In the old days bears used to have long tails. The way they lost them goes like this.

One unusually warm day in December a bear awoke in a puddle of water. Water was leaking into his hole, because of the melting snow. The bear figured it was spring so he crawled out of his hole and started to walk around his hole eating the cranberries from last fall. Eventually he wandered away from his hole, heading for the slough. When he reached the bottom of the hill he saw that the slough was still frozen. But while he was walking down to the slough he saw a fox and asked him why the slough was frozen. The fox replied, "Because its winter." The fox's answer made the bear feel stupid. He started to walk back to his hole, but he felt hungry, so he asked the fox, "How do you find food at this time of year?" The fox then stuck his tail down a hole in the ice and a few moments lat er pulled up a fish. After the fox ran off, the bear decied to try his luck. He stuck his long tail down the hole and sat there a while. But he didn't catch anything, because he had a brown tail that didn't attract fish. The bear sat there till it got dark. While he was sitting there the sky cleared up and it got cold. When he finally gave up he tried to take his tail out of the hole, but he couldn't. It was frozen in the hole. So the bear held his breath, shut his eyes tight and jerked.

And that's how the bear lost his tail.

By:
Ben Peteroff