Betty and the Bear

This poem has been requested as an old favorite recitation, the author is not known.

In a pioneer’s cabin out West, so they say,

A great big black grizzly trotted one day,

And seated himself on the hearth, and began

To lap the contents of a two-gallon pan

Of milk and potatoes—and excellent meal,

And then looked about to see what he could steal.

The lord of the mansion awoke from his sleep,

And hearing a racket, he ventured to peep,

Just out in the kitchen to see what was there

And was scared to behold a great grizzly bear,

So he screamed in alarm to his slumbering frau—

“There’s a b’ar in the kitchen as big’s a cow!”

“A what?”  “Why, a b’ar!”  “Well, murder him then!”

“Yes, Betty, I will, if you’ll first venture in.”

So Betty leaped up and the poker she seized,

While her man shut the door and against it he squeezed.

As Betty then laid on the grizzly her blows,

Now on his forehead and now on his nose,

Her man through the keyhole kept shouting within—

“Well done, my brave Betty!  Now hit him ag’in!

Now rap on the ribs; now a knock on the snout;

Now poke with the poker and poke his eyes out!”

So, rapping and poking, poor Betty alone

At last laid Sir Bruno as dead as a stone.

Now when the old man saw the bear was no more,

He ventured to poke his own nose out the door

And there saw the grizzly stretched out on the floor;

Then off to the neighbors he hastened, to tell

All the wonderful things that that morning befell;

And he published the marvelous story afar

How “Me and my Betty just slaughtered a b’ar!

Oh, yes, come and see; all the neighbors have sid it—

Come and see what we did, Me and Betty, We did it!”