It took a little longer for Dido to learn these two new tricks—marching like a soldier, and turning head over heels. But finally he did. His keeper was good and kind, and gave him nice things to eat, and Dido did his best to please the man.
At last came the day when Dido could take a stick in his paws, hold it straight up in the air, or over his shoulder, as a soldier holds his gun, and walk around while the man played a marching tune on the shiny brass horn.
Then the little bear cub learned to turn somersaults, or, rather, he learned to do it whenever the man asked him to, and when the man played a certain tune on the horn. But Dido could not stand on his head. The man tried to get him to do this, but Dido’s hind legs were so heavy that whenever he stood on his head, with his front feet down on the ground, he would fall over in a heap.
“I guess we won’t try that trick,” the man said. “It is too hard for you, Dido. We will make up an easier one.”
Dido could now dance, turn somersaults, march like a soldier, and climb a tree or a telegraph pole. Only there were no telegraph poles in the mountains, though soon Dido was to see some.
Four tricks are quite a number for a little bear cub to do, I think, even though some of them were easy.
“We must now begin to think of traveling,” said the man one day. “Yes, Dido, we will soon start on our travel around the world, over to a new country called the United States of America. That is a new country for me, and it will be a new one for you. The people over there have lots of money, and they will give me pennies when you do your tricks. With the pennies I can buy things to eat for me and for you. Yes, soon we shall sail over the ocean in a big ship and go to America.”
Of course Dido did not know what all this talk meant, but he saw his master smiling, and the man seemed happy, so Dido was glad, for the keeper was kind to him.