Dido did not like the collar around his neck, and he pawed and scratched, trying to get it off. It was fastened on too snugly, however, and would not come loose.
“Let it alone, Dido,” said the man who was to be the little bear cub’s keeper. “The collar will not hurt you, and I must keep it on so I can lead you around by a chain, or rope, when we go traveling, and you show the people how well you can dance.”
Dido did not understand all this talk, but when he found he could not get the collar off he stopped trying to loosen it. And he very soon found that, though it felt queer at first, it did not hurt him, just as the man had said.
Every day Dido was given nice things to eat—big chunks of bread, sometimes a bit of fish, and once he had a sweet bun with currants on top. Oh! that was very good!
“Well, it isn’t so bad being caught in a trap,” thought Dido, after a bit. “I have better things to eat here than I did in the den at home, and I do not have to go after them. The man brings them to me. I guess men are not as bad as my papa and mamma thought.”
Of course Dido’s keeper was good to him, for the man wanted to train the little bear to dance, and you can not make wild animals learn anything except by being kind to them. But I suppose all men might not have been as good as the one who had caught Dido, so I guess the papa and mamma bear were right in being afraid of men, and in teaching their children bears to beware of the man-smell.
“Yes, I like it here very much,” thought Dido, as he walked around in the barn as far as his chain would let him, and ate a bit of sweet cracker which the man threw to him. “But I would like a swim in the cold blue lake.”
Then he remembered his brothers, Gruffo and Muffo, and Dido was lonesome and homesick. He wished very much that he might go back to the woods again, and run about under the trees, and perhaps find a honey-tree. If Dido had been a boy or girl I suppose he would have cried, but bears do not know how to do that, which, perhaps, is just as well. But, at any rate, Dido was lonesome, and most especially for the blue lake, for he did want to swim so he might make himself nice and clean.
And then, one day, Dido saw the big man and the little man bringing in the barn a big tub. This they filled with water.
“Ha! Now the little bear can have a swim,” said the big man. “Jump in, Dido, and have a bath.”