"It don't matter. 'Twas over her you and Sophrony quarreled.
You admit it."
"I certainly do not admit that I quarreled with Mrs. Watkins," he said firmly. "She evidently took offense
at what I said to her, and she left. Now she cannot come back. Under no circumstances would I consider it."
"Well, I wash my hands of you both!" exclaimed Miss Peckham again, and she turned sharply toward the back door—the door opposite the one by which Janice had just entered.
The matter of washing her hands seemed important, if only a figure of speech. She repeated it angrily as she jerked open the kitchen door. And then she uttered a strange, squeaking cry that startled Janice and her father before they caught sight of what had caused the woman's fright.
Miss Peckham seemed transfixed with terror. She threw up her hands stiffly and toppled over backward. She fell just as though she had not a joint in her body, and she fell so hard that her feet sprang up into the air when her shoulders and the back of her head struck the floor.
Standing upright, framed by the doorframe, was a huge, shaggy, ragged looking bear, and he was snuffling and whining as bears do when they want something. Really the bear was begging, but none of those in the kitchen for a moment realized that fact.
Mr. Day grabbed the poker. Janice squealed and hid behind him. But her single affrighted cry was all the sound Miss Peckham made. She really had collapsed in what Janice thought was a faint.
Before Mr. Day could attack the creature, a whining voice from the darkness behind the bear said:
"Bread-butter, please, Signore—Signora. Pietro no bite. He gooda bear. Give supper, please. Pietro lika bread-butter."