. She took another look around again and was surprised how much the light had changed already. The dawn had come again without her or her feathers!
She was a little disappointed that the sun could rise without any help from her but still she was glad to see the sun. The heavy clouds of the night and day before had brought all of the trouble. Now the warm sunlight could help with the clean up.
Barrru came to a stop so abruptly that she tumbled over his shoulders and landed with a soft plop in a snow bank. She was still slightly cross about the dawn so she took a couple of moments to compose herself before seeing the humor. She chuckled at her foolish dismount and Barrru seemed to chuckle with her very briefly. Then he looked very somber and nodded his head toward a fallen tree.
Her eyes scanned the length of the tree several times but she saw no sign of a cub. Barrru sniffed the ground carefully then walked confidently to the very spot where his son slept, now a very weak boy from the cold and the struggle. His small hips were firmly wedged between two very thick and snow crusted branches which in turn were lodged against a large rock, much larger than even the largest elk. She could see how no amount of gnawing or digging would free the little fellow.
What she could not see at first was how she could help. She had not thought to bring along any of the papa’s tools but she knew she had no idea how to use them anyway. She didn’t have the strength to break the branches or move the rock and no amount of wiggling was going to extract the cub from his predicament. She sat down and thought deeply for a little while.
She jumped to her feet, shocked by her foolishness and how she had allowed Barrru’s son to suffer. She could have offered him comfort and life saving warmth all that time she’d been pondering and it was still slung around her neck. She reached into her supplies and drew out a small blanket which she gingerly and gently tucked around the little cub’s ice cold body. He was startled at first by those blue eyes, her strange smell, and appearance. His father knelt down near him. Barrru spoke something softly into the little cub’s ear and the cub nodded to his father then he relaxed, even managing the shadow of a smile for the girl. An unmistakable smile of gratitude. She felt warm head to foot then.
Next she took out some lengths of twine she had found hanging from a peg in the big room of the cabin. She pulled the smaller branches away from the cub and tied them with the twine so that sunlight could warm him also. Finally, she pulled out a small amount of bacon and biscuit and had breakfast with the now extremely grateful cub. Barrru beamed at her, his eyes twinkling, his tail swishing in great sweeps from strong emotion. He whispered one sound in her ear, “Rrru”. By this, she knew he meant it was his son’s name. She repeated the sound and gave the cub a warm smile to let him know that she would think of something.
And think she did. Almost without rest, she sat and pondered the problem for two whole days. She thought so hard that tears began to well in her eyes. And she tended the child. Melting snow with the warmth of her own hands so he could have a little warm water to drink and feeding him from her meager rations. She was very grateful when little Rrru seemed so much stronger and more hopeful than when she arrived. She had realized that starving the little fellow wasn’t going to allow him to slip from this trap. The branches held him snugly at the middle so that neither his hips nor his shoulders could become lean enough to fit through.
That night she was so tired she simply could not think anymore. Barrru saw how worn the child was and knew she must rest. He wrapped himself around her for warmth as they did in the pack on cold nights and the two fell sound asleep until the sun rose.
She knew she needed some strong friends to help her with the idea that came into her mind while she slept. She looked deeply into Barrru’s eyes and did her best to put pictures in his mind as he had done for her. She wanted to ask him if he had any close friends who were strong enough and willing enough to lend their strength to the rescue.
She could only assume his answer was positive, because he ran off full speed without any sort of reply. She spent her time searching for a strong branch while he was gone. The idea she had would require Barrru’s muscular friends to take the branch and wedge it somehow under the large rock then using it to roll the rock very carefully away from the cub.
She was overjoyed when she discovered exactly the right piece of wood just as she heard Barrru’s familiar call approaching her rapidly. He appeared first then his three strong friends came crashing along heavily behind him. They were bears! Three hulking, heavily muscled, ferocious looking brown bears.
The girl showed him the limb she had found. Then concentrating very hard, she did her best to communicate her idea to him. Barrru began to bark instructions to the bears who seemed to comprehend what was needed because they took the heavy branch over to the rock at once.
With amazing alacrity, bears are seldom speedy except when running from bees or accepting a free meal, the three deftly maneuvered the branch between a medium sized cleft at the bottom of the big rock and the frozen ground below. The girl watched the three in awe. She never guessed that a bear could be anything but clumsy, strong but clumsy. These three appeared to be the usual mass of animated muscle, but clearly they had brains beneath those flat broad faces and some skill with those big, heavily clawed, dangerous looking paws.
They took very great care that the boulder moved away from the cub, almost gently they rolled the rock away. Very tenderly, the largest of three plucked the little cub from the trap, held him very close to his considerable nose, and sniffed.
The girl held her breath. She was terrified for the boy. The boy though was not the least bit afraid. He even broke into the wolf cub equivalent of giggling. So piercingly high were these sounds he made that some of the sun warmed icicles in nearby trees came crashing down about them.
Barrru turned a shrewd eye to the girl when he heard her sigh with relief. It was his turn to sigh and then break into a canine belly laugh, complete with rolling on the cold ground. Now she was a bit indignant. She suspected that part of his amusement was directed toward her. The suspicion entered her mind when she caught that look in his eye just before he melted into laughter. She was just a shade angry. She marched right up to his convulsing form and caught his eyes. She focused her mind deep into those inky pupils of his and asked, “Just what is SO funny?”
Barrru returned her fierce gaze only with a kindly smile and warmth in his eyes. She heard him say, “You thought he was going to EAT him. Didn’t you? Admit it, you did! You’re prejudiced! So now you know, bears are friends. They eat fish and honey mostly, a few other small things here and there but NOT wolf and certainly not little girls!”
Barrru returned to a state of helpless convulsive laughter while she returned to her resting spot and pouted. His laughter died down, but soon enough, the bears joined him. They were laughing from deep in their furry bellies all because she was sure Barrru had explained the joke to them. They were all laughing at her. She pouted.
She was feeling terribly sorry for herself. She felt a fool but she also felt they were terribly ungrateful subjects. Here she’d spent all this time figuring out how to save the little cub and even feeding him her own food and what do they do? They laugh at her, that’s what. She even started to cry a little because she felt so sorry for herself. Then between sobs an awful thought occurred to her. It had been two suns and one moon now since she left the little cabin. She had never been gone for even a whole day from the mama and the papa. She had left them sleeping. She had left them snowbound. The little window in her room was barely large enough for her small form. Certainly neither of her parents could squeeze through. They were trapped in the little cabin. They were no doubt very much afraid and wondering what might have happened to her.
The laughter had stopped and now they were all looking at her with sincerely concerned eyes. Barrru strode up to her and looked into her tearful eyes with deep apology in his own. She sent her thoughts urgently to him. All the thoughts that had flooded her mind poured into his like an unexpected spring. Barrru nodded. She scrambled onto his back and off they went like a thought through the trees.
Chapter Four
No One Home
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