“Yes, it is a bear!” insisted Flossie, and both children were so certain about the heap of fur that Mrs. Bobbsey called her husband, who was out in the woodshed with Tom Case and Jim Bimby.
“A bear!” cried the mill foreman. “Well, there are some around these woods, but I never knew of one coming into a cabin. I’ll take a look.”
“Hadn’t you better take a gun?” asked Mr. Bobbsey, as he and Old Jim followed the foreman upstairs. “There’s one here.”
“Well, you might hand it to me,” said Mr. Case. “But I reckon if it is a bear that’s crawled in to go to sleep, he’ll be so lazy I can take him by the back of the neck and throw him out.”
Freddie and Flossie waited with their mother while their father and the two men went to the attic. They could hear the three moving around up overhead, and soon there was a shout of laughter.
“Maybe it’s a circus bear, and he’s doing tricks!” exclaimed Flossie.
“Oh, I hope it is!” added Freddie, feeling quite excited.
Their father and the two men came downstairs. Tom Case carried something—something brown and shaggy, just like the fur of some animal.
“There’s your ‘bear!’” he said, laughing, as he tossed the furry object over a chair. “A bear skin! Ha! Ha!”
And that is what it was. The skin of a big bear, made into a lap robe for use in cold weather. The fur was warm, thick and soft, and when the skin was huddled up in a heap in a corner no wonder the Bobbsey twins mistook it for a real bear, especially in the dark.