They had a large basket with them, with a handle at either end, so that they might lay in twigs and small branches as well as single leaves; and afterwards they were glad that they had brought that peculiar, particular basket.
They had it nearly half filled when they began to feel tired. They had been over the ground before and so were familiar with it; and Ally pointed out their favorite resting-log, and they made their way to it and sat down. It was covered with thick, velvet-green moss, and Ally sank into the deep cushion with a luxurious coo.
At the same moment she felt her feet touching something very soft. It was a dim, shady place, and she peered down curiously. The next minute she was on her knees in the grassy hollow, and Essie saw her with both arms round the very dearest, softest, hairiest little creature alive!
“Oh, Essie,” cried Ally, “just see what we’ve found! Oh, what do you suppose it is?”
“Oh, oh!” cried Essie, “isn’t it a dear!”
“Isn’t it a dear!” echoed Ally. “I just love it!”
“So do I love it! Let me feel it!” cried Essie, down in the hollow too, and half crowding Ally away, to get her own arms round the little animal. “Do you think it is a little fox?”
“Oh, no! Essie—foxes are yellowish. And it can’t be a wild-cat—wild-cats have blazing eyes, and they scratch. This is a soft sleepy baby, and it isn’t a panther—it isn’t anything cruel—oh, isn’t it cunning?”
“Perhaps it’s a quite new sort of animal,” said Essie, “and we have found it first of anybody; maybe it is one of the Bible animals—a leviathan, maybe, Ally.”
Ally didn’t answer. She was holding the little warm flat foot in her hand, and looking the little creature over. “I guess it’s a baby bear, Essie,” she said. “Bears don’t have tails, you know, and this hasn’t. Uncle Billy’ll know. Essie, if it is a bear, it’s our very own bear, and we can have it.”