Charlie Bear Takes Little Charlie to Mexico

November 27, 1964

One sunny day after Charlie Bear had fixed the kitchen faucet so it didn’t go drip, drip, drip anymore, and after he had oiled the electric fan so it didn’t go kreek, kreek, kreek anymore and after he had put in a new doorstop on the screen door so it wouldn’t go bang, bang, slam every time little Charlie went in or out of the door, papa Charlie went outdoors where little Charlie was playing and asked, “How would you like to go traveling today?”

“Oh boy! Where are we going?” asked little Charlie.

“I thought maybe we’d like to take a trip down to Mexico. Let’s get our traveling caps.”

As soon as Charlie Bear and little Charlie had their traveling caps on they whirled around three times, turned a somersault and there they were on a road not very far from Mexico City.

“Look over here,” said Papa Charlie.

“What are they doing?” asked little Charlie.

“I haven’t the faintest idea. Let’s go over and ask them,” replied Papa Charlie Bear.

Little Charlie and papa Charlie Bear walked over onto the other side of the road where two men were working near some pine trees. The trees were the kind that have all the branches and needles on top of a tall trunk and look like big bales on top of sticks. When the two bears were close enough to talk, little Charlie asked, “What are you doing?”

He was so interested he forgot to say, “How do you do?” and introduced himself before starting to ask questions. So, Mr. Charlie Bear said, “How do you do? I am Charlie Bear and this is my son, little Charlie. We’ve come for a visit to Mexico and saw you working over here. Can you tell us please, what you are doing?”

We are making ropes from the leaves of this agave plant… some people call it a century plant.”

“Ropes from a plant? Let’s see.” Said little Charlie.

Pedro showed him a coil of rope that was shiny and pretty… just about the right size for a jump rope for little Charlie’s sister Annie. Little Charlie saw a whole pile of something on the ground and he saw something else hanging from a line stretched between two trees and he saw a funny looking instrument that one was using. Pedro explained how the rope was made. First one scrapes the pulp (that’s the soft part) from the leaves so that just long threads were left. Then he put these threads on the line to dry. When they were dry, Juan and Pedro twisted them to make the rope. The pile of “something” on the ground was the pulp from the leaves and, the “funny instrument” Juan was using was the scraper that took the pulp from the threads. The “instrument” was a piece of wood about as long as your arm, covered just a little and in the middle were some sharp points that scraped away the pulp.

Papa Charlie Bear bought one of the ropes to take home to Annie then said, “thank you” to the two men, took a little Charlie by the hand and they started off down the road. Before long they caught up with some cows going down the road too. Little Charlie said to the man who was with the cows, “Where are you taking the cows?”

The man answered, “To the stream so that they can have a drink of water. In this desert country we do not have lots of ponds where the cows can go by themselves, so I have to take them to the stream for a drink. It isn’t a natural stream but one that the government has made to bring water to this desert.”

“Can we go with you?” asked little Charlie.

“Yes,” he answered, “but stay away from the cows so they do not get frightened.”

Very soon they came to a little path that went off the road. The man with the cow said, “We go down this path to the stream.”

Little Charlie said “goodbye” to the nice man and on they walked in the beautiful high desert country of Mexico. It wasn’t very much farther when they noticed the stream was bubbling alongside the road. Little Charlie wanted to go in and feel the cool water. Papa Charlie said, “NO” but before the word “no” was out of Papa Charlie’s mouth, little Charlie was taking his shoes and stockings off and was in the water. My, that cool water felt good! Oops!!! Little Charlie fell into the water and got all wet. Papa Charlie was angry and said, “Little Charlie, what am I going to do with you? I told you not to go in – and now you’re all wet. Come out right now!”

Little Charlie didn’t care if he was wet. He was having lots of fun in the water. When little Charlie finally climbed the bank of the stream, Papa Charlie took off his clothes wrung them all out as dry as he could, gave them a strong shake and spread them out to dry. Papa Charlie laid down to take a nap in the nice warm sun and a little Charlie – do you know what he did it? – he went back into the water. Soon papa Charlie woke up and looked for little Charlie but couldn’t find him. He picked up the clothes (which were dry), went down to the stream and looked. He looked across the road. He looked back the way they had come. He looked up the road and there was a little Charlie. Right beside the road not very far ahead was a pool of water where women were doing their washing. There were big flat stones on the side of the stream where they beat the clothes to get them clean. Little Charlie was playing in the shallow pool having lots of fun with the soap suds. He was having such a fine time he didn’t want to get out when papa Charlie called, but when papa Bear told him that mama Bear was going to have blueberry pancakes for lunch and now it was lunchtime, he climbed out of the water and put on his dry clothes. Both papa and little Charlie Bear put on their traveling caps, whirled around three times and there they were back home just as mama Bear was putting the first blueberry pancakes on the table