ison held up the lantern.
Nothing could be seen so far up there in the dark, but feathers came
fluttering down, and the old peacock was squalling, "Tap-pee-yaw!" over
and over.

We fixed a lantern on the end of a long bean-pole and thrust it high up.
Its light revealed those two young bears on one of the high beams of the
barn!

One of them had the head of a turkey in his mouth, and was apparently
trying to bolt it; and we discovered later that they had had trouble
with the shoat down in the cellar. The shoat was somewhat scratched, but
had stood them off.

Several of the sheep had their fleeces torn, particularly one old
Cotswold ram, which also had a bleeding nose. Evidently the barn had
been the scene of a protracted fracas. The bears must have climbed for
the turkeys as a last resort. How they reached the beam we did not know,
unless by swarming up one of the bare posts of the barn.

To drive them down, Addison climbed on a scaffold and thrust the lantern
close up to the one with the turkey's head in its mouth. The bear struck
at the lantern with one paw, started back, but lost its claw-hold on the
beam and fell, turkey and all, eighteen or twenty feet to the barn
floor.

The old Squire and I sprang aside in great haste; but so far as we could
see, the bear never stirred after it struck the floor. Either the fall
broke its neck, or else the turkey's head choked it to death.

When menaced with the lantern, the other bear slid down one of the barn
posts, tail first, and was driven into a horse stall at the far end of
the barn. There we succeeded in shutting it up, and in the morning gave
it a breakfast of corn-meal dough and apples, which it devoured with
great avidity.

We had no particular use for a bear, and a week later sold this
youngster to Doctor Truman. He soon tired of his new pet, however, and
parted with it to a friend who kept a summer hotel in the White
Mountains.

The other bear--the one that fell from the high beam--had the handsomest
black, glossy pelt I have ever seen. Grandmother Ruth insisted on having
it tanned and made into a rug. She declared jocosely that it should be
given to the first one of our girls who married. Ellen finally fell heir
to it, and carried it with her to Dakota.

CHAPTER IV

WHITE MONKEY WEEK

Cutting and drawing the year's supply of firewood to the door occupied
us for a week; and following this we boys had planned to take matters
easy awhile, for the