I was 4 years old, riding in the back seat of a large sedan with my older brother and sister and mother. A couple of strangers were driving us from Ontario to Grandpa’s farm in Saskatchewan. Dad must have paid a large sum to convince them to take us over 1,000 miles in their new car. This was in 1938, long before freeways, but with many gas stations along the roads and most having some interesting sight to lure tourists to stop.
We needed to “refuel and defuel” (a modest way to say “buy gas and look for the outhouse”). I jumped out of the car first, ignoring my mother’s call to wait, but I had seen a furry animal in a fenced area and I wanted to pet this adorable “doggy.”
I put my fingers through the chicken-wire fence and a bear cub sunk his teeth into my hand, pulling back until his claws had my arm. I don’t remember much after that except screaming and yelling and blood on my mother’s blouse as the car bounced down the road toward the only town in the area with a hospital.
Then I was on a table in a large room, crying “Mama” as a mask came over my face. I woke up in the car, my right hand and arm bandaged and someone complaining about blood on the upholstery. There were no antibiotics then, so the doctor had given me a double tetanus shot which, unfortunately, also caused me to “barf” all over the back seat of their sedan.
I think the couple wanted to get us out of their car as quickly as possible, because they insisted that we continue driving on that day. They dumped us 300 miles short of our destination; Mother called Grandpa and the next day he came in his Model A.
His farm was our summer home while Dad was out looking for another job. (Dad had “wandering feet,” and we never stayed in one place for more than a year.) We loved that farm on the prairies. We knew it would always be there, waiting for us.
That summer was wonderful; as the third youngest of 28 grandchildren, I had never been the center of attention, but now I was popular! The others had nothing to brag about except being pecked by a chicken or chased by a cow, but none came close to having bravely survived an attack by a bear!
After the stitches came out I would display my scars to the oohs and aahs of my cousins while aunts and uncles patted me on the head and marveled at my courage. I was proud of the four-inch scar and had no emotional problems, but I admit to wondering why no one ever gave me a toy teddy bear.
I still have the scar on my right hand. An X-ray showed that most of the bones were broken, so it’s weaker than the left hand, but it works just fine.
Through the years I have often thought about that little bear. The owner of the gas station kept him to attract people, with little care for his health and welfare; did he have shelter in bad weather, was he fed something besides garbage? He must have been taken from his mother; he must have been afraid. People may have thrown rocks at him or prodded him with sticks; he attacked my hand as one more thing that could torture or hurt him.
We learned later that the doctor told the Canadian Mounties of the incident and the little bear was rescued. I always hoped that he found his mother again and lived a long, happy life in the woods, with his family, where he belonged.
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