Part 2

Neddie did not stop to think that the honey was not his. All he thought of was how good it would taste, and how much he wanted it. Nor did he stop to ask himself what that funny buzzing sound was, that seemed to come from inside the tree.

“Oh, you honey!” gaily cried Neddie, as he climbed higher.

Finally he got to the big black lump, and, surely enough, it was a pile of honeycomb, the little holes being all filled with the sweet, sticky stuff.

“Oh, this beats lollypops!” cried Neddie. “It is better even than automobiles.”

Neddie reached his paw into the middle of the black mass and scooped out a lot of honey. He put it in his mouth and began to chew on it. It was so good that he just had to shut his eyes.

“Oh, yum! yum!” cried Neddie.

Now, if he had had his eyes open Neddie might have seen a lot of bees flying out of the hollow honey tree. But he did not look. He was thinking too much of the sweet stuff. Out buzzed the bees, and they were very angry that some one had come to take their sweet stuff. And, small as they were, the bees were not afraid of Neddie, who was quite a large bear boy.

“Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!” went the bees. “Get away from our honey!” Then they flew at Neddie, and with their sharp stings they stung him on the end of his soft and tender nose, and on the bottom parts of his paws, where they had no fur, and on his ears; and some of the bees even snuggled down in his fur and stung him through that.

“Oh, wow!” cried Neddie, as he felt the needle-like stings. Then he opened his eyes quickly enough.

“Get away from our honey!” buzzed the bees, and Neddie was glad to slide down that tree more quickly than he had climbed up it. Oh! how his nose smarted, and his paws! He seemed on fire all over. He licked the honey off his paws, but it did not taste good any more.

“Oh, wow! Double wow!” howled poor Neddie, and then he started to run home as fast as he could. And on the way he met Uncle Wigwag, who soon knew what the matter was.

“Some cool, wet mud on your nose will stop the pain,” said the bear gentleman, and he took Neddie to a brook and made him a nice mud-plaster. Then Neddie felt better, but he said he would never go near a bees’ honey nest again.

“And did Uncle Wiggily give you the auto?” asked Neddie of Uncle Wigwag on their way home.

“He is still thinking about it,” said Uncle Wigwag. “Oh, but your nose is all swelled up like a football, Neddie.” And so it was. But in a few days it was all better.

And in the story after this, if the horse radish doesn’t run away with the spoon-holder and scare the knives and forks off the sideboard, I’ll tell you about Beckie and the grapes.

STORY IV BECKIE AND THE GRAPES

The nose of Neddie Stubtail, the little bear boy, was so badly swelled from the bee stings, after he took some of their honey, that he could not go to school next day, nor for some days after that. I told you in the story before this how Neddie got stung.

So Neddie’s mamma let him stay home from school, but even at that he could not have much fun, for he could not go out and play, and what is the good of staying home from school if you have to remain in the house all the while?

There were two reasons for Neddie’s staying in the cave-house, on the side of the green hill, and not going out. One reason was that most of the day all his boy animal friends were at their lessons in school.

The other reason was that when Neddie did go out with them, they all looked at his stung and swollen nose in such a funny way that it made him feel queer. He did not like it.

Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, would ask:

“What is the matter, Neddie? Did you bite yourself, or fall downstairs?”

And Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrel brothers, would say:

“Why, Neddie, did your Uncle Wigwag play a trick on you?”

Then Joie or Tommie Kat would want to know:

“Neddie, did you fall out of bed in your sleep, and bump your nose?”

“Neither one! Now you stop!” Neddie would exclaim, and then he’d go in the house. Oh, he was sorry in more ways than one that he had ever meddled with the bees’ nest, even if he did get some honey out of it.

But one afternoon, when Neddie had come in the house because the other animal boys plagued him so, Mrs. Stubtail, the bear mamma, whispered to Beckie, who was Neddie’s sister:

“Beckie, you know Neddie feels pretty badly, don’t you?”

“Yes, mamma, I do. His nose must pain him very much.”

“Indeed it does. Now I’d like to give him a little treat. Suppose you go to the store and get him some ice cream. That will cool off his nose and he will feel better.”

“Of course I’ll go, mamma!” exclaimed Beckie. So she put on her little red cloak and bonnet and off through the woods she went to where Jack Frost kept an ice cream store.

Beckie got a nice big box of ice cream for her brother, and on her way back through the woods the little bear girl saw some lovely bunches of wild grapes hanging on a vine. They were almost the last of the season and soon the grapes would be all gone, for the animals of the woods, and the birds of the air, would eat them.

“I’m going to pick some nice bunches, and take them home to Neddie,” thought Beckie kindly. “Maybe he’ll like them with his ice cream.”

So Beckie set down the box of frozen sweet stuff, and began pulling off some bunches of wild grapes with her long claws, which were to her just what your fingers are to you.

Well, in a little while, not so very long, Beckie heard some one coming up behind her, sort of slow and careful like, and she quickly turned around. For she knew there were bad animals in the wood, who would be glad to carry her off to their dens. Beckie was a very sweet, fat little bear.

But all Beckie saw, when she turned around was Mr. Fuzzytail, the fox gentleman.

“Ah, Ha!” exclaimed Mr. Fuzzytail. “Good afternoon, Beckie! I hope I see you well. Gathering grapes, I observe!”

“Yes,” answered Beckie, wondering why Mr. Fuzzytail was so polite to her. Usually he hardly spoke, always going past as if he were in a great hurry. And when she saw Mr. Fuzzytail smiling in such a sly way, Beckie knew the fox gentleman had some reason for his politeness.

“Beautiful day; isn’t it?” went on Mr. Fuzzytail, pretending to look at his paws, to see if there were any stickers on them.

“Yes,” said Beckie. “Would you like some grapes?”

Beckie thought she would be just as polite as that fox was, and maybe she could find out what he was after.

“For he is after something,” decided the little bear girl, “and it isn’t grapes, either.”

“Grapes? Why, yes, if you will be so kind and condescending as to stoop so low without bending, I would be thankful for a small bunch,” spoke Mr. Fuzzytail, very, very politely indeed.

“Oh, he’s surely up to some trick,” thought Beckie. “I must find out what it is. He’s as bad at tricks as our Uncle Wigwag.”

Beckie was not afraid of the fox. She was larger and stronger than he was, even if she was only a small bear girl. Of course, Kittie Kat, or Lulu or Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girls, would have feared Mr. Fuzzytail, but Beckie did not.

So she picked a nice bunch of grapes for him, and while he was slowly eating them, picking off the bad ones, Beckie looked all about. But she could see no danger. And, all the while, Mr. Fuzzytail kept talking to Beckie. He asked her all sorts of questions—how she was getting on at school, how her brother’s stung nose was, what her papa worked at, and whether Aunt Piffy’s epizootic was any better. Oh, that fox was a sly fellow!

And now I’ll tell you why he was so polite, and why he stayed there talking to Beckie, and why he ate his grapes so slowly.

Do you remember the bad bears who lived in the woods? Yes. Well, do you remember how once they tried to get Beckie into their caves, by tossing buns to her, so they could pull her hair?

Oh, you do. Very good! Well, these same bears, or rather, one of them, was after Beckie again. He was the largest and the worst of the bad bears, too.

He had seen Beckie start off to the store, and he made up his mind he’d get her. Only he knew that if he followed along she might hear him tramping over the sticks, for he was a very heavy bear. And he knew that if he started to run after Beckie he could not catch her, for she was light on her paws and swift to run.

So the bad bear planned a trick. He met Mr. Fuzzytail, the fox, and said to him:

“Now you creep along after Beckie. She won’t be afraid of you, and if you can keep her there by the grape vine for a while, by talking to her, it will give me a chance to sneak up behind the bushes and grab her before she knows what is happening. Will you do it?”

“I will,” said Mr. Fuzzytail, for he was afraid of the big bad bear. So that’s how it was the fox kept on talking to Beckie as she picked the grapes. He wanted to keep her attention so she would not notice the bear sneaking up on her.

Finally Beckie said:

“Well, I must be going now. Good-by, Mr. Fuzzytail.”

“Oh, good-by,” said the sly fox, and out of the corner of his eye he saw the bad bear behind the grape vine. The bear had sneaked up without Beckie hearing him, because she was so busy in being polite to the fox. “Good-by, Beckie,” went on Mr. Fuzzytail. And then to himself he said: “I guess you won’t go very far.”

Well, Beckie leaned over to pick up the box of ice cream that she had bought for Neddie and just then, with a loud roar, out from behind the grape vine sprang the bad bear:

“Ha! This is the time I have you!” he cried to Beckie.

Beckie jumped so that the box of ice cream slipped out of her paw and fell to the ground. The paper box hit a sharp stone, burst open and out ran the ice cream all over, for it had melted when Beckie stopped to pick the grapes.

“Wow!” cried the bad bear, as he made a jump for Beckie.

But he never reached her. Beckie leaped back just in time, and the bear came down with his paws in the puddle of the slippery ice cream.

“Bang!” he went. His feet slid out from under him, just as if he were coasting down hill backward, and he got so tangled up with himself that by the time he was untangled Beckie had run away and gotten safely home. Oh, how she ran! No bad bear could catch her.

The bad creature who had gone to all this trouble to catch Beckie got up out of the ice cream. He was a funny looking sight, all splattered up and plastered with dried leaves.

“This was all your fault!” he cried to the fox. “Be off before I bite you!” And the sly fox was glad enough to go.

So that’s how Beckie got away from the bear by means of the slippery ice cream. She told her mamma what had happened, and Mrs. Stubtail sent Uncle Wigwag to the store for more ice cream for Neddie. So the little bear, who was stung by the bees, had some, after all, and everybody was happy except the bad bear.

And in the following story, if the chocolate drop doesn’t fall out of the window and get all squashed flat on the postman’s umbrella, I’ll tell you about Neddie and the trained bear.

STORY V NEDDIE AND THE TRAINED BEAR

“Come on out and have some fun!” called Tommie Kat, the little kitten boy, to Neddie Stubtail, the little bear chap, one afternoon when all the animal children had come home from school. “Come on out, Neddie!”

Neddie had just entered the cave-house, where he lived with his mamma and papa and the rest of the bear folk. Neddie tossed his books into one corner, his hat into another and then he called out:

“Oh, I’m hungry, I want something to eat!”

“Never mind about eating,” said Tommie Kat, “come on have some fun.”

“No, I must eat!” cried Neddie, and he rushed out toward the kitchen.

Well, as it happened, just then Aunt Piffy, the fat lady bear who lived with Mrs. Stubtail, being her sister, in fact; Aunt Piffy, as it happened, just then, was coming in from the kitchen with a large plate of doughnuts she had just baked.

And, of course, Neddie, being in such a hurry, ran right into Aunt Piffy, doughnuts, plate and all, and then——

Oh dear! Such a time as there was!

Aunt Piffy suddenly sat down, and it is a mercy she didn’t sit on Neddie, for if she had there would have been quite a sad happening, as Aunt Piffy was very large and stout. And the plate fell from her paws, and broke into twelve pieces, or maybe thirteen, for all I know, and the doughnuts rolled all over the floor, one even bumping down the cellar stairs.

“Oh, dear! What happened?” gasped Aunt Piffy, and she could hardly breathe, she was so excited.

“I—I guess I happened,” said Neddie, looking all around at the scattered doughnuts. “But I—I didn’t mean to,” he added. “I’ll help pick up the cakes.”

“First, if you please, help me up,” said Aunt Piffy, puffing and blowing to get her breath.

“I’ll help you!” exclaimed Tommie Kat, for he had heard, from out on the porch of Neddie’s cave-house, the noise of the fall and had come in see what had caused it.

So Tommie and Neddie helped Aunt Piffy get up on her hind paws, and then Neddie began gathering up the spilled cakes.

“May I help at that, too?” asked Tommie, and Aunt Piffy answered:

“I should be glad to have you. And you may have a doughnut, Tommie.”

“How about me?” asked Neddie, thinking perhaps he did not deserve one for having been in such a hurry as to make his Aunt Piffy tumble down.

“Oh, well; yes, I guess you may have one also,” said the bear lady. By this time she had her breath again and soon Neddie and Tommie had picked up the doughnuts. They each kept one and ate them as they went out to play.

But they had not been out long before Mrs. Stubtail called to her little bear boy:

“Neddie, come right in here and pick up your things! You have scattered your books all over, and your school cap is on the floor.”

“Oh, ma, I don’t want to!” exclaimed Neddie; but his mamma made him, because it is not good for boys to be careless and scatter things all over the room.

Then Neddie could play, and he and Tommie had lots of fun. They frisked about in the woods, for it was cold and jumping about made them warm. Then Tommie said:

“Oh, let’s go over and see Uncle Wiggily, the rabbit gentleman.”

“All right, we will,” spoke Neddie. “And I’ll ask him if he has yet made up his mind about giving his old automobile to Uncle Wigwag.”

So the kitten boy and the little bear chap went over to the hollow stump where the old gentleman rabbit lived, but he was not at home, having gone for a ride with Grandfather Goosey Gander, the duck gentleman.

“Well, let’s take a walk in the woods and see if an adventure will happen to us,” suggested Tommie.

“All right,” agreed Neddie, and off they went. They had not gone far before they met Dickie Chip-Chip, the sparrow boy, flying through the air, and Dickie said:

“Oh, Tommie Kat, your mamma is looking all over for you. She wants you to go to the store.”

“Then I’d better go home,” said Tommie, and off he ran with his tail up in the air like a fishing pole. That left Neddie all alone, for Dickie Chip Chip could not stay to play with him.

“Never mind,” thought Neddie, “I’ll look for an adventure by myself.”

He went on and on, and pretty soon he came to a big hole in the ground. He was looking down in it, thinking perhaps some new bear might live there, when, all of a sudden, up from the hole was poked a long nose, and then Neddie saw a big mouth, filled with shining white teeth, and a voice cried:

“Ah, ha! Now I have you!” And the first thing Neddie knew the skillery-scalery alligator, with the humps on his tail, had grabbed him by the back of his neck.

“Oh, let me go! Let me go!” cried Neddie.

“No, I’ll not!” said the alligator, speaking in a thick voice, like cold potatoes, for you see he had hold of Neddie by his teeth, and he could not talk very well, that alligator couldn’t.

Neddie wiggled this way and that and tried to get loose. It did not hurt him very much, for there was thick fur on the back of his neck, and the alligator’s teeth did not go through. It was just like when the mamma cat carries her little kittens, you know, in her mouth by the backs of their necks. Only you must not carry the kittens that way unless papa or mamma shows you how, for you might choke them. And I know you wouldn’t do that for the world.

Anyhow, there the alligator had hold of Neddie by the loose skin at the back of the little boy bear’s neck, and the skillery-scalery creature was trying to drag Neddie down into the hole in the ground.

“Let me go! Let me go!” begged Neddie.

“Nope! Nope!” said the ’gator, pulling harder than ever.

Neddie braced with his claws in the dirt, but, in spite of this, he was being dragged along, for the alligator was bigger and stronger than the bear boy.

Neddie was almost down in the hole and he was wishing he had not gone off alone to look for an adventure, when right behind him, he heard a large bear growling. At first he hoped it was his papa or Uncle Wigwag, the joking bear, or even Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear gentleman, who had come to save him. But when he looked he saw it was a strange man-bear.

However, that strange man-bear was very kind to Neddie. Rushing up to the alligator, the big bear just tickled him on his thick and scaly hide with his sharp claws, and that ’gator was so tickled, and he had to laugh so hard, that he let Neddie go.

“Quick now!” cried the big bear, “jump out of the way, little bear boy!”

And you may be sure Neddie got out of the hole and the skillery-scalery alligator, still laughing at being tickled, went and hid in the woods and did not come out for a day and a half.

Then Neddie looked at the bear gentleman who had saved him. This bear was very nice and kind-looking, only he had an iron ring in his nose, and fastened to the ring was a long chain.

“What is that for?” asked Neddie, after he had gotten over being frightened.

“That is so I will not get lost,” said the other. “You see I am a tame bear, and do tricks, and my master has this ring in my nose, and leads me around by it so I will not go away. And he feeds me buns and popcorn. Oh, it’s nice to be a trained bear!”

“A trained bear, eh?” said Neddie. “Are you like a train of cars that I got for Christmas?”

“No, I am trained to do tricks,” said the tame bear. “See, I will show you,” and he stood on his head and turned a somersault, and then waltzed around in a circle. “Would you not like to learn to do those things?” he asked Neddie.

“Maybe,” said the little bear boy, who was not quite sure.

“Then come with me,” invited the tame bear.

But just then there was a rustling in the bushes and out came a real man with a long pole and a brass horn. And he took hold of the tame bear’s nose chain and looked at Neddie, the man did. And as Neddie had been taught to be always afraid of men, the bear boy ran home through the woods as fast as he could, and told all that had happened to him.

“It was a narrow escape for you,” said his papa. Then supper was ready and Neddie and Beckie, his sister, ate as much as was good for them, and not a bit more, I do assure you.

And in the next story, if the raisins in the rice pudding don’t all hop out and leave it as full of holes as a Swiss cheese sandwich, I’ll tell you about the little Stubtails running away.

STORY VI THE STUBTAILS RUN AWAY

“What are you thinking of, Neddie?” asked Beckie Stubtail, the little bear girl, one Saturday morning when there was no school and when she and her brother were out in front of the cave-house brushing up the dried leaves to make a bonfire.

“Oh, I’m not thinking of much,” said Neddie, with a look through the woods to see if he could see his Uncle Wigwag trying to play any tricks on him.

“Oh, but you must be thinking of something,” insisted Beckie. “For I have had to speak to you twice before you answered, and when mamma asked if you didn’t want to scrape out the frosting dish when she was making a cake, you said: ‘I would if I didn’t have to have a ring in my nose.’ What in the world did you mean, Neddie?”

“Hush!” exclaimed the little bear boy, looking all around. “Not so loud. Some one may hear you!”

“Well, what if they do?” asked Beckie in surprise. “I only said what you said about having a ring in your nose——”

“Hush, that’s it!” exclaimed Neddie. “You know——”

“I know you said the tame trained bear had one,” went on Beckie, “but what has that got to do with you!”

“Hush!” exclaimed Neddie, coming nearer and taking hold of Beckie’s paw, “that’s it, Beckie. How would you like to become a trained bear and do tricks, Beckie?”

“Like it? Why, I wouldn’t like it at all!” exclaimed the little bear girl. “I think it would be perfectly horrid to have a ring in your nose.”

“Well, maybe we wouldn’t have to,” went on her brother. “That’s what I’ve been thinking of.”

“Why, Neddie Stubtail!” exclaimed Beckie. “I’m going straight and tell mamma! The very idonical idea!”

“No, don’t do that!” cried Neddie, grabbing his sister by the paw before she could run into the cave-house. “Wait and I’ll tell you about it.”

“Oh, I know,” spoke Beckie, and tears came into her eyes. “You’re thinking of running away and becoming a trained bear! Oh, don’t do it!”

“Why not?” asked Neddie. “I think it would be fun. You know the day the skillery-scalery alligator had me by the neck, the good tame bear came along and tickled the ’gator so that he had to let me go.”

“Yes,” said Beckie. “I remember that, but I don’t see why——”

“Listen!” went on Neddie, just as the nice telephone girl says it, “listen and I’ll tell you all about it.”

So Beckie listened as hard as she could.

“The trained tame bear said he could do lots of tricks,” went on Neddie, “and he did some for me. And he also said the man gave him buns and popcorn and lots of good things to eat.”

“Oh, but papa has always taught us to be afraid of real men,” said Beckie.

“Yes, maybe real men, with guns and dogs. But this man only had a stick, like mamma’s clothes pole, and a brass trumpet. And as I ran away through the woods I could hear him blowing a lovely tune on it. I’m sure he was a good man.”

“Well, maybe,” admitted Beckie. “But are you going to run away and become a tame trained bear?”

“I’m thinking of it,” answered Neddie. “And maybe you would like to come, too. Just imagine—sweet buns every day—and popcorn balls, no lessons—and doing tricks, and having that man play on the brass horn for you——”

Now it wasn’t right of Neddie to do this, and try to make Beckie come away with him. It was bad enough for the little boy bear to think of going off by himself. But when he wanted his sister to come, too—well, it wasn’t right; that’s all. Neddie was older than Beckie and he should have known better. But that’s the way it is sometimes, even with boys in real life. Of course I don’t mean any of you, but there are some other children I could name if I wanted to. But I’m not going to.

Well, anyhow, Neddie talked of how nice it would be for him and Beckie to run away, and become trained bears, and do tricks, and have good things to eat and finally Beckie said:

“Well, I’ll run away for a little while with you.”

“Yes, we’ll just try it. If we don’t like it we can run back again,” spoke Neddie.

“Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, once ran away,” said Beckie, “and they were glad enough to run home again.”

“I know, but this is different,” said Neddie; “they went to join a circus. We’ll just go with a kind man. There will be all the difference in the world.”

“All right, we’ll try it,” said Beckie, and she sighed a little at the idea of leaving her mamma and papa and Uncle Wigwag, and Aunt Piffy and Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear gentleman, and her nice cave-house, and all that.

“Could I take any of my dolls with me?” asked Beckie, after a bit.

“Well, maybe one,” said Neddie, “though I never heard of anybody that ran away taking a doll. But maybe one won’t do any harm.”

“Then I’m going to take Maryann Puddingstick Clothespin, my very nicest doll,” said Beckie.