ONE VERY FINE MORNING in early August, Father Bear woke the family up early.
"Get up! Get up, Mother! Get up, children! Today is a day to go blueberrying!"
When Mother Bear was dressed, she found that Father Bear had the fire going, and breakfast already on the stove, and was busy making little baskets of birch bark, folded cleverly, just the size for a paw to hold comfortably. The twins helped to pack the picnic box, and the dew was still on the grass, when the family started off for the pastures on top of Green Hill.
The climb was long, but the air was still cool and the bears were very merry.
"Where's your basket, Papa?" asked one of the twins, when they came to the first blueberry bushes. But Father Bear pointed to the axe in his belt.
"While you all are picking blueberries," he said, "I'm going to be
cutting a little firewood for the winter."
"You like to keep in the shade," Mother Bear said. "Well, if Papa eats our berries now, children, we'll sit warm by his fire next winter, so I guess that's fair," and she laughed a big, comfortable laugh and began sweeping whole pawfuls of berries into the basket she carried. All day the bears picked berries or chopped wood, except when they ate their picnic together under a pine tree in the middle of the
pasture.
"It's very natural for bears to like berries," said Mother Bear. "Bears, berries; berries, bears. You see how it is. Who put the 'bear' in 'berries,' children?"
"Who put the 'berries in bears,' that's what I'd like to know?" said Father Bear, tipping up a whole basket so that the lovely blue globes of sweetness ran into his mouth.
"Stop! Stop!" shouted the twins. "You'll eat them all, Papa!"
"Well, you can pick more," said Father Bear.
Of course he didn't eat them all, but the family loved fruit so much that they did eat a good many berries with their sandwiches. By afternoon, there were fewer berries to be found on the bushes, and the bear family picked more and more slowly.
In the woods, the sound of chopping stopped, for Father Bear
was taking a nice little nap. At sunset time he was as cheerful as ever, but Mother Bear and the twins were a little hot and cross .
"Let's not go back through the fields," Mother Bear said. "I'm tired of bushes and fences. Let's go back by the road."
"Let's," agreed the twins. So by the road they went.
Part way down the hill, they found a car parked under the trees. The people who had come in it were off in another field berrying and the bears could hear their distant voices.
Father Bear's eye was caught by a sign in the rear window:
"Drive yourself."
He stopped, looked at the sign a moment, and shook his head a little doubtfully .
"Well, get in, everyone," he said at last. "I'm not sure, but I think
I can do it."
Mrs. Bear's mouth fell open in astonishment. "Why, you don't know how to drive," she gasped. But Father Bear had made up his mind.
"I watched a man start a car one day, when I was sitting in a tree gathering nuts," he said. "Get in, get in. It must be easy or it wouldn't say 'Drive yourself.' "
A moment later the people who had rented the car heard the
familiar sound of the engine, then a wild honk. By the time they had run out to the road, they saw their automobile careening down the hill, leaving behind it a track like that of a speeding snake. From time to time the horn sounded loudly.
"They'll tip it over!" cried the man.
"Look, they're almost in the ditch!" cried his wife.
But Father Bear was learning, and now he was steering a straighter course. When he got to the bottom of the hill, he was even able to tum into their own lane.
Here he pulled out the key and stopped the car. "Well, how did you like that?" he asked.
"It was wonderful!" cried the twins.
"Wait till I can catch my breath," gasped Mother Bear. They could hear distant shouts behind them.
"I wonder who's making that noise?" asked Father Bear. "Good• ness, I'd never have done it if the car hadn't told me to itself, but it was exciting, wasn't it? I suppose we'd better be getting on."
By the time the human beings had reached the abandoned car, there was no sign to show who was responsible for its sudden de• parture. With some difficulty they backed the automobile to the main road .
. 5s.
"Gracious, there are blueberries squashed over everything," said the wife. "We'd better get out and clean up if we don't want it looking like a perfect bear's den."
Even then, they never suspected what had really happened.
But back home, Mother Bear was taking off the old straw hat which she kept for berrying.
"A delightful time," she said to her husband. "Thanks to your driving us home, it was a wonderful day. Some time we must really have a car of our own."
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