Long, long ago in a time way back before the great flood, some of the animals could talk. For, after the time of Paradise, much of what was in Paradise still existed. If men no longer lived forever, they still lived very long lives. As time went by, their lifespans became shorter and shorter. The same with animals’ speech. Some of the birds, like parrots, have kept their ability in a very small way; but back then almost every animal had some ability to speak in human language.
Some of the animals could even build things. Today we see the beavers building dams and birds making nests, but way back before the tragedy of Cain and Abel many of the animals had the skills to make and build things. Otters, for example, were marvelous assistants to men in the building of boats. No one had invented the printing press, so books were handwritten, mostly by chickens who were extraordinary scribes. Donkeys were highly respected in their assistance to blacksmiths. Jewelers depended on cats and dogs were excellent chefs. Why, even today, if you have a dog that lives in the house with you, if you start puttering around in the kitchen, your dog will come to see what you’re doing; for most dogs like to supervise the cooking. It’s a part of their original nature.
Some animals have always been able to provide entertainment. Nightingales are well known for their song, even though they can’t actually sing words anymore. Rabbits and squirrels used to perform wonderful little shows for children; and elephants and horses have always been a crowd-pleaser. But it was the bears, with their ability to sing and dance, as well as act, that made them famous. For the bears were the best musicians and dancers in that antediluvian age. Some bear families were very popular, attracting large crowds of their fans. Some of these bears grew a bit wealthy, as they could charge more than the average bear. Many bears were very cosmopolitan. They had nice homes just off Main Street, complete with swimming pools, fish ponds and lots of bee hives. In fact, some of the most famous bears lived in houses that were as wonderful as the houses of men.
There was, however, a small family of dancing bears that were so famous they were known by almost everyone. Their family name was Bruin. Papa Bruin was world famous for his fiddling. He danced with a group called the Ursa Majors. They were famous for their Morris and Sword dances. Mama Bruin played the harp. She was a member of the Ursa Minors, who were a famous ballet troupe. And their baby bear, Little Baby Bruin, was a marvelous tap dancer. She was pretty good on the pipes, too. In fact, she performed a special act where she played a melody that sounded very much like the song we know as “Danny Boy” and she tap danced at the same time! Every time she performed it the audience was speechless.
But fame has a price. Fans were always wanting autographs. And some would sneak up to the windows to peek in and see what the Bruin family were doing. Reporters would then publish stories about them. Everyone, it seemed, knew everything they did. But the worst of it was the haughty airs that some fans would go out of their way to put on. They would make it seem that they were better than you for they had done some special thing with the Bruin family. Most of the time it was an exaggeration, if not a complete fabrication.
The cat, for example, would wander down to the bears’ house and then prance by the cow, bragging about the wonderful tea she had just had with the wonderful dancing bears. The eagle would fly over by the horse and brag about the wonderful fishing excursion he and the Papa Bruin had just enjoyed. Even the butterfly would brag to the bumblebee about the wonderful nectar he had found in the bears’ rosebushes. It was too much! The bears did not have any privacy. Everything they said or did was the subject of much gossip. Little of it true, and some of it downright mean.
So, the Bruin family decided to retire to a house out in the country. It was a lovely ranch style house that had a swimming pool and several berry patches. There were lovely gardens with apple trees and bee hives, and a creek full of trout flowed through the property. But what made it so very wonderful was the distance from town. After the bears moved in they marveled at their privacy. They could get up in the morning and enjoy their breakfast of oatmeal and berries without having to share the morning with nosy fans. Papa Bruin could read his morning paper from front to back while his oatmeal cooled and he didn’t have anyone poke their head in the window to “just say ‘hello’”. Mama Bruin could walk through her flower garden, pick some flowers for the breakfast table and return just as her oatmeal was cool enough to eat. No one stopped to tell her the latest gossip about the goat. And Baby Bruin could rock in her rocking chair while her oatmeal cooled and no one pulled the rocking chair back as far as it would go or pull toady frogs out of their pockets and drop them in her lap. It was just wonderful.
One day Papa Bruin went shopping. While the new house was very very nice, the kitchen stove was not. It was their old stove from their old house. Mama Bruin had not wanted to part with her stove because, she said, she was used to cooking on it; and also, though she would not say it, because it was the first thing Papa Bruin had bought when they got married. Even though it was a grand stove when it was new, it was now a bit shabby; and it was no longer as hot as it used to be. In fact, if Papa Bruin read all of the paper, his oatmeal would be cold.
So he thought he would find a nice new stove at the Laban and Sons’ appliance store. Even though Laban O’Shaunassey was the second cousin of the mayor he was well known as an honest merchant. Everyone knew that his merchandise was always top quality. So, even though stores like The Big Box and Wally-World claimed low prices, Papa Bruin thought he would get a better deal at Laban and Sons.
The new stove glittered so brightly that Mama Bruin said as how they just might need to repaint the kitchen. But even better was the cooking. The new stove was very hot. Dinner that night was crispy and delicious. However breakfast the next morning was a bit of a shock. The oatmeal was so steaming hot that even after Papa Bruin had read the whole paper his oatmeal was still too hot to eat. And when Mama Bruin set her vase of fresh cut flowers on the table, the heat from the oatmeal nearly wilted them. Baby Bruin just rocked and rocked and rocked and rocked; yet the steam just kept rising from her oatmeal. Finally, it cooled enough that they could eat it.
This went on for several days, when Papa Bruin said that they should start taking a morning walk. He thought the walk would do them much good and the oatmeal would be cool when they returned. This proved to be a most satisfactory solution. Papa Bruin could read his morning paper while Mama Bruin cooked the oatmeal and Mama Bruin could cut some flowers when they returned from their walk. And Baby Bruin could rock in her rocking chair after she had eaten her oatmeal. Thus all went well with the bears.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
All did not go well in in the town, however. There was a very spoiled little girl who was the daughter of one of the sons of Laban and Sons, the merchant who sold stoves. She was a very beautiful little girl, with long curly coppery hair, green eyes and some freckles on her cheeks. Her name was Mary Catherine Elizabeth Carmichael O’Shaunassey, but everyone knew her as Goldilocks. It was not really a very nice nickname, for most everyone called her that as a name of shame. Mary Catherine Elizabeth Carmichael O’Shaunassey earned the name Goldilocks when she tried to out brag some of the other children. One day they were discussing Rapunzel, who had long golden hair. She was the talk of the town, having just been rescued from a wicked old witch. This made Mary Catherine very jealous. She wanted everyone to talk about how wonderful she was. Well, the bragging and silly prattle worked against Mary Catherine. Suddenly one of the boys grabbed her hair and tried to climb up her back just like she was Rapunzel. Well, Mary Catherine screamed horribly, yelling that he was pulling out all of her hair. One of the other girls said, “Well, Rapunzel had real golden locks of hair, maybe that’s how her prince could climb up.” And from that time on the only people that did not call her “Goldilocks” were her parents.
Goldilocks hated the name. But that did not teach her to stop being such a terror. Everywhere she went she demanded her way, without even asking politely. When her mother and father went to visit the mayor, she walked into his house and demanded milk and cookies almost before they had been seated. The Frog had barred her from ever returning to The Frog and Pig tavern, because the last time her parents had dined there, Goldilocks had left Miss Piggy, who was the waitress, in tears.
Children, upon being caught in childhood misbehavior, would say to their parents in desperation, “Well, at least I’m not as bad a Goldilocks!” And the parent would smile and say, “Thank God for that, but I’m still going to have to punish you to make sure you never are!”
Well, Goldilocks had pitched a royal temper tantrum and demanded that she accompany her father when he delivered the stove to the bears. She wanted to be able to walk around town and tell everyone what she had seen at the bears’ house. However, because they knew her, the bears would have none of it. Papa Bruin told her father that he could deliver the stove only if his daughter stayed in the truck. If she got out of it, he would not accept delivery nor would he pay for the stove.
Goldilocks was very sneaky. She watched and saw all of them go inside. She knew that the bears would offer some refreshment to her father and his helpers because they were kindly and it was such a hot day. So she crept out of the truck and crawled up under the window. There she could hear all the talk. But she heard nothing she could tell the people in the town. Everyone knew she had gone with her father to deliver the stove, her tantrum having been heard all over the town. So she decided to make up some stories to tell everyone.
Her stories were too fantastic: she had told how her father had to carry the stove up three flights of stairs when everyone knew it was a ranch style house. She described golden floors, silver plated walls and crystal chandeliers when everyone in town knew what the house was like, since the carpenters and masons lived in the town. “Go on, Goldilocks,” they laughed, “you never were in the house were you?” “My name is Mary Catherine Elizabeth Carmichael O’Shaunassey and you better stop calling me that horrible name!” she would scream. But they continued to call her ‘Goldilocks’ and grin, So Goldilocks decided that she would have to return to the bears’ house and get inside. Then she could tell everyone how wonderful she was to get inside and see it.
The problem was getting inside. Thus Goldilocks was a morose little monster of a girl for the next several days. She threw temper tantrums about the color of her dress and the kind of fruit in her oatmeal. She kicked the dog and chased the cat up a tree. Finally, she decided to spy on the bears. Her first day of spying was the third day the bears took their new walk in the morning. She watched them go on their walk and noted when they returned. She did this for three days, watching to see how she could sneak into the house while they went on their walk. She returned from her spying mission to find her mother quite upset because she would disappear in the morning only to return home, starving, just in time for lunch. “I’m just going for a morning walk,” she had stated defiantly, daring anyone to question her further.
So, the next morning her father met her at the front door and said he would go with her. She was trapped: if she was going on an innocent morning walk then why couldn’t her father accompany her? So she faked a big smile, grabbed him by the hand and pulled him out the door and down the street. She made sure that they took the small back paths, climbing fences, ducking under low branches and running up a few steep hills. The next day her big brother was assigned to go with her. This time they wandered down main street stopping to admire all the pretty dresses in the shop windows. So, of course, when she got up the next morning no one greeted her at the door. She was free to pursue her schemes.
And pursue she did. She ran as fast as she could down the road toward the bears’ house. It was a very warm morning and she was hot and thirsty when she arrived, just in time to see the bears wandering down toward the creek. She checked the door. It was not locked. So she pushed it open and crept inside.
There was nothing spectacular about the place. It was just a nice home, like hers and all her friends’ homes. Except, of course, that it was designed for bears. Disappointment raged through her. How was she to impress the town?
Then she saw the large pitcher of orange juice with some ice cubes floating in it. But instead of first going to the bathroom and cleaning the dust and sweat from her face and hands, she ran to the table and grabbed at the pitcher. Intent on pouring herself a glass of juice, she failed to recognize how heavy the pitcher would be, and she spilled a lot of juice on the table. But she did manage to get a glass of juice poured and she slurped it down. It was delicious, cool and sweet. She grabbed the pitcher and poured another glass, not spilling so much this time. After drinking it, she looked around the room to see what else she could find.
The table had three places set with a bowl of steaming hot oatmeal at each place. Goldilocks jumped around to the first place and took a big spoon of oatmeal. It burned her tongue. She yelled and dropped the spoon, splattering oatmeal. The second bowl was almost as hot; she shook her head as she dropped the messy spoon down on the clean napkin. The third bowl was no cooler. But she took a few ice cubes that she had spilled out of the orange juice and put them in the third bowl, stirring it to melt the cubes. Now the oatmeal was cool enough. It was very tasty, so she ate the whole bowl.
Three rocking chairs attracted her attention. She had begun to imagine that the bears had invited her to breakfast, and were now saying that she should enjoy rocking in one of their chairs. She could hardly climb into the first chair: it was the Papa Bruin’s chair and rather large. The second chair was smaller, but her feet couldn’t reach the floor. The third chair was small, but she could squeeze her body into it. She began to rock vigorously, doing all the things her parents had said not to do. She tried to get the chair to rock all the way forward and then all the way back. She tried to make the chair jump. Then, all of a sudden, the chair pitched backward too far and fell over. She heard the wood splinter and felt the wood bounce off her skin, bruising her arms and legs. It scared her just a little, but she got up and looked at the broken chair. “Oh!” she exclaimed, for she had broken not only the chair, but also the little table that was set by the side of the chair.
Her heart pounding, she wandered down the hall toward the bedrooms. The first bedroom obviously belonged to Papa and Mama Bruin. She tried to climb into the bed, but only pulled the covers off of it. Leaving them piled in the floor she wandered into the room across the hall. This was most certainly the guest room. She managed to climb into the bed, but the mattress was very stiff and hard. So she jumped up and down on the bed like it was a trampoline. This made her rather tired, but the bed was too hard for her to sleep on. So she wandered down to the last room. This surely was the room of Baby Bruin. The bed was smaller: she could sit on it and her feet still touched the floor. And it was very soft and cozy. So she lay down and snuggled into the covers, falling fast asleep.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
The first thing the bears noticed when they returned from their walk was the front door. It was wide open. Now on this particular morning Baby Bruin had let the door slam shut, causing Mama Bruin to gently chide her baby for bad manners. So they knew it had not been left open.
Anxiously, Papa Bruin peered inside. The mess he saw caused him to growl. He entered the house cautiously, looking around and grunting angrily. Seeing no one he signaled to his family that it was safe for them to enter the house. It did not look like anything had been stolen, but their breakfast was ruined, as was the table and Baby Bruin’s chair. Mama Bruin sighed and started to clean up the mess but Papa Bruin grunted for her to wait. He thought he had heard a noise from the back of the house.
Taking care to make as little noise as possible, he took his baseball bat out of the closet and walked gingerly dawn the hall. Someone had disturbed the covers on his bed and the guest bed looked like someone had been jumping up and down on it. Shaking his head, he peered into Baby Bruin’s room. Lying in the bed was that horrible little Goldilocks girl.
He was so surprised that he just shut the door, shook his head, turned and walked back down the hall. He looked at his family and said, “Goldilocks. She’s asleep in Baby’s bed. What are we going to do?”
“We?” asked Mama Bruin, “what do you mean ‘we’? She’s going to clean up this mess. After all, she made it.”
Papa Bruin’s eyes grew quite large. A big grin spread across his face. “We’ll teach her some manners.”
The three of them walked back down the hall and into Baby Bruin’s room. Mama Bruin stood on the right side of the bed, Papa Bruin stood on the left and Baby Bruin stood at the foot.
“Wake up, child,” Mama Bruin said in a quiet, friendly voice.
Goldilocks woke up to see the three Bears looking intently at her. She started to scream at them for waking her up, but the look on their faces forced her to be quiet.
“I sure hope the oatmeal was good,” said Papa Bruin.
“I sure hope the rocking chair was fun,” said Baby Bruin.
“I sure hope jumping on the guest bed was fun,” said Mama Bruin.
They were all three smiling very sweetly at her. Then Mama Bruin said, “We’re going to make some lunch now. Would you like to stay and eat with us?”
And Papa Bruin said, “And then we’re going to play all afternoon. Would you like to stay and play with us?”
And Baby Bruin said, “Nobody comes to play with me since we moved out here. I sure would like a friend. Did you come here to be my friend?”
And Goldilocks said, “Yes.”
“The oatmeal was good?”
“Yes.”
“Jumping on the bed was loads of fun, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“And rocking as hard as possible in the rocking chair was great fun, too?”
“Yes.”
“So you want to spend a day or two with us?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” said Mama Bruin. “Baby Bruin, will you come out to the kitchen with me. I have an errand for you.”
Thus Goldilocks found herself sitting on a big rock next to the creek with a fishing pole in her hands. Papa Bruin was sitting next to her and Mama Bruin was in the kitchen fixing lunch. Baby Bruin was running her errand. But Goldilocks was very worried. She wanted to send word to tell her parents where she was: but she couldn’t do that without explaining why she was there in the first place. And no one in town would understand why she went into the house without an invitation; much less why she ate their food and broke the rocking chair and jumped on and slept in their beds. She thought she could think of something to explain it all while she was fishing, but Papa Bruin kept asking questions about her family and friends and school and oh, why couldn’t he just shut up. When she glanced at him to see if she could say this the way he looked made her think it would not be a good idea. She wasn’t scared, at least not yet, but she was beginning to get a little anxious.
To make matters worse, Papa Bruin had tried to give her a worm to use as bait. He even showed her how to put the worm on the hook. Soon enough she caught a fish. But it was all slimy and she refused to touch it. So Papa Bruin unhooked it. Then he gave her a worm. It, too, was slimy. She hollered, “Ewe… yuck” and dropped it.
Papa Bruin began to talk about things she didn’t want to hear. He spoke of manners. He talked about how you could tell a lot about a person by the way they fished. She did not want to listen, but his voice was very commanding. She was a very stubborn little girl and decided that no matter what he said she was not going to touch anything gross and slimy like a worm.
Soon Mama Bruin brought them some sandwiches. “I’m sorry about having to serve this out here, but someone made a mess on the dining room table and they have not had time to clean it up, yet. I’m sure they will soon, though.”
Goldilocks began to feel a little queasy. When she saw the sandwiches she realized that she was hungry, but after Mama Bruin’s little speech, she began to loose her appetite. Then she began to get angry. Did the Bears expect her to clean anything? She had never cleaned up anything in her life. Then she thought that Mama Bruin had said ‘someone’ and not specifically who. And she said they had not had time to clean up the mess. Maybe it was Baby Bruin that was supposed to clean up the mess, whatever it was. But Mary Catherine Elizabeth Carmichael O’Shaunassey was not going to clean up any mess for anyone. She looked at the sandwich and took a ferocious bite out of it.
Eventually Baby Bruin joined them. She said she ate her sandwich in the kitchen. Then she looked at Goldilocks and asked, “Papa, why didn’t you show our guest how to bait a hook. If she doesn’t catch any fish, what will she eat for supper?”
“Oh, she caught a fish. Just look in her bucket.”
Baby Bruin peered into the bucket next to Goldilocks, “You must not be very hungry. I could eat three that size.”
“Oh, I guess I didn’t make it clear to you,” Papa Bruin said, smiling kindly at her, “we each catch as many as we want. Then we clean them and fillet them just the way we want them. I catch some extras for Mama Bruin because she is busy fixing the rest of the meal. So, if you want more than one fish for your dinner, you’d better bait that hook.”
Goldilocks was astounded. They expected her to catch her own dinner. Then the rest of Papa Bruin’s words dawned on her. “But I don’t know how to clean a fish.” She said this, not in a whiny protest, but as a plain, dumb fact.
“That’s okay,” Papa Bruin smiled, “Baby Bruin and I will show you how with the ones we catch.”
She looked at the worm still wiggling on the big rock just a couple of feet away from her. Her stubborn anger made her shudder. Nobody could really expect her to touch wiggly worms and slimy fish.
Papa Bruin and Baby Bruin tried very hard to show her how to scale and clean a fish. But she would have none of it. “You can clean it for me.” She smiled sweetly at them. When it became obvious that they were not going to clean it for her, she ordered them.
But they just smiled at her. “Well, if that’s the way you want Mama Bruin to cook your fish,” they said.
≈≈≈≈≈≈≈
The smell of fresh trout filled the kitchen. The mess was still in the dining room, so they were eating in the kitchen. There was some corn and green beans with potatoes in them, and a big round of cornbread. But the smell of the fish was incredible. Goldilocks stared at the trout on her plate, which stared back at her. She really could not believe it, but Mama Bruin had cooked the fish. There it lay on her plate. She had watched them clean their fish and she just knew that if she stuck a knife into the thing on her plate, it would bleed and the guts would spill out all over. The thought made her nauseated. But the fish’s eyes made her even more queasy.
She looked at the pretty fillets on Baby Bruin’s plate. She wanted to throw a temper tantrum and scream until they gave her some fish, but somehow she knew that they would just let her scream. They were way out in the country: no one would hear her.
Her attention was captured by the conversation. Mama Bruin was talking about the Mayor, “…well yes. The Mayor said he did enjoy a nice walk. And no, he didn’t mind eating in the kitchen. He said he understood the situation.
“He gave me a lollipop.” Baby Bruin grinned at Goldilocks. She frowned, wondering why no one said he was here so she could get a lollipop. “He said it was because I did a great job of cleaning up after lunch.” She looked at Goldilocks and grinned again.
Hunger and embarrassment were fueling a great anger in Goldilocks. She felt herself turning red. But Mama Bruin said in a lovely voice, “Well, dear, you were having such a great time fishing, I didn’t want to interrupt. I can’t imagine someone giving up fishing for a lollipop. Now I made a chocolate cake for dessert. Would anyone like a piece?”
Goldilocks swallowed her anger. So far, anger was all she had had for her dinner. The fish covered almost her whole plate and there wasn’t much room for vegetables and cornbread. She accepted a piece of cake and ate it silently, while Papa Bruin talked about the ‘one that got away’ when he went fishing at the lake.
They played checkers after dinner, but no one rocked in a rocking chair. Then it was time for bed. Goldilocks was astounded that they were making her sleep in the guest room, with the bed unmade. “Well, my dear, that’s the way you left it,” Mama Bruin cooed lovingly.
So Goldilocks had to crawl into an unmade bed. What was worse, the springs in the bed were sprung. A few of them were poking through. She had not noticed this when she laid down on it before she had started jumping on it. It occurred to her that maybe her Dad was right and jumping on a bed would damage the springs. Well, she thought, they could get her a different mattress. After all, she was a guest.
But no one answered her calls. The other bedroom doors appeared to be locked. She screamed and hollered in her best temper tantrum to no avail. The floor was very hard, but it didn’t poke her, so she pulled the covers off the bed and slept on the floor.
She awoke to Mama Bruin calling lovingly to her, “Oh, my dear you fell off the bed? Are you alright? Why didn’t you call out? We would help you get back into bed. Oh! Papa, you know, I’ll bet it was when we went on our nightly walk.” Mama Bruin looked at Goldilocks, “See, dear, we bears sleep all winter, so we don’t sleep much in warm weather. After you went to bed we went for a walk. I’m so sorry you had to sleep on the floor.” She smiled kindly at Goldilocks, but Baby Bruin giggled and Papa Bruin glowered at his daughter `, who instantly became very quiet.
She dressed and went down for breakfast, to find that the only thing available for breakfast was the oatmeal left over from yesterday, still laid out on the dining room table with the spilled orange juice.
“Oh, well,” Mama Bruin smiled at her in response to her inquiry, “We thought maybe you would want to finish up your oatmeal from yesterday. You can warm it up, if you want. After all, you said it was delicious. Oh, you didn’t finish you fish last night. You can have it for your lunch.”
Goldilocks glared at her. She didn’t know what was going on, but she knew something was up. She opened her mouth three times. First to scream but she couldn’t scream, then to tell Mama Bruin just what she could do with the fish only she couldn’t make her voice work so finally she uttered a little cry of despair. “Maybe I’ll just go home. Mom and Dad don’t really know where I am. They might be upset if I don’t come home today.”
“Oh, they know you’re here. The Mayor told them. That was Baby Bruin’s errand yesterday: to tell the Mayor where you were and have him come out and see the damage. He and your parents will be here soon. Perhaps you might want to eat your cold oatmeal, unless you want to face them on an empty stomach?” Papa Bruin was very stern. No one had ever spoken to her like that before. She was scared.
“They’re… they are…come…coming here?” She stammered a bit. Then she flew into a rage, picking up things and throwing them, hollering about being tricked and how the Bears were so very mean.
But Papa Bruin just picked her up and carried her outside. “You’ll do less damage here,” he said.
She stood screaming at him, calling him all sorts of horrid names. Then she took a deep breath and heard something behind her. She turned and really screamed in fear. The whole town had seen and heard her, for they were all coming down the little road to the Bear’s house.
The town gathered around her, putting her in the middle of a big circle. Everyone seemed to be there, but no one was smiling or even grinning. Everyone looked very angry.
“The charges are, first, that you did enter the house of the Bears uninvited; second that you did eat their food without it being offered to you; third, that you broke Baby Bruin’s rocking chair and the table next to it; fourth, that you messed up the covers on Papa and Mama Bruin’s bed, and then jumped up and down on the guest bed until you broke the springs and that you were found sleeping in the Baby Bruin’s bed.” The Mayor spoke in a very courtly voice. Goldilocks looked up at him and wanted to scream in his face. But she was sure it would not help her at all. For she knew that her parents had told her many many times about how to behave. She knew what she did was wrong, but she did not want to admit it.
“Your punishment is first, to clean the Bear’s house from top to bottom. You will be their maid for a week. If you do not do as they wish, you will continue to be their maid until they are satisfied. Second, you are to wear rags until your parents have paid for the damages to the Bears.”
At this she did scream, calling the Mayor all sorts of bad names, and saying that no one could make her do any of it.
In a voice louder than her screams the Mayor called her father forward and said, “Do your duty, sir.”
And for the first time in her life, her father spanked her.
In the end it was her hunger that broke her. The Bruin family kept putting that horrid bowl of oatmeal and that greasy, hideous fried fish out for her to eat. She kept refusing to clean anything. Finally she asked if she could have something decent to eat if she cleaned up the dining table. It took her three hours to scrub the sticky dried up juice and oatmeal from the table, but her reward was a delicious peanut butter and blackberry jelly sandwich and a large glass of chocolate milk.
She spent a week scrubbing and cleaning the Bruin’s home. But they also showed her how to fish. She learned to clean the fish and to filet it so there were no bones. Mama Bruin shared her secret recipe for frying trout. (All I can tell you about that is that one day, when Goldilocks was a grandmother, a neighbor saw her using fresh ginger when she fried fish. But Goldilocks and her children and grandchildren say that they promised the Bruins never to reveal anything about the recipe. Probably, your best bet is to befriend a bear and see if she will share the recipe with you.)
Goldilocks survived her punishment. Her behavior improved: she quit throwing tantrums and demanding her own way. She even began to share so most of the children in the town began to enjoy playing with her. Not that her parents never had to punish her again, she was a real little girl, after all.
As for her name, well, she decided that since everyone already called her Goldilocks, she might as well call herself that. Once she started telling everyone her name was Goldilocks the person she was introduced to would say, “Well, I can see how you got that name.” and soon everyone forgot the real reason for the name.
As for the bear family, well, they became so very famous that some king somewhere made a special decree that two constellations would be named for them. You can still see these constellations, although some of the stars seem to have moved around a bit, making it difficult to see the bears in the sky anymore.
