Please meet Newton, a Dean's Rag Book Teddy bear designed by Terry & Doris Michaud

Please meet Newton, a Dean's Rag Book Teddy bear designed by Terry and Doris Michaud based on a 1915 Teddy bear in their collection named "The Professor."   I think he was created in the late 1980's.  He is made of a very soft golden mohair and is very hard stuffed with excelsior.   He wears an oversized sweater and a gingham bow, and of course, a pair of spectacles.   He's a big guy, weighing well over a pound and 18 inches tall.

Newton was not always the brilliant Teddy bear he is today.    In fact, he was quite the late bloomer.   When just a young cub, he was more interested in chasing bees and tracking down honey than reading or solving a math problem.   In the spring, he loved to sleep in the middle of the meadow next to the apple trees and listen to the bees softly buzzing above his head as they headed toward the fragrant apple blossoms.   In the summertime, he sometimes would wander from his family's den in the middle of those hot nights and tip his head back and watch the stars in the sky.  In the fall, when the fruit trees were laden with apples, he would reach up and pluck one from a branch, munching happily away.   As Newton reached his teen-bear years, he knew he would have to figure out what to do with his life relatively soon.    After all, a Teddy can't just sit on a chair for the rest of his life and let the world go on  by without him, can he?  

It was just about this time when I first met Newton.  He was living in my friend's antique store, taking up space on a little child's chair.  It was early spring, and I was browsing the vintage children's books section.   He was wearing a very tatty sweater and a little checked bow tie.   He didn't have a price tag, so I just asked him if he wanted to come live with me.   I told him about all the different types of Teddy bears that occupied the bear room, that there were other English bears who were a bit older than him, and some German bears, a few Swiss and Austrian bears, and a selection of American bears, as well as some Artist bears, a few cats and dogs and rhinos and bunnies and sheep here and there, and lions and tigers, oh my.   But there was always room for one more bear.    Newton wasn't sure he wanted all that company.   He was a bit of a solitary bear.   He said he would think about it.    I understood, I said.   Sometimes you need time to consider your options.  

I stopped by that shop several times over the following months, casually looking through the books, hoping he would let me adopt him, but not wanting to push him too hard.   Finally, one beautiful autumn afternoon, I brought the shop owner an apple strudel I had baked that morning from apples I bought from the farm next door, coated with fresh honey.   I knew it would be nearly impossible for Newton to resist, and I was right!   He lifted his nose in the air and oh-so-quietly climbed down from his chair, came over and nudged me in the leg.   He said he didn't know I lived near an apple farm.   And there's a beehive set among the trees, too, I told him smiling.

He's not a solitary bear anymore.   He has loads of friends of all sorts.   They call him "The Professor" because of that old sloppy sweater he's attached to and because of all the books he likes to read now that he's a more mature bear.   He wears a pair of glasses now, just so he can see the stars better when he goes out to the meadow, leans back his head, and studies the stars in the sky.