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Show I Sandman Story for the Bedtime Hour ! By MARY GRAHAM BONNER i- I Usually a man who takes around a performing bear only has one bear with him, but this man had two, and this happened quite a long while ago. He would sing songs in a queer sort of voica and in queer . sort of language, but at the end he would always al-ways say: "Please, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, give pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters for the work of my fine bears. "Fifty cents are nice, too." The bears had always performed many tricks when the man said this. One day a little girl said: "How about ten cents?" But the man didn't know what ten cents meant, he had only heard them called dimes, and in the country from which he came they had quite a different dif-ferent name for money. At any rate he stayed in this town for quite a few days and made a good deal of money for his bears did very fine tricks and the people enjoyed en-joyed seeing them. Now one of the bears was quite happy walking around the streets and doing his tricks every day. His master was kind and he gave him plenty of food. And he got better food than ever on the days he did his tricks best. Of course you can understand that, for on such days the man got more money and he liked to give his bears nice things to eat. But the other bear did not like doing do-ing tricks. He was tired of performing. perform-ing. He was becoming old and he felt It was a great strain for him. - He particularly disliked having to climb a pole, and that was the trick that always got the most money and the greatest amount of praise. He wouldn't have minded climbing a tree, but he did dislike a pole. And how he did hate to dance on his hind legs. Particularly now that he was grow- Doing Hit Tricks Every Day. Ing old. It didn't seem a dignified thing for an old bear to do. After the man had gone to sleep and the bears were supposed to be asleep, too, they would talk over the day's work. They had to whisper very, very gently, for if they really talked it would wake up the whole country around and they would be most unpopular. un-popular. "Well," said the second, the older bear, "I am so tired of being made to dance. "It is so silly, too. "People like to see bears dance on two legs because they have four, and we don't ask them to dance on one leg because they have two. "It would be Just as sensible If we asked them to do this !" The first bear laughed In a low tone. "The trouble is I am old. And these things seem very silly to me. I wish I didn't have to do any more." And. the bear's wish came true. Ha was given to a zoo after this and he never had to do any more work I It was really time for him to rest. He had worked hard and long and he was too old to be asked to dance on his hind legs. ((c). 1931. Western Newspaper Union. |