During the summer of 1862, there lived a young girl named Sarah and her father, Richard, in a fish camp near a lake and a small river. The girl had lived with her father out in the wilderness ever since her mother died. She died in a car accident.

One day while she was growing up she and her father killed a Grizzly bear in the lake. The bear had two cubs that were always playing and wrestling. Sarah liked to watch the two cubs all afternoon until they would go back into the trees at sunset.

Slowly the bears got used to Sarah until finally after a year Sarah could touch the cubs. It was a miracle, she thought, for both human and mammal to be able to feel and touch each other, even though sometimes the bears got scared and ran as fast as they could back into the willows. Sarah laughed and was tickled when this happened. But eventually, they got to be close friends.

Sarah's father didn't know about the cubs and one day when Richard saw Sarah playing with one of the bears he hollered, "Get away Sarah!" The bear disappeared like magic, and Sarah couldn't believe her eyes. When she asked her father why the bear disappeared so quickly he said he didn't know. She told her father about being best friends with the bear,but the bear disappeared for days. Soon Sarah began to get very worried, but a week and a half later the bear popped out of the willows and found Sarah picking raspberries in the forest. When she saw the bear she hugged him hard and asked where he had gone. He wanted to play with her but she couldn't play right away because she had to pick a pail full of berries for their dessert. After she picked the berries though she played with the bear.

Sarah named the bear Nyomie, and she played with him every day because she really wanted to get to know him and find out what he was like. But one day her father decided to move to the city near their home. It was one hundred miles away from where they lived. Her father had found a job in the city as an architect.

After explaining to Nyomie why she was leaving, she noticed him begin to change form. He finally became transparent and disappeared. Later, she found out he was a bear spirit that had lived there for many years. He had become Sarah's friend, but now since she had to move to the city he vanished back into the wilderness. Sarah would remember Nyomie forever though.

Marlene Papp