Part 3

“All right,” agreed her brother. “Now we must get ready. And, mind you, it’s a secret. No one must know anything about it.”

“Can’t I tell—tell mamma?” asked Beckie, tears coming in her eyes.

“No, not even mamma.”

“Then I’m not going!”

“Oh, that’s just like you girls!” cried Neddie. “We fellows get everything going nicely and you won’t play fair. You can leave a note for mamma, after we’re gone, telling that you’ve run away, if you like.”

“Then I’ll do it,” said Beckie.

“And you must pack up what clothes you’ll need,” went on Neddie. “Put ’em in a paper bag, and I’ll do the same. Then when it gets dark we’ll go out and run away to find the man with the brass horn.”

“And when will we get some sweet buns and popcorn?” asked Beckie, anxious-like.

“Oh, as soon as we find him,” said Neddie. “Now I’m going to get ready. Mind! Not a word to anybody.”

So the two bear children prepared to run away. Of course I’m not saying they did right—I guess you wouldn’t say so yourself, but I have to tell this story exactly as it happened, or it wouldn’t be fair. Of course I might make a mistake, but I’ll do as nearly right as I know how.

Neddie and Beckie packed up a few of their clothes in paper bags they found in the kitchen. Beckie also took some things for her doll, Maryann Puddingstick Clothespin. The doll herself the little bear girl wrapped in an old salt bag that had been washed clean.

“I wonder what those two children are up to anyhow?” asked Aunt Piffy, the fat bear lady as she helped Mrs. Stubtail do the washing.

“Oh, maybe they’re planning some trick to play on Uncle Wigwag, to pay him back for all the joking he has done,” said Mrs. Stubtail. “I guess they’re all right.”

But if she had only known what Neddie and Beckie were going to do. Oh dear! Isn’t it too bad mothers don’t always know? They could save so much trouble!

But there! I must tell about the story.

Beckie and Neddie had their supper, and they had hidden their bags of things out under the front porch. They were not very hungry. They were too excited; and then, too, they were thinking of what the bear man might give them. Perhaps they were also a little sad about leaving their nice home. But Neddie had made up his mind to run away.

Finally the bear children went off to bed. But they did not sleep, and when the house was all dark and still they quietly got up and went out the back door. Silently they went to where they had left their bundles and got them.

“Come on!” whispered Neddie. “At last we’re running away!”

“And—and—maybe we’ll be glad to—run back again!” whispered Beckie, and her voice choked.

“Oh, don’t be a cry-baby!” said Neddie. “Come on!”

“Oh, but it’s dark!” objected Beckie.

“The moon will soon be up,” said her brother.

On and on through the woods they went, and soon the moon did come up. Then it was lighter. On and on went the two bear children; when, all of a sudden, they heard a noise in the bushes.

“What’s that?” asked Beckie, sliding close up to her brother.

“I—I don’t know,” he whispered. And just then, through the woods, they heard a sound like this:

“Ta-ra! Ta-ra-ta! Ta-ra-ta! Ta-ra-ta! Toot! Toot!”

“Come on!” cried Neddie, joyfully. “There is the trained bear man. Now we are all right,” and holding tightly to Beckie’s paw he raced on through the woods toward the bugle sound.

And what happened next, and what Neddie and Beckie did when they found the trained bear and his master, I’ll tell you on the next page, when the story will be about Neddie and Beckie up a pole—that is I will if the letter-carrier doesn’t put a clothespin on our little doggie’s tail and mail him away off where he can’t go to the moving picture show in our cellar.

STORY VII NEDDIE AND BECKIE CLIMB A POLE

When Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the two little bear children, had run away from home, as I told you in the story before this one, and had come to the woods where they heard the horn blowing, they did not know just what to do.

“That,” said Beckie, as she held her doll, Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin, tightly in her arms, “that surely must be the kind man who has the trained bear with the ring in his nose. Now we are safe and we will get many good things to eat, Neddie.”

“We had better take a peep before we run out from behind this bush,” said Neddie, slow and careful like. “Perhaps it is some other man with a horn, trying to fool us.”

You know the bear children had met in the woods, one day, a nice, kind trained bear, and with him was a man called the Professor, who led the bear around by a rope, fast to a ring in the bear’s nose. And the trained bear did tricks, such as turning somersaults and standing on his head, while the man collected, in his hat, pennies that people tossed to him.

The trained bear invited Neddie to travel around with him, promising that he would have popcorn and other good things to eat, but at first Neddie was afraid of the man with the brass horn.

So he ran home; but the more Neddie thought of it the more he wanted to run away and become a traveling trained bear. So he got his sister Beckie to go with him, and away they ran in the evening, leaving their home and their papa and mamma; and Aunt Piffy, the fat bear lady, and Uncle Wigwag, and Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, and all their friends. Then they came to the woods and heard the brass trumpet blowing, as I have told you.

“Can you see anything?” asked Beckie, as she looked over her brother’s head, while he was peering through the holes in a bramble bush.

“Not yet,” answered Neddie. Just then there came another blast on the brass trumpet, and Neddie cried:

“Oh, yes! There he is!” And then Beckie saw the tame bear with the ring in his nose, instead of in an ear where some ladies wear theirs, and with the tame bear was the man with the long pole.

“Now, George,” the man was saying, “I guess we’ll go to sleep, and in the morning we’ll do some more tricks and get more pennies. Whoop-la! There’s your supper, George!”

“I guess it’s time for us to run out now,” said Neddie to his sister, when he heard the word supper.

“Yes,” said Beckie, “I guess it is.” You see it was really after supper time, and Beckie and Neddie had eaten theirs before they ran away from home. But running away makes you hungry, whether you’ve had supper or not, I suppose.

Out ran the two bear children, and Beckie especially was very glad they had found the tame bear, for it was getting real late, and, though the moon was shining brightly, still she wanted company.

“Hello, what’s this!” cried the man with the pole, as he saw Neddie and Beckie running toward him. “More bears! Are they going to bite me?”

“Oh, no!” quickly answered the trained bear, “I know who they are. One of them is a friend of mine whom I met in the woods the other day. I invited him to come with me, and I see he has brought his sister. Perhaps you would like to train them to do tricks.”

“Ha! I think I would,” said the man. “They might do tricks very nicely with you. I’ll have a regular bear family,” and he pulled some pieces of dried bread out of a bag on his arm, and, taking some himself, he gave the rest to the trained bear.

“If you please,” said Neddie, making a polite bow, so low that his little tail almost pointed to the sky. “If you please, did we hear you mention supper?”

“You did,” answered the man. “It is supper time for me and George—rather late, it is true, but still supper time. My bear’s name is George,” he added. “Eat your supper, George.”

“I am eating it,” said the trained bear, speaking in his own language, which the man understood, and spoke also. Not many men can speak bear language, but this one could because his head was all bare. He was a bald-headed man, and they can mostly always speak a bear language.

“But what about something to eat for us?” asked Beckie.

“Yes,” added Neddie, “we’re hungry, and you know, George,” he said, speaking to the trained bear, “you said something about popcorn and cake and lollypops—”

“I know I did,” answered the trained bear, sort of confused like and puzzled, as he ate his dried bread. “But I didn’t mean I had popcorn every day.”

“I should say not!” exclaimed the man, whose name was Professor. “The idea! I’d soon be in the poorhouse if I gave George popcorn every day. That’s only for Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or the like. But you are welcome to some dried bread.”

Then he gave Neddie and Beckie some bread from the bag, and the two bear children had to take it. They did not like it very much, but it was the best they could get, and they were hungry.

“Running away isn’t as nice as staying home,” whispered Beckie to her brother, after she had put her doll to sleep under some dried leaves.

“Oh, well, it will be nice to-morrow,” spoke Neddie. “And, anyhow, it will be Thanksgiving in a couple of days, and then we’ll have plenty of good things to eat.”

“I wonder where we will sleep?” went on Beckie. “I don’t see any nice cave-house, such as we have at home.”

“I should say not!” cried Neddie. “You don’t live in a house after you’ve run away. The idea! We’ll live out of doors, and we won’t have to wash our faces and paws when we don’t want to.”

“I never mind doing that, anyhow,” said Beckie, who was a very clean little bear.

Well, Neddie and Beckie finished their dried bread, and they wished they had some buns, or maybe even some ice cream, for all I know, and then the man said:

“Well, it is not so very late, and there is a nice moon, so I think I will see if you little new bears can do any tricks. Come now, climb that pole!” and he pointed to a telegraph pole growing in the woods.

“Oh, we can’t climb that,” said Neddie, quickly.

“Why not?” asked the man with the bald head. “You must climb it if you are to be trick-trained bears.”

“Why, the pole is too smooth and slippery,” said Beckie. “It has no branches sticking out to take hold of, as a tree has.”

“Pooh! That’s nothing. George can climb the pole,” said his master. “Show ’em how, George.”

“All right, Professor,” said George, free and easy like, and up the pole he went, like a jumping-jack on a string.

Then Neddie tried it, but he slipped back, and so did Beckie. They had not yet learned how to stick their claws in the smooth telegraph pole, and hold on.

“I’m afraid you’ll never be trick bears,” said the Professor. “I must teach you to climb a pole. We’ll try it again to-morrow.”

But Neddie and Beckie did not wait until next day. All of a sudden, out from under a bush, came the biggest skillery-scalery alligator the bear children had ever seen. Right for Beckie and Neddie the ’gator came, and Neddie cried:

“Come on, Beckie! Up the pole we go and then he can’t get us!”

“Let me go first! Let me go first!” cried Beckie, and Neddie did, most politely. And, before they knew it, those two bear children had climbed the smooth telegraph pole they never thought they could scale, and the ’gator could not get them.

What do you think of that?

Then George and the Professor drove the bad alligator away, not being the least bit afraid of him or his tail either, for that matter, and the man called:

“You may come down now, Beckie and Neddie. At last you have learned to climb a pole, though it did take the alligator to make you. You will never forget it. Come down, and go to sleep, and in the morning we will travel on.”

So Beckie and Neddie came down the pole, and curled up in the soft warm leaves to sleep, glad enough that they had on thick fur coats, for the weather was very cold. And soon they were safe in by-low land.

And now, if the church steeple doesn’t reach up and tickle the clouds so that they giggle and let a lot of rain fall on my umbrella, I’ll tell you next about Neddie doing a trick.

STORY VIII NEDDIE DOES A TRICK

Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the little children bears, did not sleep very well the first night they ran away from home to become trained animals. There were several reasons for this.

In the first place they had to sleep out of doors, and not in their own nice cave-house. And then, too, their papa and mamma were not with them.

“It—it’s lonesome,” whispered Beckie, waking up in the dark and putting out her paw to touch her brother. “Oh, Neddie, I wish I’d stayed home!”

“Hush! Go to sleep!” advised Neddie, kindly. “You’ll wake up George, the trained bear, and the Professor man if you talk.”

“Are they asleep?” whispered Beckie, feeling down in the leaves to see if her doll, Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin, was all right.

“Sure they’re asleep,” answered Neddie. “Hear ’em snore?”

And, truly enough, you could hear that bear George snore as real as anything, honestly you could. What? You didn’t know bears snored? Well, did you ever sleep near one? I guess not! So, you see, you can’t tell. But I can.

“And it will soon be morning,” went on Neddie, “and then, maybe, we’ll travel on and on, and not have any lessons to do, and we may get buns and popcorn.”

“Yes, the trained bear did mention about buns,” said Beckie, and then, thinking of sweet buns and crackers she did manage to go to sleep.

But, oh! she did miss her mamma, and Aunt Piffy, the old bear lady, who was so fat. And more than once Neddie wished he might wake up and see Uncle Wigwag, even if the old bear gentleman did play a trick on him. And as for Mr. Whitewash, the Polar bear, Neddie would have given a whole penny to see him again for even a second.

Still, he had run away of his own free will, Neddie had, and he must make the best of it.

“Besides, I like it!” he said to himself. “I’m going to learn to be a trained bear, and, when Beckie and I get a lot of money we’ll go back home and make mamma and papa rich.”

Neddie thought it would be very easy to do this. In fact, he was a very kind little bear and had not meant to do wrong when he asked Beckie to run away with him.

But now let us see what happened.

Morning came at last. The sun rose from behind the hills, where it had slept all night, and made a bright light through the trees, from which all the leaves now had fallen.

“Well, children, did you sleep well?” asked George, the trained bear, as he wet his big paws in a spring of water and washed his face.

“Pretty well, thank you,” answered Neddie, politely.

“Do you think we will get some buns and popcorn to-day, George?” asked Beckie, anxiously.

“We might,” said the trained bear. “I’m sorry I made you think we trained bears had that sort of food every day. But if we don’t get it to-day I’m sure we will on Thursday, which will be Thanksgiving. And, anyhow, to-day we’ll travel on, and you’ll see me do my tricks, and you’ll hear the Professor blow his bugle and sing, and you’ll see the people standing around to look at me and wonder. And, who knows? perhaps you may do some tricks yourselves.”

“We can climb a telegraph pole, anyhow,” said Beckie, a bit proudly. “Even if it did take an alligator to scare us into doing it.”

“Well, we’ll have breakfast and travel on,” said the Professor, after a bit. Then he reached in the bag again and pulled out some more dried bread.

“Only that!” whispered Neddie, and he thought of what a nice meal the folks at home were having—huckleberry pancakes, maybe, with maple sugar on, and hot buns and milk sweetened with honey.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Beckie, but she was a brave little bear girl and made up her mind not to find fault, especially after having run away when she didn’t really have to. So Beckie washed the face of her rubber doll, Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin, and made believe give her some breakfast.

Then Beckie and Neddie ate their dried bread, and so did George, the trained bear, and the Professor ate some too. Then the Professor played a lively tune on his bugle:

“Ta-ra! Ta-ra-ta! Ta-ra-ta! Ta-ra-ta! Ta! Ta!” he blew.

It was quite nice and jolly and made all the bears feel better.

“Here we go!” cried the Professor. “Forward—march! Here we go!”

He tossed the long pole to George, who shouldered it just like a gun, and marched on with his head high in the air, while Beckie and Neddie laughed at him, he was so funny.

“Oh, I guess we’ll like this after all,” said Neddie.

“Maybe,” spoke Beckie, as she hugged her rubber doll.

But every one was very sad back in the cave-house where the Stubtail children lived. As soon as morning had come Aunt Piffy, going in to call Neddie and Beckie, saw that they were not in their beds.

“They’re gone!” cried the nice, fat old lady bear.

“They’re up to some trick,” said Uncle Wigwag, who, always playing tricks himself, thought that other bears would do the same thing.

“We must find them,” said Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear.

But although they looked all over they could not find Neddie and Beckie, of course, for the children were with the Professor and the trained bear, far, far away. You knew that, didn’t you?

Oh! how badly papa and mamma Stubtail felt, and they called a nice dog policeman to help find Neddie and Beckie. But I’ll tell you about that part later. This story is about Neddie’s trick.

After breakfast, as I said, the Professor, George, the trained bear, and Neddie and Beckie went on and on through the woods.

“Soon we will come to a village,” said the Professor. “There George will do some of his tricks, and you little bears can climb a telegraph pole, or maybe the church steeple. Then the people will laugh and clap their hands and give us things to eat.”

“Buns and popcorn balls?” asked Beckie, anxiously.

“Yes, I think so,” said the Professor.

Soon they did come to a village, and the Professor blew some sweet notes on his bugle. At once a lot of children came running out to watch the bears, and when they saw Neddie and Beckie the children said:

“Oh, aren’t they cute!”

One little girl even touched Beckie’s fur, and Beckie liked to feel the tiny hand. Beckie and Neddie were getting so they were not afraid of real folks. Then George, the trained bear, did some of his tricks, turning somersaults, playing soldier and the like.

“Now you little bears will do a trick,” said the Professor. “Come, Neddie, climb a pole!” And he blew on the bugle.

Neddie looked for a pole to climb, but just then he saw a fat woman, almost as fat as Aunt Piffy, coming down the street. The fat woman had a basket of eggs on her arm, and the eggs were very heavy.

“Oh, I must help her!” said Neddie, politely, for his mamma had always taught him to be polite to ladies, whether they were fat or not.

So Neddie waltzed over to take the basket of eggs so that he might help the woman. She saw the bear coming and, not knowing Neddie was kind and tame and trained, she screamed and ran. Neddie ran after her, and just as he put his paw on the handle of the basket of eggs he slipped on a banana peeling, and so did the fat lady. Down they both went, ker-thump, and the basket of eggs fell also—and——

Well, you can imagine what happened! Neddie and the fat woman were just covered with the whites and yellows of eggs—all stuck up like—and everybody laughed like anything. Really they could not help it.

“Oh, what a fine trick!” cried the boys and girls, clapping their hands.

“Yes, but it is too expensive a trick to do every day,” said the Professor. “I shall have to pay for those eggs, I guess.” And the fat woman made him pay almost a dollar, and nobody gave Neddie or Beckie any buns, or popcorn balls, either.

“Well, we’ll travel on,” said the Professor. “We may get some ice cream in the next place.” So on they went after Neddie had washed off the sticky eggs from his fur in a brook of water.

And next, if the rubber plant doesn’t stretch itself out and take all the lumps of sugar from the salt cellar, I’ll tell you about the Stubtails’ Thanksgiving.

STORY IX THE STUBTAILS’ THANKSGIVING

“Mamma! Mamma!” called little Beckie Stubtail, the bear girl, as she awoke in the morning. “Oh, mamma, is breakfast ready?”

“Hush!” exclaimed Neddie, the little boy bear, as he reached over with his paw and patted his sister Beckie. “Mamma isn’t here, Beckie.”

“Oh, that’s so; she isn’t,” and Beckie sat up in her bed of leaves under a tree out in the open air. Neddie was sleeping next to her, and on the other side was George, the tame trained bear, and Professor, the man who made George do tricks, and who blew tunes on a brass horn.

“Oh, dear!” cried Beckie. “I thought, for a minute, just for a minute, Neddie, you know, that we were back home again with mamma, and papa and Aunt Piffy and Uncle Wigwag and Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, and all our friends. But we’re not; are we?”

“No,” answered Neddie, stretching out in the dried leaves, so that they rustled like corn husks. “We’re not home, Beckie. We ran away, you know, to become trained bears, and earn money the way Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, did when they joined the circus.”

“Only they didn’t,” said Beckie, looking to see if her rubber doll, Maryann Puddingstick Clothespin, was still asleep.

“They didn’t what?” asked Neddie.

“They didn’t earn any money. And maybe we won’t.”

“Oh, yes, we will,” said Neddie. “You see we know how to do the trick of climbing the telegraph pole, and I can take a basket of eggs, and fall down, and break almost every one.”

“Yes,” laughed Beckie, “but that’s a trick the Professor doesn’t want you to do. Eggs cost too much!” and she laughed again, as she thought of the fat lady whose basket of eggs Neddie had tried to carry, when he slipped on a banana skin and went down ker-thump! as I told you in another story.

“Well, anyhow, we’ll learn some real tricks, and soon we’ll get money,” spoke Neddie. He and his sister, you know, had run away from their house in the nice cave to join George, the tame bear, with a ring in his nose, and the Professor who made George do tricks.

“I wonder what we’ll have for breakfast to-day?” asked Beckie, as she saw George, the big bear, stretching himself.

“I hope it’s something good,” spoke Neddie, as he saw the Professor getting up. “I’m tired of dried bread; and that’s all we’ve had so far.”

“Yes; we haven’t had any of the nice buns and the popcorn balls that George told us about that day he met us in the woods,” went on Beckie.

“Come to breakfast, Beckie and Neddie,” called the Professor, for he could speak and understand bear language. And he took some dried bread out of his bag.

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Beckie.

“Dear, oh!” cried Neddie.

“Never mind,” said the Professor, “to-morrow will be Thanksgiving and I’m sure something will happen between now and then so that we shall all have a fine dinner. We will start off soon, and see if we can find our fortunes as Uncle Wiggily, the rabbit gentleman, did his. Come on!”

So the little bear children, and George, the trained bear, and the Professor ate their breakfast of dried bread, and drank some water from a spring. And then they traveled on again.

Sometimes they would come to a little village, or town, and there the Professor would blow his brass horn. All the boys and girls, and some of the older people, would gather about in a circle. Then George, the big bear, would do his tricks, marching like a soldier, turning somersaults, waltzing, climbing a tree or making believe wrestle with the Professor.

“And the little bears can do tricks, too,” said the Professor to the people. “Come, Beckie—Neddie, climb a pole for the audience!”

Then the little Stubtail bears would stick their claws into a smooth telegraph pole, and up they would go to the very tip-top.

Then you should have heard the children laugh and shout, and clap their hands. The big people would put pennies in the hat of the Professor, and some of the children would run in their houses and get slices of bread, or maybe an apple or something else good to eat to give to the bears. For George, the big fellow, as well as Beckie and Neddie were kind, gentle and tame bears, you know. They would hurt no one.