Stuffed Bear Mystery by Gertrude Chandler Warner Page A

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?”

CHAPTER 10
A Surprise Prize
    The jamboree was so crowded, and the Aldens were so busy being bears, the last day arrived much too quickly.
    “I finally finished sewing up Mister B. for the Best Bears Contest,” Violet said when the children met outside the Town Hall.
    Benny was worried about something. “How can we eat at the Teddy Bears’ Picnic with our costumes on? The bear mouths are too small.”
    Henry laughed.