The mistakes you will make being your own boss - Andy Wilkerson

The old man peered from under his green leaf at the danger, and
stood as quietly as the boy. For a few seconds this mutual scrutinizing
went on; then, the bear betraying a growing irritability, the boy, with a
movement of his head, indicated that the old man must step aside from the
trail and go down the embankment. The boy followed, going backward, still
holding the bow taut and ready. They waited till a crashing among the
bushes from the opposite side of the embankment told them the bear had
gone on. The boy grinned as he led back to the trail.

"A big un, Granser," he chuckled.

The old man
shook his head.

"They get thicker every day," he
complained in a thin, undependable falsetto. "Who'd have thought I'd live
to see the time when a man would be afraid of his life on the way to the
Cliff House. When I was a boy, Edwin, men and women and little babies used
to come out here from San Francisco by tens of thousands on a nice day.
And there weren't any bears then. No, sir. They used to pay money to look
at them in cages, they were that rare."

"What is money,
Granser?"

Before the old man could answer, the boy
recollected and triumphantly shoved his hand into a pouch under his
bear-skin and pulled forth a battered and tarnished silver dollar. The old
man's eyes glistened, as he held the coin close to them.

"I can't see," he muttered. "You look and see if you can make out
the date, Edwin."