f anything, and ran away with it toward her home.

It was Saturday evening when she returned, and she found both Mr. Woods
and Gretchen waiting to meet her at the door. They were surprised to see
her haste and the pivotal turning of her head at times, as though she
feared pursuit from some dangerous foe.

Out of breath, she sank down on the log that served for a step, and,
opening her apron cautiously, said:

"See here."

"Where did you get that?" said Mr. Woods.

"I stole it."

"What are you going to do with it?"

"Raise it."

"What for?"

"For company. I haven't any neighbors."

"But what do you want it for?"

"It is so cunning. It just rolled over in the trail at my feet, and I
grabbed it and ran."

"But what if the mother-bear should come after it?" asked Gretchen.

"I would shoot her."

"That would be a strange way to treat your new neighbors," said Mr. Woods.

Mr. Woods put a leather strap around the neck of the little bear, and tied
the strap to a log in the yard. The little thing began to be alarmed at
these strange proceedings, and to show a disposition to use its paws in
resistance, but it soon learned not to fear its captors; its adoption into
the shingle-maker's family was quite easily enforced, and the pet seemed
to feel quite at home.

There was some difficulty at first in teaching the cub to eat, but hunger
made it a tractable pupil of the berry dish, and Mrs. "Woods was soon able
to say:

"There it is, just as good as a kitten, and I would rather have it than to
have a kitten. It belongs to these parts."

Poor Mrs. Woods! She soon found that her pet did "belong to these parts,"
and that its native instincts were strong, despite her moral training. She
lost her bear in a most disappointing way, and after she supposed that it
had become wholly devoted to her.

She had taught it to "roll over" for its dinner, and it had grown to think
that all the good things of this world came to bears by their willingness
to roll over. Whenever any member of the family appeared at the door, the
cub would roll over like a ball, and expect to be fed, petted, and
rewarded for the feat.

"I taught it that," Mrs. Woods used to say. "I could teach it anything. It
is just as knowing as it is cunning, and lots of company for me out here
in the mountains. It thinks more of me than of its old mother. You can
educate anything."

As the cub grew, Mrs. Woods's attachment to it increased. She could not
bear