“He didn’t expect to see a bear,” said Polly; “he went out to shoot rabbits. But he found the bear instead, you know,” catching sight of Joel’s face, which immediately cleared up, and he settled back contentedly. “Well, Tommy went along by old Mother Hen clucking and scratching, and all the rest of the chickens, except the little white one; and just as he was going by Susan’s playhouse he thought he would look in and scare the dolls with his big gun.”
“Don’t let him, Polly!” begged Phronsie in a worse fright than before. “Oh, don’t let him; don’t let him!”
“Ow! there ain’t any fun. Phron keeps stopping us all the time,” howled Joel. “Let him, Polly. Gee—whiz—bang! that’s the way I’d do,” bringing an imaginary gun to his shoulder and blazing away.
“Well, then he’d have scared the bear so he couldn’t have shot him,” said little Davie quietly.
“So he would, Davie,” said Polly approvingly, and dropping the spoon to pet Phronsie; “if Joel had been there, the bear would have got away.”
Joel, much discomfited at this, ducked suddenly and looked sheepish. “Well, go on,” he said.
“And Tommy didn’t scare the dolls, because you see he was scared himself. The first thing he saw was the little white chicken crouched down like this.” Down went Polly on the old kitchen floor, and made herself so much like a little white chicken very much frightened, that the children held their breath to see her.
“And then Tommy looked at what scared the little white chicken,” went on Polly, hopping up and beginning to stir the cake-mixture again. [“And—he—saw—the—bear!”]
