Buster the Big Brown Bear

In the seventh volume of the Twilight Animal series, we meet Buster the Bear, a cub who lives in a cave the woods with his mother. After an encounter with an unfriendly forest animal, he gets lost and captured, and has some marvelous adventures with humans. Will he make it back to the forest, or will he end up somewhere else?

By : George Ethelbert Walsh (1865 - 1941)

01 - When Buster Was a Cub 02 - Buster and Loup 03 - How Buster Got Out of the River 04 - Buster is Carried Away by the Men 05 - How Buster Was Stolen 06 - Buster's Cruel Masters 07 - Buster Makes His Escape 08 - Buster's First Public Appearance 09 - Buster Saves Chiquita 10 - Buster Becomes a Trick Bear 11 - Buster In a Railroad Wreck 12 - Buster Meets the Little Girl Again 13 - Buster and the Little Girl 14 - Buster Tries to Escape and is Discovered 15 - Buster is to be Sent to the Zoo 16 - Buster Returns to the North Woods

All little boys and girls who love animals should become acquainted with Bumper the white rabbit, with Bobby Gray Squirrel, with Buster the bear, and with White Tail the deer, for they are all a jolly lot, brave and fearless in danger, and so lovable that you won’t lay down any one of the books without saying wistfully, “I almost wish I had them really and truly as friends and not just story-book acquaintances.” That, of course, is a splendid wish; but none of us could afford to have a big menagerie of wild animals, and that’s just what you would have to do if you went outside of the books. Bumper had many friends, such as Mr. Blind Rabbit, Fuzzy Wuzz and Goggle Eyes, his country cousins; and Bobby Gray Squirrel had his near cousins, Stripe the chipmunk and Webb the flying squirrel; while Buster and White Tail were favored with an endless number of friends and relatives. If we turned them all loose from the books, and put them in a ten-acre lot—but no, ten acres wouldn’t be big enough to accommodate them, perhaps not a hundred acres.

So we will leave them just where they are—in the books—and read about them, and let our imaginations take us to them where we can see them playing, skipping, singing, and sometimes fighting, and if we read very carefully, and think as we go along, we may come to know them even better than if we went out hunting for them.

Another thing we should remember. By leaving them in the books, hundreds and thousands of other boys and girls can enjoy them, too, sharing with us the pleasures of the imagination, which after all is one of the greatest things in the world. In gathering them together in a real menagerie, we would be selfish both to Bumper, Bobby, Buster, White Tail and their friends as well as to thousands of other little readers who could not share them with us. So these books of Twilight Animal Stories are dedicated to all little boys and girls who love wild animals. All others are forbidden to read them! They wouldn’t understand them if they did.

So come out into the woods with me, and let us listen and watch, and I promise you it will be worth while.