“Tell Charley I am going to bring with me a dear little baby-bear that I bought from an Indian.”

Of course that information pleased Charley, and he directed most of his thoughts and his conversation to the subject of the bear during the next two weeks, wishing anxiously for his father to come with the little pet.  On the night which been fixed by Bartholomew for his arrival he did not come, and the family were very much disappointed.  Charley particularly was dreadfully sorry, because he couldn’t get the bear.  On the next evening, while Mrs. Bartholomew and the children were sitting in the front room with the door open into the hall, they heard somebody running through the front yard.  Then the front door was suddenly burst open, and a man dashed into the hall and up stairs at a frightful speed.  Mrs. Bartholomew was just about to go up after him to ascertain who it was, when a large dark animal of some kind darted in through the door and with an awful growl went bowling up stairs after the man.  It suddenly flashed upon the mind of Mrs. Bartholomew that the man was her husband, and that that was the little baby-bear.  Just then the voice of Bartholomew was heard calling from the top landing: 

“Ellen, for gracious sake get out of the house as quick as you can, and shut all the doors and window-shutters.”

[Illustration:  THE LITTLE BABY-BEAR]

Then Mrs. Bartholomew sent the boys into Partridge’s, next door, and she closed the shutters, locked all the doors and went into the yard to await further developments.  When she got outside, she saw Bartholomew on the roof kneeling on the trap-door, which he kept down only by the most tremendous exertions.  Then he screamed for somebody to come up and help him, and Mr. Partridge got a ladder and a hatchet and some nails, and ascended.  Then they nailed down the trap-door, and Bartholomew and Partridge came down the ladder together.  After he had greeted his family, Mrs. Bartholomew asked him what was the matter, and he said,

“Why, you know that little baby-bear I said I’d bring Charley?  Well, I had him in a box until I got off the train up here at the depot, and then I thought I’d take him out and lead him around home by the chain.  But the first thing he did was to fly at my leg; and when I jumped back, I ran, and he after me.  He would’ve eaten me up in about a minute.  That infernal Indian must have fooled me.  He said it was a cub only two months old and it had no teeth.  I believe it’s a full-grown bear.”

It then became a very interesting question how they should get the bear out of the house.  Bartholomew thought they had better try to shoot him, and he asked a lot of the neighbors to come around to help with their shot-guns.  When they would hear the bear scratching at one of the windows, they would pour in a volley at him, but after riddling every shutter on the first floor they could still hear the bear tearing around in there and growling.  So Bartholomew and the others got into the cellar, and as the bear crossed the floor they would fire up through it at about the spot where they thought he was.  But the bombardment only seemed to exasperate the animal, and after each shot they could hear him smashing something.