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.