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 Icare? 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 splashing 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 shivering 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.
Father Bear was after him, but before he could reach him the merman was up and running for the open strip of water in the distance.Father Bear chased him the whole way; sometimes he caught him and gave him a cuff that sent him flying, but at last the merman reached the water and dived into it.He must have had a sore head for days afterward, however.
When the Father Bear came back again, he was panting and growling.
"There," said he, "I guess that's the last time any of the mermen will try to play their tricks on us.Come, come," he went on, "it's time we were off for our hunting."But the Mother Bear only shook her head.She had been doing nothing since she saw that Sprawley was an ice-merman but sit and rock herself backward and forward and whine."I couldn't go, my dear; I couldn't indeed," she said."I'm all of a tremble now to think how that dreadful merman has been playing with Fatty and Dumpy day after day and I never knew it.""Then I'll go by myself," said Father Bear, gruffly, "and leave the children home with you.But you can go, Fairy," he said to Teddy."I'll carry you on my back if you like, and maybe you'll see me catch a young walrus.I suppose it was you who split him down the back, as the Counterpane Fairy brought you.""Yes, sir, it was," said Teddy, timidly; "but I'm afraid I can't go with you; I'm afraid I'm going back,"--for the bears, the fields of ice, the far-off green water, were all wavering and growing misty before his sight.Faintly he heard the voices of the bear cubs: "Owie! owie! don't go away"; for they had grown fond of him the day before.
Then their voices died away.He was back in the old familiar room with the Counterpane Fairy perched upon his knees, and a bunch of snowdrops in the vase beside the bed.The door opened and his mother stood holding the knob in her hand and speaking to Hannah outside, and in that moment the Counterpane Fairy was gone.
