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 to see its freedom restrained by the strap and string, and so she untied the string from the log and let it drag it about during the day, only fastening it at night.

“There is no danger of its running away,” said she; “it thinks too much of me and the berry dish.  I’ve tamed it completely; it’s as faithful to its home as a house-cat, and a great deal more company than a cat or dog or any other dumb animal.  The nicest bird to tame is a blue-jay, and the best animal for company is a cub.  I do believe that I could tame the whole race of bears if I only had ’em.”