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Asa took a pole and poked the bears cautiously. "Dead, I guess," said he, at last. "They don't move." Addison crept in again, and actually passed his hand over the bears, then backed out, laughing. "No, they are not dead!" he exclaimed. "They are warm. But they are awfully sound asleep." "Let's haul them out!" cried Asa; and they now sent me to the wood-sled for two or three small trace-chains.
It was some time before Leonard returned, for Webb had said: "If Burt is not at the doctor's, we must go and look for him. Had you not better have the strongest wood-sled ready? You will know what to do." Having admitted the possibility of danger, Leonard acted promptly.
At quarter past ten he drove out of the old road where the Crane house stood and down the village street. The man's name was Jonathan Leavitt. He was quite old but hearty, with a stubbly fringe of white beard around a ruddy face. He had come on a wood-sled for the greater convenience of bringing Sylvia's goods.
"If you can, I wish you'd come 'round by-an'-by with your horse an' your wood-sled," said she. "Yes, guess I can; what is it you want?" asked William, eying her curiously. She was very pale; there were red circles around her eyes, and her mouth trembled. "Oh, it ain't anything, only a little present I wanted to send to Rose," replied Sylvia. "Well," said William, "I'll be along by-an'-by."
It was decided that he should take the little boys and Elizabeth Eliza early, in the wood-sled; the others would follow later, in the carry-all. Mrs. Peterkin thought it would be safer to have some of the party go on wheels, in case of a general thaw the next day. A brilliant sun awoke them in the morning.
Fleda hesitated, but her relaxed energies warned her not to despise a homely mode of relief. The wood-sled was pretty clean, and the road decently good over the snow.
There, before the door, had stood the waiting wood-sled! The girl caught through the gathering dusk a gleam of magenta from the corner of the clearing. Two hermit thrushes, distant in the forest, began to send up their poignant antiphonal evening chant. The older professor looked up at the assistant, fumbling fretfully with a pile of papers.
None of us were now much afraid of them, and the other one was drawn out in the same way. Their hair was glossy and as black as jet. Possibly they would have weighed seventy-five pounds each. Evidently they were young bears that had never been separated, and that accounted for their denning up together; old bears rarely do this. We put them on the wood-sled and hauled them home.
"It took her all day to dig it, she said. They was afraid of wolves in them days and had to have their graves deep. The baby, the one that was to be my grandfather, played 'round while she was diggin', and she had to stop to milk the cow and git his meals for him. She got the bodies over to the grave, one at a time, draggin' 'em on the wood-sled.
Or, dismounting from his frightened horse, he leads him down some scowling glen, where the road steeply dips among grim rocks, only to rise as abruptly again; and as he warily picks his way, uneasy at the menacing scene, he sees some ghost-like object looming through the mist at the roadside; and wending towards it, beholds a rude white stone, uncouthly inscribed, marking the spot where, some fifty or sixty years ago, some farmer was upset in his wood-sled, and perished beneath the load.
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