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You Do - A formative assessment
“From Why I Never Shoot Bears” by Charles Goodspeed
Do you know why I don’t kill bears?” he asked. “No!” Well, it’s this way. Three years ago this June I was on a fishing trip up to Grand Lake. I had been out on the water pretty nearly all of one day and, getting tired, paddled back to camp. I hauled the canoe up on the sandy beach and started for the shack.
When I got within about 100 feet of the place I saw the front door was open. I peeked in. There stood a big black bear just pulling the cork out of my molasses jug with his teeth. Out came the sticky syrup all over the floor. Bruin lapped up some of it and then rubbed his right paw into the rest-smeared it all over.
So I crept around behind the camp, stuck my head into the window and yelled. He shot through the door like a bullet and headed for the lake. I never saw such an odd gait on a bear before-sort of a mixture of running and galloping. And all on three legs. He was holding up the paw daubed with molasses!
From where I stood it looked as if the critter had sat down on the shore and was holding his sweetened paw up to the air. It was June and the air was full of flies, mosquitoes and black midges. I could see that they were swarming around that molasses foot. Soon it was covered with flies feasting on that stuff.
Suddenly, he waded out in the water and stood up. He was in to his shoulders. He placed the sweetened paw down close to the surface and the next thing I saw was a fine trout jump clear of the water at those flies. Ever time a fish leaped clear of the water, Bruin would give it a cuff that sent it ashore and far up the beach.
Finally as he saw the pile of trout on the sand he seemed to think he had enough. He waded ashore lapping off the insects and I expected he would sit down and gobble every fish. I recalled that allay had caught that day was two small fish.
Well, sirs, he had a fine feed, and when he had eaten half a dozen fine big trout, he paused looked over at the bushes where I was and actually laid the remaining fish in a row. Then he ambled off up the shore and oddly enough he kept looking back over his shoulder.
I walked down to the beach and true enough there were half a dozen wonderful trout. At the edge of the woods the bear stopped and was standing up. As loud as I could, I yelled, “Thanks old man!” Do you know he actually waved a paw at me and dove into the thicket. I honestly think he left me those fish to pay for my spilled molasses. No, sir, I never shoot bears!
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