ome. They lay in a pile of
hay on the stable floor all night, without a sign of waking up; and the
next morning we hauled them to the cellar of the west barn. Under this
barn, which was used mainly for sheep and young cattle, there were
several pigsties, now empty. The dormant young bears were rolled into
one of these sties and the sty filled with dry leaves, such as we used
for bedding in the barns.

About a fortnight afterward a young doctor named Truman, from the
village, desired very much to see the bears in their winter sleep. He
got into the sty, uncovered them, and repeatedly pricked one of them
with a needle, or penknife, without fairly waking it. But salts of
ammonia, held to the nostrils of the other one, produced an unexpected
result. The creature struck out spasmodically with one paw and rolled
suddenly over. Doctor Truman jumped out of the sty quite as suddenly.
"He's alive, all right," said the doctor.

The bears were not disturbed again, and remained there so quietly that
we nearly forgot them. It was now the second week of March, and up to
this time the weather had continued cold; but a thaw set in, with rain
for two or three days, the temperature rising to sixty degrees, and even
higher.

On the third night of the thaw, or rather, in the early morning, a great
commotion broke out at the west barn. It waked the girls first, their
room being on that side of the farmhouse. At about two o'clock in the
morning Ellen came to our door to rouse Addison and me.

"There's a fearful racket up at the west barn," she said, in low tones.
"You had better see what's wrong."

Addison and I threw on our clothes, went down quietly, so as not to
disturb the old Squire, and were getting our lanterns ready, when he
came from his room; for he, too, had heard the disturbance. We then
sallied forth and approached the end door of the barn. Inside, the young
cattle were bellowing and bawling. Below, in the barn cellar, sheep were
bleating, and a shoat was adding its raucous voice to the uproar. Above
it all, however, we could hear eight old turkeys and a peacock that were
wintering in the west barn, "quitting" and "quuttering" aloft, where
they roosted on the high beams.

The young cattle, seventeen head, were tied facing the barn floor. All
of them were on their feet, pulling back at their stanchions in a great
state of alarm. But the real trouble seemed now to be aloft in the dark
roof of the barn, among the turkeys. Add