Then there came more rustling and crashing among the bushes, and then Dot jumped up and got behind the three big pails, for it was not anything like a pig that came out and began to walk toward the chestnut-tree.
"Oh dear me!" whispered the frightened Dot. "I daren't 'peak to him."
Neither did he say a word to her. He did not even tell her his name was Bruin, and that he was fond of blackberries, but he walked straight forward, and his little black eyes were twinkling more brightly than ever.
As fast as he came forward Dot stepped back, till she stood right against the tree, and then she slipped around behind it, and began to feel that she was perfectly safe.
Bruin looked into one pail after another, as if he saw at once that all the bushes were beaten, and was trying to decide to which of the pails the prize belonged.
"Bob! Bob!" screamed Dot, at the top of her little voice, "there's a bear come, and he's 'tealing our berries."
He was eating them up very fast, that was a fact—for all the world as if they had been picked for his benefit.
Perhaps he would have liked them better with plenty of milk and sugar, but he did not ask Dot for anything of the kind. He just sat down on the grass, and took a big pail up in his lap with his clumsy fore-paws, and then lifted it high enough to bury half his head in it.
Dot saw that he knew exactly how to eat blackberries out of a milk-pail, and she felt sure they would not last him long.
"Molly! Jessie! Betsy! Johnny Coyne! Pen Burke! the bear's 'tealing the berries!"