y severe winter, a black
bear, hungry, no doubt, and seeking something to eat, came strolling
down through our neighborhood from the northern pine woods. None had
been seen here before, and it caused no little excitement and alarm,
for the European settlers imagined that these poor, timid, bashful
bears were as dangerous as man-eating lions and tigers, and that they
would pursue any human being that came in their way. This species is
common in the north part of the State, and few of our enterprising
Yankee hunters who went to the pineries in the fall failed to shoot at
least one of them.

We saw very little of the owlish, serious-looking coons, and no
wonder, since they lie hidden nearly all day in hollow trees and we
never had time to hunt them. We often heard their curious, quavering,
whinnying cries on still evenings, but only once succeeded in tracing
an unfortunate family through our corn-field to their den in a big oak
and catching them all. One of our neighbors, Mr. McRath, a Highland
Scotchman, caught one and made a pet of it. It became very tame and
had perfect confidence in the good intentions of its kind friend and
master. He always addressed it in speaking to it as a "little man."
When it came running to him and jumped on his lap or climbed up his
trousers, he would say, while patting its head as if it were a dog or
a child, "Coonie, ma mannie, Coonie, ma mannie, hoo are ye the day? I
think you're hungry,"--as the comical pet began to examine his pockets
for nuts and bits of bread,--"Na, na, there's nathing in my pooch for
ye the day, my wee mannie, but I'll get ye something." He would then
fetch something it liked,--bread, nuts, a carrot, or perhaps a piece
of fresh meat. Anything scattered for it on the floor it felt with its
paw instead of looking at it, judging of its worth more by touch than
sight.

The outlet of our Fountain Lake flowed past Mr. McRath's door, and the
coon was very fond of swimming in it and searching for frogs and
mussels. It seemed perfectly satisfied to stay about the house without
being confined, occupied a comfortable bed in a section of a hollow
tree, and never wandered far. How long it lived after the death of its
kind master I don't know.

I suppose that almost any wild animal may be made a pet, simply by
sympathizing with it and entering as much as possible into its life.
In Alaska I saw one of the common gray mountain marmots kept as a pet
in an Indian family. When its ma