TROUBLES OF A BEAR
The Bear was sitting on a wayside stump and looking up the road. That
is, he would have been looking up the road if his eyes had been open
instead of shut.
“He’s asleep,” whispered Buddie. “Don’t wake him.” For she could not
quite bring herself to believe the Donkey’s statement that bears
are the mildest creatures in the world, even if you don’t eat their
porridge, and break their chairs, and rumple their beds, as the naughty
old woman in the revised edition of the old story did.
The Bear raised his head slowly and turned on the new-comers a pair of
tired-looking eyes.
“I can’t sleep,” said he.
“Pooh!” said the Donkey. “You’re half-asleep now.”
“That’s just it,” returned the Bear, with a sigh. “I can’t get more
than _half_-asleep.”
He really did appear gentle, and Buddie ventured to address him.
“If you sleep all winter--,” she began.
“Who said I slept all winter?” demanded the Bear, indignantly.
“I thought all bears did,” replied Buddie, confused.
“And ever since the first of May, when I moved,” went on the Bear, “I
haven’t slept _at all_.”
“You wouldn’t earn much in the Land of Nod, where they pay you for
sleeping,” said the Donkey. “That’s another old saw,” he added in an
aside to Buddie.
“Do you sing that, too?” she asked.
“Yes; but you’ll have to get down,” the Donkey replied. “It’s very
hard to sing with some one on your back,--though I _have_ studied that
method.”
Buddie slid down and handed the lute to the Donkey, who immediately
began:
“A queer old land is the Land of Nod,
On the shore of Slumber Sea.
There every one is a sleepy-head,
And the onlywhere to go is Bed,
Where every one wants to be.
“Such queer old towns in the Land of Nod,
With names of the oddest sort--
Dozedale and Pillow Hill,
Sleepy Hollow and Catnapville,
Dreamhaven and Slumberport.
“They pay for sleep in the Land of Nod--
Another thing that’s queer.
Some they pay by the hour or day,
And some that can sleep like tops they pay
By the week, or month, or year.
“Then, hey! and away for the Land of Nod,
On the shore of Slumber Sea!
Where every one is a sleepy-head,
And the onlywhere to go is Bed--
Where all of us like to be.”
“Very true,” said the Bear, disconsolately, when the song was done.
“But what’s the use of going to bed if you can’t sleep? You don’t know
what it is”--appealing to Buddie--“to lie awake all night and listen to
the servants snoring and _you_ unable to get a wink.”
Buddie certainly had no personal knowledge of such an unpleasant state
of affairs. She slept “like a top” from dark to daybreak, and did not
even hear Colonel, weary from the day’s play, snoring under the kitchen
stove. Still, she thought she ought to make some reply to the Bear’s
appeal for sympathy; so she said:
“Do you keep servants?”
“Six,” answered the Bear; “and a worthless lot they are.”
“You’ve got something on your mind; that’s why you can’t sleep,” said
the Donkey, with an air that implied, “You needn’t try to deceive _me_.”
“Very true,” said the Bear.
“Then the best thing for you to do is to confess,” said the Donkey,
decisively. “A clear conscience is the best sleeping powder. Come, out
with it! You’ve been stealing sheep.”
“Oh, it isn’t anything of that sort,” said the Bear, hastily. “I’ve
been this way ever since I moved, last May.”
“Sometimes when I’ve eaten a late supper I don’t go to sleep right
away,” said the Donkey. “In such cases I begin counting two hundred
sheep going through the bars, one by one, and by the time I get to a
hundred and twenty-three--why, I’m snoring.”
“I’ve tried that,” said the Bear. “It doesn’t work.”
“Well, try counting the nuts on a tree, or the blueberries on a bush.”
“I have--over and over.”
“Perhaps you don’t count slowly enough. That makes a difference.”
“Not with me,” said the Bear, half-closing his eyes. “I’ve imagined
a crow flying round--and round--and round,”--his voice grew
drowsy;--“I’ve imagined a squirrel going round--and round--and round a
tree,”--his voice grew drowsier and drowsier;--“I’ve counted both ways
from a hundred; I’ve counted up to twenty-three hundred--multiplied
by eighty-four--subtracted nine hundred and ninety-nine--divided by
seven--added six hundred and thirty--put down eight and car-r-i-e-d
three-e-e-e--”
The Bear’s voice died away in a whisper, and his head drooped.
“WHAT WAS THE ANSWER?” the Donkey shouted in his ear.
“You needn’t holler so,” said the Bear, with a start. “I wasn’t asleep.”
“You were _half_-asleep,” said the Donkey.
“Ever since I moved,” repeated the Bear.
Now, Buddie did not pretend to be as wise as the Donkey, but she had
wit enough to perceive that there was some connection between the
Bear’s May moving and his lying awake o’nights. So she inquired:
“Don’t you like the new place you moved to?”
“Oh, yes; quite well, indeed,” was the reply. “The neighborhood is the
very best; the rooms are large and well lighted, with fine hardrock
floors; the roof doesn’t leak, and altogether it’s the best place I
ever lived in. But the trouble is, I can’t decide how to furnish my
den. Here it is August, and I haven’t done a thing to it. It’s on my
mind night and day. One person advises this, another that, another
something else. Would you say black curtains or pink?” the Bear asked
Buddie.
[Illustration]
“Oh, pink,” she replied, as that was her favorite color.
“That’s what Doctor Goose advises; but Doctor Fox thinks black would be
better, as it would harmonize with my fur.”
“It seems to me,” said the Donkey, “that such matters might be left to
Mrs. Bear.”
“There isn’t any,” returned the Bear, with a sigh. “I’m a bachelor.”
“What’s that?” asked Buddie.
“A bachelor,” replied the Donkey, “is a person who lives in a den and
doesn’t have to worry about anybody except himself.”
“Are you a bachelor, too?” Buddie asked.
“No,” sighed the Donkey.
“That’s funny,” Buddie thought. “One is sorry because he is, and the
other because he isn’t. Then there isn’t any Middle Bear and Little
Small Wee Bear?” she said aloud, a little disappointed.
“Evidently not,” said the Donkey.
“Only the Great Hooge Bear?”
[Illustration: “I MEAN I CAN’T SLEEP”]
“I’m not so fat as I was before I got insomania,” said the Bear.
At this strange word Buddie wrinkled her small brows.
“You mean insomnia,” corrected the Donkey.
“I mean I can’t sleep; that’s what I mean,” said the Bear. “Will you
take dinner with me?” he asked, looking from Buddie to the Donkey. “It
would be a great honor.”
“Well, if you put it that way, of course we will,” said the Donkey,
speaking for both of them. “Will there be thistles?”
“I can send out for them.”
“Scotch thistles, please; they’re the best. And I hope it isn’t far.”
“Only a little way,” said the Bear. And, rising from the stump, he led
the way up the road.