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“Bears are hungry and cross at this time of year; you know they have been sleeping in their dens all winter long with nothing to eat, and that makes them thin and angry when they wake up. I did not want to meet one.
“I hurried along as quick as I could in the dark. By and by the stars gave a little light. It was still black as pitch where the woods were thick, but in the open places I could see, dimly. I could see the snowy road ahead a little way, and I could see the dark woods standing all around me. I was glad when I came into an open place where the stars gave me this faint light.
“All the time I was watching, as well as I could, for bears. I was listening for the sounds they make when they go carelessly through the bushes.
“Then I came again into an open place, and there, right in the middle of my road, I saw a big black bear.
“He was standing up on his hind legs, looking at me, I could see his eyes shine. I could see his pig-snout. I could even see one of his claws, in the starlight.
“My scalp prickled, and my hair stood straight up. I stopped in my tracks, and stood still. The bear did not move. There he stood, looking at me.
“I knew it would do no good to try to go around him. He would follow me into the dark woods, where he could see better than I could. I did not want to fight a winter-starved bear in the dark. Oh, how I wished for my gun!
“I had to pass that bear, to get home. I thought that if I could scare him, he might get out of the road and let me go by. So I took a deep breath, and suddenly I shouted with all my might and ran at him, waving my arms.
“He didn’t move.
“I did not run very far toward him, I tell you! I stopped and looked at him, and he stood looking at me. Then I shouted again. There he stood. I kept on shouting and waving my arms, but he did not budge.
“Well, it would do me no good to run away. There were other bears in the woods. I might meet one any time. I might as well deal with this one as with another. Besides, I was coming home to Ma and you girls. I would never get here, if I ran away from everything in the woods that scared me.
“So at last I looked around, and I got a good big club, a solid, heavy branch that had been broken from a tree by the weight of snow in the winter.
“I lifted it up in my hands, and I ran straight at that bear. I swung my club as hard as I could and brought it down, bang! on his head.
“And there he still stood, for he was nothing but a big, black, burned stump!
“I had passed it on my way to town that morning. It wasn’t a bear at all. I only thought it was a bear, because I had been thinking all the time about bears and being afraid I’d meet one.”
“It really wasn’t a bear at all?” Mary asked.
“No, Mary, it wasn’t a bear at all. There I had been yelling, and dancing, and waving my arms, all by myself in the Big Woods, trying to scare a stump!”
Laura said: “Ours was really a bear. But we were not scared, because we thought it was Sukey.”
Pa did not say anything, but he hugged her tighter.
“Oo-oo! That bear might have eaten Ma and me all up!” Laura said, snuggling closer to him. “But Ma walked right up to him and slapped him, and he didn’t do anything at all. Why didn’t he do anything?”
“I guess he was too surprised to do anything, Laura,” Pa said. “I guess he was afraid, when the lantern shone in his eyes. And when Ma walked up to him and slapped him, he knew she wasn’t afraid.”
“Well, you were brave, too,” Laura said. “Even if it was only a stump, you thought it was a bear. You’d have hit him on the head with a club, if he had been a bear, wouldn’t you, Pa?”
“Yes,” said Pa, “I would. You see, I had to.”
Then Ma said it was bedtime. She helped Laura and Mary undress and button up their red flannel nightgowns. They knelt down by the trundle bed and said their prayers.
“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”
Ma kissed them both, and tucked the covers in around them. They lay there awhile, looking at Ma’s smooth, parted hair and her hands busy with sewing in the lamplight. Her needle made little clicking sounds against her thimble and then the thread went softly, swish! through the pretty calico that Pa had traded furs for.
Laura looked at Pa, who was greasing his boots. His mustaches and his hair and his long brown beard were silky in the lamplight, and the colors of his plaid jacket were gay. He whistled cheerfully while he worked, and then he sang:
