Elsie and the Arkansaw Bear
Date: 1908-12-31T15:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Juvenile Literature; Talking Animals; Southern Country Life
Description: Albert Bigelow Paine was an American author and biographer best known for his work with Mark Twain. He wrote in several genres, including fiction, humor, and verse, for children and adults. His most notable work was a three-volume biography of Mark Twain. ~~~~ This sequel to The Arkansaw Bear brings more humorous tales about Horatio, the fiddle-playing bear. Orphan Elsie, a young girl running away from her abusive Uncle Henneger, meets Horatio, and sets out with him to return to the Bear Colony in the Big Swamp Wood. ~~~~ Perhaps because these stories were targeted to girls, the adventures are
Publisher: MobileRead.com
Rights: This book is in the Public Domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

ABOUT THIS EBOOK

Elsie and the
Arkansaw Bear

BY
Albert Bigelow Paine
(1861–1935)

ILLUSTRATIONS BY
Frank Ver Beck
(1858–1933)

Albert Bigelow Paine was an American author and biographer best known for his work with Mark Twain. He wrote in several genres, including fiction, humor, and verse, for children and adults. His most notable work was a three-volume biography of Mark Twain.

This sequel to The Arkansaw Bear brings more humorous tales about Horatio, the fiddle-playing bear. Orphan Elsie, a young girl running away from her abusive Uncle Hennegar, meets Horatio, and sets out with him to return to the Bear Colony in the Big Swamp Wood.

Perhaps because these stories were targeted to girls, the adventures are of a gentler nature than those endured by Bosephus in the first book. The song “The Arkansaw Traveller” dominates, but is not the only melody sung by Orphan Elsie.

Recommended for age ten and up.

First published in 1909.

This ebook was created by E.C.M. for MobileRead.com, June 2016, and may be freely distributed for non-commercial purposes.

This book is in the public domain in countries where copyright is “Life+70” or less, and in the USA.

Text and illustrations for this ebook were obtained from hathitrust.org (scan of the first edition from Henry Altemus Company.)

Embedded font used for titling (“Cabin Sketch” by Pablo Impallari & Igino Marini).

OCR errors were corrected; punctuation, italics and diacritics formatted; illustrations manually cleaned and enhanced. Some illustrations are tinted with a water-color wash. Cover and titlepage design by E.C.M.

Validation by Pagina Epub Checker.

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Table of Contents

ELSIE AND THE ARKANSAW BEAR

Titlepage
About This Ebook
List of Illustrations

THE STORY:

1 – Elsie Meets the Arkansaw Bear
2 – The First Great Adventure
3 – Elsie, Horatio and the Watson Boys
4 – Uncle Hennegar Suddenly Turns Up
5 – Horatio and Elsie Take an Early Start
6 – Uncle Hennegar Again
7 – Nearing the Great Swamp Woods
8 – In the Great Swamp Woods at Last
9 – The Coming of Queen Elsie
10 –Queen Elsie the First
11 –Elsie’s School
12 –Elsie Learns of the Rival Colony

13 –The Capture of Horatio and Queen Elsie the First

14 –Jehoshaphat and His Bad Bears
15 –Brother Jasper Rallies to the Rescue
16 –The Battle of the Big Swamp Woods
17 –A Great Marching Home
18 –Conclusion

ILLUSTRATIONS

“I’m just dreaming — I know it”
“Call that a bear!”
Elsie was lost in the big bear’s embrace
She let out a loud scream
They were a sad pair
“You see what your politeness did”
Horatio played the Dixie tune
A change came into the faces of her listeners

“We’ll go along until a chance comes to get away”

Horatio drew his bow across the strings
Horatio turns a flip-flop
Flap-a-doodle-doo
She leaned up against Horatio
There stood Uncle Hennegar himself!
Horatio climbed up on a big dry goods box
“Bend down low, Elsie”
“Uncle Hennegar is out there in the road”

Something that sounded like a very rapid foot-race

Uncle Hennegar almost flattened to the ground

Just a plain bear without any fiddle, and not standing up, man fashion

Greeting as long lost brothers or friends
Elsie held out her hand rather timidly
They were at their journey’s end

The little ones climbed up to peek in the windows

They tugged in a short bench

“This is our advanced class"

“He found fault with the way I pronounced my words”

He made a sort of a drum out of an old barrel
Elsie was borne away by an immense black bear
The song gave great joy to the bears
Fiercer and still fiercer raged the battle
They would obey Queen Elsie in all things
The squirrels and the birds were very happy
Tailpiece

ELSIE
AND THE
ARKANSAW BEAR

—  —  —  —  —

TO JOY PAINE
FOR WHOSE ENTERTAINMENT
THE ARKANSAW BEAR
PERFORMED AGAIN

1

Elsie Meets
the Arkansaw Bear

Oh, there was a little boy, and his name was Bo,

Went out into the woods when the sun was getting low,

And he met an old bear with a very nimble paw,

And they traveled off together thro’ the woods of Arkansaw.

Orphan Elsie caught her breath and listened. Here was a house, at last. At least, it was somebody singing, and playing on the violin, so there must be a house, she thought. She was so hungry and tired and frightened that she would have been almost willing to go back to Uncle Hennegar, had she known the way. And how familiar that singing sounded. It was almost as if she had heard it before.

Now, alas, my Bo has left me and of happiness bereft me—

They have sent him to a college on the old New England shore.

All alone I sit here playing, while my thoughts to him are straying

And my heart is sadly saying, “I shall never see him more.”

“Oh,” thought Elsie, “I remember, now. It is like a book I read once. I do wonder who it is, and if I show myself will he make me go back to Uncle Hennegar? But I won’t!” she added, rather fiercely, to herself; “I won’t, unless — no, not even if I am starving! I’ll run away again, first. But perhaps he wouldn’t send me. He seems to be sad about losing somebody, and sad folks are almost always good to people. Besides, I’m so hungry and tired!”

She listened again, but only heard a low scraping of violin strings, as if the instrument were being tuned.

“Yes, there must be a house,” she thought. “No one would be playing a fiddle away off here in the woods alone, at night.”

She crept softly through the brush, stopping to listen, now and then, and to peer through the branches for a light or some glimpse of a human dwelling-place. But she saw only trees, and in a little open space ahead, just the moonlight. Still she heard the low music of the fiddle strings, and she pushed through, for she believed she must surely see the house soon. Then she stepped out into the open place, right into the moonlight. But even now there seemed to be no house — nothing at all that she could see — and now the music had stopped, too.

“I declare,” thought Elsie, “I must have fallen asleep by the roadside and am dreaming. Dear me! I hope somebody will find me be fore I wake up. If only they don’t take me back to Uncle Hennegar!”

But just then something in the shadow of a big tree near her moved. Elsie jumped, of course, for she wasn’t expecting anything to move just there. But she jumped a great deal more when she saw what it was  — almost out of her skin, as she said afterwards — for standing right in front of her, not more than three yards away and looking straight at her, was a huge black bear.

Certainly, Elsie was frightened. You would have been, yourself; perhaps even more frightened than Elsie, for Elsie had traveled through the woods a long way before that night, and had seen other bears, and knew that they did not always eat people when not annoyed or very hungry. She hoped this one was not very hungry, and she would try not to annoy him. Elsie was always polite and never forgot her manners.

“Oh, excuse me, please,” she said, quite soothingly. “I did not know that you were here. I will go right away again. I heard music and thought somebody might be playing.”

“Humph!” grunted the bear, “somebody was playing.”

He had kept one paw behind him, but he brought it out now, and in the moonlight Elsie saw it held a violin. He threw it to his shoulder and drew the bow across the strings.

“Oh, there was a little girl who went out to walk at night,

And she heard the sound of music in the pale moonlight.”

If Elsie had been astonished before, she was a good deal more than astonished now.

“I’M JUST DREAMING—
I KNOW IT”

“But it’s all right,” she gasped out loud; “I’m just dreaming — I know it, now, and I really don’t mind it at all. I had a dream almost like it, once before, after I had been reading about the Arkansaw Bear. Only I do hope somebody will find me that will give me something to eat when I wake up, and not take me back to Uncle Hennegar.”

The bear put down his fiddle and looked at her solemnly.

“Who is Uncle Hennegar, and why don’t you want to go back to him?” he asked.

“Oh,” began Elsie, “he’s not my real uncle at all. He only married my aunt. I went to live with my aunt when my mother died, and then when my aunt died, Uncle Hennegar was cruel to me. He’s moving now to Texas in a wagon, and this morning he beat me, and this evening he would not give me any supper, so I ran away. I’ll never go back to him, but then of course I’m just dreaming now, and talking in my sleep, so it doesn’t matter.”

The bear came a little closer. Elsie backed away in spite of the fact that she was dreaming  — not hastily, of course, being polite, even in her sleep.

“Is that Uncle Hennegar of yours a fat man?” asked the big fellow grimly. “Do you think I’d like him — be fond of him, I mean? Do you think I’d enjoy having him for supper?”

There was something about the way the bear said this, and especially in his manner of licking out his tongue between the sentences, that made Elsie shiver.

“Oh, no; he isn’t at all fat!” she said hastily. “He’s bony, and, I should think, tough. But then I’m only dreaming, of course, and it doesn’t matter,” she added again.

“What makes you say that?” asked the bear. “Why do you think you’re dreaming?”

“Why, I must be dreaming, you know,” insisted Elsie. “You couldn’t really be standing here and talking to me, could you?”

“Why couldn’t I?”

“Because, bears don’t talk — that is, I mean  — oh, I’m afraid that wasn’t at all polite. I mean I never heard a bear speak our language, you know.”

“Well, what of it? You never saw a mouse fly, either, did you?”

“No,” said Elsie.

“There goes one now, flying.”

Elsie looked up quickly, and saw a bat darting across, so near her face that she dodged.

“That was just a mouse with wings,” said the bear; “and if a mouse can fly,’ why can’t a bear talk?”

“I don’t know,” said Elsie. “It doesn’t seem to prove anything, but I don’t think I feel asleep, and I’m so hungry and tired that I don’t care anyway. I read a story once about a bear that talked and played the fiddle, just like you. Maybe that was a true story, after all.”

“Maybe it was,” nodded the bear; “who knows?” Then he ran the bow across the strings of his violin and finished the verse about the little girl.

“Oh, there was a little girl who went out to walk at night,

And she heard the sound of music in the pale moonlight,

And she thought that she was dreaming when she found it was a bear,

But she felt so very hungry that she said she didn’t care.

“You know that tune, I suppose?” said the bear as he stopped playing.

“Yes,” said Elsie; “it’s the ‘Arkansaw Traveler,’ the same tune that the bear played in the book I read.”

“Very well; now suppose we make believe that you’re awake and not reading a book, and let’s sit down and talk this thing over. First, what is your name, and how old are you?”

Elsie was glad enough to sit down. “My name is Elsie, please. They call me Orphan Elsie, because there was another little girl named Elsie; and I’m ten years old, going on eleven. My birthday comes next month.”

“So does mine. We’ll celebrate together. My name is Horatio, called Ratio for short; also, sometimes, the Arkansaw Bear. That book you read was written about me. Bo gave me a copy of it, but I can’t read, and he didn’t have time to teach me. Bo, you remember, was the boy that used to travel with me, but he got tired of the woods, and has gone away to school now, and I haven’t seen him for a long, long time. I went with him at first, but I couldn’t stand it among all those boys, so I came back to the woods and went on with the bear colony that Bo and I started. It’s a big colony now, and we’ve taken in most of the other animals, and a good many of them can understand man talk and some of them can talk it, after a fashion. We’re pretty happy, of course, but I get tired of teaching and such things, now and then, and wander off alone this way on a sort of vacation, but mostly to think about Bo and the good times we had together; though

‘My heart is sadly saying, “I shall never see him more,”’

just as you heard me singing a while ago.”

By this time Elsie had forgotten that she was asleep, or thought she was, and was only interested in the bear’s story and the wonderful thing that had happened to her.

“Oh, I know all about it,” she said, “all that’s in the book, I mean. A little girl let me read it once, but I never supposed it was all true, or that I should ever meet the Arkansaw Bear myself. And to think it has really happened — that is, of course, if I’m not asleep and just dreaming.”

“Dreaming? Nonsense!” said Horatio. “You’re just as wide awake as I am, and I guess I know when I’m asleep. Why, sometimes I sleep as much as three months at a time, and I’d have to know it, wouldn’t I, so I could tell when to wake up?”

“I should think so!” gasped Elsie. “Well, I’m not asleep now, and neither are you, if I’m any judge, and what I want to know is if you can really read.”

“Of course I can read!” said Elsie, almost offended. “I could read when I was six. I went to school two terms, and my mother taught me at home, too, and was very careful about my grammar. You notice I say ‘taught me’ and not ‘learned me,’ and I never say ‘ain’t’ — at least, not often. Uncle Hennegar used to hate me because I spoke so correct — correctly, I mean.”

The big bear looked down with a pleased expression at the little girl beside him.

“Elsie,” he said, “if you just had a teaching book and could teach that colony of mine to read and maybe to figure a little—”

“Why,” interrupted Elsie, “I have got a book — my reading book. I brought it with me, and my bear, too.”

“Your what?” said Horatio, looking around uneasily.

“Why, my book and my bear — my Johnnie bear.”

She had dived her hand down deep into a pocket in her dress and brought up a worn first reader.

“There’s the book,” she said. Then she went down again and brought up a little fuzzy toy bear that had once been white. “And there’s my bear. I got it last Christmas, before Aunt Annie died.”

Horatio had taken the book from Elsie, but when she drew forth the little bear he simply stared at it. Then he took it by the string that was around its neck and swung it back and forth in the moonlight. Suddenly he seemed to be taken with some kind of fit, for he rocked from side to side and rolled over on his back, shaking violently. But he was only laughing, as Elsie soon saw.

“CALL THAT A BEAR!”

“Call that a bear!” he snorted, when he could get his breath. “That a bear. Your bear!” and Horatio dangled it in front of him and leaned back and laughed and shook with the humor of the idea.

“Why, yes, of course, my Johnnie Bear, and I love him dearly. But you can be my Johnnie Bear now, if you want to, and I’ll teach you to read, if you want me to.” Horatio jumped up excitedly.

“You’ll teach me to read?” he said.

“Yes, of course, and I’ll teach you new songs, too. I know lots of them, and I can make them up, too, just as Bo did. I’d love to live with you, like Bosephus, and you can be my big Johnnie Bear." Horatio looked grave.

“No,” he said, “never mind that part of it. Johnnie is a good name for that. It seems to fit him. But I’ll still be Horatio, please. Ratio, for short. You may call me that. Bo did. But now for supper. Bo used to like berries and honey. I know where there are plenty of such things. It’s a good way to the colony. It may take a week to get there. We’ll take it easy and won’t starve on the way. You’re going with me, aren’t you?”

“Oh, yes, of course.”

ELSIE WAS LOST
IN THE BIG BEAR’S EMBRACE

“Give me a hug, then,” and a moment later Elsie was lost in the big bear’s embrace, and his deep furry coat felt so warm and comfortable and friendly that she didn’t feel the least bit afraid any more or care whether she was asleep or awake, or what became of Uncle Hennegar.

“Now we’ll sing as we go,” said Horatio, and he drew his bow across the strings.

Oh, there was a little girl who went out to walk at night,

And she heard the sound of music in the pale moonlight,

And she thought she must be dreaming when she found it was a bear,

But she felt so very hungry that she said she did not care.

Then she show’d the bear her reader, and the bear agreed to feed her,

And to heed her and to lead her to a place of safety too.

Now whether wake or dreaming, when the moon is gayly gleaming,

Never mind, she likes the seeming of the things that we shall do.

—

2

The First
Great Adventure

When Elsie awoke, next morning, she thought Horatio was still asleep. He was sitting up, with his back leaned against a big tree, his precious violin held closely in one arm. His chin was dropped forward and his eyes were closed.

But Horatio was not asleep. He was only drowsing and dreaming in the sun of the June morning. At Elsie’s first stir he sat up and blinked at her and smiled.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, “about that first morning after I met Bosephus. It was just nine years ago. That is a long time, Elsie  — nine years. You were only a little, pawing, fussing baby then, scarcely a good mouthful.”

Horatio opened his mouth in a yawn and lapped out his tongue thoughtfully. Elsie shuddered.

“Tell me, Mr. B– Horatio, I mean—”

“No, you don’t,” interrupted her companion, gruffly. “You mean Ratio — just plain Ratio. No misters if you want to be my friend; you do, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, please — more than anything, and I was only trying to be polite.”

“Then don’t try so hard — not with me. I knew a polite man once — a very polite man — so polite that he wanted to teach me politeness. He tried to teach me with a club. I suppose he thought that was polite, too. He gave up teaching, after that. He wasn’t fit to teach any more, and he didn’t need to. His people are still looking for him.”

“Ratio,” said Elsie, with a terribly solemn and rather scared look on her face, “was that the man who taught you to play, and to talk our language — the man you told Bo about, in the book? And what really became of him, Ratio?”

The bear ran the fiddle bow lightly over the strings, but he did not play. Presently he said, thoughtfully:

“I don’t know, exactly. I don’t think he was good enough to go to — to a good place — not the best place. He was pretty good, though — some of him. He wasn’t what you would call a — a tough man.”

“Oh, Ratio, and did you really, really—”

“As I was saying,” interrupted Ratio again, “when you disturbed me, just now, I’ve been thinking of that morning nine years ago, after my first meeting with Bosephus. That was a nice morning. Bo woke up first, and then woke me, singing. Bo could make very nice poetry to fit my tune. We went to breakfast, after that. We went over to a roasting ear and watermelon patch, to get it. I remember the circumstance well. The man who planted the patch wasn’t very nice about it. He came sooner than we expected him, and he had his gun along. We made friends with him, though  — with him and his whole family — and they gave us things to remember them by. I’ve got mine yet. You can feel it, right here.”

Horatio leaned his head down and pointed to the tip of his ear. Elsie put her finger there and could feel a little nick cut out of the edge of it.

“That’s it,” nodded Horatio. “The man’s gun went off when he was trying to catch up with us, to — to make friends with us. I don’t want accidents like that to happen often. They’re dangerous.”

“Oh,” said Elsie, “of course. But we won’t go into people’s fields without asking them. You must have learned a great deal by this time, and I shall always be polite — to other people, of course. I shall go right to the door and say, ‘Good-morning, ma’am, or sir. I’m Elsie — Orphan Elsie, they call me — and this is my bear—”

“Umph! my bear,” grunted Horatio; “oh, well, of course that would be polite. Go on, please.”

“I mean ‘my friend,’” corrected Elsie hastily  — “my friend, Mr. — that is, Ratio, of course, and we’ll be pleased to make some music for you for our breakfast, and perhaps we’ll give a special performance and take up a collection, if you’ll invite the neighbors to come in.”

Horatio looked at Elsie admiringly.

“That will be very fine,” he agreed, “if it will only work. Bo and I never did that. We just went into a village, or somewhere, and the people and the children and the dogs gathered. I didn’t care much for the dogs. They were a nuisance and never had any money. Still, we got along well enough.”

Elsie nodded.

“Yes,” she said, “because Bo was a boy, and that makes a difference. I don’t know why, exactly, but it does. Besides, perhaps people didn’t care so much for politeness in those days.”

“Very likely,” mused Horatio. “Anyhow, I’m willing to try your way. And whatever happens I will take care of you, Elsie. I won’t let anything harm you. Come, now, and let’s find a place where they will give us breakfast for politeness, or music, or something. So much talking makes me hungry.”

Together the huge animal and the little girl set out through the dewy morning, where the birds were singing all about and the wild flowers were filling the air with perfume. Presently they came out into a traveled road, and not far away they saw the smoke of a chimney. It was from a big log house on the edge of a thick forest, and as they drew nearer they could smell the odor of coffee and bacon.

“Oh, Ratio,” Elsie said, “I’m just starving. Did you ever smell anything so good?”

“Very nice, Elsie; very nice, indeed. But if the bacon were not so salty, and not so — so cooked in its odor, I should like it just as well.”

“Dear me!” said Elsie. “I think it more delicious this way than anything.”

“Well,” said Horatio, “everyone to his taste, as my grandfather said when he ate the green persimmons.”

“Goodness! And didn’t they pucker him, Ratio?”

“I’ve heard so. They say he always whistled, after that, when he tried to sing.”

By this time they had reached the door of the big cabin, and Elsie found herself very much frightened when she really stood there, waiting to knock. As for Horatio, he stood a step behind her, and Elsie thought he looked rather uneasy, too, and just ready to run.

“Horatio,” she whispered, “you must be brave, you know. You remember you promised to take care of me.”

“Y—yes, Elsie, of course, but don’t knock too loudly; they might h—hear it. I mean it might excite them. Knock softly, Elsie, dear.”

But Elsie did not need to knock at all, for just then the heavy door swung suddenly open, and a fat, cross-looking woman appeared in it. She gave one look at the little girl, and another at the huge bear behind her. Then she let out a loud scream and slammed the door.

SHE LET OUT A LOUD SCREAM

“Pod! Murf! Watson!” they heard her shout, excitedly. “Here’s thet b’ar the Medders boys chased last week, an’ this time he’s got a little girl with him. Get yer gun an’ the dogs, quick, and don’t let him get away. The menagery’ll pay a hundred dollars fer him!”

But Horatio and Elsie had not waited to hear all of this. The bear had made a wild break for the woods, Elsie following as best she could. They were not out of sight when they heard the yelping of the dogs and the shouting of the men. Horatio was running upright, like a man, carrying his precious violin, and Elsie could not keep up with him. In no time, it seemed to her, she felt a pair of big arms around her and heard a man’s voice say:

“You set right there, little girl, till we ketch him fer ye. We’ll git him, shore.”

“Oh, but you don’t need to catch him!” wailed Elsie. “Let me go, too, please. Let me go with him!”

But the man was gone, and Elsie found herself sitting on a huge stump, not daring to move. Then, pretty soon, she heard a loud barking of the dogs, and she knew that Horatio had most likely climbed a tree, where of course he would be captured. The fat woman came panting up now, and stopped in front of Elsie.

“Well!” she said; “well! It.’s a mercy you ain’t et up, bein’ with thet b’ar!”

“Oh,” pleaded Elsie, “he doesn’t eat people  — at least, not any more. He’s my bear — my other bear — and he’s tame, and we’re traveling. Won’t you make them let us go, please?”

“Huh! let you go! I guess not! Thet b’ar’s no more yours than anybody’s. He’s a run away b’ar from some show, an’ we’ll git a hundred dollars fer him. As fer you, ef you’ll tell us who yeh are, we’ll git somethin’ fer you, too.”

Elsie grew pale, and trembled, remembering Uncle Hennegar. Not for the world would she go back to him.

“Oh,” she trembled, “my parents are dead, both of them; and I have no real folks.”

“But you must have come from somewhere,” said the woman, looking straight at her; “now you tell me whar you come from!”

“I can’t,” moaned Elsie, truthfully. “I don’t know. I — I was lost when I met Ho — when I met the bear — when I found him, I mean, and he’s mine, now; we belong to each other, and you mustn’t take him away from me. It isn’t right.”

The woman smiled grimly.

“We’ll see about that,” she said.

“The law don’t give no b’ars to little girls, an’ no little girls to b’ars. Thet b’ar’ll go back to the menagery, an’ if you’ve got no folks, you’ll stay here with us. I need a little girl to wash dishes an’ sweep and weed the garding, any way."

Elsie shuddered. She would almost as soon be with Uncle Hennegar as with this woman. But just then there was a commotion in the bushes, and a moment later the two men appeared with Horatio between them. Around his neck was a strong rope, and the men held the ends tightly stretched. One of them carried the violin.

THEY WERE A SAD PAIR

“We’ve got him!” they shouted excitedly. “He knows what you say, an’ when we pointed a gun at him an’ told him to climb down, he clum.”

The dogs, who were racing around the group, yelped and barked wildly at this, and were kicked away by the men. Horatio, who never talked before strangers, said not a word, but looked at Elsie, as much as to say:

“You see what your politeness did, this time. Now, I shall be sent to imprisonment for life, and you will be a slave to these people.”

They were a sad pair as they were marched back to the cabin by the grim woman, the triumphant men and the yelping, snarling dogs. There was only one comfort: when they got to the cabin they had breakfast. Elsie sat down to the table with the others, and Horatio was given some good pieces of a deer that hung from a beam in a back room.

“We must keep him looking well,” said one of the men, “so he’ll bring a good price, an’ mebbe he’ll play the fiddle better, too.”

“Oh, yes , please,” put in Elsie, for Horatio’s sake. “I’m sure the better you feed him the better he’ll perform.”

“Mebbe we c’n git him to perform after breakfast — do ye reckon we can?” asked the man. Elsie suddenly remembered how Horatio’s performance had more than once got him out of trouble, and jumped at what seemed a chance.

“Oh, yes, I’m sure he will,” she said eagerly. “I’ll make him do it.”

She looked toward Horatio as she said this. He was tied to the door-post, and he nodded a little, but Elsie thought he looked offended, perhaps because she had said she would make him.

“I don’t care,” she thought, “I can apologize afterwards, and somebody’s got to do something, if we ever get out of this fix.”

Breakfast was soon over, and they all went outside. The dogs were tied, and Horatio was waiting quite calmly, licking out his tongue after his good meal. One of the men carried the fiddle, but seemed afraid to get too near its owner.

“Give it to me,” said Elsie; “I’m not afraid.”

She took the violin and handed it to Horatio, who sat up, the rope still around his neck.

“Take it,” she whispered. “Play the tune I taught you last night, after supper. The Dixie tune. I’ll sing for it.”

Horatio grasped the instrument and drew the bow across the strings, while Elsie lifted up her childish voice and sang, to the tune of “’Way Down South in Dixie:”

“Glory in the morning, Hooray! Hooray!

Glory at the break of day,

I took my bear and ran away,

Hooray! Hooray!

Glory in the morning.

But my bear and I, we didn’t run far,

For they brought us back, and here we are!

Hooray! Hooray!

Glory in the morning!”

As Elsie sang the last lines and Horatio went on with the tune, the little girl suddenly drew the Johnnie bear out of her pocket and danced around and around with it, and it was all so funny that the men and the fat woman roared, and even the dogs looked as if they were laughing. Then Elsie thought she saw a change come into the faces of her listeners. In the first place they wanted to dance, for she saw their feet move.

A CHANGE CAME INTO
THE FACES OF HER LISTENERS

Then something that was like a plan came into the face of the oldest of the men. “Look here,” he shouted, when Elsie and Horatio had finished, “that’s prime! We don’t want to sell that b’ar fer no hundred dollars, ner you, neither. We want to keep you both, an’ travel an’ make money with you. That’s it, little girl! You an’ thet b’ar’s a fortune. We’ll be mighty good to you, you bet. How does that idea suit?”

It didn’t suit Elsie at all, but she would rather agree to that than be separated from Horatio, so she said very quickly:

“Oh, thank you! I knew you couldn’t separate me from my bear.”

“Separate you? Why, we wouldn’t separate you fer a farm. You’re a whole menagery an’ circus combined, jest as you are. What’s a hundred dollars as compared to that? Why, you’ll make this whole Watson family rich, that’s what you’ll do. Sing that again, little girl, an’ we’ll all dance; Glory in the mornin’, Hooray! Hooray!”

And Horatio, catching the spirit of the thing, struck the notes on the violin, and old Miss Watson and the brothers Pod and Murf joined hands with Elsie and danced and sang to the music of Dixie, while the dogs raced around and around in excitement and barked and howled for joy.

“Glory in the morning, Hooray! Hooray!

Tomorrow at the break of day

With the Watson boys we’ll march away—

Hooray! Hooray!

Glory in the morning.”

–

3

Elsie, Horatio,
and the Watson Boys

There was great preparation in the Watson household that day for the tour which the Watson boys were to make, with Horatio and Elsie as performers. Pod Watson, the elder, was to be chief showman, and Murf Watson was to be general assistant, which meant, among other things, that he was to look after getting good places to camp and to see that there was something to eat. They thought they would have to camp in the woods sometimes, and live on game, so Murf Watson took his rifle, which he said would also be handy “ef thet b’ar should try to get away.”

Old Mis’ Watson was flying around getting clothes packed for the Watson boys to take along. She was really quite nice to Elsie and gave her a little shawl that she said had belonged to her married daughter when she was a little girl, and she gave Elsie some more clothes, done up in a neat bundle, and a needle and thread.

As for Horatio and Elsie, they were not so very sad. The Watson boys were so happy that they couldn’t help being good-natured, so the bear and the little girl behaved nicely, and gave one or two concerts and practiced some new songs for the trip. Once Horatio danced and turned some somersaults, doing the best he could, tied as he was with a heavy rope. Then the Watson family was more than ever delighted, and let him have a longer rope, and Horatio did some more things which pleased them all very much indeed. Once, when the others were not very near, he whispered softly to Elsie:

“It’s all right. We’ll go right along until a chance comes to get away. We’ll make them think we like it.”

“WE’LL GO ALONG UNTIL
A CHANCE COMES TO GET AWAY”

Yes,” whispered Elsie,

“We’ll be very polite and nice to them.” Horatio grinned. “Yes, polite — and we’ll take a polite leave, some night. Wait and see.”

The next morning they were off, bright and early. It was a good way to the nearest village, and the Watson boys were anxious to begin to make their fortune, which they felt sure they would do with such wonderful performers as Horatio and Elsie. Horatio felt well and some times played a little, while Elsie skipped by his side and hummed bits of their new tunes. One, especially, pleased him — an old Southern break down:

“Buffalo gals, ain’t you comin’ out tonight?

Ain’t you comin’ out tonight?

Ain’t you comin’ out tonight?

Buffalo gals, ain’t you comin’ out tonight

To dance by the light of the moon?”

This rollicking tune he played over and over, while Elsie sang the words and sometimes the Watson boys capered about, delighted with the music and the fortune they were about to make. Then there was another old dance tune that set their feet all to going:

“Hop light, ladies, for your cake’s all dough,

Hop light, ladies, for your cake’s all dough,

Hop light, ladies, for your cake’s all dough,

Never mind de weather when de win’ don’t blow.”

But after all, it was the “Arkansaw Traveler” which he had played so long and could play so perfectly that they returned to, again and again.

It was well along in the forenoon when they reached the first little town, and as they came up the street a crowd followed.

“Oh, see the bear! the bear with the fiddle! He’s going to play in front of the store!” shouted the boys, and by the time the store was reached, nearly all the people in the village had collected. They formed a circle around Horatio and Elsie and the Watson boys, and were impatient for the show to begin.

“Hey, old pig-stealer, give us a tune,” called a fat boy to Horatio.

Horatio looked straight at the fat boy in a way that made him draw back into the crowd,

“Humph! pig-stealer!” he grunted to him self. “If I just had a chance, I’d like to steal you.”

“Ladies and Gents,” said Pod Watson, “these yere’s the best performin’ b’ar an’ little girl, I reckon, in Ameriky. There ain’t no sich outfit fer music, nowhere. Now, we’re goin’ to give ye our best doin’s, an’ afterwards take up a little collection fer the poor — we bein’ the poor. The show will now begin, an’ the Lord loveth a cheerful giver, as the preacher says.”

HORATIO DREW HIS BOW
ACROSS THE STRINGS

Horatio drew his bow across the strings, and Elsie began to sing a new song of her own, tuned to the Arkansaw Traveler:

Oh, my name is Orphan Elsie and Horatio is the bear.

And the Watson boys go with us as we travel here and there:

We can dance and we can fiddle and can sing a song or two.

And Horatio turns a flip-flop flap-a-doodle-doo.”

“HORATIO TURNS A FLIP-FLOP

Before Elsie was half through the verse, the I fat boy had forgotten that he was afraid, and was standing directly in front of the little girl, where he could take in every word. The others had pressed up close, too, so that there was scarcely room for the performers and the Watson boys. Everybody was about to cheer when Horatio struck in with the second part of the tune, and Elsie sang on.

FLAP-A-DOODLE-DOO”

“Yes, Horatio does a flip-flop, and I can do a skip-hop,

The Watson boys are tip-top in taking up the fare;

So take us altogether, in any kind of weather,

And I know you’ll wonder whether you can beat us anywhere.”

That was enough to set the crowd wild. Some of the spectators had joined hands and were dancing. Others took up the song, and Horatio and Elsie had to go over it again and again, and still another time.

“No, no! we can’t beat you anywhere!” they shouted. “Stay with us and play and sing for us and we’ll forget all our troubles and live forever.”

And just then Murf Watson passed around the hat and the pennies and nickels and dimes came dropping in, faster than anybody could count. Then there was another concert and another collection, after which Horatio was let out on a long rope — they were afraid to untie him altogether yet — and he gave a wonderful gymnastic performance. First he danced and played at the same time; then he stood on his head and played; then he handed Elsie the fiddle and turned a lot of somersaults, so fast you could hardly tell which was up, his head or his heels.

The collection that came after that took all the pennies and nickels and dimes that were left in the village. Then the people insisted on giving Horatio and Elsie and the Watson boys some dinner, and stayed to see them eat it, and after that Horatio had to play again and Elsie had to sing a farewell song, which was one she made herself, to fit the music:

“When we came to you this morning we had never met before,

But now we do not think you seem like strangers any more;

For you’ve seen us dance and fiddle, and you’ve heard a song or two,

And Horatio did his flip-flop flap-a-doodle do.

“Yes, Horatio did his flip-flop, you helped us with the skip-hop,

The Watson boys were tip-top in taking up the fare;

And our memory will remind us how you have so kindly dined us,

Though we leave you far behind us as we travel here and there.”

“Elsie,” said Horatio that night, when they had found a nice camping place and the Watson boys were gathering wood for a campfire, after tying Horatio carefully to a stout tree, “Elsie, you did as well as Bo, I think — just about as well — maybe in some things better — a little better. And it’s rather a good idea, bringing the Watson boys along, to look after us and cook for us, and to take care of the money for us. I feel perfectly safe with that gun along.”

“Why, do you, Ratio?” said Elsie, a little surprised. “I hadn’t thought of it that way, especially about the money. Do you suppose—”

“I’m not supposing,” said Horatio. “I’m just thinking – just thinking how nice it will be when we get enough money in the crowd for all of us, to let them go back home, while we go on to the colony,just as we had planned, and let you take charge of it, just as Bo was going to do, and teach all the other animals to read and sing, and maybe to dance and have Sunday-school, and to say their prayers and quit eating up good little boys and girls, who never did them any harm, but caught the mice in grandpa’s barn, as Bo used to say.”

“But do you think the Watson boys will let us — will be willing, I mean, to go home, by-and-by, and leave us together? And do you think they’ll give us any of the money? You know they seem just crazy about the money. Besides, there’s the rope, Horatio, and the gun.”

“I know,” nodded Horatio, “I know. That gun is all right, and so is the rope. I’m not at all uneasy about any one trying to steal you or do you any injury while that gun is along; and this rope keeps me out of mischief. I used to wander off and get into trouble sometimes when I was with Bo. I never knew what I needed to cure me of that. Now I know — it was a rope — a good rope and a good stout tree like this one. A rope and a tree would cure lots of people of things if somebody like the Watson boys would come along and persuade them to try it. And about the Watson boys being willing to go home: don’t worry over that, Elsie. We’ll be good to the Watson boys — nice and docile and polite. I’m going to copy manners from you, and by-and-by, perhaps, I won’t need the rope, and the gun always setting so handy. And some day when I don’t need the rope, I’ll get between that gun and the Watson boys, and then I think I can persuade them to go home. I think they’ll be perfectly willing to go, the shortest way. And I don’t think they’ll care so much about the money. I don’t think they’ll even remember it. We’re traveling in the right direction for that colony of ours. It’s about a hundred miles or so down this way. We’ll be on the borders of the Big Swamp Woods by-and-by, and the colony isn’t so far from there. Be cool and brave, Elsie, like me; and always polite, remember that.”

Elsie was about to reply, when the Watson boys came back — one of them with a great armful of wood, and the other with some squirrels and rabbits he had shot.

“You see, Elsie,” whispered Horatio, “what a good thing it is I had them bring that gun along. You are a nice child, Elsie, and can sing, but you haven’t lived as long as I have.”

The Watson boys prepared a fine supper. They preferred to camp, they said, when the weather was good. It was cheaper and more pleasant. In the morning they would have fish for breakfast, for there was a stream of water near the camp.

Then, after supper, they counted their money There were several dollars altogether, and they were quite delighted. They began to talk and plan what they would do with the great sum of money they expected to have before long.

“We’ll have to get shot-sacks to put it in,” they decided, and Horatio listened, and smiled wisely at Elsie, who was very sleepy and scarcely heard.

She leaned up against Horatio, who began to blink as he looked into the fire.

“Ye ain’t goin’ to sleep by thet b’ar, air ye?” said Pod Watson, looking up.

“Yes,” said Elsie, drowsily.

“I’m not afraid of him. I’m not afraid of anything when I feel him close.”

“Well, I’ll declar’!” Pod said. “I wouldn’t go to sleep by thet b’ar fer a thousand dollars.”

“Blamed if they don’t seem to understand each other,” said Murf Watson. “Sometimes I think they’re ackshully talkin’.”

4

Uncle Hennegar
Suddenly Turns Up

“Oh my name is Orphan Elsie and I haven’t long to stay,

And I met my bear Horatio, on the night I ran away.”

Elsie never quite knew why she sang those words. It was just one of those things we do on the spur of the moment, when we feel very well, or very ill, and in either case we are sometimes very sorry, after wards.

She had been with Horatio and the Watson boys for more than a week now, and was really happier than she had ever been since before her mother died. She was kindly treated and had plenty to eat; besides, she quite enjoyed gypsying and giving exhibitions, singing whatever came into her mind and hearing the people cheer and seeing them drop money into the hat, which Murf Watson always passed just when the crowd was most excited and asking her to “sing it again.”

As for Horatio, he had been on his good behavior, and seemed to enjoy everything as much as Elsie. They no longer kept the rope around his neck when he performed, and only put it on at night — to keep him from getting into trouble, as he always told Elsie. The gun was not kept so handy as it had been, either.

But Horatio did not seem to want to get away. Perhaps he had given up the notion. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to go yet. When he was alone with Elsie he talked a good deal about his colony, somewhere down in the Great Swamp Woods, where she was to be a sort of queen, by-and-by, but if he had made any real plan for escape he did not mention it. It had been a long time since he had had anyone to find his food for him, and it was very pleasant. He often remarked how nice it was that he had “invited the Watson boys to come with them” on this little trip, and Elsie sometimes wondered if he didn’t intend to stay with them for good.

She hoped not. They were rough fellows, not at all polite, and were always talking about money and how to make more of it. She longed for Horatio’s home in the far, deep forest, with all the animals about her, learning new speech and manners. She thought she would dearly love to teach, especially animals that could understand what you said to them. Still, all this life was so new and exciting, and so much better than anything she had known with Uncle Hennegar, that she overflowed all day with happiness, and when she sang she often strung together any wild thing that came into her mind, and would dance and caper about as Horatio played the little bar of music between the stanzas.

Altogether that was a very funny show when you come to think about it. She still carried the Johnnie bear, and used to sway him from side to side, as she sang, and dance him up and down in the air. Then suddenly, as she finished a verse and Horatio ran on with the rollicking tune, she would whirl around and around, dancing the little bear to the gay music, or would swing him by one leg or two legs, as might happen, and then, just as Horatio finished the last notes, she would clap the little toy bear right upon the big real bear’s shoulder, or on his head, and sometimes on the arm that held the fiddle bow, and would laugh so merrily her self that the Watson boys, who had seen it many times, and the crowd, who had never seen it at all, would go off in a great laughter that always ended with a good deal of money for the Watson boys.

But, as I said in the beginning of this chapter, Elsie never knew why on this particular day she began singing about herself and Horatio and the Watson boys, and especially about Uncle Hennegar, whom she never expected to see again and wanted to forget as soon as possible. It was just one of those sudden things we do when we feel especially happy or especially sad, as I said before. Elsie didn’t know that, on his way to Texas, Uncle Hennegar had to take a bend to the south.

It was quite a busy little town they were in, and quite a big crowd had gathered. Horatio had laid his bow across the strings and played the first bar of the old stand-by tune, the Arkansaw Traveler, and it was then that Elsie sang:

“Oh, my name is Orphan Elsie, and I haven’t long to stay,

And I met my bear Horatio on the night I ran away,

And the Watson boys next morning, and we brought them both along

To fare with us and share with us our pilgrimage of song.”

“Pilgrimage” was quite a big word for a little girl like Elsie, but she knew all about it. She had read “The Pilgrim’s Progress,” and she had often helped sing a hymn at meeting which had a line in it about “our pilgrimage below.” Besides, it fitted in the line exactly, and that was the main thing. She now whirled around twice, with Johnnie Bear, as Horatio played the little “between” music, then she broke into the second part of the song.

“So good-bye to Uncle Hennegar, whose face is full of vinegar,

And I wonder what he’s thinking as he travels on his way;

It is sad that he neglects us, though I’m glad he doesn’t vex us,

Now he’s on the road to Texas, where we hope he’ll stay.”

Elsie didn’t dance Johnnie Bear up and down after that verse, or set him on Horatio’s shoulder, or on his head, or his arm. She was about to do all of these things, and then, suddenly, she dropped him — dropped her dear Johnnie Bear on the ground in the dirt — for there, standing right in front of her, his face so full of vinegar that it would have turned milk sour just to look at it — if milk could look at it — stood Uncle Hennegar himself!

THERE STOOD
UNCLE HENNEGAR HIMSELF!

Then Elsie gave a scream, and fell back against Horatio, who fell back against the Watson boys, who fell back against the crowd behind them, who fell back against some horses, who were hitched to a rack along the street; and the horses snorted and kicked, and some of them broke loose, and one team ran off and upset a wagon loaded with barrels, and the barrels went rolling all over the street in every direction and scared a lot of chickens and geese that were pecking in the common, and these ran hissing and cackling, and one barrel frightened another horse that was hitched to a tin-peddler’s wagon, and the horse backed suddenly and upset all the tinware with a terrible racket, and by that time everybody was talking back to some body else, till nobody could tell what had happened or who was to blame. Uncle Hennegar had never raised such a commotion before in all his life.

He didn’t seem to mind it much, though, or to be proud of it. He just walked straight up to Elsie and took her by the arm.

“So this is what you’re a-doin’, is it?” he said; “travelin’ around and givin’ shows an’ makin’ money fer other people. Well, we’ll jest stop that. I’m yer only kin, and you an’ yer b’ar can jest come along an’ give shows an’ make money fer yer Uncle Hennegar. D’ye hear?”

Elsie struggled to get away.

“I won’t!” she said. “I won’t go with you again. You’re not my uncle. You’re just a wicked man that married my aunt, and abused her until she died. And you have abused me. I hate you!”

Elsie knew that it was very impolite to say that she hated anyone, but she was excited, and besides, it was the truth. By this time the crowd had gathered and the Watson boys had come up close.

“Look yere,” said Pod Watson to Uncle Hennegar, “you take yer hands off that little girl! She says you ain’t her uncle, an’ she ran away because you was mean to her. An’ you ain’t got no claim on the b’ar, neither. We tuck thet b’ar out of the woods, runnin’ wild!”

HORATIO CLIMBED UP
ON A BIG DRY GOODS BOX

Murf Watson came up, too, just then, with the gun. As for Horatio, he had climbed up on a big dry goods box and stood looking down on the crowd with great interest.

Uncle Hennegar backed off a little when he saw the gun, and dropped Elsie’s arm.

“I’ll go to law!” he shouted. “I’ll show you if I can’t claim my own relations that I’ve always took keer of and fed an’ spent money on, sence her mother died!”

“That you’ve always abused and made to work like a slave, and spent every bit of money that was left her, you mean!” flashed out Elsie.

“’Taint so!” screamed Uncle Hennegar. “I never! and I’ll have the law after all of you!”

But by this time the crowd saw pretty well how things were, and their sympathies were all with Elsie and Horatio. If the little girl and the bear wanted to stay with the Watson boys, the crowd meant to see to it that they did.

“Look here,” said a big fellow who evidently ran things in the village, “the only law that we know here, about this kind of thing, is that the little girl is going to stay where she wants to, just as long as she wants to, and if you don’t let her alone and make tracks for Texas, where you’re headed for, there’ll be some of that kind of law after you. Now get! pretty quick, too!”

“Yes, get!” shouted all the crowd.

“Yes, get!” echoed Elsie, though that was far from polite.

There were those in the crowd who declare to this day that Horatio also shouted with the others: “Yes, get!”

But nobody else believed it, because they said that even if a bear could play the fiddle, he couldn’t talk; but what they all know did happen was that Uncle Hennegar “got!” and that when he was down the road, just as he turned the corner, shaking his fist back at them, Horatio threw his bow across the strings of his violin, and Elsie, full of happiness, sang:

Oh, good-bye to Uncle Hennegar, whose face is full of vinegar,

I wonder what he’s thinking as he travels on his way,

He is sorry he neglects us, and he wishes he could vex us

While he’s on his way to Texas, where we hope he’ll stay.”

–

5

Horatio and Elsie
Take an Early Start

“Oh, a king and a queen in a castle grand,

They sat on a throne and they ruled a land;

And Elsie and Horatio came wandering along,

And Horatio played the fiddle, and Elsie sang a song.

“Then the king began to wiggle and the queen began to jiggle,

And the throne began to wriggle as they capered up and down;

And the court was all a-dancing and the horses soon were prancing,

Till they formed a great procession, and they marched through London town.”

It didn’t seem at all strange to Elsie that she and Horatio should be performing before a king and a queen, nor that they should suddenly be leading a great procession of royalty and nobility on prancing and gayly caparisoned horses through the streets of great and wonderful London. Her mother had told her of such things a long time ago, and there did not seem anything more curious about it than that she should be traveling with Horatio in Arkansaw, when, only a few days before, Horatio himself had been only in a book, which once, a long time ago, a little girl had let her read.

Still, it was certainly very exciting and grand. She was just thinking how fine indeed it all was, when she thought she heard someone call her name very softly, as if afraid someone else might hear. It sounded like Horatio, but here was Horatio still marching grandly by her side, playing, and dancing a little now and then, and she noticed that someone, without her seeing it, had thrown a royal-looking collar about his neck, and had decked her, Elsie, with a wonderful garment of purple velvet, richly embroidered with gold.

But just then her name was called again, in that low, mysterious whisper.

“Elsie!”

It seemed very close to her ear. She looked around quickly, but Horatio was still beside her, still capering and playing, only, strangely enough, the regal collar was no longer about his neck, and now, too, she saw that the gay procession behind them was dwindling into the dusk which was gathering in the street.

“Elsie! Elsie!”

The procession was suddenly gone, and all around was night and blackness. Horatio was gone, too. She was alone in the dark.

“Elsie! Elsie! Wake up!”

Oh, she had been asleep, then, and dreaming it all. Horatio was really calling her. She sat straight up in bed, trying to remember where she was.

“What is it, Ratio?” she murmured drowsily.

“’Sh!” whispered Horatio, and Elsie realized now that his voice came from an open window near her bed — “not so loud. We’re going to take an early start. We won’t wait for the Watson boys to wake up, this time. We won’t disturb them. Get your clothes on, Elsie, soon and softly, and we’ll dissolve partnership with the Watson boys. I’ve put a ladder at this window. You can climb down. I’ll wait for you at the bottom of it.”

“Oh, Ratio, do you really think—”

“I’m not thinking now — I’m traveling. Don’t you delay matters, unless you want to stay alone with the Watson boys.”

That was enough. Elsie was out of bed in a second, and had her clothes on in a jiffy. It had been raining the evening before, and they had put up at a house for the night. Horatio had been tied in a log out-house, and the door fastened, and Elsie had been put up in a little upstairs room. Where the Watson boys were she did not know — probably in the room next hers, so she must be very quiet. As she drew her clothes on and hunted for her little bundle, she wondered how Horatio had managed to get free. It did not matter — he would tell her soon enough. She laced her shoes, skipping most of the eyelets in the dark and hurry; then she grabbed her Johnnie bear from the bed, for he always slept with her, and crept to the window.

It was so dark that she couldn’t even see the window at first, and had to feel for it. Then all at once her hand struck the ladder, and she was soon creeping down, which was not very easy work, with her bundle and her Johnnie bear, which she had not taken time to put in her pocket. But before she reached the ground she felt Horatio’s great shaggy arms around her, and then she was lifted and set astride his neck. In another moment they were going swiftly through the cool night, across the yard and over the fence, into the black, deep woods. Horatio did not need to pick his way. He could see in the darkest night.

“BEND DOWN LOW, ELSIE”

“Bend down low, Elsie,” he whispered, “so the branches won’t strike your face. You can’t see in here, like me. Put your face right down on the top of my head.”

Elsie did this, and felt leaves and branches brush and scrape her hair and shoulders. They were going very fast, she knew, a good deal faster than she could have traveled in that dark, thick woods. It was no time to ask questions, but now and then Horatio made a remark.

“We’re getting off early,” he said as they were passing through a little open space — “about midnight, I should think, by the stars. We’ll be in the Big Swamp Woods for breakfast.”

A little farther on he said:

“That was a funny old lock on my room. It’s a wonder somebody didn’t break in and steal me. I played with it a little and it dropped right off. I took my necktie off, too. I never like a necktie in warm weather, especially to travel in. That’s an easy knot the Watson boys tie. I’ve been practicing on it the past week or two.”

Presently Elsie heard him splash into a stream and go following along it — splash, splash, splash, stepping over stones and logs, never slipping or stumbling.

“That’s always a good thing to do when you want to fool anybody, especially dogs,” he said. “Dogs can’t follow a trail in water, and they’d have a nice time hunting along the bank to find where I get out.”

Splash, splash, splash, they went, the water getting deeper and deeper, as Elsie could tell by the sound. She was really a good deal frightened, though she kept perfectly still. She felt sure they would be followed by the Watson boys, who might get blood-hounds to track them. She had heard how blood-hounds never lose the scent; and sometimes, when Horatio stopped a minute, to pick the safest water, perhaps — it was very still there in the dark — she imagined she could hear voices shouting and the deep baying of distant hounds. But she decided that it was only the voices of the water as it gurgled and sang among the stones,,and perhaps the night movements of the treetops, high and black above her head. By-and-by she went sound asleep, leaning forward with her face on Horatio’s furry head, and dreamed the royal procession all over again, only this time she and Horatio were both mounted on great elephants and leading a wonderful Arabian Nights parade, and she was going to marry a royal prince and rule the nation for ever after. Then she thought they came down to a splendid marble landing-place, where a barge was waiting to bear her to her domain, which lay on the other side of the wide water.

“Now we will get into the boat,” she heard Horatio say, and she felt herself being lifted down, and then she found she was really being put into a boat, a nice rowboat, hidden among some bushes, and in the dim light of the early morning she could see that there was a pair of oars.

—

6

Uncle Hennegar
Again

Horatio placed Elsie in the stern of the boat. Then he put the violin and something quite heavy, which Elsie recognized as one of the shot-bags of money collected by the Watson boys, on the seat beside her, and stepping in, took the middle seat and picked up the oars.

“That was quite a pleasant little walk through the woods, Elsie,” he said, “quite pleasant. I really enjoyed it.”

Elsie was still too sleepy to reply, and only stared stupidly at Horatio as he skillfully pushed the boat out from among the willows and sent it down a long stretch of still water and out into a fine lake, into which the brook emptied.

“This is my private boat,” Horatio added, with some pride. “I borrowed it from two hunters, who came into the Big Swamp Woods once, looking for bears. They had just crossed the lake, I guess, and had left their guns in the boat while they built a camp-fire. They didn’t seem to care anything for the boat after they saw me sitting in it — nor for their guns, either. They were very polite men. They left me their dinner, too — some nice meat and bread and a string of fish. I never saw such polite men. I suppose they hurried because they wanted to get home in time for supper. They must have forgot about the boat, for they never came back after it.”

“But how did you learn to row, Ratio?" asked Elsie, who was wide-awake now.

“Why, you see I learned that at college. Bo’s friends there were always teaching me things. I learned to row and to play football, too, They wanted to make me captain of a football team, but I thought the game too rough, for bears.”

“Ratio,” said Elsie, “what do you think the Watson boys will say to our going like this?”

“Why, Elsie, I suppose Pod will whip Murf, and maybe Murf will use the gun on Pod, and then if they’re still alive they will go home to Old Mis’ Watson and wait for the next bear with a fiddle and a little girl. I looked in on them before I started, but they were sleeping so nicely that it seemed a pity to wake them, just to say good-bye. I divided the money — took one sack and left them the other.”

“Oh, Ratio, do you think that was right?”

“Well, no — I ought to have taken both, but I didn’t see how I could carry them, and you, and the fiddle, too. Still, I guess we’ve got enough for what we want, and we’ll give the rest to the Watson boys for taking care of us.”

They were nearly across the beautiful forest lake by this time, and the sun was just rising. Elsie thought she had never seen any place more wonderful. They pulled into a clump of willows that hid the boat completely, and Horatio helped Elsie out.

“Now, Elsie,” he said, “there’s just one more road to cross before we get into the heart of the Big Swamp Woods, where no men ever come any more} We go by river to the next lake, but the road crosses the river, and we have to go under a bridge. I don’t suppose anyone is around, but we don’t want to take any chances. You’re little and not easily noticed, Elsie; suppose you creep up to the road and look through the bushes and see if the way is clear, before we go any farther.”

Elsie was only too glad to stretch her legs a little, and was soon creeping up the bank toward the forest road that led from the deep wilds of Arkansaw through the great forest, over into the woods and plains of Texas. Horatio followed, a little way behind, stopping now and then to listen.

Presently Elsie was where she could look through the greenery into the road. She was down on her hands and knees and did not move for several minutes. Suddenly she gave a little jump, and came creeping back with a scared look on her face.

“UNCLE HENNEGAR IS
OUT THERE IN THE ROAD”

“Oh, Ratio,” she whispered, “Uncle Hennegar is out there in the road. I suppose he is camped somewhere not far from here, and is going to the river to fish. He has a bait-can and a pole.”

“Did he have a gun, Elsie?”

“No, just a pole. Uncle Hennegar was always too stingy to own a gun.”

“I see. Well, don’t worry about Uncle Hennegar, Elsie. I’ll attend to Uncle Hennegar. I’ll arrange matters with Uncle Hennegar. Wait right where you are, Elsie dear.”

Horatio straightened himself up, looked fierce, and before Elsie knew what he was going to do he had stepped out into the road, just as Uncle Hennegar got even with their hiding place.

Elsie heard a sort of wild, scared whoop in Uncle Hennegar’s well-known tones, and then something that sounded exactly like a very rapid foot-race. She crept hurriedly through the bushes and peered out. She saw Uncle Hennegar almost flattened to the ground with the momentum of his speed, and Horatio a few feet behind, making an occasional grab at Uncle Hennegar’s coat-tail, which stood out perfectly straight.

UNCLE HENNEGAR ALMOST
FLATTENED TO THE GROUND

Across the bridge and down the long road they flew. Then they came to a sudden bend and were lost to sight. A moment later, Horatio returned, walking slowly and panting, a broad smile on his face.

“Elsie,” he said, as he came up, “I wish Providence had made Uncle Hennegar a fatter man, and not quite so speedy. We will go under the bridge, now. Uncle Hennegar is still running, Elsie dear.”

–

7

Nearing the
Great Swamp Woods

Elsie,” said Horatio, when they were again seated in the boat and had passed safely under the bridge, “don’t you think I’m a pretty good manager, when you come to think about it? I suppose you think I was trying to get away from the Watson boys that first morning when we met them, and I ran—”

“Well,” began Elsie, “you see—”

“Never mind the wells, Elsie, nor the seas. We’re in a river now that is taking us in the right direction — where I’ve been taking you, all the time. What if I should tell you that I knew about those Watson boys, and meant from the first to engage them to go with us, and that I had planned everything just as it all happened?”

Horatio rested on his oars and looked at Elsie with an expression of great and superior wisdom. “What would you say if I told you that, Elsie dear?”

“Well, you see—” began Elsie again.

“Now, now — there is that same well, and that sea again, when I have just told you that we are on a river, which leads to a lake which lies in the borders of the Great Swamp Woods. And now we’ve got the first question settled, I’ll ask you another.”

Elsie looked a little surprised. “Oh, I didn’t know that it was settled yet,” she said.

“Why, of course it is. It settled itself. All questions do that if they are left alone. It’s keeping a thing stirred up that makes trouble. Now, Elsie, the next question is, what do you think would have happened if we’d gone to the Watson boys and offered to hire them to travel with us, instead of making them believe we’d rather be alone and letting them capture us?”

“Why—” began Elsie.

“Never mind the whys; it’s the ‘whats’ I’m talking about — what would have happened? I’ll tell you what would have happened: they would have wanted us to pay them every cent we made, and we’d have had to feed and wait on them besides. Instead of that, we were the ones who were fed and waited on. I know the Watson boys — their kind, I mean. They just love to think they captured us. Lots of people are that way. They want to think they capture things by their smartness, and if you let them think so, you can do most anything with them. That’s what made the Watson boys so willing to go with us and do all the hard work and feed us and look after us, and now we’ve got all this money and are

‘Well and happy and full of glee,

On our way to the colony,’

as Bo would put it, if he were here.”

Elsie looked over the side of the boat and trailed her hand in the water. She knew that the big, good-natured fellow always liked to take credit to himself for whatever happened, and especially hated to confess that he had been afraid. Still, he was so calm about it all, and everything had turned out so well, that she could not help wondering if Ratio had not really planned something of the kind, as he would have her believe.

“Ratio,” she said very politely, “it’s really s’prising when you think how it’s all turned out; and did you plan that about Uncle Hennegar, too, when he found us that first day, I mean, and all the things went tumbling, and you climbed up on the box so suddenly?”

Horatio looked a little cross at this reminder.

“No,” he grunted. “I didn’t plan Uncle Hennegar. If I had, I’d have planned him fatter.” Then he laughed, and added, “I wonder how long before he’ll dare to cross that bridge?”

“Poor Uncle Hennegar,” said Elsie. “He once brought me a stick of candy. He wouldn’t eat a bit of it himself. It was one he found, and he was afraid it might be poisoned.”

“Yes, poor Uncle Hennegar,” nodded Horatio. “I don’t believe I ever saw a man quite so poor. I don’t believe he’s got as much meat on him as a rabbit.”

They swept out into the big lake just then, and Elsie gave a cry of joy at the loveliness around her. The sun was above the tree tops now, and the water was dancing in a thousand shimmering colors. Along the shore was a mass of green — great trees hung with vines and alive with singing birds. A light breeze swept up from the south, filled with the fragrance of flowers.

“Oh, Ratio, is it all like this?” she cried. “I never dreamed of anything so beautiful!”

“This is the big lake,” said Horatio. “It used to be a swamp, but long, long ago, before my third great-grandfather was born, men came in here and cut away the biggest trees and dammed the swamp and made it a lake so they could float their logs to a big mill, where they sawed them into boards. The old camps have been deserted since long before my time, but the dam is as good as ever it was, and the Big Swamp Woods are really the Big Lake Woods now, and belong only to the bears and their friends.”

“How fine!” murmured Elsie; “and are we nearly there, Horatio?”

“We’ll be there for breakfast, Elsie dear; in about an hour, I should think. I know they’ll be glad to see you. They’ve talked about Bo every day since he left us, and are always wondering if we couldn’t get someone to take his place. You’ll have a great many to wait on you at the colony, Elsie.”

Elsie felt a little queer for a moment. She found she had not been thinking lately about all those other animals in the colony and how very near she was getting to them now. When they were a long way off it seemed very nice to think of, but when she suddenly realized that within an hour she, Orphan Elsie, might be actually among ever so many bears and even other animals, she did not know whether to be glad or not.

“Oh, Ratio,” she gasped, “and will they truly be nice to me, and not — not ever try to — to eat me, Ratio?”

“Elsie,” said Horatio gravely, “if anybody in that colony ever says or does anything you don’t like, you just tell me, Elsie; and as for eating, if they ever eat you I’ll just eat them, that’s all, if it’s the whole colony, Elsie dear. Don’t you be afraid, I’m the biggest eater in that colony, and they know it. Just let them try to eat you, that’s all! Just let them try it!” and Horatio looked so fierce and showed his great teeth so savagely that Elsie shivered. Yet she really believed Horatio would take care of her, and anyhow, she meant to be very brave.

—

8

In the
Great Swamp Woods
at Last

They did not talk very much after that. Horatio rowed leisurely with strong, steady strokes, and you might have laughed, perhaps, to see the big bear pulling the boat. But Elsie did not laugh; she had seen Horatio do so many things, and he had been so kind to her, she only thought how big and strong he was, and wondered if the other bears and their friends would be as good to a little lonely girl as he had been. She remembered that Horatio’s family had been good to Bo, nine years before, but perhaps they had changed since then, and besides, there were so many new ones in the colony now. She meant to stay very close to Horatio, at least for a while. She was in a long day-dream in which all the things she could remember were mingled with all the things she thought she was going to do, when suddenly and softly the boat stopped. She looked up and found they had reached a little cove on the other side of the lake, and that Horatio had turned the boat so she could step out.

“All ashore!” he called. “This is as far as we go by water. We’re in the heart of the Great Swamp Woods, at last.”

Elsie stepped out, still half in a dream. Coming across that wide, peaceful water she had felt that she was crossing a lake of enchantment to a magic land and was leaving all the world behind. Now she was really on the shore of the wonderful country, all that she had ever known — even Uncle Hennegar and the Watson boys — seemed thousands of miles away. Could it really be true that she had reached the far, dim woods where the bear colony lived? where Bosephus had once lived and taught them, and where she, Elsie, was self a little to make sure, then stood silently, with her little bundle while Horatio fastened the boat under some willows; after which he washed his hands, picked up the violin and money-bag and started.

“I think, Elsie,” he said, “we’ll have a little music, just to let them know we are coming. Think of something nice to sing, Elsie dear, to the old familiar tune. They don’t know any other, and might think strangers were coming if we should give them ‘Buffalo Gals’ or ‘Dixie.’”

Horatio laid the shot-sack of money across his left shoulder, where it lay like a saddle, one end supported by the violin. Then briskly and gayly he struck up the first notes of “The Arkansaw Traveler.” It was no trouble for Elsie to sing now. In the excitement of her anticipation she was overflowing with thoughts and words that fitted themselves to music and became song.

Oh, the morn is fair and the woods are green,

And my heart is overflowing with this happy, happy scene.

Yes, the morn is fair and my heart is light as air,

For I’ve left behind my troubles and I’m with my faithful bear.

“I have left them far behind me and they’ll never, never find me

In this deep, delightful woodland, where the forest creatures dwell;

We are coming, we are coming, you can hear our music humming—

We are coming, dear companions that Bosephus loved so well.”

“Elsie,” said Horatio happily, “that’s just the thing. They are sure to like being called ‘dear companions.’ Sing it again, Elsie. Keep right on singing it as we march in.”

So Elsie sang it again, and was half-way through it a third time when suddenly she stopped short, for directly in the road in front of her there appeared suddenly another bear!

JUST A PLAIN BEAR WITHOUT ANY FIDDLE,
AND NOT STANDING UP, MAN FASHION

She was expecting, of course, that they would see other bears before long, and perhaps other animals, too, but when a big bear really appeared, quite suddenly, in that way — just a plain bear without any fiddle, and not standing up, man fashion, like Horatio — just an ordinary big sniffing bear, she was quite a good deal surprised and startled.

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “Oh, Ratio, wh—what — I mean, who — is that, please?”

But Horatio did not answer. He hastily laid his violin and the money-bag down on a stump and ran forward. Then Elsie saw the new bear also stand up straight, and her heart sank, for she thought there was going to be a terrible fight. But now she saw the two bears throw their arms about each other and rock from side to side, and put their heads together and grunt, and pat each other on the back. She knew then they were only greeting, as long lost brothers or friends.

GREETING AS LONG LOST BROTHERS
OR FRIENDS

“Oh, Elsie,” Horatio called, “come here quickly. This is my little brother, Cub, that Bo and I rescued from the cruel Italian. His name is Jasper, now. Bo was very fond of him, and you must be, too. Jasper, this is Elsie, whom I have found to take the place of Bo.”

Elsie came up, a little hesitatingly.

“But he isn’t little, Ratio. He’s as big as you, ’most.”

“Yes, he’s grown to be a fine, smart bear, Elsie, and quite noted for his learning. You may speak to him in men’s talk, and he will answer you.”

ELSIE HELD OUT HER HAND
RATHER TIMIDLY

Elsie came up a little nearer and held out her hand rather timidly.

“How do you do, sir?” she said, with polite courtesy. “I am very glad to see you, and I hope you will like me. I mean,” she added hastily, “as Horatio l-likes me.”

The new bear came right up to her and put out his big, hairy arms and gave her a great soft hug.

“Elsie,” he said, and Elsie thought he had a somewhat curious accent, “I don’t know who you are, or where you came from, but I like you already, and am willing to like you in any way that Horatio says. Horatio rules this place when he is here, and I rule when he’s away. You are among friends, Elsie.”

“Yes,” echoed Horatio, in a big, heavy voice, “among friends, and here they are to greet you, Elsie.”

At that moment Elsie heard a great rustling and tramping in the bushes all about her, and then from every side the people of the forest began to appear — the great black bears, the long gray panthers, the silvery smooth-tailed ’possums; the striped bushy-tailed ’coons; wary-looking wolves and foxes, even a group of deer — bucks with long antlers, and mild-eyed does — while above, in the overhanging branches brown and gray squirrels leaped and chattered together, and many birds came flocking in a curious audience to behold the coming of a little girl into their great dim domain.

But if they were astonished to see Elsie, what was her amazement to see them!

“Oh,” she said weakly, “I never, never saw such a — a — menagerie, and all — loose. Oh, dear, I didn’t suppose there were so many animals and things in the world.”

“Only a few, Elsie. Only a part of the dwellers in these woods. But we are adding to our colony all the time, and hope to have them all by and by. Now that you have come, it will grow much faster, never fear. Now we will march to headquarters, all rejoicing that I have brought you safely through many dangers, singing as we go.”

Horatio handed his brother the money bag, and Elsie walked between them. On each side ranged the beautiful creatures of the forest; the scampering squirrels and the birds overhead. Then Horatio struck the strong happy note of triumph, and as the procession moved forward, Elsie opened her lips and sang as she had never sung before.

“Oh, companions of the forest with your hearts so brave and true,

I am happy, happy, happy, for I’ve come to live with you.

I have come with our Horatio in the dawning of the day

And if you treat me kindly I will never go away.

“For I’ve left all care behind me — it can never, never find me—

In this deep delightful woodland where the forest creatures dwell.

We are coming, yes, We’re coming, with our joyous music humming.

We have found those dear companions that Bosephus loved so well.”

–

9

The Coming
of Queen Elsie

But I must tell you something more about that procession which conducted Elsie to the headquarters of Horatio’s colony. As I told you in the last chapter, Elsie walked between Horatio and his brother Jasper, singing as if her heart would break, while Horatio fiddled for dear life. And before and behind these, and on each side and overhead, moved the wonderful procession. In the very lead were two great deer with antlers, and off one side and on the other of them walked the does, their heads all high, sniffing the morning air. Behind these came the bears — big bears, walking in a great stately group; she bears, followed by a great many little ones, who scampered and rolled over in joy at the sound of the music and the prospect of great celebration, while behind these walked Elsie and her companions. And on the right and on the left of them there stalked a number of large gray panthers that looked like huge cats and carried their tails straight up in the air, and purred loudly in time to the music, just as happy and good-natured cats might do. There were some little panthers, too, but they mingled with the little bears, tumbling about with them, pretending to fight and claw and scuffle, just as children will when they are very happy and want to show off before company. At the end of the procession came a group of ’possums and ’coons, and behind all a pack of wolves and foxes, who sat down every little way to bark and howl, like dogs, and so make known their joy. The wolves and foxes were thought to be not thoroughly civilized as yet. Only one or two of them could speak any words in the language of men, and they were not always well-mannered, for which reason they had to take the rear of every long procession when the forest people roamed together through the Great Swamp Woods. The deer were allowed to march ahead, because they were so gentle and well-behaved, and because it was thought the bucks, with their big branchy antlers, made the best show; also, to prove the trust and friendship between all the animals of the colony — the deer in the old savage days having been the prey of the bear, the panther and the wolf.

As Elsie marched along, singing, she could not really believe that she was awake. It was all too strange and wonderful to reason about, at all. So she didn’t try to think, but just sang on and on, and forgot the world and all her troubles, everything except the morning woods and the friendly beasts around her.

But presently, just as she had finished a verse and was about to begin again, she saw the big antlered bucks ahead of her stop and divide to the right and to the left, and then the bears that walked behind divided, too, and made an open path, like the way that opened through the Red Sea, Elsie thought.

Then, very proudly, Horatio and his brother Jasper, with the little girl between them, marched down the open way, while all the animals set up a great noise of grunting and growling and barking and howling and chattering, mingled with some strangely sounding words in men’s language, from those who had learned to speak. A few (and these were mostly bears) called out in very deep voices, “Hurrah for Elsie!” though the most of them pronounced her name Elgy or Elzy, for there is no S in the bear tongue, and the sound is very hard for them to learn. And there were some who were just learning to speak and had only learned one or two hurrahs and such things, which they could repeat like parrots, without knowing exactly what they meant. And some of these shouted, “There’s no place like home!” and others shouted, “Hurrah for Horatio!” called one or two called out, “Hurrah for Brother Jasper!” while one very excited squirrel squeaked out, “Hurrah for the Fourth of July!” and missed the branch he jumped for, and tumbled right down in front of Elsie, and then jumped up again very quickly and scrambled for a tree, as if the whole procession were after him.

“A foolish fellow,” whispered Horatio to Elsie. “The squirrels are mostly that way — just a chattering, noisy lot, that never really will try to learn anything useful. This is about the only one who can say a few words, and you see what he is.”

THEY WERE AT THEIR JOURNEY’S END

But they were at their journey’s end now, for Elsie saw that they were coming near to a big log cabin, but it was so covered with vines and moss that she had mistaken it at first for the side of a cliff. It was the same lumber camp which Bo had visited nine years before, but older and more overgrown. Nature was claiming it, just as she will always claim anything that man builds, unless he stays close by to protect it.

The animals gave one more great round of applause as Horatio and Jasper, with Elsie between them, marched into the open door. Then they began a series of caperings and antics outside the great cabin, making such a clamor that Horatio had to step to the door and give some orders in animal language, some of which must have meant silence, for the menagerie out side became quieter, though a good many of the little ones stayed around the door or climbed up to peek in the windows, as children will.

THE LITTLE ONES CLIMBED UP
TO PEEK IN THE WINDOWS

Elsie found herself in a big room, with a fire place at one end and a stairway at the other. It had once been the dining-room of the lumbermen, and was now used by Horatio and Jasper as a sort of council chamber and general headquarters of the bear colony. Sometimes, too, when the weather was too bad to teach out side, it had been used for the animal school.

“Elsie,” said Horatio, when they were inside, and it had grown quieter without, “you are ruler here, now; you can have anyone to live with you in this house that you want, and you can have the best rooms upstairs, or all of them if you want them. You are going to be the queen of this colony, and if you want to begin by cutting off my head, you may.”

“Oh, Horatio!” cried Elsie. “Oh, dear, good, kind old Horatio! You are going to live here with me forever and ever, of course, and your brother, and as many of your family and friends as you want. Only, of course, I’ll have to get a little — just a little — used to them, first, before I could lie down and sleep comfortably with so many.”

“Don’t you worry, Elsie; not one of them is coming here unless you send for him. And if this colony troubles you, I’ll eat it up, as I told you, beginning at the deer and eating all the way down. This is your house from this moment — the house of Queen Elsie the First  — and long may she wave!”

Somebody must have heard that outside, for another riot of shouting and noise broke loose, and Horatio had to go to the door to command peace. Elsie, meantime, was looking about the cabin.

“And may I have fire in the fireplace?” she asked, anxiously, looking at Horatio and Jasper, for she knew that most wild animals dislike fire.

“You can have whatever you like, and can get, Elsie, but I’m afraid it will be hard to make fire without matches, and I didn’t think to borrow any that night we parted from the Watson boys.”

“But I have matches!” said Elsie. “The Watson boys always had me to carry a box, because they knew I would keep them dry. I have them right here in my pocket.”

Horatio grinned.

“Good for you, Elsie! Now you can have things cooked. I’ve been worried about that a good deal. I was afraid you’d get tired of fruit and nuts and such things, and might not learn to eat other things raw. We let the fire go out, after Bo went away, and it’s never been made since. We’ll make one, now.”

He went to the door, and must have given some orders, for pretty soon some little bears came hurrying in with armfuls of wood, which they laid down; then they scampered out again, looking back at Elsie, over their shoulders, as they ran. Horatio arranged the wood in the big fireplace, Elsie struck a match and soon a flame was crackling up the old chimney.

“How that does remind me of Bosephus!” sighed Horatio. “He always liked to have a fire. He said it made things so cheerful and cozy, especially mornings and evenings, and I got so I thought so, too, though the rest of the colony always seemed a little suspicious of it. Now I’ll show you upstairs, Elsie.”

The top floor was divided into four good-sized rooms. Elsie chose for herself one that looked to the south and east, and had a big tree just outside the window. “And what can I sleep on?” she asked, looking at the bare floor.

“Never you mind about that. I’ll get those little bears to work at once, carrying balsam boughs, and you will have a bed fit for any queen.”

Horatio leaned out of one of the windows and grunted something to one of the little bears below. Elsie saw them go scampering off into the woods. Then she and Horatio went back down-stairs, and there they found, lying on the hearth before the fire, two fine fish and what seemed to be a nice rabbit, all dressed and ready for cooking.

Goodness!” exclaimed Elsie, “where did those come from?”

“Those fish are from the Otter!” said Horatio. “He doesn’t care much for being civilized, and doesn’t often show himself, but he’s the best fisherman in the colony. The rest of us just make believe we’re fishing, and sit around with a pole and one of those lines and hooks that Bo left. But the Otter laughs at us. He says you can’t wait for fish to come to you; you must go after them. And the Otter does go after them, and always brings home a good mess.”

Elsie was eyeing the dressed rabbit.

“Ratio, she asked, “who caught that?”

Horatio looked at it critically. “Well,” he said, “it looks like the work of One-eyed Jim, the panther. He generally takes them like that, without any scars, and skins them in that neat, handy way.”

“But,” said Elsie, “don’t rabbits belong to the colony?

“Well, yes,” said Horatio, “they belong to it, but they are not exactly members of it. We asked them to come in, at first, out of politeness, but they were timid about joining, and it was just as well. We didn’t really need them — not in that way. So they belong to us now a good deal as chickens belong to men. We are pretty good to them, of course, and see that they are fed and taken care of, just as men see that their fowls and domestic animals are taken care of, and sometimes made pets of, until they want to eat them.”

“Ratio!” said Elsie, looking shocked. “I never thought of it in that way before, and I wouldn’t eat this rabbit now, if it were not already killed and I were not so hungry.”

“I know,” nodded Ratio. “We’re all that way, a good deal. We don’t care to eat things alive, especially when we’re not hungry. To morrow we’ll have a squirrel for you.”

“But the squirrels belong to the colony!”

“No, they just think they do. They’re like the chickens, too. Chickens caper and cackle up and down and make a great fuss about being civilized and like folks. Then suddenly one of them gets in the way of the axe and the folks have him for dinner. Chickens and squirrels have to hunt very remote places if they want to be safe about meal-time.”

“Dear me,” said Elsie, “I don’t believe I like that. I had planned to have a pet squirrel.”

“Oh, you can have one! a dozen — fifty of them, if you like. Nobody will touch your squirrels. If he does, he’ll go into the frying pan himself.”

While he talked, Horatio had been browning one of the fish over the coals, at the end of a long stick. Now he laid it on a clean piece of birch bark in front of Elsie.

“Try that,” he said. Elsie tasted the nicely cooked fish. “It is very good — very good indeed,” she nodded, “if it only had a little — just a little — salt.”

Horatio laughed.

“That’s so!” he said, “of course! I forgot that. There’s a whole barrel of it over there, under the stairs. The lumbermen didn’t take it away with them. Bo used to like it, but nobody’s touched it since. I had forgotten it entirely.”

He went over and brought some on a piece of bark. Elsie sprinkled a little on the fish and tasted it.

“Oh, Ratio, that makes it delicious!”

Horatio nodded. “I’ll just slip out now and get something substantial for myself,” he said.

—

10

Queen Elsie
the First

The first day in the animal colony was a wonderful day to Elsie. While she was finishing her breakfast a troop of little bears marched in, their arms piled high with balsam boughs. Straight on upstairs they went, and placed the boughs in one corner of the room in such fine, springy, fragrant layers that they made a bed as soft and restful as even a queen might wish. They brought still more boughs and piled them higher and softer, and then they tugged in a short bench, which they had found somewhere — one that had been left by the lumbermen. Last of all, they came with a huge, furry black skin, and also several other skins that had once been worn by deer. They threw the big black skin on the couch, and some of the others, too; the rest they scattered about on the floor, except one large one, which they threw over the bench to make it look nicer and more inviting. Elsie had slipped up to watch these preparations, and by-and-by Horatio came back from his breakfast and looked in, too.

THEY TUGGED IN A SHORT BENCH

“These deer skins,” he explained, “were collected before the deer joined the colony, and that black skin belonged to a bear who tried to break up the colony. He was a good sizable bear, and we argued the matter for some time. But he did not know some of the football hitches I learned when playing on the college team, so his argument proved a failure. I’ve been saving his skin for Bo, if he should ever come back, but now it’s yours.”

Elsie and Horatio and Jasper took a walk after that — a good many of the other animals following at a distance behind, sometimes breaking into a low chorus of grunts and half human exclamations, mingled with those curious and amusing hurrahs. Some of the younger animals would come slipping up closer now and then, but if Elsie or either of the bears would look around suddenly, they would scamper away, as if they were very much frightened, indeed.

Elsie and her companions climbed a hill back of the cabin and came at last to a ledge of rock that on one side was level with the hill and on the other dropped off quite steeply, like a precipice. On the steep side there was a pretty view of the lake through the tree-tops.

“Oh,” cried Elsie, “how beautiful! And this tree is like a great house.”

Which was true, for it was a large oak tree that grew on the brink of the ledge, and the half of it that spread out over the hill made a great canopy over the thick moss that carpeted the hilltop. At one side there was a big smooth boulder, like a seat or throne, while on the other side there were two rows of smaller boulders that looked almost as if they had been placed there for seats. Some had the shape of benches, with backs to them. It was as if the wood-gods of the old days had gathered there in council, and surely they could not have chosen a lovelier or more secluded place.

Horatio and Jasper stood still and let Elsie look around. She walked to the big stone seat. “It is like a fairy throne-room,” she said, “and this is the throne.” The timid little girl seemed suddenly to take on a queenly air. “I shall sit here,” she went on, “and you two shall stand by me, one on each side. You will be my prime ministers. The others will sit there” (she pointed to the two rows of stones opposite), “and some of them will sit on the ground, and we shall teach them. Oh, Horatio, we’re going to be so happy!”

Horatio and Jasper nodded gravely. Horatio said:

“This has always been our place for outdoor teaching. Now it is your throne-room, also. It shall all be as you say, Queen Elsie. I am proud of you.”

“Yes, it shall be as you say, Queen Elsie,” echoed Jasper. “I am proud of you.”

While from the woods all about them came a general roar and murmuring mingle of voices that blended into an echo which answered back:

“Yes, it shall be as you say, Queen Elsie; we are all proud of you.”

Then out of the woods came a group of solemn-looking animals — bears, panthers, a fox or two and a wolf, half a dozen ’possums and ’coons — and seated themselves on the circle of stone seats, or on the ground, while a little group of deer marched in and ranged them selves behind. All looked silently at Elsie, where she sat on the great stone seat, with Horatio at her right and Jasper at her left hand.

And the little girl looked at them, also in grave silence, while down in her heart she was thinking how small and feeble she was to be the queen and the teacher of these strong, beautiful creatures, and how much they expected of her. It was still a good deal like a dream to her, but like a very real dream — one which we must believe true. Jasper was first to speak.

“THIS IS OUR ADVANCED CLASS"

“This is our advanced class," he said. “I have been teaching them until yesterday. Most of them can speak in the language of men — some of them not very well; but all can understand, if the words are not too long and hard. They want you to teach them now.”

“Why, yes, to be sure,” said Elsie, “and my book is right here in my pocket.”

Elsie’s hand went deep into her pocket and up came — not the reader, but Johnnie Bear. “Oh, dear Johnnie,” she said, “I had forgotten all about you. Johnnie, we’re in a new land — we’re with Horatio’s colony in the Great Swamp Woods, at last, Johnnie dear, and there are ever so many bears here, and animals of every kind. And we’re on the throne, Johnnie. Do you know what it is to be a queen? Well, I’m one, and you may be a king. You’ll make quite a good king. You have only to look wise and not really do anything, to be a king. But queens are different. I am going to teach the animals how to talk and read and sing, until by-and-by all the animals and men will live and talk together, just as they did millions of years ago when the serpent came and talked to Eve in the Garden of Eden that Uncle Hennegar used to read about on Sunday. Only, I won’t teach the serpent, ’cause he made so much trouble the other time, with his talk, and got Adam and Eve sent out of the garden. We don’t want to get sent out of our garden, do we, Johnnie? And here’s Horatio, Johnnie, who has been so good to us, and his brother Jasper, who is good, too, and all our new friends. What do you think of them, Johnnie?” and Elsie held the little bear up to view the strange assembly.

–

11

Elsie’s School

But whatever Johnnie may have thought of the new friends did not seem to matter so much as what the new friends thought of him. While Elsie had been rattling along they had crowded around for a closer view, and they were now tiptoeing and half climbing on one another’s backs and shoulders to get a better peep at this strange woolly creature that looked like a very,very small cub, only that he had once been white. Some little bears had edged into the sacred circle of the advanced class, and by creeping under the legs of the big bears had got close to Elsie’s knee and were standing straight up and looking at the toy bear with all their eyes. Suddenly one of them made a sweep with his paw and snatched Johnnie from Elsie’s hand.

“Oh, Johnnie! my dearly beloved Johnnie! Give him back!” screamed Elsie.

But Horatio had already seized the offender, and after handing Johnnie back to Elsie, he cuffed the little bear smartly and set him outside the circle. By this time all the animals had found out that Johnnie was only a play bear, and at Horatio’s sudden punishment of the mischievous little bear they were all very much amused and laughed a great deal, each in his own way, though altogether it sounded so ridiculous that Elsie was obliged to laugh in her way, too, while overhead in the branches the squirrels set up a great chatter, and the noisy one squeaked out, “Hurrah for the Fourth of July! Hurrah for the Fourth of July!” twice over, which made everybody laugh again, more than ever. Then Horatio grunted some thing in bear talk, and all became quiet, and the class went back and sat upon the stone seats and upon the ground, with the deer standing behind.

“We will begin,” said Elsie, “by saying the alphabet in chorus. By-and-by we shall open with singing, but first I shall have to decide on some songs, and then you will have to learn how to sing. I don’t suppose they know how to sing at all, do they?” she asked, turning to Horatio.

“Well, perhaps you wouldn’t call it, that, but wait until tonight and you’ll see what they can do in that line. I think the alphabet is better just now; besides, I’m anxious to get started on that myself.”

"Very well,” said Elsie. “All say A, please.”

There was a general chorus of very curious sounds.

“That is very good,” said Elsie. “You have, at least, tried. Now let us have B, please.”

There was another mixture of sounds, but taken together one could hear the B pretty well.

“Now, C, very clearly, please.”

They did not do so well with C, but, as Elsie said, “they tried.”

“Now,” said the teacher queen, “we will have all three together. Ready now, A, B, C.”

But the effort of the advanced class to say all three letters at once was too much for the circle of little bears and others who were looking on, and they gave way to a great fit of mirth and delight, and rolled on the ground and hugged themselves with happiness at all the fun they were having, while the squirrels in the branches overhead leaped and capered about and giggled, and the noisy one again squeaked, “Hurrah for the Fourth of July!” being careful to hold tightly to the branch and to keep out of Horatio’s reach.

But Horatio suddenly put a stop to all this disgraceful conduct. He seized a large stick and Jasper seized another, and they started for the little bears and the rest of the scoffers, and in another moment they were scattering through the woods in all directions. Then Horatio and Jasper gathered up some small stones and flung them into the branches and scattered the squirrels, too; after which they came back to Elsie’s side and stood guard as before. As for Elsie, she had wanted very much to laugh at the scattering of the audience, but she knew that would be undignified for a queen, so she pretended to be smiling down at Johnnie Bear, who, dignified and solemn, was seated on the rock at her side.

“Elsie,” whispered Horatio, “I wouldn’t do that again; you might break up the class. It’s worse than the day Uncle Hennegar appeared. Your A, B, C, in chorus, sounded exactly like upsetting that load of tinware.”

So Elsie was more careful after that, and gave them just one letter at a time, noticing which sounds were hardest for the different animals to say. The bears had hard work to say S and C, but were almost perfect on B and W, though W, when they all said it together, was such a growl that it almost frightened the teacher. The panthers did splendidly with F, and quite well with S and Z. But they were especially fine in saying R, which they rolled so that it startled Elsie almost as much as the bears’ W. M and N were quite easy for nearly all the class, but the ’coons and ’possums seemed a little squeaky, and the foxes and the wolf were short and snappy in their accents. Elsie saw that she would learn, too — learn to teach better as the lessons went on.

“Now, I will give you a look at that A,” Elsie said. “You may come up, one after the other, and look at the book. This first letter is A  — big A — and stands for Axe, Arrow and Appetite. This is the axe, and this is the arrow, and the appetite is what we have when we’re hungry.”

The class filed by. First, the panthers, and as they paused to look at the letter, Elsie, with out thinking what she was doing, laid her hand gently on the head of each, and stroked the fur a little, as she would that of a cat, and each of the big gray animals looked up into her face and cared a good deal more about that than about A, and one very big fellow, with one eye, stopped and licked her hand.

Elsie patted all the animals as they went by, making them very happy.

“Now,” she said, “we will have a sentence lesson — just one short sentence — after which we will close the school for today. The first sentence I will give you is one to say when you meet a friend. Perhaps you already know it, but it will do no harm to practice on it a little longer. The sentence is, ‘How do you do?’”

She pointed at the big panther, who had licked her hand. “Say, ‘How do you do?’” she said.

“Meouw do you mew?” he said, and it sounded a good deal like a big cat greeting a neighbor across the fence at night.

Elsie did not smile, but one of the ’possums must have thought it funny, for he grinned, and the big panther (it was One-eyed Jim) saw him. The big fellow’s tail made an angry sweep or two, and he gave the ’possum a look out of that single eye that took all the smile out of him, and caused him to change his seat rather suddenly.

So Elsie had each one say the sentence and they all did very well, at least, they did the best they could, and no one can do better than that. Then Elsie told them that school was over for the day, and Horatio picked up the violin and gave the strings a scrape, and Elsie made this song as they marched to headquarters:

“Now, school is done and our lessons through,

And we all come marching, two by two;

Yes, we all come marching, as happy as can be,

Horatio and his colony, and Johnnie Bear and me.

“And I’m glad to be the teacher of each kind and gentle creature,

And I love them very dearly though I just arrived today.

By the branches green above me, I will try to make them love me,

And I hope they like my teaching and will let me stay.”

Then all the advanced class broke out into cheers and the hurrahs they had learned in the language of men. And the other animals heard them and came running and joined in the applause and kept up a very great disturbance, all the way to headquarters.

That night, just as Elsie was about to lie down to sleep on her fragrant couch of balsam, and as Horatio was going to his own quarters in the next room, there suddenly arose outside such a wild chorus of howling and barking and roaring and squealing and squeaking and grunting and growling as never in all her life had Elsie imagined, even in her strangest dreams.

“Oh, Ratio,” she said, “what is it? What are they doing?”

“Singing,” said Horatio. “They call it that. They are singing you a hymn of welcome.” Horatio’s voice trembled with emotion. After all there were moments when he was just a bear.

“It’s the most beautiful music that ever was,” he added very solemnly, “though perhaps you will never learn to like it. I’ll stop them if you say so.”

“Not for the world!” said Elsie. “I love it, already, and just think! Just think! It is all for me! just for me — little Orphan Elsie — their queen!”

—

12

Elsie Learns
of the Rival Colony

“Oh there was a little girl and Elsie was her name

She left a cruel man and to our colony she came.

She’ll teach us and she’ll rule us, as happy as can be,

But I think I ought to tell her of the rival colony.”

Elsie was having a bad dream just then. She thought that she was walking with Horatio, in a lonely place, and that a whole troupe of Uncle Hennegars suddenly pounced upon them and carried them both off. She struggled to get away, and then all at once she heard Horatio playing and singing, and she said to herself that everything must be all right, if Horatio could be doing that. Then, in another minute, all the Uncle Hennegars were running away, and she was lying there on the balsam boughs among the skins, while Horatio was really playing and singing, and smiling a good-morning.

“For they didn’t like our teaching — our polite and moral preaching—

And they tried to do the speeching when I had a word to say,

Till I most politely told them I was sorry I’d enrolled them,

For our household wouldn’t hold them, and they’d better go away.”

Elsie was wide awake and sitting up by this time. “Oh, Ratio, I had such a bad dream. I thought Uncle Hennegar had caught both of us — a whole regiment of Uncle Hennegars  — and that you played and sang them all away.”

“That’s what would happen, Elsie. I could play away a whole army of Uncle Hennegars. It makes me laugh, now, when I think how much in a hurry Uncle Hennegar was, yesterday morning, when he suddenly looked up and saw me right in front of him.” And Horatio rocked and hugged himself and chuckled, remembering the scene.

“Dear me! was that only yesterday morning, Ratio? It seems a year since then.”

“Yes,” nodded Horatio, wisely; “it is always like that when we are doing new things. Every new adventure seems a long way off, almost as soon as it happens. It seems years since I met you, Elsie, when it is really only a few weeks ago, and I remember once when Bo and I got into jail. We were only there one night, but next morning it seemed a whole lifetime since we had been free and happy together. I hope Bo remembers that time, now, and is grateful to me for my part in it.”

Elsie smiled.

“I’m sure he does, and so do I. It’s all in the book, you know.”

“So it is,” said Horatio, a little embarrassed. “I had forgotten; but I don’t think I get quite as much credit in the book as I deserve. I suppose the man who wrote the book wanted to make it sound funny, and didn’t care for my feelings.”

“But it really was you who got you and Bo out of the scrape, with your performing!”

“Yes, of course; and I gave a very good performance, I remember, too — very good, indeed. Dear me! how long ago that was! Bo is almost a grown man now. I suppose I shall never see him again.”

“Ratio,” said Elsie, thoughtfully, “what was that you were singing just now about the rival colony, and how you ‘most politely told them that they’d better go away’?”

“Oh, that was only in the song — the politeness, I mean. Perhaps I really was polite enough, though, for a bear. But I didn’t feel polite. It happened this way: There was a family of bears from down close to the Louisiana line who heard about the colony and came up and wanted to join it. Of course we let them come in, and everything went along well enough for quite a while. But they didn’t civilize very easily. It was hard to keep them from eating up the deer, and setting a bad example in general to the rest of the colony, just as I had got things working smoothly, and most all the animals felt safe to come in. A big black bear by the name of Jehoshaphat was the head of that crowd, and he said that it was all right to talk about being like men, and that he believed in that part of it, but that all the men he’d ever heard of would eat a deer if they got a chance, and he didn’t see why we should try to improve on men’s habits, when men were not trying to improve on them themselves. Jehoshaphat talked that around among the colony, and I had hard work to try to explain how we must only try to copy the good things that men did, and not the bad ones. That Jehoshaphat and his family caused me no end of trouble, and several sad accidents happened to the deer and some of the smaller things while they were with us. Then when I tried to argue the matter with Jehoshaphat he didn’t take it kindly, and wanted to do all the talking himself. He even went so far as to say that my only reason for starting the colony and getting the weaker animals into it was to have one for myself, to eat, now and then. Still, I didn’t mind that so much. I knew he couldn’t prove it; but when that family got along so far in the class that Jehoshaphat found fault with the way I pronounced my words, and tried to teach me English, I lost patience.”

“HE FOUND FAULT WITH
THE WAY I PRONOUNCED MY WORDS”

“I should think so!” said Elsie.

“Yes,” nodded Horatio, “that great black root-digger, who had never done anything but grunt until he came here, tried to teach me how to say words that I knew when his grandmother was being clubbed out of a barnyard for stealing pigs. You should have heard him say them. He always began a word with a snort, and then chewed and growled over it until you couldn’t tell when he really began to say the word and when he got through. There was one sentence that I used to give them — Bo said it was a good one to practice on. It’s become common now; even the squirrels know it. It was, ‘There’s no place like home,’ and I wish you could have heard that great lubbering Jehoshaphat say it. You’d have thought that he had stolen some little bear’s bone and was gnawing it. It was like this:”

Horatio snorted fiercely and gave a series of growls and grunts, mixed with some resemblance to the words, chewing and licking out his tongue so savagely that Elsie did not know whether to laugh or run.

“And he said that was right. He said that the way I said it had no feeling in it and didn’t mean anything. Then I told him that I’d say one sentence that meant something. I told him that if he didn’t take his whole family and all their friends and get out of the colony before sundown, I’d put some feeling into him. I suppose you’d say that wasn’t very polite, but it was too polite for a bear like Jehoshaphat. He started in to make a fuss, and to stir up trouble among the other animals, until finally I told him that unless he wanted to leave his skin with us for a keepsake, like the first bear that tried to break up the colony, he’d better not wait till night, but start right then; and he did, and took his family and some of his friends with him. They didn’t go back to Louisiana. They went over to the next lake woods, just over the ridge, and started a rival colony.

HE MADE A SORT OF DRUM
OUT OF AN OLD BARREL

The squirrels told us about it. Those squirrels are regular gossips and carry all the news back and forth. Jehoshaphat is the leader over there, and they pretend to be very civilized, and have invited all the other animals to come in; and Jehoshaphat has made himself a sort of a drum out of an old barrel that he found over there, and a skin, and he pounds on it and tells all the animals that it’s a big improvement on the fiddle, and some of them who have no ear for music are silly enough to believe it. I wish you could hear one of their English lessons. I slipped up once and listened. It sounded like the fall of Babel, as Bo used to say. You could understand it about as much as you could the clatter of a carpet factory that used to be near Bo’s college. Of course they know all about you being here. Those chattering squirrels have told them all about it before this time, and they’ll try to get you.”

“Oh, Ratio, and suppose they did! What would happen, Ratio?”

“Well, nothing much, only they’d have you, and we wouldn’t. They’d make a great show of being good to you, I suppose, because they’d be so proud to get you away from us, and they’d pretend to let you teach them, so they could brag to the other animals that they had the only teacher that could really talk men’s talk and read it out of a book. But you couldn’t teach them. That great dunce, Jehoshaphat, would want it his way, and you’d never get along. Besides, you wouldn’t get as good things to eat, nor the care you’ll have here, and you’d have no fit companionship. Of course, Elsie, I’m only a bear, but I’ve lived with men and know their taste — tastes, I mean — and that’s something.’

“Oh, Ratio, it’s everything!” cried Elsie, throwing her arms around the big, sober fellow beside her. “I never want to see that horrid Jehoshaphat or any of his terrible colony. You won’t let them capture me, will you?”

“No, Elsie, I would sacrifice my whole colony, including my relatives, to save you if they ever attempt it. Now you will have your breakfast, Elsie dear. The otter has been fishing again, and there is some nice honey from a bee tree. There are some berries, too, which the little ’coons gathered very early, with the dew on them, and One-eyed Jim, the panther, who seems to have taken a great fancy to you, made a long trip last night to a corn-field, for roasting ears. Even those scamps, the squirrels, have been here with a heap of nuts. You never need to go hungry in this colony, Elsie.”

–

13

The Capture
of Horatio and
Queen Elsie the First

When Elsie had been in the colony about two weeks she knew a great many of the animals by name, and could tell some of them apart, though at first different ones of the same kind all looked very much alike. But by-and-by she saw that they really had different faces, just as persons do, and different ways and habits, and that they had different voices, especially when they used them for talking in the language of men. She soon got so that in her school she would call the different ones by name and have them come up and recite, in class or alone, just as she wished; and she was surprised at how fast they got along. They learned their letters, and to read easy words in the book, very soon; also, to count up to fifteen, and they were even beginning to sing. It is easy to learn from those we love. The little girl was very kind to the animals who came every day to be taught, and they must have loved her very much indeed.

Elsie thought she liked the deer best, they were so gentle, and seemed so anxious to learn, though they never did learn very fast. They were a good deal like certain very mild and quiet children at school, who try patiently to learn, yet do not get along as well as some of the more mischievous and less studious ones. The deer could pronounce all the words he ginning with B quite well, especially words beginning with Ba, like “bad,” “bat” and “basket,” but when they tried to say words beginning with Th and G, and when they tried to repeat “Theophilus Thistle, the successful thistle sifter,” and “Give me liberty or give me death,” it sometimes gave the others the giggles, and Elsie had to be quite severe.

The little bears were the most mischievous ones, and the little panthers and foxes and ’coons. Elsie formed quite a big class of little folks, and began teaching them the alphabet, a letter at a time; also, to say simple words. But almost every day, when things were going quietly, some one of the class would sneeze, or pretend to tumble over backwards, or do some other ridiculous thing, and then they would all laugh, and perhaps get into such a frolic that Horatio would have to step in among them and cuff them right and left, until they were running in every direction, while the noisy squirrel up in the branches would leap about and call down to them, “Hurrah for the Fourth of July! Hurrah for the Fourth of July!”

And sometimes when everything was going very nicely and quietly down below, that frivolous fellow would call out one of his hurrahs, or some other sentence he had picked up, just as a parrot might, and of course that would make all the little bears and things, and a good many of the larger animals, laugh. Then all the other squirrels would chatter and scamper through the branches and flirt their tails and hop up and down; and such an excitement usually ended the school for that day. But they were all very good to her, and Elsie felt quite grand when the school was over and she was holding court, with Horatio and Jasper standing one on either side of her, and all the others grouped around listening. At such times she told them of the ways of men — of the things she had seen and how they must be kind to one another. And sometimes she read to them out of a little reader, and perhaps told them other stories, for most of them could under stand, and those who could not, enjoyed listening, if only to hear her gentle voice. It was a sweet, peaceful life that Elsie passed with her forest friends in the great deep woods. Their troubles were not many — usually little quarrels over some small matter, and these they brought to her, as their queen, and she settled them so that everybody was happy and friendly. Thus far, Elsie had seen nothing of the rival colony, but the time was coming soon when she would know a great deal of them. One day she was taking a walk with Horatio, and they were strolling along talking so interestedly that they forgot how far they were away from home, or perhaps did not remember Jehoshaphat and his bad bears.

They had sat down on a log to rest, and Horatio was tuning his violin for a little music, and Elsie was getting ready to sing a new song when all at once each felt the clasp of great strong arms; the next moment Elsie was being borne away by an immense black bear, which of course she knew must be Jehoshaphat, and when she looked over her shoulder she saw four other enormous bears carrying Horatio, like a great sack of meal.

ELSIE WAS BORNE AWAY
BY AN IMMENSE BLACK BEAR

Horatio did not seem to be struggling much. Perhaps he was afraid he would break his precious violin and bow if he tried to get away; but he grunted a good deal, and Elsie knew he was talking to his captors and probably promising them a sudden and terrible revenge. But they only hurried along through the dim woods, and Elsie grew more and more frightened as they crossed the ridge and descended into a lonely hollow, where the rival colony lived. Horatio had said they would not hurt her, but how did Horatio know? They had eaten some of the smaller animals, and it was likely that a little girl like herself would be just what they were hungry for. And even if they did spare her, they would never spare Horatio, and what ever would she do without her dear, her beloved Horatio?

—

14

Jehoshaphat and
His Bad Bears

It was not far to the colony of Jehoshaphat, for Horatio and Elsie had wandered quite near to it when they were captured. Overhead in the branches there scrambled a lot of chattering squirrels, and fluttered a bevy of noisy birds who had seen the capture, and were talking it over most excitedly, just as a crowd of idle people might do when anything unusual happens on the street.

The headquarters of Jehoshaphat and his colony proved to be a large cave, which they had discovered. Horatio and Elsie were carried into the first room, which was dimly lighted from the entrance. Then three large bears stood outside the door, while Jehoshaphat and two others stayed inside with Elsie and Horatio. Horatio had got on his feet as quickly as possible, and was examining his fiddle to see if it had been injured.

“It’s all right, Elsie,” he whispered, with a long sigh of relief. “There are plenty of bears about these woods, but there is only one fiddle.”

“Oh, Ratio,” moaned Elsie, “I’m so frightened! What will they do with us, Ratio?”

“’Sh!” said Horatio; “don’t let them see that you are frightened. Besides, you must be brave, like me.” But Elsie noticed that Horatio’s"voice trembled a little, and she thought he didn’t look especially brave. “I shouldn’t wonder if Jehoshaphat will want my skin,” he added, sadly. “He won’t want yours; it wouldn’t be worth a cent; besides, he wants you in his colony — unless he should give up having a colony,” which thought made Elsie’s heart sink, for she knew very well what it was that Jehoshaphat would do then.

Jehoshaphat had not decided to give up his colony — not yet. He came over to Horatio and Elsie, now, and began to talk in what Elsie decided was his best “men’s” language, though he might as well have talked bear talk, so far as she was concerned. Such a snorting and snarling and mumbling and chewing and growling she had never imagined possible for any bear, and it was so comical that, if she hadn’t been terribly frightened, she must have laughed a very great deal.

“And to think that a creature who goes through a performance like that and calls it talking should try to teach me,” muttered Horatio. “I’d as soon be taught by a lot of bumblebees in a jug.”

“Oh, please, what is he saying?” asked Elsie, trying to look brave.

This was really too good a joke on Jehoshaphat for Horatio to let it pass.

“Your English is so elegant, Mr. Jehoshaphat,” he said, “that Queen Elsie, who of course is quite young, doesn’t understand it. You should use very simple words and not so much style in your manner of speaking.”

Perhaps this made Jehoshaphat mad, for he gave up his antics and his efforts at words, and growled out something in bear tongue.

“He says,” said Horatio, “that he will take us both into his colony, and that you may be queen of it, and teacher, just as you have been with us, and that I may help with the younger pupils, and that we can play and sing for the colony when he, Jehoshaphat, beats the drum. He says that he thinks that would be a very nice arrangement, and that if we don’t do it he will give up having a colony, and he will take my skin back with him to Louisiana as a keep sake.” Horatio’s face and tone showed that the idea of playing second to Jehoshaphat’s drum and teaching the little bears was not pleasant to him, and Elsie listened breathlessly to every word.

“Oh, Ratio,” she gasped, “and wh—what will he do with me?”

“Well, Elsie, there isn’t anything of you that will be worth keeping for a souvenir, except, perhaps, the book and Johnnie.”

Elsie grew quite pale, and she felt as if she would like to sit down.

“Yes,” nodded Horatio, “it seems to be a case of ‘Be our queen or be our breakfast,’ as Bo might say, and I think you’d do more good to more people by being queen.”

“Yes, indeed, Ratio, and that will save you, too, won’t it?”

Horatio tried to look brave and resigned.

“Well, Elsie,” he said, “it doesn’t matter about me. I should only be playing second fiddle and teaching the little ones, anyway. As a warrior and a leader I am prepared to meet my fate bravely; though on your account, just as company for you, I mean, perhaps it might be just as well that my skin should not be used for a keepsake, not until you get used to things a little.”

“Horatio,” said Elsie, very firmly, like a real queen, “if they take your skin for a keepsake, they may take Johnnie Bear and the book, too. Tell him we’ll do it, that we’ll — I mean that the Queen grants his request.” And Elsie drew herself up, very proudly indeed.

Jehoshaphat had walked away while they talked over the matter, and Horatio now followed him.

“Elsie will be your queen,” he said in bear tongue, “and I will accept the position of fiddler to Her Majesty, Elsie the First.”

Jehoshaphat’s eyes twinkled with wicked joy at his triumph, and he grunted something to the bears outside; also something to Horatio.

“He wants you to parade with the little Johnnie Bear,” Horatio said to Elsie. “They think it’s good luck.”

So Elsie took Johnnie from her pocket, and just then Jehoshaphat seized her and set her on his shoulder, and stepped out of the cave into the sunshine, with Horatio carrying his violin, close behind. And behind Horatio came all the other bears of Jehoshaphat’s colony, for there were no other animals except bears in that colony, and they marched around in a big circle in front of the cave. In the center of that circle stood Jehoshaphat’s big drum, which was just a barrel, with a skin drawn over the top, and a club for a drumstick. And when they had formed in the circle, Jehoshaphat, who was carrying Elsie on his shoulder and leading the way, grunted something to another bear, who seized the heavy stick and began beating the great drum, while the others marched around. When they had marched once around the circle, to the measure of that deep-sounding drum, Horatio, who followed just behind Jehoshaphat, laid his fiddle-bow across the strings and played — slowly, at first, like a march tune — the first bars of the “Arkansaw Traveler,” and Elsie, who carried Johnnie Bear, holding him high, where all might see, began leisurely to sing a pleasant song, for one might as well do a thing cheerfully, if one has to do it at all.

“Oh, Elsie and Horatio went out to take a walk,

And forgot where they were going, they were so absorbed in talk;

And Jehoshaphat, who saw them, just met them with a smile,

And conveyed them to his colony in really royal style.

“Oh, Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat, you’ll never know the loss I’m at

To rule you and to school you in the manner you require;

But if you treat me nicely, I will try to rule you wisely,

And to do these things precisely in the way that you desire.”

THE SONG GAVE GREAT JOY
TO THE BEARS

This song gave great joy to the bears. Horatio had quickened the music a little as they marched, and the beating of the drum became faster and the march grew more lively in time to it all. Elsie went right on singing, and before she was half through the second time they were going in a quickstep. Faster and faster went the music, quicker and quicker sounded the drum, while around and around stepped the lively bears.

Never before in his life, Elsie thought, had Horatio played such fast music. The big fellow pounding the drum was beginning to pant and groan, and Jehoshaphat, racing with Elsie on his shoulder, around and around and around, was sweating and grunting, until Elsie grew afraid that he might drop her, and almost wished Horatio would stop this mad, musical merry-go-round. But she was the Queen; she would never let them think that she was first to falter. She could ride and sing as long and as far as Jehoshaphat could carry her, and when the march at last had become a furious foot-race she still sang on and on, though no one could have told what she was singing, it was such a crazy jumble of words.

Jehoshaphat had to give it up at last. He staggered, panting and groaning, to a log, and put Elsie down rather suddenly, though without hurting her, and all the other bears tumbled right down wherever they stood, and rolled over and tried to laugh with what breath they had left, and declared, in bear talk, they’d never been so happy or had so much fun in all their lives. The bear who had been beating the drum vowed that if he’d had to hit that drum one more lick his arm would certainly have dropped off, and they all wondered how Horatio could play such music as that and run at the same time, and keep it up forever. As for Horatio, he pretended not to be tired at all, and said that some day in the future, when they were in practice and all felt well, he would show them what quick music really was.

Then the bears all gathered about Elsie, to touch her and put their noses to her hands and feet, and finally each one had to take her and carry her once around the circle on his shoulder, just as Jehoshaphat had done, and Elsie had to carry Johnnie and sing the song each time, while Horatio played for them and Jehoshaphat and the others took turns at beating the drum. And each time Queen Elsie danced Johnnie about in the air, and at the last words clapped him down on the head of the bear who was carrying her, which seemed to please them very much indeed.

Perhaps they thought this was a sort of ceremony which made her their queen, for Jehoshaphat went through with it, too, and finally Horatio (to keep the fashion), playing as he walked.

Those bears of Jehoshaphat’s seemed to think Elsie a kind of toy. When they handed her to one another they gave her a little toss and caught her softly like a ball, and by-and-by they really played a game of toss with her, while Horatio looked on and played “Dixie” and “Hop Light, Ladies,” and “Buffalo Gals.”

They did not hurt Elsie; they pitched her so gently and caught her so softly that it seemed a good deal like flying. Elsie tried not to be frightened, and really liked it, in a sort of nervous way, though she thought it all a little undignified, for a queen, and she wished Horatio and herself might be safely back in their own colony across the ridge.

“Elsie,” said Horatio that night, when they lay down to sleep in the back of the cave, with Jehoshaphat and his colony lying all about the entrance, “this is a thrilling adventure. It will be something to talk about, if we ever get out alive.”

–

15

Brother Jasper
Rallies to the Rescue

The next morning, bright and early, Elsie and Horatio were roused by Jehoshaphat’s drum, and got up at once, for they wanted to see what kind of a breakfast they were to have, and what were the plans for the day. There was plenty of breakfast for Horatio, but, alas for Elsie, no one in Jehoshaphat’s colony knew what little girls liked to eat, so there were only some poor little animals which the bears had killed and brought in, with no way to cook them; for Elsie had left her matches at her own headquarters. All this was explained by Horatio to Jehoshaphat, who grunted and looked perplexed.

“If only I might pick some berries,” Elsie said to Horatio.

“Queens should command,” said Horatio, “not ask permission.”

So then Queen Elsie, looking at Jehoshaphat, said:

“I command that two strong guards go with me and my companion, Horatio, that suitable food may be gathered for the queen.”

If Jehoshaphat did not understand this just at first, he did so as soon as Horatio translated it for him. Then he looked rather puzzled and unwilling and perhaps a little suspicious, but, of course, Elsie was the queen, and even he had to obey orders. So he called two of his largest brothers, and Elsie and Horatio, with these bears beside them, set out into the woods for berries.

They didn’t need to go far, for just at the edge of the camp they heard a squeaky voice call out,

“Hurrah for the Fourth of July! There’s no place like home!” and there up in the tree tops, right above their heads, was that noisy squirrel with a lot of his frivolous friends.

“Behind the big stone! Behind the big stone!” he squeaked out, flirting his tail and hopping about on the limb.

Sure enough, right over behind a big stone, just in front of them, on the leaves, lay a heap of nuts and berries which the light-minded but kind-hearted squirrels had gathered for Elsie’s breakfast. Elsie took the nuts up in her dress and laid the berries on some leaves on top of them, and after calling her thanks up to the squirrels, went back to the cave to enjoy the good things, the squirrels capering through the branches overhead, calling out every other moment, “Ho, Elsie! Ho, Elsie! Hurrah for the Fourth of July!” and one or two, who had picked up a good many words since Elsie came to the woods to teach, called out, “Come back! come back! There’s no place like home!”

When Elsie had finished her breakfast, she began to teach. She took out her book, and sitting in front of the cave under a very large tree, with Horatio by her side, she gave out easy lessons to the black circle of bears in front of her. They were not very advanced bears. Even Jehoshaphat, who had learned the most, could only chew out a few words that anybody could understand, and about one word apiece was as much as any of the others could do. But Elsie had learned a great deal, herself, since she had come to the Big Swamp Woods, and she gave out easy words for bears and made them say them over and over in concert, and then singly, and they were all getting along nicely when suddenly everyone of them gave a fierce growl and jumped to his feet. Horatio, too, had jumped up, though Elsie had neither heard nor seen anything as yet.

But now, all at once, she did hear a great trampling and stir in the bushes, not far away, and it grew louder and louder, and then the bushes everywhere parted and there pushed out black heads of bears, gray heads of panthers, black faces of wolves, red faces of foxes, small mottled faces of ’coons, small silvery faces of ’possums, and above and behind all these rose the great antlers of stag deer, like white branches of trees, and their soft brown faces and pairs of big brown eyes. But these were not all, for now the boughs overhead were filled with a great army of squirrels, chattering and skipping about in the maddest fashion, some of them calling, “Come back! Come back! There’s no place like home!” And the noisy one, who seemed to be the leader of it all, squeaked out over and over, “Hurrah for the Fourth of July! There’s no place like home!”

Also, in the camp of Jehoshaphat there was a great todo. All the bears that Elsie had been teaching were growling terribly and bristling their fur and preparing for battle. Jehoshaphat, who was a large, brave bear, was growling loudest, and he walked right out in front of the others. Then Elsie saw Horatio’s brother, Jasper, walk out in front of the other bears, and she knew that he had led her friends to rescue her and Horatio from the rival colony. As for Horatio, he had kept very still, at first, perhaps trying to decide just what he had better do; but as soon as Jehoshaphat left them he seemed to make up his mind, and said, very suddenly:

“Elsie, Elsie, there is going to be a very disagreeable time here, in a minute. You will surely get hurt, and I might damage the violin if I got into the battle. Climb a tree, climb a tree, Elsie! I’m so rash and brave I can’t risk fighting. Climb quickly, Elsie dear, and I’ll follow you.”

—

16

The Battle of the
Big Swamp Woods

Before Elsie had time to think, Horatio had lifted her into the lowest branches of the big tree near them, and then handing her the violin and bow, scrambled up himself.

“I couldn’t trust you up here alone with the fiddle, Elsie,” he explained; “you’d drop it in your excitement. It’s those chattering squirrels that have brought our friends to rescue us, Elsie. I’ll never speak ill of them again.”

The big fellow very deftly helped the little girl up to the higher branches, where they could sit in safety and look down on the two fierce armies that were facing each other below. Jehoshaphat’s army was smaller than Jasper’s, but they were very large, fierce bears, and would fight hard. The two leaders were now growling more fiercely than ever, and getting nearer and nearer together, all the time.

“What are they saying, Horatio?” whispered Elsie.

“They are calling each other unpleasant names,” said Horatio. “Jasper has just said that Jehoshaphat is a mangy, mud-rooting pig, and Jehoshaphat has told Jasper that he is a moldy, moss-grown bug-eater. They have to fight after that. Battles always begin with those names. Look! Now they’re at it!”

Elsie did not need to be told to look. Already she was looking with all her eyes. Jasper had made a sudden leap toward Jehoshaphat, and both bears were standing up on their hind legs, their great hairy arms flung about each other, and were swaying to and fro, like men wrestling  — snapping, and trying to get at each other’s throats. And now the whole of Jasper s army rushed out of the woods — all the bears and panthers, and all the small animals — with the antlered stags behind, and made a great rush on the army of Jehoshaphat, whose bears rose up to meet the charge. It was a bear to bear struggle, with the panthers and the wolves and the smaller animals running in here and there to bite and worry and drag down. And in an outer circle stood the big-antlered deer, ready to rush in with their sharp prongs if needed, while overhead and all about hopped and scurried the squirrels, chattering and squeaking and calling out, “Hurrah for Elsie! Hurrah for Horatio! Hurrah for Jasper! Hurrah for the Fourth of July!”

Horatio looked down from his high perch upon the fierce struggle of his brother with Jehoshaphat. “Go for him, Jasper,” he shouted. “Go for his neck. Don’t let that great booby treat you like that!”

His eyes caught sight of One-eyed Jim, making a brilliant assault on the next bear.

“That’s it, Jim!” he cried, excitedly. “Under his left arm, Jim! That’s the tender spot. Good for you — good for you, Jim!”

Such a noise and excitement certainly Elsie had never seen.

Suddenly in the midst of it all Horatio threw his bow across the strings and struck those great opening notes of the “Battle Cry of Freedom.”

“Sing, Elsie!” he shouted. “Sing now for victory!”

And loud, clear and conquering, above all the tumult, that grand old music rose:

“Oh, Jehoshaphat, he conquered us and carried us away

He held us so securely that we thought we’d have to stay,

But our friends prepared for battle, and they’ll rescue us today,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!

“Hurrah! Hurrah! the fight that makes us free!

Hurrah! Hurrah! for our noble colony!

We’ll soon be marching homeward in glorious liberty

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!”

FIERCER AND FIERCER
RAGED THE BATTLE

Fiercer and still fiercer raged the battle below. Great warriors were fighting there — heroes of a thousand life and death combats, in the old days, before peace came to reign in the Great Swamp Woods.

Jehoshaphat’s army was composed of the strongest of the strong and the bravest of the brave, and around each of these great bears were two or three of Elsie’s friends, and these were strong and noble warriors, too. Oh, that was a great battle, with such a noise of snarling and growling, and fierce champing of teeth, and with now and then a sharp howl of pain where someone was wounded!

But Jehoshaphat’s bears were separated, and they were fighting against heavy odds. Elsie thought surely they must surrender soon, for they could never conquer all of Jasper’s army. Once, twice more she and Horatio repeated their battle song, and then below there was less tumult, for each one of the struggling enemy was held firmly and fast by Elsie’s friends. Those big Jehoshaphat bears were held, each by eight other bears, two at each paw, while many small animals sat on them, or clutched their ears and fur.

A good many of Elsie’s friends were scattered about a little to one side, caring for their wounds. It had been a great battle, and it was a glorious victory; yet so far as Elsie could see, no one had really been killed.

–

17

A Great
Marching Home

Horatio, from his comfortable seat, viewed the now quiet battlefield below.

“I think we’d better go down soon,” he said, “and accept the surrender. Generals always do that.”

So they climbed down and Horatio went over to where Jehoshaphat was firmly held by eight bears, four panthers, two wolves and about a dozen smaller animals.

“Jehoshaphat,” he said, “this is a bad business. But you have fought with a good deal of bravery, Jehoshaphat. I could hardly have done better myself.”

Jehoshaphat, weighed down by a menagerie as he was, could only grunt.

“We invite you to come back to our colony,” Horatio went on, “to come back on the same terms you offered me yesterday. You can join us alive, or you can leave us your skins for winter furs. These are liberal terms, and no doubt you will accept them. We like your cave very much, too, and will add it to our places of shelter.”

Again Jehoshaphat mumbled something and then Horatio said, solemnly:

“You will now swear, Jehoshaphat, by the Great Star Bear and by the Lesser Star Bear to obey Queen Elsie in all things, and to cause your family and friends to obey, and to observe the rules of our colony; after which we will again be friends, and you will be escorted to our camp for celebration.”

There now followed another series of grunts from Jehoshaphat, and then all the animals rose from him, quite suddenly, letting go his hind paws and his fore paws and his ears and his fur, and got out of the way very briskly, and Jehoshaphat rolled over, struggled to his feet, shook himself and came lumbering over to Elsie and licked her hand. And each of the other captured bears was set free and did the same, for this meant that they would obey Queen Elsie in all things, from that day.

THEY WOULD OBEY QUEEN ELSIE
IN ALL THINGS

Then all the squirrels and birds chattered and called in the tree tops, and the squirrels leaped about and shouted their curious hurrahs, and were happy because they had brought Jasper’s army to set Queen Elsie free. And Horatio suddenly rose up grandly where all could see and hear, and said:

“The squirrels, for their great service, shall truly belong to our colony from this day, and shall be as safe as any of its other members,” and this new law was welcomed with another great chorus of applause, and many of the squirrels came down from the high branches, and some even went so far as to perch on the shoulders of Elsie and Horatio — the noisy one, especially, sitting in great bravery on Horatio’s head, shouting excitedly:

“Hurrah for Elsie! Hurrah for Horatio! Hurrah for the Fourth of July!”

Then all the animals formed in a great homeward procession, with Horatio and Elsie marching at the head, singing and playing, with Jehoshaphat and Jasper marching next, and all the others (though some were limping) following joyously behind. And this is the chorus that Elsie sang as they marched home ward, many of the animals who had learned a little of singing joining in the happy song:

“Hurrah! hurrah, a happy band are we!

Hurrah! hurrah, a united colony!

So we sing the chorus of our song of Jubilee,

Shouting the battle cry of freedom!”

—

18

Conclusion

The song of triumph which Horatio and Elsie and their forest friends sang on the homeward march went echoing out through the deep, solemn woods until it was heard by all the birds and animals ’round about. The light wind caught it up and carried it to the headquarters of the home camp, which all the colony had deserted for the rescue of Queen Elsie.

But the camp was not entirely deserted, for in the door of the old lumbermen’s cabin stood a tall, straight figure — the figure of a boy — a youth — almost a man. He had a fine, beautiful face, and was graceful and muscular, and he wore the durable, becoming dress of the young college man who has come into the woods prepared for a long period of camp life. By his side was a large bundle, which he had carried a long way.

The youth had been waiting an hour or more in the cabin, wondering why it was so deserted  — wondering still more what would happen when all its occupants returned. Now, all at once, he held his breath to listen. Far and faint, borne lovingly through the deep forest by the south wind, there came the notes of a triumphant song:

“Hurrah! Hurrah! a happy band are we!

Hurrah! Hurrah! a united colony—”

And the youth, hardly daring to breathe, and listening, his finger lifted, wondered still more.

Had Horatio or any of the younger members of his colony learned to sing like that?

The singing came nearer, and with it the music of the violin — the old remembered violin of those far-off times — and it rose clearer and stronger, and then grew fainter again, the breeze freshened or died, then at last lifted in full melody and came floating down the wind.

And then, presently, out from the edge of the thicker woods, beautiful and proud as in the old remembered days — there stepped a form he knew — had known and loved so well, nine years ago, when all the days were just playtime, and all life was just a dream. For it was Horatio — his big, beloved old Horatio, and by his side came the silver-voiced singer — a child who walked with head thrown back, singing, as he had once walked and sung — a little girl! The youth could see no more than that. All his eyes were on those two, as he stepped down to meet them through the hazy summer gold.

Suddenly the music stopped, short. Horatio had seen him. Then there came a heavy, well remembered growl from the big bear, which all the bears in that long procession behind, echoed.

The youth stopped still a moment, and waited. And then, all at once, he cried out:

“Horatio! Oh, Horatio! Don’t you know me?”

And Horatio ceased from growling and all the woods became still. And the great bear stood looking straight ahead and blinking in the summer sunlight, his eyes searching deep into the face and the heart of the waiting youth. But it was only for a moment, and then came the deep cry:

“It’s Bo! It’s Bo! Oh, my Bosephus, you have come back to your old friend at last. Elsie, Elsie, hold my fiddle, or I shall break it, sure!”

And broken indeed the violin would have been, for in another moment the tall youth and the big bear were hugging and sobbing as if their hearts would break, and all because they were so happy to be united once more after nine years.

And all the animals of the procession looked on wonderingly, and some who knew what it meant were wiping their eyes, especially Jasper, who knew and remembered best of all. And in the branches overhead the squirrels and the birds were very happy, without understanding just why, though the noisy one, who seemed happiest of all, had somehow caught the name and called out over and over, Hurrah for Bosephus! Hurrah for Elsie! Hurrah for Horatio! Hurrah for the Fourth of July!” and then leaped so high that he missed his branch, as he often did, and plumped right down between Horatio and Bo, and got nearly squeezed to death before he could scramble out and get back to his perch, where he called out weakly,

“Hurrah for being alive!”

THE SQUIRRELS AND THE BIRDS
WERE VERY HAPPY

“Bo, Bo,” said Horatio, when they had finished their greetings, “it is a great colony that has grown out of our beginning, nine years ago, greater today than ever, for we have won a splendid victory and added great strength. It was hard fighting, but I tried to do my part, as in the old times. I will tell you of it later. Bo, this is Jasper, little Jasper, whom you remember as Cub. Of my other brothers, some are still with us and some are dead. Two are gathering recruits for the colony in the far south east. And this, Bo, is our dearest treasure, Elsie  — orphan Elsie once — Queen Elsie now. She came to me out of the moonlight, as you came, so long ago, and I brought her here to teach us, and to rule over us. I have just brought her back from a great and glorious adventure, and your coming makes our happiness complete.”

Then Bosephus shook hands with Elsie and made obeisance as to a queen.

“And I am to be one of your loyal subjects,” he said, “for I am going to stay here with you for a long, long time. I am through with college and I have studied to be a naturalist — to learn all the life and manners of animals, just as Horatio has learned the life and manners of men. And I have come back to my old friends to study, for where in all the world could I learn so much as here? And perhaps I can help you a little, Queen Elsie, and we may teach and learn together from our wise friends of the great deep forest”. And Bo took one of Elsie’s hands and kissed it, and so bound himself to serve her, just as the captured bears had done.

But Elsie could hardly say a word, she was so overjoyed that Bo had come to stay forever and ever, and she would not now be all alone all the years with the animals; for good and kind as they were to her, and even with gentle-hearted Horatio by her side, she knew that sometimes she would grow lonely there for some one of her own race. As for Horatio, the tears of joy were streaming from his eyes. Then suddenly he dropped the fiddle-bow across the strings and struck up the old, familiar tune, with Elsie on one side and Bosephus on the other, and so through the summer glory they marched down to the vine-covered camp, singing, and all that friendly and happy family echoed the singing in their hearts:

“Oh, there was a little boy and his name was Bo,

Came out into the forest in the days of long ago;

And one evening, nine years later, to the forest also came

A little orphan maiden, and Elsie was her name.

“And they both met good Horatio and they joined him in a play-show,

And they learned to love him dearly as they wandered here and there.

Now they’ll never, never sever, but they’ll stay with him forever—

Queen Elsie and Bosephus and the Old — Black — Bear.”

THE END