The tubas stopped playing, the marchers stopped marching. But the Aldens didn’t stop looking for Herr Bear.
“I’m sad Herr Bear is still missing,” Violet said when the doors to the Old Mills Town Hall opened to the public. “But I’m glad Mrs. Keppel didn’t take him.”
Jessie wasn’t quite so sure. “She does have the birth certificate for her Fraulein Bear, but she wouldn’t tell Doc anything else. I still think she’s hiding something. I just have a feeling she’s connected to Herr Bear somehow.”
Henry was used to talking to bears now, but he wasn’t used to constantly sharing his sisters and brother. Wherever they went in their Three Bears costumes, people followed them.
“I thought we were supposed to follow people, not the other way around,” Benny said when he was alone for a minute with Henry. “I like being a bear, but I like being a detective better.”
As the children decided what to do next, they heard a familiar voice.
“Ugh, I hear Chatter Bear’s voice in the next aisle!” Jessie said. “He’s so loud, he drowns out ‘The Teddy Bears’ Picnic’ song. I suppose we ought to visit Miss Sayer’s booth. I wonder whether she’s having any success with her talking bear.”
So the Three Bears, along with their human brother, Henry, followed the sound of Chatter Bear’s voice until they came to Miss Sayer’s booth.
“What’s her bear saying, anyway?” Benny asked. “It’s different than before.”
As the children drew closer, they made out the words of Chatter Bear’s new message: “Come see Sayer’s All-Natural Cubs. Come see Sayer’s All-Natural Cubs.”
Miss Sayer’s booth was packed with people who had answered Chatter Bear’s invitation.
Henry whispered to the younger children. “Listen, I’ll be in the next booth. Since Miss Sayer doesn’t know who you are, one of you can ask her a lot of questions while the other two of you look around. Peggy said she’s always copying other bears. Maybe the Herr Bear will turn up in Miss Sayer’s booth.”
Jessie looked at Henry through the eye openings of her costume. “I’d also like to find out if she took all that nice fleece that disappeared from the Firmans’ barn. Okay, bears, let’s go.” She took hold of Benny’s paw in one hand and Violet’s in the other.
“Oh, no!” Jessie said when she finally got a good look at Miss Sayer’s booth.
Violet touched Jessie’s arm with her paw. “What’s the matter?”
Jessie held out her paw. “Look! Those are copies of Peggy Bears.”
The Three Bears stared at the many bears on the shelves. Sure enough, there was a row of stuffed bears that looked almost the same as Peggy’s.
“They’re not as nice,” Violet whispered to Jessie. “Some of the stitching is loose. They’re not as plump, either.”
Jessie was mad. “So this is why she kept snooping around Doc Firman’s Toy Hospital and Woolly Farm!” she whispered to Benny and Violet. “I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find the Herr Bear here. Maybe she plans to copy him, too.”
“Oh, hello, bears,” Miss Sayer cried in her own chirpy voice. “Please come visit my cubs—and my Chatter Bear, of course. I’ll take your picture with him.”
The Three Bears posed in front of Chatter Bear. Their bear faces were smiling, but their real faces were frowning underneath.
“I’ve never seen your bears before,” Jessie said in a deep voice she hoped Miss Sayer wouldn’t recognize. “Are they new?”
Miss Sayer brought over one of the fleecy bears, whose stuffing wasn’t quite tucked in. “Yes, they’re my new line of bears—the old-fashioned kind that don’t talk like my Chatter Bear here. Would you like to hold this one? It’s stuffed with real fleece from real sheep.”
Violet decided to learn more about Chatter Bear’s new voice. “I heard your talking bear when he was in Doctor Firman’s Toy Hospital. Didn’t he say a different message a few days ago?”
Miss Sayer waved off Violet’s question. “Oh, I’m just using him to get attention for my new bears. Everyone wanted to see a talking bear, but parents don’t seem to want to buy one for their children,” she said. “I’ve been told children like bears they can talk to, not the other way around. Is that true?”
Violet thought about Mister B. “Yes,” she said, so quietly Miss Sayer didn’t hear her. Not that it mattered, since she was already trying to interest another customer in her All-Natural Cubs.
With all the commotion going on with the Three Bears, Chatter Bear, and the new bears, Henry saw his chance. He squeezed himself into the booth. Bending down, he took a close look at some of Miss Sayer’s new bears on the bottom shelf. He even searched behind some of them. Maybe he would find one bear that wasn’t new—the one-of-a-kind Swiss Herr Bear. But Sayer’s All-Natural Cubs were brand-new, all-of-a-kind bears.
“Well, don’t you three bears want a few of my All-Natural Cubs to bring home?” Miss Sayer asked the Alden bears.
Benny couldn’t stop himself from speaking up. “We like Peggy Bears!” he said, so loudly his voice rose even louder than Chatter Bear’s.
Miss Sayer moved away. “Then I guess you’re not interested in anything new and exciting.” She turned to a child who had arrived with her mother. “Perhaps you are, young lady. Meet one of my new All-Natural Cubs,” Miss Sayer told the child. “Would you like to hold it?”
“The stuffing is coming out,” the little girl said. “It’s too skinny.”
Miss Sayer bustled around the booth. “Not to worry. I’ve had so much … uh … interest in my bears, I had to order more before they were quite done. Let me show you what I can do.”
Miss Sayer unlocked a small storage cabinet. She pulled out the orange tote bag that was never far from her. “See all this fleece?” She grabbed a fistful from her bag. “This is the finest lamb’s wool around. That’s what goes into my bears.”
Henry overhead this. He stepped between Miss Sayer and the child. “Fleece like this goes into Peggy Bears, too. Where did you get it?”
For once, Miss Sayer couldn’t speak. “From a farm,” she finally answered, more slowly than usual.
“Oh, do you own a sheep farm?” the mother of the child asked. “With your own lambs?”
Miss Sayer took the rest of fleece from her bag. It began to expand into a big puff as she tried to come up with a truthful answer to the woman’s question.
“No, actually, I don’t have my own sheep farm.”
“But I do.”
The Three Bears, along with Henry and the other visitors, turned around.
Peggy Firman stood in Miss Sayer’s booth, looking over the rows of copycat bears on the shelves.
Miss Sayer put her hand down on the fleece puff and tried to hide it. Of course, it was much too big to hide.
Jessie was too quick for Miss Sayer. “I need some stuffing, too,” she said to the people in the booth. She patted her furry belly. “I didn’t eat enough porridge.”
Peggy broke into a smile. “Thank you, Papa Bear. My fleece somehow walked out of my barn without being on one of my sheep. I don’t know how it happened, but I’m glad you helped me find it.”
Miss Sayer went over to Chatter Bear. She pushed a button. Finally the booth quieted down. “I’m sorry, Peggy. When Doc couldn’t get Chatter Bear working, I decided he was right. Children want bears to cuddle, not to talk. So I decided to finish some bears I’d started last year and use some natural wool to stuff them. I didn’t call them Hazel Bears, though.”
“That’s because you couldn’t,” Peggy said. “Putting your own name on these bears would have been wrong. You used some of my designs and now my wool fleece.”
The customers began to drift away. Henry and the Three Bears stayed with Peggy.
“The day Peggy taught us how to sort fleece, were you up in the loft?” Henry asked.
Miss Sayer stared at Peggy. “Yes. You never let me help out with shearing the fleece or cleaning it. I wanted to learn how it was done in case my bear business became successful and I could buy a nice farm like Woolly Farm.”
Peggy sighed. “Miss Sayer, Doc and I have offered you a great deal of help over the years. We even let you into the studio and the toy hospital to borrow things. But I couldn’t give away all our secrets.”
Miss Sayer held one of her bears so tightly some of the stuffing squeezed out. “I know, Peggy. I’m sorry. I get ideas, but then I don’t stick with them very long. I like bears, but I can’t figure out how to make children like my bears.”
Peggy seemed a little less upset. “Well, that’s the real secret, isn’t it? Why don’t you ask these three bears?”
Miss Sayer looked at the Aldens in their bear outfits. She still had no idea who they were. “Well, what’s the secret about bears?”
Benny spoke up first. “They have to be fat, not skinny. And soft.”
“They shouldn’t talk too much,” Violet said.
“Or be too big, because then you can’t hold them,” Jessie added.
“What about old bears?” Miss Sayer asked, forgetting everything the children had just told her. “I could find old bears, fix them up, and sell them for a lot of money. Yes, that’s an idea I never thought of.”
Henry looked at Miss Sayer. “Are you sure you never thought of it?”
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