"Is that another story?" your Aunt Amy asked, and Mrs. Mouser replied
with a laugh:
"Yes, and it is a good one, too. Last year there was an old Mr. Bear
living near this farm, who was the most quarrelsome animal you ever saw,
and besides that, he was wicked. Do you know, he made up his mind that
he would bite a big piece out of Mr. Man's boy's leg, just because Tommy
drove him away when he was stealing honey. So one night he crept up to
the well, and got into the bucket, letting himself way down to the
bottom where he could float around until Tommy came out to get a pail of
water.
"'I'll have him sure,' Mr. Bear said to himself, 'for when he pulls up
the bucket in the morning, I'll jump out and grab him, so he can't get
away.'
"Well, Tommy went to the well at just about the same time as usual, and
when he started to raise the bucket with the windlass, he found it was
terribly heavy. He thought some one must have been putting rocks in it
to play a joke on him, so he kept on turning the crank around until the
bucket was nearly to the top, and then he saw what was the matter:
[Illustration: Mr. Bear Makes a Mistake.]
"'My goodness!' he cried. 'There's Mr. Bear, and it's water I'm after,
not bear!'
"Then Tommy Man let go of the windlass, and of course down went Mr. Bear
to the bottom of the well with a bump that nearly shook him to pieces.
"Now almost anybody might have thought that Tommy would run away after
that; but no, he made up his mind to serve Mr. Bear out good and hard,
so he went to work winding up the windlass again. Then, when he had
hauled Mr. Bear nearly to the top, he let him go back with a worse bump
than before, and so he kept on doing this same thing thirteen or fifteen
times, until Mr. Bear was so sore and bruised that he couldn't do much
of anything more than hold himself on to the edge of the bucket.
"By that time Tommy had got all the sport he wanted, and he let Mr. Bear
crawl out of the bucket. I have heard it said that it was more than two
weeks before the old fellow could get out of bed, and the lesson did him
as much good as the one Mr. Donkey gave the Wild Hog, for he wasn't
quarrelsome again, and behaved himself decently well forever after."