Child Saved by a Bear

1898

Residents of Apalachin, N. Y., had a bad scare recently, when the four-year-old child of Henry Rathburn started out alone to look for trailing arbutus. It was half an hour before she was missed, and then all trace of the little one was lost. Her distracted father and his neighbors joined in the search.

While passing through a ravine they were startled to see an uncouth object shambling toward them some distance up the road, carrying a bundle in its mouth. Closer inspection proved to the terrified searchers that the object was a bear and the bundle a child. It is many years since a bear was seen in this section, but the men, though unarmed, prepared to give battle, one of their number going back for help. But the bear trotted toward them as though totally unconcerned, and when a few yards away carefully laid down the child it was carrying by its dress.

When the men approached and took up the little one the bear did not show fight, and a closer investigation proved he had a ring in his nose. Later it was found the bear belonged to an Italian who was camping in a nearby barn, making a tour of the country. He had purchased the animal when a cub and reared him in a New York tenement, where he was allowed to play with the children, and it was there he had learned the trick of carrying the little ones. — New York Press.