Teddy Bears have no sense of ratio and no amount of explanation could ever convince Bedelia that she was of a size entirely out of proportion for the Walking House. Finally she made one valiant effort to establish herself therein, but was driven to retire, growling, as she could not force more than her big head and shoulders into any of the ordinary-sized rooms. There would not have been room even for Little Breeches, let alone for Bedelia’s generous proportions.
CHAPTER IV
BEDELIA GROWS A TAIL
BEDELIA was an extremely handsome bear, as Teddy Bears go, but for some time she had been plunged in inexpressible gloom because she possessed no tail. In vain her family expostulated with her, pointing out the fact that a bear with a tail would indeed be a freak and a monstrosity. Bedelia persisted in her notion, unreasonable as it was, and very nearly succeeded in driving Peter Pan to the verge of insanity. For although she led him a merry dance as a rule, he was extremely fond of her, and being of a chivalrous nature, made all sorts of excuses for her queer notions. Therefore he had very nearly arrived at his wits’ end when Bedelia suddenly ceased her lamentations and became quite cheerful—a change which, had Peter Pan only read her aright, would have appeared ominous. However, the poor fellow was so delighted at seeing his wife once more like her former self that he suspected nothing, not even when Bedelia began to absent herself at intervals from the family circle.
Truth to tell, Bedelia had a great deal more sense than most humans and realized after a little that scolding and fretting would never attain the end in view. She wanted a tail, and a tail she meant to have, and immediately began to cast around in her fertile mind as to the means that she should use to accomplish her end. She was far too cute to ask advice from those who had so discouraged her, but waited with trembling anxiety for the inevitable something which is sure to turn up sooner or later. It is a long lane, indeed, that has no turning, but the further one progresses, the nearer it is to the end; and Bedelia helped along the somewhat tedious waiting by a series of experiments that would have filled the breast of the gloomiest with hysterical mirth.
The beautiful, feathery appendage of Rough House had at first attracted her attention as he held it aloft and waved it plume-like in the air. But somehow Rough House had been very rude and had nipped her smartly when she laid hold and began a series of heroic tugs. And she had retreated in disorder with a rip in her coat, made by the dog’s gleaming teeth. Afterward she reflected that the tail was far too large and would not have matched her own fur anyway. This thought brought consolation and she proceeded to turn her attention and her energies in other directions. But try as she might, she could find nothing in the line of a tail that became her. She tried them all from every animal in the nursery, and nurse, finding them one by one lying on the floor, had shaken her head as she attached them successively to their original owners. She had her own ideas on the subject and they chiefly included rats, or perhaps little Rags who was getting his second teeth and might incline toward chewing things up. Sally alone suspected Bedelia, but was unable to catch her at her evil-doing, as she carried on her marauding chiefly in the silent night.
Having weighed in the balance and found wanting all the ready-made tails she could find, she looked about for something out of which to manufacture the right thing. Nothing, however, presented itself, and Bedelia realized that she could scarcely have formed so important an article with her own clumsy paws, even if it had. So for the time her occupation seemed gone, and she began to mope again, filled with chagrin that all her efforts should thus be foiled.