Part 5

“Hush! Yes, she’s asleep,” said the little bear girl. “Come on, we’ll go over near where the elephants are eating their peanuts and I’ll tell you all about it. Will you kindly watch over Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin?” asked Beckie of the big hippopotamus.

“I will,” answered the river-horse, yawning until it looked as if some one had opened a big red flannel bag, so large was the hippo’s mouth.

“Now for my trick,” said Beckie when she and her little brother were over on the side of the circus barn where the elephants lived. “I was thinking, Neddie, that if we could get a long plank, or board, we could put it over the back of one of the big elephants. Then you could get on one end of the board and I’d get on the other, and we would see-saw and teeter-tauter up and down, and the people who watched us would like the trick very much.”

“Yes, I think that would be fine!” cried Neddie. “Why, that isn’t a girl’s trick at all! It’s good enough for any of the boys! We’ll do it, and maybe we’ll get a lot of sweet buns and some lollypops, too! Why, that’s as good a trick as some that George does!”

And George was a pretty good trick bear, too, let me tell you. When the Professor blew on his brass horn, Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta-ra! George would somersault, or peppersault, and march like a soldier and do all things like that.

Well, Neddie and Beckie found a long teetery-tautery plank in the barn, and then they asked the kind old elephant, who had once helped Neddie, if he would let them put it on his back for a see-saw.

“Why, to be sure I will,” kindly said the elephant, and with his long rubbery, stretchy trunk he put the plank on his own back, for it was quite too heavy for Neddie and Beckie to lift so high.

“But I wonder how we are to get up on the plank now?” asked the little girl bear.

“You can climb up my neck, if you don’t scratch me too much,” said the spotted giraffe, who was as tall as a stepladder. So Neddie climbed up the neck of one giraffe, on one side of the elephant, and Beckie climbed up another giraffe on the other side, the bear children taking care not to scratch the tall, spotted creatures. Then the little bear cubs got on the plank over the elephant’s back both at the same time, balancing themselves nicely, and then they began to teeter-tauter! Up and down they went, while Beckie sang this song.

“Teeter-tauter Bread and water. Up and down we go. Sometimes I am very high Then again I’m low.”

Well, the bear cubs were having a fine time, when along came the circus man and the Professor, who owned George, the trained bear. The two men, who could speak and understand bear, and all other animal languages, watched Neddie and Beckie doing the teeter-tauter trick Beckie had thought up all by herself.

“That’s pretty good,” said the circus man, speaking bear talk, and nodding toward the two little bears.

“Yes, indeed,” said the Professor. Then the two of them talked for some time in their own language, which Beckie and Neddie could not understand very well.

Beckie and Neddie felt very proud that the circus man and the Professor should like their trick. But a little later, when the poll-parrot came over to them, and told them something, they did not feel so happy. The poll-parrot said:

“Oh, you don’t know what I heard! I heard those two men talking about you two little bears. I can understand man talk, and talk it myself, you see.”

“What did they say?” asked Neddie, sliding down off the teeter-tauter. That let Beckie come down suddenly with a bump, but she fell on a pile of soft shavings, so she did not get hurt in the least.

“What did they say?” asked the parrot. “Why I heard them say that they were going to dress you two bears up like clowns, and make you go down South where it’s warm weather even if it’s winter up here. Down there the Professor is going to take you and George and an elephant, and make you do that see-saw trick. Oh, you’re going to be taken away from here!”

Beckie and Neddie looked at each other. They had never thought such a thing would happen when they did their little trick.

“Oh, dear!” cried Beckie as she thought of going farther and farther away from her home and her mamma. “I wish we’d never run away, Neddie!”

“So do I!” exclaimed Neddie. “But I’ll not let them send us down South! Listen, Beckie, we must run away again, only this time we’ll run back home!”

“Oh, goodie!” cried Beckie, clapping her paws.

“Come on—right away!” said Neddie. “We’ll go before the Professor and the circus man see us!”

So the two little bear children slipped out of the back door of the barn. They wished they could kiss George, the big, kind bear, good-by, but it was impossible—which means you can’t do it.

Oh! how fast Neddie and Beckie ran. Over the fields and through the woods they went, until the circus barn was left far, far behind. And finally, just as night was coming on, the two little children bears reached the cave in the side of the hill where they lived, and they were safe home again, and oh! how glad their papa and mamma and Aunt Piffy, the fat bear lady, were to see them. And of course Mr. Whitewash, the Polar bear, and Uncle Wigwag, the trick-playing bear, were glad also. And oh! such a good supper as Neddie and Beckie had.

“We’re never going to run away again!” they said.

So that’s all to this story, but in the next one, if the dog barking at the moon in our backyard doesn’t take off his collar and tie it on my pussy cat’s neck, I’ll tell you about Neddie Stubtail and little Wuzzy Fuzzytail.

STORY XIII NEDDIE AND WUZZY FUZZYTAIL

“Come, children, it’s time to get up!” called Mrs. Stubtail, the bear lady, as she stood at the foot of the stairs in the cave-house, on the side of the green hill, one morning. “Come, Neddie! Come, Beckie!”

Up out of their beds in the soft, brown autumn leaves jumped Neddie and Beckie.

“Oh, is that the Professor man, going to make us do our trick of see-sawing on the elephant’s back?” cried Beckie, rubbing her eyes.

“Or maybe it’s George, the tame bear, calling us,” said Neddie. Then he and his sister looked at each other, and they both laughed.

“Why, we’re in our own home!” exclaimed Beckie, looking around.

“So we are! And not in the circus barn at all!” added Neddie, as he noticed his own room in the cave. Then he and his sister laughed again, jumped into their little bear suits, and slid down the stair rail to breakfast.

“Well, isn’t it good to be home again?” asked Mrs. Stubtail, as she put some more corn griddle cakes on the stove to cook.

“Indeed, it is!” said Beckie.

“And I guess you didn’t get any nice sweet maple syrup honey like this when you ran away from home, to go with the Professor man, and George, the trick bear; did you?” asked Aunt Piffy, the fat old lady bear.

“Indeed, we didn’t!” exclaimed Beckie, as she took another cake. “And when you called us to breakfast just now, mamma, we thought we were back in the barn again, with all the circus animals.”

“Well, what are we going to do to-day?” asked Neddie, as he pushed back his chair. And, just as he did it, Uncle Wigwag, the old gentleman bear, who was always playing tricks on the animal children, tipped Neddie over backward.

“Oh, my!” cried the bear boy.

“Don’t be frightened!” called Uncle Wigwag with a laugh. “I’m not going to let you fall!” And with that he caught Neddie, chair and all, up in his big paws and gave him a bear hug; he was so glad to see his little nephew back home again.

“Well, I know what I’m going to do,” said Beckie, “I’m going to give my doll, Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin, a nice bath, and put a clean dress on her.” For, you see, the rubber doll had got rather mussed up traveling around through the woods.

“I know what you are both going to do,” said Mrs. Stubtail, with a smile. “You are both going to school. You have missed enough lessons as it is, running off the way you did.

“I’ll not punish you, although you did give us a bad fright, but you really must go back to school.”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Neddie, scratching his nose with his claws.

“That’s what I say!” spoke Beckie. You see, she and Neddie had been out of school nearly a week now, and it was rather hard to go back again.

But they were pretty good little bear children—not too goody-goody, you know, but good enough—and so they went to school.

And something happened soon after they reached their classes. Neddie talked in school. You see, the way it was, Joie Kat leaned over and asked him:

“Where have you been all this while?”

And Neddie answered back:

“Oh, in a circus. I’ll tell you all about it at recess.”

The teacher heard them whispering, and kept both the little bear boy and the kitten chap in after school. Joie Kat got out first, because he finished his punish-lesson sooner than Neddie.

And when Neddie Stubtail finally got out of school there was none of the other animal boys to be seen. Every one, from Sammie Littletail, the rabbit, to Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, had all run off to play.

“Well,” said Neddie, “I guess I’ll have to go home alone. Never mind, maybe I’ll have an adventure.” An adventure, you know, is something that happens; like when you drop your candy-penny down a crack in the boardwalk.

Well, Neddie was walking along through the woods, and wishing he could find a lollypop, or maybe some honey cakes, when, all of a sudden, he heard a little crying voice down under a pile of leaves. And it was such a sad, baby sort of crying voice that Neddie was not at all frightened. He just looked around to see who it was, thinking perhaps it might be Jillie Longtail, the little mousie girl.

But instead he saw a big tail sticking out from under the leaves, and when Neddie had poked them away with his paw there he saw only Wuzzy Fuzzytail, the tiny little fox boy.

“Oh, hello, Wuzzy!” cried Neddie. “What are you doing here?”

“I—I’m lost!” sobbed Wuzzy Fuzzytail. “I’m lost and I don’t know where my home is—boo-hoo!”

“Oh, never mind! Don’t cry!” said Neddie. “I’ll take you home. Why did you hide under the leaves?”

“Well,” said Wuzzy, “when I heard you coming along through the woods, I didn’t know who it was. I thought maybe it was a bad bear, so I hid under the leaves. Boo-hoo!”

“Don’t cry!” said Neddie again. “I’ll take care of you.”

“Oh, boo-hoo!” still sobbed Wuzzy.

“Don’t say boo-hoo!” spoke Neddie. “Just say it backward for a change—say ‘Hoo-boo!’ Maybe that will make you stop crying.”

“Hoo-boo!” said Wuzzy Fuzzytail, the little fox boy, and, surely enough, when he said that he stopped crying at once.

Then Neddie took the paw of the little fox boy in his own big one, and away they went through the woods together toward the hollow log where Wuzzy lived with his papa and mamma.

“I’m awful glad you found me, Neddie,” said Wuzzy Fuzzytail to the bear boy. “I wish I could do you a favor for being so kind to me.”

“Oh, that’s all right!” said Neddie, sort of careless-like. “Maybe you can, some day.”

Well, they were going along through the woods, when, all of a sudden, they saw right in front of them the bad old skillery-scalery alligator.

“Ah, ha!” cried the unpleasant creature with the hump nose, “at last I have you, Neddie Stubtail! And a little fox, too. Better and better! Well, I’ll take the bear first and the fox boy afterward,” and with that he grabbed Neddie.

“Oh, dear!” cried the bear boy. “Now I am caught. This comes of being kept in after school.”

He tried to get away from the alligator, but could not, and he felt very sad. Poor little Wuzzy did not know what to do, so he just stood there shivering and wondering who would take him home in case the alligator carried Neddie away.

But foxes are very smart, even when they are small, and Wuzzy was a bright little chap. So, when he saw the alligator taking Neddie away, Wuzzy said to himself:

“I wonder if I can’t help him? He helped me, so it is only fair that I should help him. What can I do?”

He thought a minute and then he said:

“Ah, ha! I have it. I’ll bite the alligator’s tail. He will be so surprised that he will give a jump, and then maybe Neddie can get away.”

So, going softly up behind the alligator, who did not see him, Wuzzy nipped the alligator on the little end of his tail. And Wuzzy Fuzzytail had very sharp teeth, let me tell you, as all foxes have. He gave the ’gator a good, hard nip.

“Ouch! Wow! Horsecars and mustard seed!” cried the alligator, and he jumped around so suddenly, to see who was biting him, that he let go of Neddie.

“Now’s your chance, Neddie! Run!” cried Wuzzy. And how Neddie did run! Wuzzy ran after him, and soon they were so far away that the alligator could not catch them. Then Neddie took Wuzzy home, and Mrs. Fuzzytail thanked the bear boy very much and gave him a piece of cake.

Then Neddie went home himself and he didn’t whisper in school any more that day. So that’s all to this story.

And to-morrow night if the poll-parrot doesn’t call the poodle dog funny names and bite a hole in the firecracker, I’ll tell you about Beckie making a doll’s dress.

STORY XIV BECKIE MAKES A DOLL’S DRESS

“Beckie! Beckie, where are you?” called Neddie Stubtail, the little boy bear, one morning after breakfast. “Come along! You’ll be late for school. I’m not going to wait for you.”

“I’m coming,” answered Beckie from inside the cave-house on the side of the hill. “I’m coming! Wait a minute!”

“I’m not going to wait, and be late!” said Neddie, and he was not quite as polite as he might have been.

“Oh, Neddie!” exclaimed Aunt Piffy, the fat old lady bear, puffing and blowing, for she had been down cellar after some potatoes, and when she came up stairs she always puffed and blew.

“Why, Neddie!” she went on, “you should (puff) wait for (puff) your little (puff) sister. She doesn’t very often (puff) ask you to (puff) do it. More times she has to (puff) wait for you!”

“Oh, well, I’ll wait,” said Neddie, and he felt the least little bit ashamed of himself for having talked that way to his sister. “But I don’t want to be late,” he added.

“You won’t be late—I’m coming!” called Beckie. “I just wanted to find my needle and thread.”

“Needle and thread!” cried Neddie. “You don’t mean to tell me, do you Beckie, that you’ve torn your dress and have to stop and sew it? And the last bell will ring in a few minutes! Oh, I’m not going to wait at all any longer! I’m going!” And off the little bear boy started, holding out his little stubby tail as stiff and straight as he could. But at that it wasn’t much larger than your thumb, and you could hardly notice it.

“No, indeed, I haven’t torn my dress, and I don’t have to stop to sew it up,” said Beckie, as she came running out of the cave-house. “Wait a minute, won’t you please, Neddie? I’m just taking my needle and thread and some pieces of silk to school with me so I can make my new doll, Sarah Janet Picklefeather, a new dress.”

“What, make your doll a dress in school?” cried Neddie, stopping and turning around. “Teacher never will let you, Beckie Stubtail—never! And you know it!”

“Oh, but I’m not going to sew in school,” said Beckie, sweetly. “I’m taking my lunch with me, and I’m not coming home to dinner, and I’m going to sew on my doll’s dress during the noon recess. And I’ve got some honey cakes for my lunch, too!”

“Oh, wow!” cried Neddie. “So that’s how it is, eh? Then I’m going to take my lunch, too, and stay at school and have some fun. May I have some honey cakes, mamma?”

“Oh, yes, I guess so,” answered Mrs. Stubtail, who, with Aunt Piffy, had come to the door to see the children start for school.

Then Neddie ran back to get his lunch put up. And such a busy time as there was, for a few minutes. Mrs. Stubtail and Aunt Piffy both tried to put the lunch up, so Neddie would not be late, and Mrs. Stubtail dropped the bread, butter side down, and Aunt Piffy lost her breath and could hardly find it again. Then Uncle Wigwag, the bear gentleman, who was always playing tricks, sat down in the fly paper by mistake, and Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear gentleman, had to pull the sticky stuff off his friend, Uncle Wigwag.

And that wasn’t all. For Mr. Whitewash was shaving his whiskers, and when he wasn’t looking, Mrs. Stubtail knocked over the molasses pitcher into his cup, full of soap-suds lather, and when Mr. Whitewash went to lather his face again he was almost as badly stuck up as Uncle Wigwag was with the fly paper.

Oh, my! Such goings on!

But, finally, Neddie’s lunch was put up and all this while Beckie waited for him, and she never once said “hurry up!” or “I’m going on, we’ll be late!” Not once did she say it, though she might well have done so, since the last bell had been ringing for some time.

But finally Beckie and Neddie got to school and they were only about one forty-’leventh part of a second late, and that didn’t count.

I wish I could tell you all that happened in school that day—how Neddie went to the blackboard, and wrote a fine story of a poodle dog that could stand on its head. And how Joie Kat drew such a real-like picture of a mouse that Tommie Kat, Joie’s brother, wanted to chase it, and it was all his sister Kittie Kat could do to stop him.

But I haven’t room to tell you any of those things now. I must tell you about Beckie making her doll’s dress. Now, hold on, boys, if you please. You might think this is a girl’s story, but it isn’t—that is not all of it, even if it is partly about a doll’s dress.

If you just listen you’ll see that Beckie did a very brave thing, which shows you that girls can do things as well as boys can, and lots of times better. Take, for instance, braiding hair—a boy couldn’t braid his hair to save him, but look how easily a girl can do it, and chew gum, and read a book and talk, all at the same time. Well, I guess!

Anyhow, pretty soon it was recess time, and all the animal children could come out of school. Some went home to their dinner, and others, who had brought their lunch, found nice cozy places where they could eat it.

Neddie went off with Tommie and Joie Kat, and with Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys. And as soon as Beckie had finished her lunch she got out her needle and thread and thimble and the pieces of silk, and began to make a dress for her doll, Sarah Janet Picklefeather.

First she sewed in some—tuckers, I think they’re called, or maybe it was puckers. Anyhow, she sewed them in the dress, Beckie did, to make it look nice.

Then the little bear girl made a few frills around the neck and down the side she sewed in some rosettes. Around the middle she gathered some insertions, and then on the bottom—let me see now, what did she put on the bottom? Oh, I know, it was a ruffle. (You boys may skip this part if you like. I wouldn’t write it only I have to put in something about the dress, or the girls wouldn’t read the story.)

Where were we? Oh, I remember. We’d gotten to the bottom part of the dress. And that reminds me, if we’re at the bottom of the dress that’s all there is to it, and I can stop, and so I’m at the end of that part, and don’t have to write any more, thank goodness!

Anyhow, Beckie was sitting on the steps of the school, in the warm sunshine, sewing away on Miss Picklefeather’s dress, making her needle go in and out, when, all of a sudden, along came a bad old, big bear who didn’t like little bear girls, nor bear boys, either.

“Ah, ha!” growled the bad bear. “This is the time I have caught you! I’ve been waiting a long time to get you! Now I’m going to carry you off to my den, and make you wash dishes for ever and ever. Bur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!”

Beckie looked up quickly and started to run, but she had no chance. The bad bear was right in front of her, and the door, before which she was sitting, was one that was hardly ever used, so it had been locked. Beckie couldn’t escape that way. She looked all around the school yard, but none of her friends was in sight. Neither was Neddie, who might have saved her, and as for the teacher, she had gone home to her dinner.

“Oh, help! Help!” cried poor little Beckie. She didn’t want the bear to take her away, and, as for washing dishes, she just hated that work, though she didn’t mind doing them for her mamma.

“Pooh! No one will help you!” cried the bad bear. “So don’t bother to call. Come along!” And he reached out his paws to grab Beckie. Then he happened to notice the doll’s dress, and, being a very curious sort of bear, he asked: “What are you doing?”

“I am making a dress for my doll,” answered Beckie, as politely as she could, with all her trembling. Then she thought of a trick to play on that bear. “Would you like to see me sew on the doll’s dress?” Beckie asked, sweetly.

“Well, you might show me one or two stitches,” said the bear, sort of careless-like. “But, mind you, I’ll carry you off just the same.”

“All right,” answered Beckie. “Look closely now. You see, I put the needle in this side of the silk and I push it through with my thimble.”

“Yes,” said the bear, “I see.”

“Now look closely,” said Beckie, and the bear leaned forward and put his nose and eyes close down. “And then,” said Beckie, “I pull my needle out this way, and—I stick it in your soft and tender nose—that way!” And with that she did it, jabbing the needle into the bear’s nose!

“Oh, wow!” cried the bad bear, and he was so surprised that he turned a back somersault and then he ran away off in the woods to get some honey to put on his sore nose. So he didn’t take Beckie away after all. Which shows you that it’s a good thing to make a doll’s dress, sometimes.

Then, soon the other children came back to school, and so did the teacher, and lessons went on and everybody said Beckie was very brave. And I think so, too, and in the story after this, if the ashman doesn’t take our furnace out in the yard so that it catches cold and can’t go to the moving picture show, I’ll tell you about Neddie’s joke on Uncle Wigwag.

STORY XV NEDDIE’S JOKE ON UNCLE WIGWAG

“What is the matter? Why are you laughing so much?” asked Aunt Piffy, the fat old lady bear, of Uncle Wigwag, the comical old bear gentleman, one morning at the breakfast table.

“Oh, ho! Ha, ha! I tee-hee—ho—ho! I just can’t help it!” said Uncle Wigwag, giggling, so that he spilled some honey on the tablecloth. And Mrs. Stubtail, the mamma bear, said:

“Oh, there you go again!”

“Excuse me!” spoke Uncle Wigwag, and then he laughed some more, and some milk he was drinking went down his Sunday throat, and, as the day happened to be Thursday, it was altogether wrong you see, and Uncle Wigwag choked and sniffed and snuffled and laughed, all at the same time.

“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Aunt Piffy, as she patted Uncle Wigwag on the back, so he wouldn’t lose his breath. And he didn’t, I’m glad to say, but Aunt Piffy accidentally pounded him so hard that she lost part of her own breath, and when she talked next time she had to go like this:

“I never (puff) saw you behave so (puff) at the table before (puff) Waggie, in all my (puff) life. Never! (puff). What is the (puff) matter, Waggie?” You see she called Uncle Wigwag by the name of Waggie for short.

“Oh!” said Uncle Wigwag, when finally he could talk, “I just thought of something, I did! It made me laugh!”

Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear gentleman, looked at Uncle Wigwag quite severely, but he said nothing, and only went on eating his breakfast.

“I think I know what made Uncle Wigwag laugh,” said Beckie Stubtail, the little girl bear, to Neddie, her brother, some time later.

“What?” he asked as he looked for his books to take to school. “What was it, Beckie?”

“He’s thinking of a joke to play,” said Beckie.

“I believe you’re right,” went on Neddie. “Oh, Beckie, and I’ve just thought of something, too.”