Today, the Maine Classic Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin remembers a vintage news article from the Lewiston [ME] Evening Journal of November 7, 1891.
The newspaper man alleged the tale to be true:
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A Tale of “All Fours.”
The Tea-Side Tattle of the Man Who Had Benn in B’ar Country. — A True Story of Bob Stillings Bear.
“Gruble! growl! wh-e-e-h” went Charles Augustus, the youngest, on the floor just before we sat down to tea, at a friend’s the other evening.
Charles Augustus is called “Charlie,” and as he is the pet, the feminine portion of the family permitted him to tear things — among them the newspaper man’s hat on the sofa.
“Playing bear, are you, youngster?” said “Papa” as he came in. “Well, eh! What’s that? Whose hat’s that? His, eh? (pointing to the newspaper man.) Do you know sir, what’s going to happen to you? You don’t? Well, I do. You are going to get licked.”
And he did. And he deserved it.
This is a long prelude to this simple story of a bear, but it is Howells-like for there is no fiction in it, and as it led up to the bear story maybe it will go.
“I was stopping at Crawford’s at White Mountain Notch in the summer of one of the early 80’s. A New York man was there named Sayers. He was afraid of bears. He had never seen one but he had read of one, and I have often thought that I’d give a dollar to see just such a bear as that man had read about somewhere. Why, even when he first struck that tavern he was afraid. He couldn’t sit out on the piazza to smoke for fear of bears. He looked under the bed nights for grizzlys.
“Naturally, now, it doesn’t take us long to find out (Charlie you get into that room or you’ll get your pelt peeled off) for us to find out—where was I—oh yes, for us to find out what he was afraid of, so about every evening someone would wind up a bear story that woul make your backbone turn to ice.
“Bob Stillings was driving up through the notch then by stage and about every night Bob, who was in it with us would say as he tossed off his coat, ‘Seen a bear out here ’bout a mile edgin’ this way. Guess they’re feelin’ kinder hungry. Ain’t many oxen for ’em to ketch now. One on ’em tackled Lem Shubil down Jackson way other day. Got his hide full o’ lead. I’d hate to meet that bear.’
“Sayers’s eyes would look kind of sickly at this sort of talk and he would get closer to the fire.
“Well, things went on until later in the season and Sayers lost no respect for the bear and was getting kind of uppish; and was setting pretty big airs and was getting ready to be set down, sure’s you’re born.
“One day we were playing ‘Forty-Fives’ in the smoking room and the New Yorker went down to the lake to fish. He hadn’t been away so far for some time and he went, this time, only because he was enticed into it by one of the boys.
“All of a sudden, by concerted arrangement, old Bob Stillings dropped his cards and was next seen skirmishing through the woods. Then we all dropped down by the lake to see what’s up.
“All was quiet when suddenly there was heard the cussedest ronchin’ and kickin’ and growlin’ over in the woods right opposite where the New York man sat fishing, that you are anyone else ever heard, and all at once I saw Bob Stillings’s hindermost members covered with an old tawny well-worn buffalo robe sticking out from behind a tree and there was Bob, kickin’ dirt and tearin’ branches on his hands and knees and growling and caterwauling and snarling like a bag of wildcats mixed up with a sprinkling of hyenas.
“What did Sayers do? He jumped; dropped his rod; left his friend and started for the house. Run! I never before saw a man run.
“Every now and then he fell. His hat was behind him; his clothes were besmeared; his knees gave out; he raised his hands despairingly and finally he reached the hotel steps and the office only to fall flat on his face in a faint by the fire.
“Five minutes later Bob and I and two more of the boys were playing ‘Forty-Fives’ in the smoking-room.
“In came T.—the proprietor. ‘If I could find the man who put up that joke on one of my guests he should leave this house and be horsewhipped if I had to do it myself.’
“‘Cap’n,’ said Bob, who felt bad at the extra success of the joke, ‘ef you’ll pay me the $2 I’ve lost at this game in the last half-hour, I’ll see if I can’t find who did it.’
“Mr Sayers left for home the next day upon learning what had frightened him and —he never came back.
“He is no doubt a wiser and braver man in bear-country now, than he was then if perchance he be on this earth of bears, catamounts and practical jokers.”
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The Maine Classic Commemorative Silver Half Dollar Coin shows with an artist’s image of Grizzly Adams and “Ben Franklin,” circa 1860.
