“My master petted me and gave me some sugar, and I began to think that being photographed was possibly not so bad, after all. Presently a man came in. He looked very much astonished, and said, ‘Why, I thought you engaged a sitting for “a descendant of one of the early settlers”?’
“‘So I did,’ replied my master; ‘there it is,’ pointing to where I stood up, blinking with all my might.
“‘Why, it’s a cub bear!’ exclaimed the man.
“‘Well, it is a relative of some early settlers, all the same,’ my master answered.
“At this the man smiled good-humoredly, then he went into another room, while my master petted me and gave me so much sugar that I had the toothache from it. After a while the man came back and said he was ready, and I was taken into a room where there was a big thing like a gun on three legs, with a cloth over it. My master sat down in a chair and held me in his lap while the man pointed the gun at us.
“I thought I was to be shot, and tried to get away, and this made the man so cross that he came out from under the cloth and said he couldn’t do it. Then my master put me up in a child’s chair and propped something tight against my head, at which they both laughed so loud you could have heard them in the street, and I jumped down.
“Finally, the man tapped his forehead and said, ‘I have it.’ He put a screen before the gun and my master set me on top of it, holding my chain while the man crept under the cloth. I did not dare move, as I was astride of the screen, my hind feet hanging in the air. I prepared for the worst. Then the man came out again, looked at me sharply, and turned my head a little, telling me to smile, at which my master laughed. The man next shook a tambourine at me, and as I turned to see what the noise meant, I heard a click! and just then my master took me down and carried me home, much to my relief.
“I wondered what it was all about until one day my master took me on his knee, and, holding up a card, said, ‘Well, here you are!’—and what do you suppose it was? Nothing more or less than my picture; just as I was perched astride the screen the day when I thought I was going to be killed. Here it is”:
