"Halstead sees lots of bears," said Theodora, laughing. "I suppose there are a few about, yet," she added. "They come down out of the Great Woods once in awhile. But Gramp says there is no danger in our going out in the pastures and the woods around the farm, except perhaps a little while in the spring, when they first come out of their winter dens and are very gaunt and hungry." "Gram doesn't like to have us go off into the woods," said Wealthy. "I have been all over the pasture and through all these woods here, and those on the west side of the farm; and once, last November, I went up to Mud Pond in the Great Woods, with Ad, after beaver-lily root, and I never saw any bears," said Theodora. "Nor I either," said Ellen. "But Gram never likes to have us go off far." "Where is the 'Great Woods'?" I asked. "Oh, away off to the north and the west of the farms," replied Theodora. "Most anything may come out of the Great Woods! It's a realm of mystery. It extends off to the White Mountains and to the Lakes and toward Canada. There are deer and moose in it, and 'lucivees.'" "What are they?" I asked. "It's a kind of big woods cat," Ellen said. "Some hunters brought out three which they had shot, last winter; they were as large as dogs and had pretty little black tufts on their ears, and such great, round, silvery eyes and such paws, too, with toe-nails an inch long!" "Addison thinks that there are valuable minerals up in the Great Woods," Theodora remarked; "silver and amethysts and tourmalines. The day he and I and Kate Edwards went after the beaver-lily root, we climbed part way up a high mountain and on the side of it Ad found rock crystals. Oh, such beautiful ones! as large as a pear. He says he is going to explore all those mountains, by and by." "Are there mountains in the Great Woods?" I inquired. "Yes, and ponds and brooks full of trout and I don't know what else. I would like to explore it myself. Addison said that some time, when the work is well along, we can get up a party and go up there, to explore and fish and camp out a week. Wouldn't that be fun?" "But it isn't often that the work is well along," remarked Ellen. "There is always lots to do here." "Well, now we must go down to the 'Little Sea,'" said Theodora; and we descended through the pasture, a large tract of grazing land, partly bushy, overgrown in many places by high, rank brakes, and at length came to a brook, running over a sandy bed. Here at a bend was an artificial pond, formed by a dam, built of stones laid up in a broad wall across the course of the brook. In one place the wall was six or seven feet in height; and through a little sluice-way of planks, the water ran in a slender stream over the dam and fell into a pool below it. The pond was perhaps a hundred feet in length by forty or fifty in width; a part of the bottom was sandy and in one place it was over a boy's head in depth.