Bartleby Bremmington Bear was a very small bear living in a very small cave with his mother and father.
When he was first born, his father asked, “What shall we name him?”
“Bartleby Bremmington Bear,” his mother replied.
“That’s too long a name for such a very small bear,” said his father. “What about Polar?” But his mother was firm. Bartleby Bremmington Bear was his name.
When he was five, Bartleby Bremmington Bear was still a very small bear. On his first day of school, his backpack was so much bigger than him that it dragged on the ground when he walked. His clothes were always too big for him, no matter how small a size his mom bought. “You’ll grow into them,” she always said, but he hadn’t yet.
Bartleby Bremmington’s friends were all bigger than him. They could jump higher and run faster because their legs were longer. Once, when they were playing soccer, Bartleby Bremmington Bear tried to block a shot with his stomach. But he was so small, the ball picked Bartleby Bremmington up, and both he and the ball flew right into the net.
Bartleby Bremmington did not like being so very small. He had to climb into his chair at school. He could never reach the TV remote, even when his parents put it on the bottom shelf. He couldn’t reach the buttons on the TV, either. When he brushed his teeth at night, he had to use a stool to reach the sink.
“I hate being such a very small bear,” he told his mother.
“One day, you’ll like it,” she promised him. “Then, all of your friends will wish that they were as small as you.”
That was the year the rains came to Bear Village. It rained every year, but this year was different. This year, the rain never stopped.
At first the bear cubs liked it. They splashed in the puddles on their way to school. They rolled in the mud during soccer games. They played in their raincoats and rain hats and rubber boots.
The next week it started to flood. The bear cubs paddled to school in row boats. They entered the school house through the windows because the water reached higher than the door. They swam and splashed and played in the flood.
Two weeks later, the water was so high that the bears had to live on the roofs of their caves. The bear cubs rowed to the school, parked their boats, and sat on the roof of the school house. The teacher stood on the top of the flag pole while she taught. Still, it kept raining.
By the fourth week, the bears could not even sit on the roofs of their caves. They rowed their boats to very tall trees and lived there. The bears grew so worried that they called a meeting. Everyone in Bear Village came, even the Bear King.
“What will we do? There is too much rain!” cried Black Bear.
“Yes, yes,” said the Bear King. “There is too much rain.”
“Someone must do something!” yelled Brown Bear.
“Yes, yes, someone must do something,” answered the Bear King.
“Someone must go to the wizard at the top of the mountain and ask his advice,” said Bartleby Bremmington’s father, who was a very smart bear.
“Yes, yes, someone must go to the wizard at the top of the mountain and ask his advice,” said the Bear King, who was not a very smart bear at all.
“Are you the king or not?” asked Black Bear. “You must go to the wizard!”
“Yes, yes, I must go—Me?” asked the king.
“Oh yes,” cried the rest of the bears in Bear Village. “You must go.”
“Oh dear,” responded the king, who really only liked being king because he could wear his crown and sit on his throne. “It seems a bit far.”
“You will never sit on your throne again unless the rain stops,” Brown Bear reminded him.
“And your crown is always soggy from rain,” said Black Bear.
“Yes, yes, I hate my soggy crown, and I miss my throne,” the king answered sadly.
The next day, the Bear King, wearing his soggy crown, rowed to the wizard’s mountain. It was such a tall mountain that most of it was still above the water. He got out of his boat and climbed slowly to the top where the wizard lived. It was a very long climb.
When he got to the top, he was huffing and puffing. He knocked on the wizard’s door. “Wizard? It’s me, Bear King.”
“Come in,” responded the wizard. “I’ve been expecting you.” The wizard was alphabetizing his potions.
“Then why didn’t you meet me halfway?” asked the king.
The wizard shrugged and continued alphabetizing.
“You are a very strange bear,” said the king. “Will you make it stop raining?”
“No,” answered the wizard. “It’s too much work. Besides, I’m safe and dry up here.”
“But we aren’t! Bear Village is flooded!”
“Yes,” the wizard replied. “It was very silly of you to make a village way down there.”
“I order you to make it stop raining!” cried the frustrated king.
“Or else what?” asked the wizard.
“Well, or else!” cried the king because he couldn’t think of anything. He wasn’t a very smart bear king.
The wizard shrugged and kept alphabetizing. He was a very strange bear.
The Bear King sat on the floor. “I walked all this way, and you won’t even help.”
“Your crown is very soggy,” said the wizard. Then, because he felt bad, he chanted a quick spell to dry the king’s crown. The wizard saw that the king was not going to leave unless he did something, so he said, “Fine, I will help.”
“You will make the rains stop?” the king asked.
“Oh no. I would never finish organizing my potions if I did that. I will tell you a secret instead. The rain will stop on its own in two weeks, but you are all goners anyway. The dam that holds back Bear Mountain Stream is breaking. The rains are too much for it. If it breaks, Bear Village will never be above water again, even if the rains stop. It will be too much water. It’s been nice knowing you, Bear King.”
“What are we supposed to do?” asked the king. He didn’t really want to die, and he was very scared for his throne.
The wizard shrugged. “Fix it.”
“But how?”
“Beats me,” answered the wizard, “especially since you don’t know any spells. You don’t mind if I don’t walk you to the door, do you? I’m a little busy here.”
The Bear King scratched his Bear King head. The wizard was a very strange bear indeed.
When the Bear King returned home and told the other bears, they were very afraid. “What will we do?” they all asked.
“What will we eat?” asked Brown Bear. There wasn’t much food on the tops of the trees. The bears were very hungry.
“Where will we live?” asked Black Bear. The bears weren’t very comfortable in row boats and tree tops.
“What will happen to my throne?” asked the Bear King, whose crown was soggy again from the rain. It was a very sad time in Bear Village.
The next day it happened. The dam in Bear Mountain Stream got a very small hole in it. Soon, the bears knew, the hole would grow.
The bears tried to fix it by putting sticks in the hole, but the water still gushed through. They put rocks in the hole, but the water kept coming. They tried to cover it with their paws, but still the water trickled through. The bears all gathered around the dam and sadly watched as the water poured down the mountain toward Bear Village. That was when Bartleby Bremmington Bear stepped forward.
“I will save the day,” he said, “And all of you will wish that you were very small bears like me.”
His mother nodded. She had always known they would wish that, and mother bears like to be right.
“What will you do?” the other bears laughed. “You are just a very small bear.”
“Yes,” said Bartleby Bremmington, “and that is a very small hole.”
With that, Bartleby Bremmington stepped into the stream, swam toward the dam, and wedged his very small behind into the hole. Immediately, the water stopped leaking through.
“Hurrah!” cried the bears when they realized it worked. “We are saved! Now you must stay there for months until the rains stop and the water goes down. Possibly you will have to stay there forever, even after the rain stops. But you are a hero!”
“A hero!” thought Bartleby Bremmington Bear. “I sure do like the sound of that.”
Bartleby Bremmington had been in the hole for two weeks when the rains stopped, just like the wizard had predicted. The bears took turns bringing him food. His teacher even came after school to teach him. His friends came and played games with him, like Go Fish and Pin the Clown Nose on the Bear Stuck in the Dam. At night, his mom read him stories and put a little night hat on him. She slept on a blanket by the dam so that Bartleby Bremmington wouldn’t feel lonely. It wasn’t so bad living in the dam, Bartleby Bremmington decided—a little boring, maybe, but not so bad.
The next week, the water level started to go down. When Bartleby Bremmington had been in the hole for three weeks, the children had school on the top of the roof of the school house again, and the bears moved out of the tree tops onto the roofs of their caves.
When Bartleby Bremmington had been in the hole for four weeks, the bears could row their boats inside their caves.
When Bartleby Bremmington had been in the hole for six weeks, the bears could walk on the ground! The water still came up to their chests, but it was getting better. Bartleby Bremmington’s friends all told him about the water level going down. They told him about how they played and splashed in the water and slept on their floating bear beds at night. Bartleby Bremmington started to want to leave the hole in the dam.
At the next village meeting, Bartleby Bremmington’s mother spoke up. “My son wants to leave the hole in the dam!”
“Leave it?” asked the Bear King. “Oh no! He can never leave it. This is the first time in months I’ve been able to sit on my throne. No, no, he must never leave the hole. Very nice of him to stay in there for the rest of us, though. That’s a fine boy you raised there.”
“Mrs. Bear makes a very good point,” said Black Bear.
“True,” seconded Brown Bear. “Her son really can’t live in the hole forever.”
“Why not?” asked the king, who did not like where this was going. Whenever there was a problem, the bears expected him to solve it. He did not like that part about being king.
“Someone will have to go to the wizard,” said Black Bear.
“True,” answered Brown Bear. “I believe the Bear King should do it.”
“Me too,” said Black Bear. “That’s settled then. Bear King, off you go to the wizard.”
“Wait!” cried the Bear King, who was startled by how quickly the conversation had turned against him. “This is all unnecessary! Perhaps Bartleby Bremmington is happy living in the hole. He seems happy. I just visited him yesterday. Has anyone asked him if he wants out? It’d be a shame to go to all this work to see the wizard when he really just wants to stay in the hole.”
“We’ll see you in a couple of days when you get back,” said Mrs. Bear gently.
Bear King hated to leave his throne and climb the mountain again.
The next day Bear King began wading to the wizard’s mountain. He climbed and climbed and climbed, until he was huffing and sweating. “I really should join a gym when I get back,” he thought to himself.
He knocked on the door. “Wizard? It’s me again, Bear King.”
The wizard answered the door. He had been playing solitaire at his kitchen table and sipping his Sleepy Time Bear Tea.
“Don’t you ever cast any spells?” asked Bear King.
“I only need to do one every five years to maintain my wizard’s license. No need to overdo it,” he explained.
“Do you know why I’ve come?”
“Of course,” answered the wizard.
“And?”
“I don’t think my services are necessary. You plugged the hole. Well done. Bear Village is saved.” The wizard moved a black queen onto a red king and flipped over another card.
“I know. I agree completely. But I can’t go back without a solution. People start to talk. Polar Bear is already spreading rumors that monarchies are bad, trying to advocate for a proper election. I need to do something.”
“Hm. What’s in it for me?”
“What do you want?”
The wizard thought for a moment. “I think I’d like to be king for a day. I’d like to sit on your throne and wear your crown.”
“My throne? My crown? Impossible!”
The wizard moved a black eight onto a red nine. “Enjoy the elections, then.”
Bear King touched his crown. He loved his crown. He thought of his throne. He loved his throne. Finally, he answered, “Okay, you can be king for a day.”
“Excellent!” cried the wizard, pulling out his day planner. “Does next Saturday work for you?”
“I suppose so,” said the king sadly.
“Great, see you then.”
“Wait, aren’t you coming to fix the dam?”
“Oh, that. Just use the rocks that are farther upstream, near the north shore. They’re larger and will stop the leak easily. Your bear workers were using the smaller ones near the south shore. Those will never work.”
“You won’t work a spell?”
“Too much trouble,” the wizard answered. “Besides, my tea would get cold. See you next Saturday.”
“Right, okay,” said the Bear King. He often wished he were a smarter bear and could think of these solutions himself.
When the king returned to Bear Village and shared the news, the workers began gathering the stones right away. In two hours, Bartleby Bremmington Bear was free. “Hurrah!” cheered the village.
His father ruffled the fur on his head. His mother gave him a big hug. His teacher brought him ice cream. All of his friends gathered around him to hear him tell his adventure. They thought he was very brave.
“I wish I was as small as you. Then I could have helped, too,” cried Grizzly Bear. He was the biggest bear in the class.
“Me too!” shouted all of his friends.
For the first time in his life, Bartley Bremmington Bear was proud to be such a very small bear.
And that is the story of how a very small bear filled a very small hole and saved Bear Village. After that day, everything was peaceful and easy in Bear Village forever and ever, until later that week, when the wizard came to be king for a day, but that is a very different story.
When he was first born, his father asked, “What shall we name him?”
“Bartleby Bremmington Bear,” his mother replied.
“That’s too long a name for such a very small bear,” said his father. “What about Polar?” But his mother was firm. Bartleby Bremmington Bear was his name.
When he was five, Bartleby Bremmington Bear was still a very small bear. On his first day of school, his backpack was so much bigger than him that it dragged on the ground when he walked. His clothes were always too big for him, no matter how small a size his mom bought. “You’ll grow into them,” she always said, but he hadn’t yet.
Bartleby Bremmington’s friends were all bigger than him. They could jump higher and run faster because their legs were longer. Once, when they were playing soccer, Bartleby Bremmington Bear tried to block a shot with his stomach. But he was so small, the ball picked Bartleby Bremmington up, and both he and the ball flew right into the net.
Bartleby Bremmington did not like being so very small. He had to climb into his chair at school. He could never reach the TV remote, even when his parents put it on the bottom shelf. He couldn’t reach the buttons on the TV, either. When he brushed his teeth at night, he had to use a stool to reach the sink.
“I hate being such a very small bear,” he told his mother.
“One day, you’ll like it,” she promised him. “Then, all of your friends will wish that they were as small as you.”
That was the year the rains came to Bear Village. It rained every year, but this year was different. This year, the rain never stopped.
At first the bear cubs liked it. They splashed in the puddles on their way to school. They rolled in the mud during soccer games. They played in their raincoats and rain hats and rubber boots.
The next week it started to flood. The bear cubs paddled to school in row boats. They entered the school house through the windows because the water reached higher than the door. They swam and splashed and played in the flood.
Two weeks later, the water was so high that the bears had to live on the roofs of their caves. The bear cubs rowed to the school, parked their boats, and sat on the roof of the school house. The teacher stood on the top of the flag pole while she taught. Still, it kept raining.
By the fourth week, the bears could not even sit on the roofs of their caves. They rowed their boats to very tall trees and lived there. The bears grew so worried that they called a meeting. Everyone in Bear Village came, even the Bear King.
“What will we do? There is too much rain!” cried Black Bear.
“Yes, yes,” said the Bear King. “There is too much rain.”
“Someone must do something!” yelled Brown Bear.
“Yes, yes, someone must do something,” answered the Bear King.
“Someone must go to the wizard at the top of the mountain and ask his advice,” said Bartleby Bremmington’s father, who was a very smart bear.
“Yes, yes, someone must go to the wizard at the top of the mountain and ask his advice,” said the Bear King, who was not a very smart bear at all.
“Are you the king or not?” asked Black Bear. “You must go to the wizard!”
“Yes, yes, I must go—Me?” asked the king.
“Oh yes,” cried the rest of the bears in Bear Village. “You must go.”
“Oh dear,” responded the king, who really only liked being king because he could wear his crown and sit on his throne. “It seems a bit far.”
“You will never sit on your throne again unless the rain stops,” Brown Bear reminded him.
“And your crown is always soggy from rain,” said Black Bear.
“Yes, yes, I hate my soggy crown, and I miss my throne,” the king answered sadly.
The next day, the Bear King, wearing his soggy crown, rowed to the wizard’s mountain. It was such a tall mountain that most of it was still above the water. He got out of his boat and climbed slowly to the top where the wizard lived. It was a very long climb.
When he got to the top, he was huffing and puffing. He knocked on the wizard’s door. “Wizard? It’s me, Bear King.”
“Come in,” responded the wizard. “I’ve been expecting you.” The wizard was alphabetizing his potions.
“Then why didn’t you meet me halfway?” asked the king.
The wizard shrugged and continued alphabetizing.
“You are a very strange bear,” said the king. “Will you make it stop raining?”
“No,” answered the wizard. “It’s too much work. Besides, I’m safe and dry up here.”
“But we aren’t! Bear Village is flooded!”
“Yes,” the wizard replied. “It was very silly of you to make a village way down there.”
“I order you to make it stop raining!” cried the frustrated king.
“Or else what?” asked the wizard.
“Well, or else!” cried the king because he couldn’t think of anything. He wasn’t a very smart bear king.
The wizard shrugged and kept alphabetizing. He was a very strange bear.
The Bear King sat on the floor. “I walked all this way, and you won’t even help.”
“Your crown is very soggy,” said the wizard. Then, because he felt bad, he chanted a quick spell to dry the king’s crown. The wizard saw that the king was not going to leave unless he did something, so he said, “Fine, I will help.”
“You will make the rains stop?” the king asked.
“Oh no. I would never finish organizing my potions if I did that. I will tell you a secret instead. The rain will stop on its own in two weeks, but you are all goners anyway. The dam that holds back Bear Mountain Stream is breaking. The rains are too much for it. If it breaks, Bear Village will never be above water again, even if the rains stop. It will be too much water. It’s been nice knowing you, Bear King.”
“What are we supposed to do?” asked the king. He didn’t really want to die, and he was very scared for his throne.
The wizard shrugged. “Fix it.”
“But how?”
“Beats me,” answered the wizard, “especially since you don’t know any spells. You don’t mind if I don’t walk you to the door, do you? I’m a little busy here.”
The Bear King scratched his Bear King head. The wizard was a very strange bear indeed.
When the Bear King returned home and told the other bears, they were very afraid. “What will we do?” they all asked.
“What will we eat?” asked Brown Bear. There wasn’t much food on the tops of the trees. The bears were very hungry.
“Where will we live?” asked Black Bear. The bears weren’t very comfortable in row boats and tree tops.
“What will happen to my throne?” asked the Bear King, whose crown was soggy again from the rain. It was a very sad time in Bear Village.
The next day it happened. The dam in Bear Mountain Stream got a very small hole in it. Soon, the bears knew, the hole would grow.
The bears tried to fix it by putting sticks in the hole, but the water still gushed through. They put rocks in the hole, but the water kept coming. They tried to cover it with their paws, but still the water trickled through. The bears all gathered around the dam and sadly watched as the water poured down the mountain toward Bear Village. That was when Bartleby Bremmington Bear stepped forward.
“I will save the day,” he said, “And all of you will wish that you were very small bears like me.”
His mother nodded. She had always known they would wish that, and mother bears like to be right.
“What will you do?” the other bears laughed. “You are just a very small bear.”
“Yes,” said Bartleby Bremmington, “and that is a very small hole.”
With that, Bartleby Bremmington stepped into the stream, swam toward the dam, and wedged his very small behind into the hole. Immediately, the water stopped leaking through.
“Hurrah!” cried the bears when they realized it worked. “We are saved! Now you must stay there for months until the rains stop and the water goes down. Possibly you will have to stay there forever, even after the rain stops. But you are a hero!”
“A hero!” thought Bartleby Bremmington Bear. “I sure do like the sound of that.”
Bartleby Bremmington had been in the hole for two weeks when the rains stopped, just like the wizard had predicted. The bears took turns bringing him food. His teacher even came after school to teach him. His friends came and played games with him, like Go Fish and Pin the Clown Nose on the Bear Stuck in the Dam. At night, his mom read him stories and put a little night hat on him. She slept on a blanket by the dam so that Bartleby Bremmington wouldn’t feel lonely. It wasn’t so bad living in the dam, Bartleby Bremmington decided—a little boring, maybe, but not so bad.
The next week, the water level started to go down. When Bartleby Bremmington had been in the hole for three weeks, the children had school on the top of the roof of the school house again, and the bears moved out of the tree tops onto the roofs of their caves.
When Bartleby Bremmington had been in the hole for four weeks, the bears could row their boats inside their caves.
When Bartleby Bremmington had been in the hole for six weeks, the bears could walk on the ground! The water still came up to their chests, but it was getting better. Bartleby Bremmington’s friends all told him about the water level going down. They told him about how they played and splashed in the water and slept on their floating bear beds at night. Bartleby Bremmington started to want to leave the hole in the dam.
At the next village meeting, Bartleby Bremmington’s mother spoke up. “My son wants to leave the hole in the dam!”
“Leave it?” asked the Bear King. “Oh no! He can never leave it. This is the first time in months I’ve been able to sit on my throne. No, no, he must never leave the hole. Very nice of him to stay in there for the rest of us, though. That’s a fine boy you raised there.”
“Mrs. Bear makes a very good point,” said Black Bear.
“True,” seconded Brown Bear. “Her son really can’t live in the hole forever.”
“Why not?” asked the king, who did not like where this was going. Whenever there was a problem, the bears expected him to solve it. He did not like that part about being king.
“Someone will have to go to the wizard,” said Black Bear.
“True,” answered Brown Bear. “I believe the Bear King should do it.”
“Me too,” said Black Bear. “That’s settled then. Bear King, off you go to the wizard.”
“Wait!” cried the Bear King, who was startled by how quickly the conversation had turned against him. “This is all unnecessary! Perhaps Bartleby Bremmington is happy living in the hole. He seems happy. I just visited him yesterday. Has anyone asked him if he wants out? It’d be a shame to go to all this work to see the wizard when he really just wants to stay in the hole.”
“We’ll see you in a couple of days when you get back,” said Mrs. Bear gently.
Bear King hated to leave his throne and climb the mountain again.
The next day Bear King began wading to the wizard’s mountain. He climbed and climbed and climbed, until he was huffing and sweating. “I really should join a gym when I get back,” he thought to himself.
He knocked on the door. “Wizard? It’s me again, Bear King.”
The wizard answered the door. He had been playing solitaire at his kitchen table and sipping his Sleepy Time Bear Tea.
“Don’t you ever cast any spells?” asked Bear King.
“I only need to do one every five years to maintain my wizard’s license. No need to overdo it,” he explained.
“Do you know why I’ve come?”
“Of course,” answered the wizard.
“And?”
“I don’t think my services are necessary. You plugged the hole. Well done. Bear Village is saved.” The wizard moved a black queen onto a red king and flipped over another card.
“I know. I agree completely. But I can’t go back without a solution. People start to talk. Polar Bear is already spreading rumors that monarchies are bad, trying to advocate for a proper election. I need to do something.”
“Hm. What’s in it for me?”
“What do you want?”
The wizard thought for a moment. “I think I’d like to be king for a day. I’d like to sit on your throne and wear your crown.”
“My throne? My crown? Impossible!”
The wizard moved a black eight onto a red nine. “Enjoy the elections, then.”
Bear King touched his crown. He loved his crown. He thought of his throne. He loved his throne. Finally, he answered, “Okay, you can be king for a day.”
“Excellent!” cried the wizard, pulling out his day planner. “Does next Saturday work for you?”
“I suppose so,” said the king sadly.
“Great, see you then.”
“Wait, aren’t you coming to fix the dam?”
“Oh, that. Just use the rocks that are farther upstream, near the north shore. They’re larger and will stop the leak easily. Your bear workers were using the smaller ones near the south shore. Those will never work.”
“You won’t work a spell?”
“Too much trouble,” the wizard answered. “Besides, my tea would get cold. See you next Saturday.”
“Right, okay,” said the Bear King. He often wished he were a smarter bear and could think of these solutions himself.
When the king returned to Bear Village and shared the news, the workers began gathering the stones right away. In two hours, Bartleby Bremmington Bear was free. “Hurrah!” cheered the village.
His father ruffled the fur on his head. His mother gave him a big hug. His teacher brought him ice cream. All of his friends gathered around him to hear him tell his adventure. They thought he was very brave.
“I wish I was as small as you. Then I could have helped, too,” cried Grizzly Bear. He was the biggest bear in the class.
“Me too!” shouted all of his friends.
For the first time in his life, Bartley Bremmington Bear was proud to be such a very small bear.
And that is the story of how a very small bear filled a very small hole and saved Bear Village. After that day, everything was peaceful and easy in Bear Village forever and ever, until later that week, when the wizard came to be king for a day, but that is a very different story.
