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“The
Fisherman and the Bear”
A Maine Tall
Tale
retold by
S.E. Schlosser
One fine day an old Maine man was fishing and fishing on his
favorite lake and catching nary a thing. Finally, he gave up and walked back
along the shore to his fishing shack. When he got close to the front door, he
saw it was open. Being of a suspicious nature, he walked to the door quietly
and looked inside. There was a big black bear. It was just pulling the cork out
of his molasses jug with its teeth. The molasses spilled all over the floor and
the bear rubbed his paw in it, smearing it all over.
Well, the old man was not the timid sort. He went to the
back of the shack, put his head in the window and gave a loud yell. The bear
jumped and ran out the door. It was running strangely. The old man saw that the
bear was holding up the foot covered with molasses so it wouldn't get dirty.
The bear ran to the lake shore. Standing on its hind legs,
it held up the paw full of molasses. Soon all the flies and bugs and mosquitoes
were swarming all over the sticky sweet paw. Then the bear waded into the water
with his sticky paw full of bugs. It held the paw out over the water. Suddenly,
a big trout came jumping out of the water trying to get to the flies. The bear
gave it a swat and it flew to the shore and flopped there. Then another fish
jumped into the air after the flies, followed swiftly by another. Every time a
fish jumped after his paw, the bear cuffed it ashore. Soon it had a large pile.
Finally, the bear decided he had enough fish and waded to
shore. The bear had caught a mess of fish any fisherman would envy. The old man
had caught nothing. He watched that bear eat half a dozen trout, his stomach
rumbling. All he had for dinner was some bread and what was left of the
molasses. Finally the bear paused in his eating, and looked over to the bushes
where the old man was hidden. The bear stood up and laid the remaining fish in
a row. Then it walked away up the shore. It kept looking back at the bushes
where the old man stood.
The old man crept out of the bushes and down to the shore.
Sure enough, the bear had left six large trout for him. He looked over at the
bear. It was standing at the edge of the wood watching. "Thanks a lot,"
the old man called to the bear. The bear waved the now-clean paw at the old man
and disappeared into the thicket. "Well," said the old man,
"That's the first time a bear has ever paid me for my molasses."
The old man never hunted bears again.
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