ocks, bigger than houses. Among them we had to
go, until we came to a dark opening like a big door, and into this we
had to go. It must have been the home of the bears.

"Roddy cried out, with fear, but the bears growled again and showed
their great teeth, and so we had to go in."

"I didn't want to go in," said the poor boy, as he put his arms around
the neck of his mother; "it was worse than a cellar, it looked so dark.
But the old bear behind just kept pushing me along with his nose, so I
had to go."

"It was not such a bad place after all," said Wenonah, "when we once got
into it. It seemed dark at first as we went in out of the sunshine; but
when we were in it, and looked back, there was a good deal of light. In
it were big piles of leaves and dry grass, and on them the bears soon
lay down. One of the big bears lay down between us and the door, so we
could not get out. We sat down by the little bears, and I whispered to
Roddy to be brave, for God would take care of us and our friends would
surely find us. Then we lay down on the dry grass and, being very
weary, soon went to sleep, with our arms around each other.

"How long we slept we knew not, but were suddenly roused up by the
little bears playing and tumbling over and around us. So we got up, and
the bears made us go back again across the sands into the berry-bushes,
and there we all ate berries, as there was nothing else to eat. The
little ones kept poking their noses into our hands, and thus begged us
to pick berries for them."

"The lazy little fellows," said Roderick, now smiling as he thought of
them; "little greedy piggies that never had enough."

"There we stayed in the bushes," said Wenonah, "until nearly night, and
then they made us go back again with them in the same way to the same
place. It seemed so dreadful to have to spend the night in that place
with those wild bears; but we whispered, `We will be brave,' and so we
lay down between the little bears, for in some way or other we felt the
little ones were our best friends, and it was because of them the old
ones did not kill us.

"I thought we could never spend the night in such a place, but we did.
We just whispered our prayers as there we lay, and ended with, `Now I
lay me down to sleep.' And sleep we did until the little bears woke us
up again the next morning.

"The old bears were now so friendly that they let us pat them, and so I
thought that perhaps they would let us go;