But there was Teddy Bear, now, a cub over the foothills of Sugar Loaf Mountain, and _he_ was _not_ a fool.

When he tackled his first bee tree--and he was nothing but a cub, mind you--he pulled off the affair in good shape.

I wish it had been _these_ bees that he cleaned out." The Babe was so surprised that he let go of his leg for a moment.
"Why ?" he exclaimed, "how could a cub do what a big, strong, grown-up bear couldn't manage ?" He thought with a shudder how unequal _he_ would be to such an undertaking.
"You just wait and see!" admonished Uncle Andy, blowing furious clouds from his monstrous cigarette.

"It was about the end of the blue-berry season when Teddy Bear lost his big, rusty-coated mother and small, glossy black sister, and found himself completely alone in the world.
They had all three come down together from the high blue-berry patches to the dark swamps to hunt for roots and fungi as a variation to their fruit diet.

The mother and sister had got caught together in a deadfall--a dreadful trap which crushed them both flat in an instant.
Teddy Bear, some ten feet out of danger, had stared for two seconds in frozen horror, and then raced away like mad with his mother's warning screech hoarse in his ears.