TWIN BABIES. 47 



take up two rattlesnakes in your arms as 

 two baby bears, and hope to get off un 

 harmed, if the mother of the young bears 

 is within a mile of you. This boy, however, 

 had not yet learned caution, and he prob 

 ably was not born with much fear in his 

 make-up. And then he was so lonesome, 

 and this man Reese was so cruel and so 

 cross, with his big nose like a sounding 

 fog-horn, that the boy was glad to get even 

 a bear to love and play with. 



They, so far from being frightened or 

 cross, began to root around under his arms 

 and against his breast, like little pigs, for 

 something to eat. Possibly their mother 

 had been killed by hunters, for they were 

 nearly famished. When he got them home, 

 how they did eat ! This also made Sil Reese 

 mad. For, although the boy, wounded as 

 he was, managed to shoot down a deer not 

 too far from the house almost every day, 

 and so kept the "hotel" in meat, still it 

 made Reese miserable and envious to see 



