One day Gertrude's friend Henrietta rushed up to her and asked, "Have you seen my son?"

"No, I haven't," Gertrude replied, "should we go look for him?"

"Yes," Henrietta said. So they searched the haymow, the barnyard, the chicken coop, and the chicken run, but they still could not find Henrietta's son.

"Where could he have gone?" Henrietta asked.

"Maybe he went into the woods to search for some acorns?" Gertrude replied. They decided to go into the woods to look for the lost chick.

"Lets go check out that the thicket over there," Gertrude said. They went over to the thicket and saw some yellow fluff.

"That might have come from my son," Henrietta said. They went deeper into the thicket. They saw many broken branches, as though some big, heavy animal had come that way.

"Look over there!" Gertrude exclaimed. To the left of Henrietta was a clump of black hair stuck on a thorn.

"Let's go that way," she said. They walked in the direction that the black hair pointed. Soon they came to a large hollow log.

"I wonder if anything lives in this log?" Henrietta questioned. As she said this, a roar came from inside the log.

Out came a big black bear that growled, "What do you want?"

"We are looking for my lost chick," Henrietta squeaked.

"I found a chick a few hours ago," snarled the black bear, "and I'm going to raise it until it's big enough to eat."

"Don't eat it!" Henrietta frantically begged, "Give it to me instead!"

"Okay," said the black bear. He then went inside his log and came out gently holding Henrietta's chick in his mouth. "Here's your chick," he grumbled. "Now go away!"

Henrietta and Gertrude quickly left, with Henrietta's chick following them. When they got back to the barnyard, Henrietta scolded her chick, "Never go into the woods without me again!"