Page:St. Nicholas, vol. 40.1 (1912-1913).djvu/721

1913.] cool place under some leaves, and then came and sat on the grass at his uncle’s feet to listen.

“They were an odd pair of youngsters,” began Uncle Andy, and paused to get his pipe going.

“They were a curious pair, and they eyed each other curiously. One was about five years old, and the other about five months. One was all pink and white, and ruddy tan, and fluffy gold; and the other all glossy black. One, in fact, was a baby; and the other was a bear.



“Neither had come voluntarily into this strange fellowship; and it would have been hard to say which of the pair regarded the other with most suspicion. The bear, to be sure, at five months old, was more grown-up, more self-sufficing and efficient, than the baby at five years; but he had the disadvantage of feeling himself an intruder. He had come to the raft quite uninvited, and found the baby in possession! On that account, of course, he rather expected the baby to show her white, little teeth, and snarl at him, and try to drive him off into the water. In that case, he would have resisted desperately, because he was in mortal fear of the boiling, seething flood. But he was very uneasy, and kept up a whimpering that was intended to be conciliatory; for though the baby was small, and by no means ferocious, he regarded her as the possessor of the raft, and it was an axiom of the wilds that very small and harmless-looking creatures might become dangerous when resisting an invasion of their rights.

“The baby, on the other hand, was momentarily expecting that the bear would come over and bite her. Why else, if not from some such sinister motive, had he come aboard her raft, when he had been traveling on a perfectly good tree? The tree looked so much more interesting than her bare raft, on which she had been voyaging for over an hour, and of which she was now heartily tired. To be sure, the bear was not much bigger than her own Teddy bear at home, which she was wont to carry around by one leg, or to slap without ceremony whenever she thought it needed discipline. But the glossy black of the stranger was quite unlike the mild and grubby whiteness of her Teddy, and his shrewd, little, twinkling eyes were quite unlike the bland shoe-buttons which adorned the face of her uncomplaining pet. She wondered when her mother would come and relieve the strain of the situation.