Free The Hollow Tree by Janet Lunn Page B

She stopped and turned. The bear stopped.
    “Go away!” she gasped. She pointed back towards the pine tree with a shaking hand. The bear did not move.
    “Please go away,” Phoebe pleaded. Still the bear did not move. He looked at her expectantly.
    “Please. I don’t want you here. George,” Phoebe begged, “will you please tell the bear to go away?” Suddenly it occurred to her that she was asking a cat to talk to a bear because the bear wouldn’t pay any attention to her. Forgetting her fright and the need to be quiet and cautious in the forest, she laughed right out loud. It was the first time she had laughed, she realized, in a very long while.
    At last she caught her breath. What did it matter if the bear wanted to follow along for a while. He did not seem to mean her harm and he was clearly company — if odd company — for George. Maybe he would scare off other big animals — and dangerous people, too. She decided, since they would be travelling together, she would have to give him a name. Because he made her think of an old woman in Orland Village, she called him Bartlett. “Mistress Bartlett always looks hopeful like you,” she told him, “and she’s bottom-heavy, too.”
    And so the long, difficult journey wasresumed. Phoebe grew braver with every passing day. She no longer jumped with terror every time she heard the whirring of owls’ wings overhead or a partridge suddenly flew up in front of her. She walked carefully but briskly. There didn’t seem to be much point in being especially quiet, not with a blundering young bear at her side and a complaining cat at her heels. And George did complain. He demanded to be carried when he got tired and he yowled when they would not stop for him to drink, or to stalk prey.
    They spent one day scrambling up the side of a mountain, then sliding down its steep, rocky slope on the other side, other days slogging through swamps in the rain. They crossed streams and they crossed meadows. The snow that had been on the ground when Phoebe had left Orland Village had melted in a few warm days, but it was growing colder again and she could see snow on the higher hills. The days were shorter. There was ice edging the ponds and streams. The fish swam deeper and were harder to catch. There were fewer and fewer ducks and geese flying south, and almost no leaves on the elm, oak, and maple trees. Only the golden tamaracks still brightened the pine and cedar swamps and forests. Sometimes, Phoebe walked all day with Katsi’tsiénhawe’s blanket around her against the wind and snow. And how gladshe was of it at night. So were George and Bartlett. They curled up beside her, near the fire, and would not be budged. Bartlett stank. Phoebe tried to keep a space between them, but every time she pushed him away, he rolled over to be beside her again. Wherever they slept — by streams, protected from the wind by rocks or little hills, in mountainside caves — they slept in a tight ball of warmth, until Phoebe got so used to Bartlett’s rough fur and rank bear smell she no longer minded either one.
    Phoebe — and Bartlett — ate fish and what few huckleberries, blackberries, or raspberries could be found on bushes; they ate butternuts, hazelnuts, and hickory nuts from the ground under the trees, and whatever purslane, peppermint, chicory, or other edible plants had survived the frost in warm, sheltered places. George did his own hunting.
    They saw no one. They followed the route Peter Sauk had laid out, keeping to the White River, then branching off to the southwest along the old trails by the brooks and smaller rivers through the deep valleys between the mountain ranges. Phoebe’s heart was full of gratitude to Peter for his careful map. She knew she could never, ever, have made her way through the dense forests and around these great mountains without it. Finally she reached the military road, a rough road but wide enough, not only formarching soldiers but for wagons and carts.