“Yes, it was a bear,” declared Flossie, not so excited, now that she saw a door between herself and the beast. “It wasn’t a very big bear,” she added. “Just a little bear.”
“I’m going to look!” declared Freddie, for, unlike his sister, he was not afraid of wild animals like bears, wolves, and lions. At least, Freddie said he wasn’t.
“Oh, you mustn’t go in there!” exclaimed Flossie, when she saw her brother about to open the small door. “The bear will get you! We’d better go tell Daddy or Mother.”
“I don’t believe there’s a bear in there,” asserted Freddie. “How could a bear get here, anyhow? Bears don’t eat peaches.”
“Well, maybe they eat hay, and there’s lots of hay in this barn,” Flossie said. “And I heard Mr. Watson say he was going to put more in soon. Maybe the bear wants hay.”
“Bears don’t eat hay,” went on Freddie. “They eat people. But I’m not afraid of a bear—anyhow, not of a little bear. And I don’t believe there’s a bear here. They stay in the woods.”
Flossie knew that, as a rule, bears did do this. But she was sure she had seen some queer beast. So she ran to Freddie as he was trying to open the door and cried:
“Don’t go in! Don’t go in! If it wasn’t a bear it was some terrible wild animal! Let’s run!”
But Freddie wanted to show off before his sister, to prove how brave he was.
“The bear won’t hurt me!” he insisted. “You stay back there, Flossie, but I’ll open the door and look at him. And if it’s a big bear I’ll go call Mr. Watson. He has a gun—I saw it in the house.”