“If them children ar’n’t bringing home a cub!”
Old Uncle stirred in his hammock. Aunt Susan went down the steps. “What will they do next?” said Old Uncle. As the twins came up with a joyful outcry, to exhibit their treasure, he rose and peered into the basket. “’Tis a cub surely,” he said. He looked at the children from under his shaggy eyebrows. “Will you fetch in a catamount to-morrow?” he asked sternly.
“We—we thought you would be pleased,” Essie faltered.
“Why, Uncle,” cried Ally, “why, Old Uncle, don’t you love a baby bear? I just want you to see him suck my fingers! You can’t help loving him!”
“I love you,” teased Old Uncle, catching her up to a place in the hammock beside himself. “But you can’t keep him alive on your fingers, even if he only sucked up one a day.”
“You’re just funning!” said Ally. “Pincher knows how to feed him, and so does Michael. I reckon Essie and I could too.”
“Old Uncle, we won’t let him be a bit of trouble,” said Essie.
“Of course he won’t be any trouble,” said Aunt Susan. She and Aunt Rose had brought a bottle of warm milk with a rag over the top of it. They put it into the little bear’s mouth, and the whole family gathered round to see him take his dinner. His grunts of satisfaction were very funny. At last the little fellow let go the bottle, stretched himself, and rolled over on the grass, and looked so good-natured you would almost have said he was laughing; and Aunt Susan said, “A little bear is a little dear!”
The cub must have been pretty tired with all the attention and endearments he received that day, not to say anything about Master Will’s efforts to make him stand on his hind legs, when he tumbled over every time like a mould of jelly.
But at last, and after his supper, he was put to sleep in the shed on a little truss of hay, under an old blanket, where, as soon as he was alone, he began to whimper for his mother. But the children did not hear him; they had trooped up-stairs to their own beds, all of them as tired as the cub himself, and were presently sound asleep.