Part 2

“You are right!” he exclaimed. “To-morrow I will buy those bears, take them to the farm, and turn them loose!”

No objections his friend could offer could divert him from his purpose. When they urged that to spend so much money in such a manner was criminally wasteful, he pointed out that he was sufficiently rich to indulge any extravagant fancy, whether in polo ponies or bears; when they warned him that if he did not look out the bears would catch him alone in the woods, and eat him, he retorted that the bears were now educated to a different diet; when they said he should consider the peace of mind of his neighbors, he assured them the fence around his game preserve would restrain an elephant.

“Besides,” protested Kelly, “what you propose to do is not only impracticable, but it’s cruelty to animals. A domesticated animal can’t return to a state of nature, and live.”

“Can’t it?” jeered Herrick. “Did you ever read ‘The Call of the Wild’?”

“Did you ever read,” retorted Kelly, “what happened at the siege of Ladysmith when the oats ran low and they drove the artillery horses out to grass? They starved, that’s all. And if you don’t feed your bears on milk out of a bottle they’ll starve too.”

“That’s what will happen,” cried Jackson; “those bears have forgotten what a pine forest smells like. Maybe it’s a pity, but it’s the fact. I’ll bet if you could ask them whether they’d rather sleep in a cave on your farm or be headliners in vaudeville, they’d tell you they were ‘devoted to their art.’”

“Why!” exclaimed Kelly, “they’re so far from nature that if they didn’t have that colored boy to comb and brush them twice a day they’d be ashamed to look each other in the eyes.”

“And another thing,” continued Jackson, “trained animals love to ‘show off.’ They’re children. Those bears ENJOY doing those tricks. They ENJOY the applause. They enjoy dancing to the ‘Merry Widow Waltz.’ And if you lock them up in your jungle, they’ll get so homesick that they’ll give a performance twice a day to the squirrels and woodpeckers.”

“It’s just as hard to unlearn a thing as to learn it,” said Kelly sententiously. “You can’t make a man who has learned to wear shoes enjoy going around in his bare feet.”

“Rot!” cried Herrick. “Look at me. Didn’t I love New York? I loved it so I never went to bed for fear I’d miss something. But when I went ‘Back to the Land,’ did it take me long to fall in love with the forests and the green fields? It took me a week. I go to bed now the same day I get up, and I’ve passed on my high hat and frock coat to a scarecrow. And I’ll bet you when those bears once scent the wild woods they’ll stampede for them like Croker going to a third alarm.”

“And I repeat,” cried Kelly, “you are a nature faker. And I’ll leave it to the bears to prove it.”

“We have done our best,” sighed Jackson. “We have tried to save him money and trouble. And now all he can do for us in return is to give us seats for the opening performance.”

What the bears cost Herrick he never told. But it was a very large sum. As the Countess Zichy pointed out, bears as bears, in a state of nature, are cheap. If it were just a bear he wanted, he himself could go to Pike County, Pennsylvania, and trap one. What he was paying for, she explained, was the time she had spent in educating the Bruno family, and added to that the time during which she must now remain idle while she educated another family.

Herrick knew for what he was paying. It was the pleasure of rescuing unwilling slaves from bondage. As to their expensive education, if they returned to a state of ignorance as rapidly as did most college graduates he knew, he would be satisfied. Two days later, when her engagement at the music hall closed, Madame Zichy reluctantly turned over her pets to their new manager. With Ikey she was especially loath to part.

“I’ll never get one like him,” she wailed, “Ikey is the funniest four-legged clown in America. He’s a natural-born comedian. Folks think I learn him those tricks, but it’s all his own stuff. Only last week we was playing Paoli’s in Bridgeport, and when I was putting Bruno through the hoops, Ikey runs to the stage-box and grabs a pound of caramels out of a girl’s lap-and swallows the box. And in St. Paul, if the trombone hadn’t worn a wig, Ikey would have scalped him. Say, it was a scream! When the audience see the trombone snatched bald-headed, and him trying to get back his wig, and Ikey chewing it, they went crazy. You can’t learn a bear tricks like that. It’s just genius. Some folks think I taught him to act like he was intoxicated, but he picked that up, too, all by himself, through watching my husband. And Ikey’s very fond of beer on his own account. If I don’t stop them, the stage hands would be always slipping him drinks. I hope you won’t give him none.”

“I will not!” said Herrick.

The bears, Ikey in one cage and Bruno and Clara in another, travelled by express to the station nearest the Herrick estate. There they were transferred to a farm wagon, and grumbling and growling, and with Ikey howling like an unspanked child, they were conveyed to the game preserve. At the only gate that entered it, Kelly and Jackson and a specially invited house party of youths and maidens were gathered to receive them. At a greater distance stood all of the servants and farm hands, and as the wagon backed against the gate, with the door of Ikey’s cage opening against it, the entire audience, with one accord, moved solidly to the rear. Herrick, with a pleased but somewhat nervous smile, mounted the wagon. But before he could unlock the cage Kelly demanded to be heard. He insisted that, following the custom of all great artists, the bears should give a farewell performance.

He begged that Bruno and Clara might be permitted to dance together. He pointed out that this would be the last time they could listen to the strains of the “Merry Widow Waltz.” He called upon everybody present to whistle it.

The suggestion of an open-air performance was received coldly. At the moment no one seemed able to pucker his lips into a whistle, and some even explained that with that famous waltz they were unfamiliar.

One girl attained an instant popularity by pointing out that the bears could waltz just as well on one side of the fence as the other. Kelly, cheated of his free performance, then begged that before Herrick condemned the bears to starve on acorns, he should give them a farewell drink, and Herrick, who was slightly rattled, replied excitedly that he had not ransomed the animals only to degrade them. The argument was interrupted by the French chef falling out of a tree. He had climbed it, he explained, in order to obtain a better view.

When, in turn, it was explained to him that a bear also could climb a tree, he remembered he had left his oven door open. His departure reminded other servants of duties they had neglected, and one of the guests, also, on remembering he had put in a long-distance call, hastened to the house. Jackson suggested that perhaps they had better all return with him, as the presence of so many people might frighten the bears. At the moment he spoke, Ikey emitted a hideous howl, whether of joy or rage no one knew, and few remained to find out. It was not until Herrick had investigated and reported that Ikey was still behind the bars that the house party cautiously returned. The house party then filed a vigorous protest. Its members, with Jackson as spokesman, complained that Herrick was relying entirely too much on his supposition that the bears would be anxious to enter the forest. Jackson pointed out that, should they not care to do so, there was nothing to prevent them from doubling back under the wagon; in which case the house party and all of the United States lay before them. It was not until a lawn-tennis net and much chicken wire was stretched in intricate thicknesses across the lower half of the gate that Herrick was allowed to proceed. Unassisted, he slid back the cage door, and without a moment’s hesitation Ikey leaped from the wagon through the gate and into the preserve. For an instant, dazed by the sudden sunlight, he remained motionless, and then, after sniffing delightedly at the air, stuck his nose deep into the autumn leaves. Turning on his back, he luxuriously and joyfully kicked his legs, and rolled from side to side.

Herrick gave a shout of joy and triumph. “What did I tell you!” he called. “See how he loves it! See how happy he is.”

“Not at all,” protested Kelly. “He thought you gave him the sign to ‘roll over.’ Tell him to ‘play dead,’ and he’ll do that.” “Tell ALL the bears to ‘play dead,’” begged Jackson, “until I’m back in the billiard-room.”

Flushed with happiness, Herrick tossed Ikey’s cage out of the wagon, and opened the door of the one that held Bruno and Clara. On their part, there was a moment of doubt. As though suspecting a trap, they moved to the edge of the cage, and gazed critically at the screen of trees and tangled vines that rose before them.

“They think it’s a new backdrop,” explained Kelly.

But the delight with which Ikey was enjoying his bath in the autumn leaves was not lost upon his parents. Slowly and clumsily they dropped to the ground. As though they expected to be recalled, each turned to look at the group of people who had now run to peer through the wire meshes of the fence. But, as no one spoke and no one signalled, the three bears, in single file, started toward the edge of the forest. They had of cleared space to cover only a little distance, and at each step, as though fearful they would be stopped and punished, one or the other turned his head. But no one halted them. With quickening footsteps the bears, now almost at a gallop, plunged forward. The next instant they were lost to sight, and only the crackling of the underbrush told that they had come into their own.

Herrick dropped to the ground and locked himself inside the preserve.

“I’m going after them,” he called, “to see what they’ll do.”