The Counterpane Fairy Part 9

"There, there!" cried the poor Mother Bear, "don't you cry any more and I'll give you each an extra piece of meat."

So they stopped crying and ate their suppers contentedly, and after that they all went to bed, and the little cubs had hardly lain down before they were fast asleep.

Teddy did not go to sleep, however. He lay looking at the ice-roof of the cave and thinking how strange it was to be there. Presently he heard the Mother Bear say very softly, "Husband, husband, are you awake?"

"Yes, I am," said the Father Bear. "What do you want?"

The Mother Bear sighed. "I don't know how it is, husband," she said, "but I never had a cub like Sprawley before. He is so naughty and mischievous that he keeps his little brother and sister whining all the time."

"You ought to box him," said the Father Bear.

"That's all very well," said the Mother Bear, "but when I try to box him he slips behind the others and pushes them forward, and he is so quick that twice I have boxed Dumpy instead of him by mistake."

The Father Bear grunted and they were silent for a while, but presently the Mother Bear began again, more softly than ever. "Do you know, husband, sometimes I wonder whether Sprawley can really be my cub. If I could only count them I might find out. If there were only one and one I could count them, but there are more than one and one."

"Well," said Father Bear, "I should think that would be easy. Let's see.

There's Dumpy, and he's one, and Fatty, and she's one, and Sprawley, and he's one. And now how many does that make?"

"Oh dear!" said the Mother Bear, "Don't ask me. My head's all of a whirl already."

"Then you'd better go to sleep, my dear," said her husband. "The next thing you know you'll be having a headache to-morrow. You think too much."

"Yes," said the Mother Bear, sighing, "That's so; I suppose I do think too much, but then I can't help it. I always was thinking ever since I was a cub. It's the way I'm made. Good-night."

"Good-night," said the Father Bear, and then they, too, went to sleep.

Teddy seemed to be the only one left awake. Dumpy kept crowding up against him and snoring with his nose close to Teddy's ear. Teddy pushed him once or twice, but it didn't seem to make any difference. Once he poked him so hard that the little bear gave a snort and stopped snoring for a while, but soon he began again.

But after all Teddy found he was not the only one in the cave who was not asleep. Sprawley, who was lying on the other side of Fatty, had began to stir and sit up; he looked about at the sleeping bears, and then very quietly began to edge himself toward the mouth of the cave.

Once the Mother Bear gave a low growl in her sleep and Sprawley stopped still to listen, but she didn't waken.

Teddy wondered what Sprawley was going to do, and so, as soon as the cub had disappeared through the mouth of the cave, he too crawled over to the opening.

When he looked out he saw Sprawley shuffling over the fields of ice in the distance, and already quite far away, so, led by his curiosity, Teddy, too, crept out of the cave and set off running after the bear cub.

He ran on and on until he was quite close to Sprawley, and then he saw the cub pause at the edge of a strip of open water, and turn to look behind him to make sure that he was not followed. He did not see Teddy, for the fairy had hidden quickly behind a block of ice.

Sprawley turned toward the water again and gave a long, quavering cry that sounded like a call. He listened, but everything was silent except for the rumbling and cracking of the ice in the distance. Again he called, and this time there was an answering cry, and another, and another. Sprawley stood up and waved his paws, and then Teddy saw that the open water was dotted with heads of ice-mermen; there must have been ten or twelve of them at least.

They swam over to where Sprawley stood, and climbing out on the ice they seemed to be welcoming him, hopping and sliding about, and pulling at his hair and claws. Now that Teddy saw them quite close they were uglier than ever, with goggle eyes, and rough, fishy-looking skins.

They all sat on the edge of the ice, and now and then one of them would dive off, to reappear again, all wet and glistening, and then it would climb up and sit on the ice again in a row with the others. They all talked together, and their voices were so queer and husky that Teddy could not understand what they were saying at first. At last he made out that they were asking Sprawley about him,--where he had come from, and how.

"Well, I'll tell you how he came," said Sprawley, and all the mermen stopped to listen. Sprawley, too, was silent for a moment, and then he said in a low, impressive voice, "The Counterpane Fairy brought him."

There was a long, quavering cry from the mermen, and several of them dived off into the water and did not reappear again for some minutes; when they did, their faces were all wrinkled up with anxiety.

They climbed up onto the edge of the ice and sat there blinking at the sky for a while in silence; then one of them said in a trembling voice, "Well, we haven't been doing anything but just frightening the bear cubs a little."

"How about knocking Fatty down with a piece of ice?" asked Sprawley, derisively.

"Scritchy did that," cried all the mermen but one. "We didn't do it.

Scritchy did that."

The merman who hadn't spoken, and who was Scritchy, still did not say a word. He looked at the others with his goggle eyes and then he tumbled off into the water and swam away as fast as he could and did not come back any more.

All the other mermen looked after him in silence until he had disappeared; then one of them said in an awe-struck voice, "It's bad for you, Sprawley, ain't it? Just think what you've been doing."

"Pooh," said Sprawley, pretending he was not frightened, "what do I care? I can fix it all right."

"How?" asked all the mermen together.

"Well, listen, and I'll tell you," said Sprawley. "To-morrow Father and Mother Bear are going hunting, and all of us little cubs are to go with them. I suppose this strange fairy cub will go with us, and when we stop to rest I'll get him away from the others and near the edge of the water. You must come under the ice and break off the piece he is standing on, and float him far, far away toward the South until he melts."

"Yes, yes! we'll do it," cried all the mermen jumping about and shouting. Then they turned to Sprawley. "Come," they cried, "let's have a game in the water before you go back."

"That I will," said Sprawley, and with that what should he do but strip off his bear-skin just as though it were a coat, and there he was, nothing more nor less than a merman who had been dressed up in an old skin, pretending to be a bear cub.

Sprawley and all the other mermen dived off into the water and began splas.h.i.+ng and shrieking and pulling at each other and getting farther and farther away.

"All the same, I don't think you'll float me off," said Teddy to himself.

Very quietly he crept to where the bear-skin lay on the ice, and taking out his knife he cut a long slit up the back of it. Then not waiting for the mermen to come back he hurried home again over the ice to the bears'

cave, and crawling in he laid himself down again between the sleeping cubs.

The little bears were beginning to stir themselves and the Mother Bear was yawning and stretching when Sprawley came sneaking into the cave again.

"Why! why!" said the Mother Bear, "where have you been?"

"I ain't been anywhere," said Sprawley. "I just thought I heard a sea-lion roaring and I went out to see."

"Well, there's no use your going to sleep again," said the Father Bear, "for we have to go a long ways to-day, and it's time we were getting ready to start now."

With that he shuffled out of the cave, followed by the Mother Bear, and stood looking about him. Presently the cubs came out, too, still blinking with sleep.

"Oh, Mother!" cried Dumpy, "just look at Sprawley's back!"

"Why, what's the matter with it?" asked the Mother Bear.

"There ain't anything the matter with it," growled Sprawley, twisting his head round and trying to see.

"Yes, there is too!" cried Fatty. "Oh my! Sprawley's splitting hisself all down the back."

"Why! why!" cried the Father Bear, "what's this?" He shuffled over and looked at Sprawley's back, and then without a word he began to tear and pull at the bear-skin. In another minute he had it off, and there stood the merman s.h.i.+vering and blinking at them with his mouth open like a gasping fish.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried the Mother Bear, turning whiter than ever.

"He's not my cub after all," and she sat down and began to whine and cry. But Father Bear gave a growl, and rising on his hind legs he fetched the merman a cuff that sent him tumbling head over heels across the ice.