Then Dido saw a telegraph pole beside the road near the field.
“I think I will climb that pole, and see how sharp my claws are,” said Dido to himself. “I must keep in practice and I have not climbed any poles in two or three days.”
So, having eaten all the red berries he wanted, Dido started to climb up the telegraph pole. He had not gone very far up it before he heard some one shouting at him. Looking up Dido saw a man on top of the pole.
“Hello!” said Dido to himself; “I did not know men could climb poles like a bear. I wonder who you are and how you did it?”
The man worked for a telephone company, and on his boots he had sharp, iron spurs, like a bear’s claws, and by sticking these spurs in the wood of the pole the man could climb up.
But the man, who was out early fixing broken wires on the pole, looking down and seeing a bear coming up after him, was much frightened.
“I say!” he cried. “Go on back! Don’t come up here after me! Go on down! Get away!”
The man shouted loudly, but Dido did not understand why he, himself, should stop climbing a pole on that account, so on he kept going up higher and higher.
“Go back! Go back!” yelled the man. But Dido would not.