Sue felt rather obstinate. She decided that she would go down cellar even if Solita left her. She tried to close the little window that looked down the long slope of the roof but it was hard to get it closed again. She looked down the long slope and was half determined to slide down it and see how it felt. If her great-great-grandfather had done it, she could, too! Why not! It would be fun to creep out of the window and not follow Solita—just slide down over the shingles to the ground and run around to the front door and hide till Solita came and then jump out and call, boo! But at this minute, she heard Solita scream and the scream was so terrified that Sue jumped toward the stairs. Solita was running toward her. “You can’t go down the stairs—Oh, don’t go that way!” she screamed. “A bear is sitting in the doorway. He growled when he heard me come down the stairs. He is on the doorstone—a big, big bear! What shall we do! We can’t get out! Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Why did we ever come into this house!”
“A real bear?” questioned Sue, grabbing fast to Solita’s torn frock. “Tell me—you just imagined it—you couldn’t have seen one! There aren’t any bears here!”
But Solita struggled to free herself. “Oh, I saw him,” she insisted in a frightened wail. “He may be up here any moment. He’s so big he could push any door in and we’re caught! We’re caught!”
Sue, half believing and against all entreaty, peeped over the winding balustrade rail. Yes. There was a bear! Her heart went pat-pat-pat. A shiver ran down her back. She felt cold all over and ready to sink down in a limp heap upon the floor. But she put a warning finger to her lips and motioned Solita to stop crying. The first thing she thought of was to get Solita quietly into that little back room that had the open window that gave upon the long sloping roof—that was it! They could creep out quietly and then dash off over the back yard and into the woods. Then, perhaps, they could turn down and find the road and warn the other children!
Solita stood there shivering, but Sue dragged her toward the little room and closed the door. Solita was stupefied with the fear of that bear’s coming upstairs after them. At first she did not understand about the window, but Sue made her crawl through it first and told her to run toward the woods when she got down off the roof. “I’ll come right after you,” she urged. “Go right on and I’ll follow. He won’t see us!”
Poor Solita gathered her pink skirt about her and slid miserably and cautiously down. She was almost as afraid of falling suddenly as she was of the bear. Sue, however, made quick work of it, even as the great-great-grandfather must have done, though there were no bears after him. At the very end of the slope, she landed in a blackberry bush tangle, but she pulled herself free and helped Solita. Then the two of them darted toward the woods at the rear without a look back to see if the big bear were following or not. Solita was sure he was coming but Sue denied it. At last, badly out of breath, they reached the road, after plunging through thickets and being badly torn and scratched, after one or two excited tumbles over dead logs and much worry about the bear.
As they turned the corner of the road near the brook, they came upon the children with little Albert. “Run, run!” they screamed, “run, run quick! There’s a bear coming!”
Then, all in a crowd, they hurried on toward the road that led to White Farm. They had not gone very far when there appeared two men coming toward them. They were talking together in excited French. They stopped and asked if anybody had seen a big bear.
“Oui, oui,” nodded Solita and she launched out into a long talk in French that nobody else understood. It seemed that that was really the bear Sue and Solita had run away from and he wasn’t a wild bear but a tame one that would dance with a pole while the men sang French songs. They had stopped to get a drink of water at a farm and the bear had got off someway, when their backs were turned. They were delighted to know where he was and Solita and Sue, reassured, offered to show the way. So again they started toward the funny, old-fashioned house in a crowd together.
They came upon the bear, still eating blackberries on the doorstone—he hadn’t budged! And when the Frenchmen called him, he came meekly. Then all the children stood around in the dooryard while the bear that Solita and Sue had escaped from danced and danced. He turned somersets, too! It was fun.