We were camping for the Summer because my parents were splitting ceder posts to earn money.
I was walking around the campsite by myself, eating a ham sandwich as I walked - and then I heard the dogs start barking like crazy from somewhere in the woods, and they were getting closer. Instead of being afraid like I should have, I started walking right up to the edge of the woods - glad it came out when it did, otherwise I would've gone into the woods and froze, probably nose to nose, in front of a giant black bear out of hearing range of my mumbles from my mom.
Anyways, getting ahead of myself, as usual. The dogs came out of the woods first, and I walked right up to one and put my hand on her back and said, "What's wrong, girl?'
It didn't take long to learn what was wrong. The next thing to step out of the woods was a large black bear. I'm not just saying it was large to me, being a four-year-old and all; my mom said it was big, too.
The distance between me and that bear was probably around two or two and a half yards.
I guess I was just a little girl, didn't know what to do, never seen a bear, face to face, by myself. I was so shocked... but, oddly, more in awe than fear... I never did learn to be smart enough to fear things when it can save your life. If I was afraid, I probably would've went straight to the airstream door, like I should have... but instead I did something worse than that by far.
I stood there, maybe two yards away from this huge black bear, watching it snarl at the dogs and toss it's head, holding the stupid ham sandwich I was just eating a while ago, and managing to do nothing else but murmur, "Mom, there's a bear-- Mom, there's a bear-- Mom, there's a bear..."
In less than half a minute, Mom ran outside that airstream, grabbed me and tossed me in through the door, and closed it behind me. I landed hard on the floor and looked up to see my three-year-old little sister looking eagerly down at me. "What is it?" she asked excitedly.
"A bear," was my blunt reply. I got up and we both hurried to the window, but couldn't see anything. We were to short to see out any window but the one over the bed, and nothing exciting could be seen through that window.
In short amount of time, the door to the airstream opened, and Mom looked in. She said everything was fine, and I've remembered the day since.
After that, my sister and I were given a lesson of "Bear Etiquette" and I drew a picture of the bear because I never wanted to forget it... well, now the picture's gone, but I never forgot- and something tells me that, even if I did still have that picture, I doubt I would've been able to discern much of something I drew when I was four.
<font color="LimeGreen">I told that story to someone and they said I should put it here -- so I did! I just shared this because I could, it was not really written for someone to critique it -- but if you want to you can.</font>
