“Why, what’s the matter with it?” asked the Mother Bear.
“There ain’t anything the matter with it,” growled Sprawley, twisting his head round and trying to see.
“Yes, there is too!” cried Fatty. “Oh my! Sprawley’s splitting hisself all down the back.”
“Why! why!” cried the Father Bear, “what’s this?” He shuffled over and looked at Sprawley’s back, and then without a word he began to tear and pull at the bear-skin. In another minute he had it off, and there stood the merman shivering and blinking at them with his mouth open like a gasping fish.
“Oh dear! oh dear!” cried the Mother Bear, turning whiter than ever. “He’s not my cub after all,” and she sat down and began to whine and cry. But Father Bear gave a growl, and rising on his hind legs he fetched the merman a cuff that sent him tumbling head over heels across the ice.
Father Bear was after him, but before he could reach him the merman was up and running for the open strip of water in the distance. Father Bear chased him the whole way; sometimes he caught him and gave him a cuff that sent him flying, but at last the merman reached the water and dived into it. He must have had a sore head for days afterward, however.
When the Father Bear came back again, he was panting and growling. “There,” said he, “I guess that’s the last time any of the mermen will try to play their tricks on us. Come, come,” he went on, “it’s time we were off for our hunting.”
But the Mother Bear only shook her head. She had been doing nothing since she saw that Sprawley was an ice-merman but sit and rock herself backward and forward and whine. “I couldn’t go, my dear; I couldn’t indeed,” she said. “I’m all of a tremble now to think how that dreadful merman has been playing with Fatty and Dumpy day after day and I never knew it.”
“Then I’ll go by myself,” said Father Bear, gruffly, “and leave the children home with you. But you can go, Fairy,” he said to Teddy. “I’ll carry you on my back if you like, and maybe you’ll see me catch a young walrus. I suppose it was you who split him down the back, as the Counterpane Fairy brought you.”
“Yes, sir, it was,” said Teddy, timidly; “but I’m afraid I can’t go with you; I’m afraid I’m going back,” —for the bears, the fields of ice, the far-off green water, were all wavering and growing misty before his sight. Faintly he heard the voices of the bear cubs: “Owie! owie! don’t go away”; for they had grown fond of him the day before.