Shaggy needed no coaxing. He was so cold that even his voice had frozen in his throat! At least he couldn’t speak a word until he grew warm.
And the way that bear snuggled up to Father Thrift’s fire was comical to see!
At last he managed to say: “Father Thrift, I shouldn’t know this place if I had not lived here so long. You have a door on the cave, and two windows. And you have chairs and a table, and—and two beds.
“Why have you two beds, Father Thrift?”
“One is for company,” answered the queer little old man.
“If you had just one more bed, I should say this was the House of the Three Bears.”
And Shaggy laughed at his little joke. (Or perhaps the good meal which Father Thrift had prepared for him tickled his stomach.)
“Where have you been all winter?” asked Father Thrift.
“When the cold days came,” said the bear, “I crawled into my cave in the rocks and curled myself up into a big ball. There I meant to stay until the warm days of spring.
“The snow made a door to my cave, and I intended to sleep all winter long.