and enjoy himself with
the contents.

"One day when Cousin Redfield was looking at the jug he had an idea.
Just outside of the cave his father had made a bear-ladder for Reddie to
learn to climb on. A bear-ladder is a piece of a tree set up straight in
the ground. It has short, broken-off limbs, and little bears like to run
up and down on it, and big bears, too, for it gives them exercise and
keeps them in practice for climbing real trees.

"When Reddie had the idea, he ran out and looked at his bear-ladder;
then he ran back and looked at the jug. If only that bear-ladder was in
the cave, he thought, he could walk right up it and get the jug and have
the best time in the world. The bear-ladder would go in the cave, for it
was a very high cave, and the ladder was not a very tall one.

"But the bear-ladder was fast to the ground, and at first Reddie
couldn't budge it. He worked and pushed and tugged, but it would not
move. Then he happened to think that perhaps if he climbed up to the top
of it, and swung his weight back and forth as hard as he could, he might
loosen it that way. So he ran up to the top limbs and caught hold tight,
and rocked this way and that with all his might, and pretty soon he felt
his bear-ladder begin to rock, too. Then he rocked a good deal harder,
and all of a sudden down it went and little Cousin Redfield Bear flew
over into a pile of stove-wood, and for ten minutes didn't know whether
he was killed or not, he felt so poorly. Then he crawled over to a flat
stone and sat down on it, and cried, and felt of himself to see if he
was injured anywhere; and he did not feel at all like bothering with his
bear-ladder any more, or eating molasses, either.

"But that was quite early in the day, and after Cousin Redfield had sat
there awhile he didn't feel so discouraged. His pains nearly all went
away, and he began to feel that if he had some molasses now it would
cure him. So then he got up and went over to look at the ladder, and
took hold of it, and found that it wasn't very heavy, as it was pine,
and very dead and dry. He could drag it to the cave easy enough, but
when he got it there he couldn't set it up straight. He was too short,
and not strong enough, either.

[Illustration: "SAT DOWN ON THE STONE TO THINK AGAIN AND CRY SOME MORE"]

"So little Cousin Redfield went back and sat down on his stone to think
again and cry some more, because he found several new hurting places
that were not quite