When the Khingan Mountains were still small, when you could shoot a bow and hear an arrow fall on the other side of the Khingan, then the bear and the chipmunk were friends.
They lived together in the same den. We went hunting together, dividing everything in half: what the bear gets, the chipmunk eats, what the chipmunk gets, the bear eats.
They were friends like that for a long time. Yes, it is known: other people’s friendship stings the eyes of envious people. Until friends quarrel, they will not calm down...
Once a chipmunk came out of his den and wanted to crack some nuts. He met a fox. She twirled her red tail, said hello, and asked:
- How are you, neighbor?
The chipmunk told her everything. The fox listened to him, and became envious that two animals lived together and did not quarrel. She herself was not friends with anyone, because she was always cunning and tried to deceive everyone.
The fox pretended to feel sorry for the chipmunk, folded its paws on its stomach, began to cry and said:
- Poor you, poor! I feel sorry for you! The chipmunk got scared:
- Why do you feel sorry for me, neighbor?
- You're stupid! - the fox answers. “The bear offends you, but you don’t even know about it.”
- How does this offend?
- And so. When a bear takes prey, who is the first to tear it with his teeth?
“Brother bear,” answers the chipmunk.
“You see, he gets the sweetest piece.” You probably haven’t seen a good piece for a long time, you keep eating bear scraps! That's why you're short.
The fox wagged its tail and wiped away its tears.
“Well, goodbye,” he says. “I see you like this life.” Only if I were you, I would be the first to use my teeth to extract the spoils!
The fox ran away. The chipmunk looked after her and thought: “But the neighbor, perhaps, judged correctly!”
The chipmunk got so lost in thought that he forgot about the nuts. “Look,” he thinks, “what a deceiver the bear turned out to be! But I believed him, considered him an older brother.”
So the bear and chipmunk went hunting. We stopped at a raspberry farm on the way. The bear grabbed a raspberry bush in his paws, eats the berries and invites his brother. And he looks: the fox told the truth! The bear caught an eurasian eurasian. He calls the chipmunk, and he looks: the bear was the first to sink his claws into the euras. It turns out that the fox was telling the truth! The brothers walked past the bee oak. The bear rolled up that oak tree, held it with his paw, stuck his nose into the hive, and called his brother to try the honey. And the chipmunk sees: again the bear is the first to try, which means the fox is right again!
The chipmunk got angry here. “Well,” he thinks, “I’ll teach you a lesson!”
They went hunting another time. The chipmunk sat on his brother's neck. The bear smelled prey and caught a roe deer. I just wanted to grab it with my teeth, but the chipmunk jumped! This is to sink your teeth into the prey before your brother, to take a sweet piece for yourself and grow a little. The bear got scared, released the roe deer, and she ran away. Both brothers were left hungry.
Let's move on. The bear saw the eurasian and crept up. Chipmunk is here again! Scared the bear again. The hunt was gone again. The bear got angry, but didn’t say anything to his brother.
They met a young boar. At any other time, the bear would not have become bullying, but here he was very hungry. He roared so loudly that the boar backed away from the bear. He backed away, backed away, buried his tail in a tree - there was nowhere to go. Then the bear attacked him. He opened his mouth, clicked his teeth, and was about to swallow it!
As soon as the bear started to attack the boar, the chipmunk jumped on the boar! At this point the bear became completely angry. As soon as a chipmunk's paw hit his back, he stuck all five claws into his back so that he wouldn't get under his paw and wouldn't interfere! The chipmunk rushed and tore open his entire skin from head to tail.
He ran into the forest. He lived in the trees for a long time until the wounds on his back healed. Well, the wounds healed, but he had five black stripes from the bear’s claws for the rest of his life.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru