The bear sat in a box on a shelf in an upscale department store. He was a very handsome bear, with soft cinnamon fur and shiny black eyes. He was picked up by a young couple and put into a shopping cart along with a rubber ducky, a baby bottle, and a box of diapers. The couple paid for their purchases and when home, the bear tucked away in a plastic bag.

They took the bear out if his box and put him an a crib with a tiny baby girl. The bear was twice the size of the infant, and she snuggled up to him like a real bear cub with her mother. She also drooled on the bear's cinnamon fur, but the bear, being a toy made for such things, didn't take any harm from it.

As time passed, the girl grew older and before long, she had moved out of the crib, and could put her arms all the way around the bear. She was a well-behaved child and didn't treat the bear as harshly as many young children do, but she slept every night with him cuddled in her arms. Later, when she grew old enough to do things on her own, she tied a velvet ribbon around his neck and called him "her handsome prince." She spent the days playing endless imaginative games, but being a careful child, the bear was not worn to pieces the way such bears so often are.

But time continued to pass, as it has a habit of doing, and the girl was soon at that stage where bears are considered too childish. She put the bear away in a top shelf of her closet, and there it stayed.

A great deal of time passed, and one day the girl moved out of the house and went off to college. She left the bear behind. Her mother, cleaning out the now empty room found the bear, a trifle dusty, sitting in the closet shelf. When she called her daughter to see if she wanted the bear sent to her at school, the girl told her that she didn't need bear anymore, and her mother could throw him away for all she cared.

The mother was a kind woman, and she hated the thought of throwing the bear away when some other child might get so much use out of it. So, the next time she was passing by the second hand store, she dropped the bear into the donation box.

Arriving at her apartment, she put away her other purchases and then sat the bear on the bed. She straightened the ribbon around his neck and smoothed his cinnamon fur. He gave the room just the right touch. That night, when she went to bed, she placed the bear on a chair near the bed and then, after saying her nightly prayers, crawled under the covers. For a long time she lay there, struggling with insomnia. The dorm sounded strange, full of silence. There was no familiar snore from her father across the hall, no faint sound of the radio from her brother who always slept to music, no scratch of the cat asking to be let in or out. It was just too quiet. She tossed and turned, to no avail. Finally, she sat up. A street light nearby illuminated the room dimly. She could see the bear sitting on the chair next to the bed, looking serene. He didn't seem to be having any troubles. She sighed and gazed out the window. The night was just too alone here, away from home. Then, she looked at the bear again. Perhaps not being quite so alone would help. She picked him up and lay back down. Only minuets later, she was sound asleep, the cinnamon bear cradled in her arms.