THE BIGGEST BLACKBERRY PICKER.

BY W. O. STODDARD.

Dot Calliper had come out on the mountain-side, with all the rest of them, after blackberries.

She had picked her little pail full industriously, but she was too fat and too small to climb any further among the rocks and stumps and bushes, so they had left her there, in the shade of the great chestnut-tree, to watch the milk-pails.

Not that there was any milk in them just now, for all three of them were more than half full of great, plump, overgrown berries—blackberries, and the best and largest anybody had ever seen among those mountains. Such a season for berries!

There had been a great fire three years before, and it had burned the woods away, and nobody knew where the blackberry bushes had come from, but they had moved right in as if the country belonged to them, and they had climbed all over everything.

Dot sat by her pails and looked around, and she was half sorry all the berries near her had been picked and put into the big pails.

All the rest, even Johnny Coyne and Pen Burke, had little pails or else baskets, except Dot's big brother Bob, and he was now away up the mountain-side with a pail that would hold almost as much as a milk-pail.

Dot knew where the others were picking, for they didn't keep still a minute. Jessie Mack and Betsy were down among the rocks at her right, and Molly Calliper was with the boys up there on the left.

Dot was not in the least afraid at being alone, but she did wish she was hungry enough to eat some more berries.

She thought of it, and she tried to, but it was of no use, for all the while she had been picking she had put one berry in her rosy little mouth every time she had put another in her little tin pail.

"Oh, so much berries!" sighed Dot. "They're all our berries, too."

Yes, and Mrs. Calliper meant to dry them all and sell them, and buy some things for Dot and Molly and the baby. Bob had said that he meant to sell his own berries and buy him a new gun.

Want of appetite was the trouble with Dot; but there was somebody else in there, among the thickest of those bushes, picking, picking, picking, and eating every one he picked, and that fellow had never seen an hour in all his life when he could not have eaten some more blackberries.

An enormous fellow he was, and fatter for his size than Dot Calliper was for hers. He did not look at all ill-natured, and there was even a sort of funny twinkle in his little black eyes, as he pulled the branches full of fruit to his mouth with his great clumsy-looking paws.

They were not half so clumsy as they looked, and they were armed with long, sharp, cruel claws that were bent in a curve, like the teeth of the big shell comb Dot's mother bought of the peddler for her back hair. Then, too, when his mouth opened wide, as it did when he made one of his lazy, sleepy yawns, the teeth he showed were something dreadful to look at. Teeth of that size were never needed for eating such things as blackberries. They looked a great deal more as if they were meant for eating Dot Callipers.

He was evidently very fond of berries, and did not seem to have any doubt but what they all belonged to him. It was just as if he had offered a prize that summer for the bush that would bear the most blackberries, and was now going around among them to see which had won it. Every bush he came to just held out its branches for him to look at; but if Dot had been watching him, she would have seen at once that the fat old rascal never seemed to count the berries at all, but just gathered and swallowed them. How would he be able to tell, when he was done, which bush had done the best for him?

But Dot was not watching him. She had not even seen him yet, and she did not know he was there till he made a great crash among the bushes, when his foot slipped, and he rolled down through half a dozen of them.

"Bob," exclaimed Dot, "is that you? Did you tumble down?"

There was no answer, and she asked again, "Bob, did you 'pill your berries?"

Then she thought she heard something like a grunt, such as the pigs made when they were rooting in the garden, and she and Bob went to drive them out, and she said, "Oh, the pids are come! they'll pick all our berries."

Then there came more rustling and crashing among the bushes, and then Dot jumped up and got behind the three big pails, for it was not anything like a pig that came out and began to walk toward the chestnut-tree.

"Oh dear me!" whispered the frightened Dot. "I daren't 'peak to him."

Neither did he say a word to her. He did not even tell her his name was Bruin, and that he was fond of blackberries, but he walked straight forward, and his little black eyes were twinkling more brightly than ever.

As fast as he came forward Dot stepped back, till she stood right against the tree, and then she slipped around behind it, and began to feel that she was perfectly safe.

Bruin looked into one pail after another, as if he saw at once that all the bushes were beaten, and was trying to decide to which of the pails the prize belonged.

"Bob! Bob!" screamed Dot, at the top of her little voice, "there's a bear come, and he's 'tealing our berries."

He was eating them up very fast, that was a fact—for all the world as if they had been picked for his benefit.

Perhaps he would have liked them better with plenty of milk and sugar, but he did not ask Dot for anything of the kind. He just sat down on the grass, and took a big pail up in his lap with his clumsy fore-paws, and then lifted it high enough to bury half his head in it.

Dot saw that he knew exactly how to eat blackberries out of a milk-pail, and she felt sure they would not last him long.

"Molly! Jessie! Betsy! Johnny Coyne! Pen Burke! the bear's 'tealing the berries!"

The other children heard her, and they all began to scream together: "Bear! bear! He's eating up Dot and the berries."

Bruin had not so much as said a cross word to Dot, although it was true that he had not thanked her for the berries; but he was just lifting the second pail to his mouth, when Dot's big brother Bob heard the screaming, and came hurrying down the hill toward the chestnut-tree.

"Der's one pail left, but he's eat up the odders," said Dot, excitedly, as Bob sprang out of the nearest bushes; but to her surprise he did not pay the least attention to the berries or the bear. He just caught up Dot herself in his strong arms, and ran away with her.

"Bob, did you lose your pail?"

"Boys! Betsy! Molly!" shouted Bob, "run! run!"

They did run; but they were not like Bob, for every one of them kept tight hold of their berry pails. They could not run fast among so many rocks and bushes, but they could scramble, and they had not gone far before they heard a great rough voice near them shouting,

"Hullo! What's arter ye all? Did ye git skeered?"

"Joe—Joe Mix!" exclaimed Bob. "The biggest bear you ever saw in your life. Ain't I glad you've got your gun along!"

"Bar? Whar?"

"Up among the blackberries."

"And I haven't a bullet nor a buckshot; nothin' but small shot. Tell ye what, Bob. Drap that little one. The bar won't foller ye. You jest run for the house and git yer gun, and tell yer father, and have him come along, and bring some buckshot and slugs for me. Bars is fat now, and we'll jest gather this one."

Bob was putting Dot on the ground, when she said to him,

"Make the bear div back the pails, too."

While Bob was gone, Joe Mix made Dot tell him all about it, but he said,

"I guess I won't go ahead and scare him off; he'll stay and pick around."

"He'll pick all our berries."

"Now, Dot, there's berries enough. We'll pick him. It won't do to have him come and pick some of your father's pigs."

"Would he pick me?"

"Not unless the berries were all gone, and the nuts too, and the pigs. But I'm glad Bob got away with ye. He might have mistaken ye for a berry."

"I wasn't in a pail; I got behind a tree."

Dot had been pretty well scared, but Bruin had behaved very well, except about the berries, and she was not half so much frightened as the older children were. Molly and Betsy came and hugged her ever so hard, and Johnny Coyne exclaimed,

"Tell you what, Joe, if I'd had a gun!"

"Oh, don't I wish I'd had a gun!" echoed Pen Burke; and then they both said they'd bring guns with them the next time they came after berries.

Bob Calliper must have been a good runner, and his father too, for it was wonderful how soon the noise they made among the bushes below told that they were coming.

That was not all, either, for a little distance behind them was Mrs. Calliper herself, all out of breath, with the baby in her arms, and she was not nearly so careful as usual in handing the baby to Molly, she was in such a hurry to hug Dot, and kiss her, and exclaim, "Dear! dear! dear! My pet! Bears! Oh, Dot, bears! Berries! My precious!"

"The bear dot the berries, mamma."

"Berries indeed! Who cares for berries!"

Joe Mix asked, the moment Bob came near enough, "Any slugs for me?"

And Bob held out to him a handful of buckshot and rifle-bullets.

Joe had been drawing the old charge out of his gun, and loading it again with more powder, and now he poured in half a dozen big buckshot and three bullets.

"They'll do for slugs. Got yer rifle, Mr. Calliper?"

"No, Bob's brought that. I've got my double-barrelled deer gun, and I've stuck an awful charge into it."

"That'll do."

"Mary Jane," said her husband to Mrs. Calliper, "you and the children go on down the hill. Pen, you and Johnny see if you can't haul out that old stone-boat. It lies up this way, close to the foot of the mountain. We'll need it to get the bear home."

"Oh, mamma," exclaimed Dot, "is the bear comin' to our house?"

She knew very well that if he did, he would eat up all the berries that were spread out on the roof to dry, but her father and Joe Mix and Bob hurried away in the direction of the big chestnut.

Mrs. Calliper would not let any of the children go, but she put down Dot to carry the baby.

Pen and Johnny were a little sulky at not being allowed to help hunt the bear, but they were glad to have something to do, and went on after the stone-boat.

That was a kind of flat sled, made of a thick piece of plank, and used to haul stones on, and they found it just where Mr. Calliper said.

He and Joe and Bob went on up the mountain-side more and more carefully, but they had not far to go, and pretty soon Bob whispered, "There he is; he hasn't gone."

"Got a pail on each side of him, and another in his lap," said his father.

"Now," said Joe, "we've got him. We must all shoot together. Keep yer second barrel a moment, Mr. Calliper. Then give it to him."

Joe was an old hunter, and he wasn't good for anything else; but he knew all about bears.

Mrs. Calliper and the children heard the guns go off pretty quickly after that—bang! bang! bang! and then another bang.

"Oh dear! I hope they won't either of them get hurt!"

There was no danger of that, for the distance had been short, and ever so many slugs and buckshot had struck Dot's bear almost at the same time. He dropped the pail and rolled over on the ground, and he could not have hurt any one after that. He could not have picked a blackberry.

There came a great shout of triumph down the mountain-side. "Mary Jane! come and look at him!"

The boys heard it, and they tugged harder than ever at the stone-boat.

Such a bear that was!

"Such a berry big bear!" said Dot.

It was hard enough work to get him upon the stone-boat after it came, and Mr. Calliper and Joe Mix and Bob were so long in dragging that load to Mr. Calliper's house that the children had time to pick the three big pails full of berries again.

Joe Mix sat down on a log in front of the door, and mopped his face with his handkerchief, and Pen and Johnny took a useless pull at the stone-boat with the bear on it, and Mrs. Calliper stood behind her husband and hugged the baby.

They had put the three pails of berries down only a few feet from the nose of the bear as he lay on the stone-boat, and Jessie Mack and Betsy went and stood behind the pails, where they were safe, but Dot wasn't a bit afraid of that bear now. She toddled close up to her father, as he stood at the head of the stone-boat, and looked down on the great furry berry picker.

"He didn't pick me, papa."

"No, Dot," remarked Joe Mix; "he couldn't sit up now ef you brung him all the berries you've got."

"He's a poor, dood, dead bear," said Dot, pityingly. "Poor bear!"

"Wa'al, no, Dot," said Joe, "he's the fattest bar I ever hauled on. It's all along of thar being sech heaps and heaps of berries this year."