Transcriber’s Note:

The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

BEDTIME STORIES

NEDDIE AND BECKIE STUBTAIL
(TWO NICE BEARS)

BY

HOWARD R. GARIS

Author of “Sammie and Susie Littletail,” “Johnnie and Billie Bushytail,” “Charlie and Arabella Chick,” “The Smith Boys,” “The Island Boys,” etc.

Illustrated by LOUIS WISA

A. L. BURT COMPANY

PUBLISHERS · · NEW YORK

PUBLISHER’S NOTE

These stories appeared originally in the Evening News, of Newark, N. J., and are reproduced in book form by the kind permission of the publishers of that paper, to whom the author extends his thanks.

CONTENTS

Neddie and Beckie Stubtail

STORY I
NEDDIE AND BECKIE IN TROUBLE

So many different kinds of stories as I have told you! My goodness me, sakes alive, and some molasses popcorn! I should think you would get tired of them.

But I hope you do not, and, as everyone likes something new once in a while, I thought I would make up some new stories for you. I have been telling you about rabbits and squirrels and ducks and chickens. How would you like to hear now about some little bear children? Not bad, savage bears, you know, but nice, kind, gentle, tame ones who always minded the papa and mamma bears, went to bed when they were told, and all that.

Of course, I could tell you some stories about bad, growly and scratchy bears if I wanted to, but I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.

Now, then, for some bear stories.

Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, there lived in a house, called a cave, in the side of a hill, a family of bears. Their cave-house was not far from where Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs, had their kennel, and the bear cave was only a short distance away from where Joie and Tommie and Kittie Kat lived.

There were seven bears in the family, five grown-up ones and two children. There was a chap named Neddie, who was as nice a boy bear as you would want to meet. And there was a little girl bear named Beckie, and she was as cute as a soap bubble, if not cuter.

Then there were the papa and mamma bears. And their last name was Stubtail, for bears, you know, have only a little, short stubby tail—hardly a tail at all, to tell the truth. But still it is more of a tail than Buddy and Brighteyes, the guinea pig children, have.

Also living with this same Stubtail family of bears was an old gentleman bear named Uncle Wigwag, and the reason he was called that was because he was always playing tricks, or telling jokes, and when he laughed, after he had fooled anybody, he would wig and wag his head from side to side.

Also there was Aunt Piffy, who was so fat that she used to puff and pant as she came upstairs, and lastly there was a real old bear gentleman named Mr. Whitewash. He was called that because he was all white—he was a polar bear from the North Pole, and he always wanted to sit on a cake of ice.

So these bears lived together in the cave in the side of the hill, and they did many things, about which I shall have the pleasure of telling you. Neddie and Beckie did the most things to tell about, but, of course, sometimes the other bear folks did things also.

One day when Neddie and Beckie had come home from their school, Mrs. Stubtail, the bear lady, said to her children:

“Neddie—Beckie, I wish you would walk a little way through the woods, and meet your papa when he comes home from his work in the bed factory.” You see Mr. Stubtail worked at making mattresses for beds. With his long sharp claws he would make the inside of the mattresses all fluffy and soft so, no matter how wide awake you were, you always fell asleep when you stretched out on one of the beds the bear gentleman made.

“Why do you want us to meet papa?” asked Neddie.

“I want you to tell him to stop at the store on his way home and bring some honey,” said Mrs. Stubtail. “We are going to have hot cornmeal biscuits and honey for supper.”

“Oh, joy!” cried Beckie, clapping her paws together. Then she waltzed around on her hind paws and she and Neddie hurried off down the road to meet their papa.

As they were going along they heard a voice calling to them:

“Oh, ho! Children, wait a minute! Here comes your Uncle Wiggily with some ice cream cones for you!”

“Oh, let’s wait for our uncle, the rabbit gentleman,” said Neddie.

So he and Beckie waited, and they heard a rustling in the bushes and their mouths were just getting ready for the ice cream cones when out popped Uncle Wigwag, the joking old bear.

“Ha! Ha!” he cried, laughing and wigging and wagging his head. “That’s the time I fooled you!”

Neddie and Beckie were so disappointed that they did not know what to say. Uncle Wigwag was laughing at his joke, but when he saw how badly the bear children felt he said:

“Never mind. I’ll give you each a penny and you can buy yourself some ice cream cones.”

So he did, and then Beckie and Neddie were happy, and they went on to meet their papa, while Uncle Wigwag looked around for some one else on whom he could play a joke.

“We ought to meet papa soon now,” said Neddie, as he looked under an old stump to see if he could find any crabapples growing there.

“A little farther on and we’ll see him,” spoke Beckie.

They went on a little more, and all of a sudden Neddie saw a large hollow log lying on the ground. It was just like a stovepipe, only bigger and it had a hole all the way through it.

“Ha! I’m going to crawl through that hollow log!” cried Neddie.

“Better not,” warned Beckie. “Maybe something in it might catch you.”

“Pooh! I’m not afraid!” cried Neddie. “Anyhow, I can look all the way through. There’s not a thing in it.”

So he started to crawl through the hollow log, but my goodness me, sakes alive and some onion pancakes! Neddie had not gone very far before he found the hole in the log getting smaller.

“I don’t believe I’ll be able to crawl through to the other end,” thought the little boy bear. Then he tried to back out, but he could not—he was stuck fast inside the hollow log.

“Oh, help! Help!” cried Neddie, wiggling and trying to get out. But he was tightly held. He could hardly move.

“What’s the matter?” asked Beckie from where she stood outside the hollow log.

“I’m stuck! I can’t get out!” cried Neddie, and his voice sounded as if it were down cellar.

“Wait! I’ll get a long stick and poke you out, just like you poke out a bean that gets stuck in your putty-blower,” said Beckie. So she got a long stick, and poked it in through the hollow log. All at once the stick came up against something soft.

“What’s that?” asked Beckie, surprised like.

“Stop! Ouch! It’s me!” yelled Neddie. “Stop it! You’re tickling my back.”

“But I want to get you out,” said Beckie, poking in the stick again.

“You can’t do it that way,” said her brother. “I guess you’ll have to crawl in after me and pull me out.”

“All right,” said Beckie kindly, “I will.” So she climbed through the log from the same end where her brother had gone in. “I’m coming,” called Beckie. Then she grunted, all of a sudden.

“What’s the matter?” asked Neddie, anxious-like.

“I’m stuck, too,” answered Beckie. “Either I am too fat, or this log is too small. I can’t move either way, and I can’t help you.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Neddie. So there the two little bear children were in trouble inside the hollow log. They wiggled and squirmed and did everything they could think of to get out, but it was of no use. They were stuck fast.

I don’t know how long they might have had to stay, nor what might have happened to them, had not their papa come along just then from the bed factory. The bear gentleman heard cries coming from the hollow log, and, listening a moment, he knew they were made by his children, Beckie and Neddie.

“Ah ha!” cried Mr. Stubtail. “They are in the hollow log! I’ll soon get them out.”

Then, with his strong claws, Mr. Stubtail made a big hole in the side of the log, taking care not to scratch Beckie or Neddie. Soon the hole was large enough for the two bear children to come out about the middle of the side of the log. And, oh! how glad they were.

“I’ll never go in a hollow log again!” cried Beckie.

“Nor I,” added Neddie. Then they told their papa about their mamma wanting honey, and he took them by the paws and led them to the store where honey was sold and bought some. Next they all went home to supper, and Uncle Wigwag said it was a good joke on Beckie and Neddie to get stuck in the hollow log. Perhaps it was, but the bear children did not think so. But they liked the honey, anyhow.

So in the next story, if the jumping-jack doesn’t fall off his stick down into the cake dish, and get all covered with frosting so he looks like a candy doll, I’ll tell you about Beckie and the buns.

STORY II
BECKIE AND THE BUNS

The next day, after Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the little bear children, had been caught in the hollow log, and their papa had to claw them out, they didn’t go to school. It was not because they were not well enough, for, after all, being stuck inside a hollow log doesn’t hurt a bear child very much. You see they have a lot of soft, fluffy fur on them.

No, that wasn’t the reason Beckie and Neddie didn’t go to school. And it wasn’t because it was Saturday, either. No, it was because there was no school on account of the teacher bear having a toothache. And when a bear has the toothache he really can’t do anything. He has to go to the dentist right away.

It was so with the teacher bear.

On the outside of the school house door the bear teacher hung a white piece of birch bark, on which was printed:

NO SCHOOL TO-DAY.

I’VE GOT THE TOOTHACHE.

“Oh, goodie!” cried Neddie when he read it, and he felt so happy that he tried to wag his little short tail, only he couldn’t.

“Why, Neddie, I’m s’prised at you!” exclaimed Tommie Kat, who, with his brother and sister, Joie and Kittie, had also come to school.

“Oh, I’m not glad ’cause teacher’s got the toothache,” said Neddie Stubtail quickly, “it’s just because there’s no school.”

“Oh, then so’m I glad,” said Kittie Kat, purring softly.

So all the animal children went home on account of the school being closed, and when Mrs. Stubtail saw Beckie and Neddie coming up to the cave-house, she exclaimed:

“Why, what does this mean?” The little bears told their mamma, and Aunt Piffy, who had just come up from down cellar, said:

“Well, if there is no (puff) school, I can (puff) hear your (puff) lessons!” You see she puffed because she was all out of breath.

“Oh, no, thank you,” said Neddie quickly, “we’ll have to-day’s lessons to-morrow, so we don’t have to study any now.”

Then he went out to have some fun: and one of the things he did was to watch his uncle Wigwag and Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear gentleman, building a new room onto the cave-house. It was a room made from a big hollow log—not the same one that Neddie and Beckie had been caught in, however, but another one. Mrs. Stubtail wanted her cave-house made larger so Uncle Wigwag suggested adding on a hollow log for a sitting-room.

So that’s what he and Mr. Whitewash were doing, and Neddie helped them by getting in their way every now and then, so they wouldn’t work too fast and get all tired out. Finally Uncle Wigwag said:

“Neddie, I wish you’d go to the store and get me some red paint to color this log green.” And, never thinking it was a joke, off Neddie ran.

Pretty soon after that his mamma wanted him to go to the store to get her a yeast cake, so she could make bread. But, as Neddie was not in sight, Beckie went.

On her way home with the yeast cake in her paws Beckie had to go past a house where some other bears lived. Now these bears were not nice and good. In fact they were bad, and because they were bad, and because the Stubtail family was a family of good bears the bad bears did not like them.

Why, would you believe it? Often those bad bears would take rabbit and squirrel and guinea pig children off to their dens and keep them there for ever and ever so long, just to be mean, you know. But none of the Stubtails, or Mr. Whitewash, or Uncle Wigwag, or Aunt Piffy would do anything like that. Maybe Uncle Wigwag would play a joke, or do something funny, but nothing that was real mean.

And once Mr. Whitewash met a little boy kitten in the woods—Joie Kat I think it was. And Joie was wiggling and squirming and twisting this way and that.

“What’s the matter, Joie?” asked Mr. Whitewash. “Have you the measles?”

“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Joie, “my back itches me terribly, and I can’t reach the place to scratch it. Oh, dear!”

Now, there’s nothing worse than to have an itchy place in your back and not be able to scratch it. Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, knew that, so with his claws he gently scratched Joie’s back for him and tickled the little kitten boy very much.

But if Joie had met one of the bad bears, why, my goodness me, and some peanut butter on your cracker! The bad bear would, just as soon as not, have taken Joie off to his den and made him pull chestnuts out of the fire for the other bears to eat. That’s what it is to be a bad bear!

And that was the cave-house in the woods which Beckie had to go past on her way home from the store with the yeast cake. But she was not afraid, even of the bad bears.

However, one of the bad bears, looking out of a window in his cave-house, saw her coming and he said to his brothers:

“Ha! There’s that goody-goody little Stubtail girl! I’m going to get her in here and pull her hair!”

“How are you going to do it?” asked another bear.

“I’ll show you!” spoke the first one.

So he went to the cupboard and got a lot of sweet buns. Bears, you know, love buns almost more than anything else. If ever you see some tame bears in a cage or in a park give them a few buns, and see how they enjoy them. That is, if the keeper lets you, not otherwise.

So this bad bear, who wanted to pull Beckie’s hair, just because she was good, threw a bun out of his window. It fell close to the little bear girl, who looked at it in surprise.

“Ha!” she exclaimed, “that is strange! I wonder if it is raining buns from the sky?” She looked up, but she could see none falling from the clouds, and because the bad bear who had thrown the bun was hiding behind the window curtains Beckie could not see him, either.

“Well, I’ll eat it,” the little animal said, and she did, for it was a good bun, even if a bad bear did throw it.

“Ha!” said one of the bad bears to his brother, “I don’t see how you’re going to get her in here to pull her hair just by tossing buns at her.”

“You just watch,” said the first bad bear.

Then he threw another bun, when Beckie wasn’t looking, and this one he did not toss quite so far. It fell nearer to the cave-house of the bad bears.

“Oh joy!” cried Beckie, seeing the second bun, “someone is very good to me to-day!”

Ah! If she had only known.

“See!” exclaimed one bad bear to the other, “that’s how I’m going to get Beckie in here! Every bun she picks up will bring her closer and closer to us, and soon I can jump out and grab her!”

Oh, wasn’t he the bad old bear!

Well, Beckie ate the second bun, and then came a third one, sailing through the air.

“Why, it surely is raining buns!” cried Beckie in delight. “I mustn’t eat them all. I’ll save some to take home to Neddie.”

So she began to put the buns in her pocket, and she never noticed that each one she picked up brought her nearer and nearer and nearer to the cave of the bad bears.

The last bun was almost on their doorstep, and, just as Beckie reached over for it, the bad bear jumped out and grabbed her.

“Oh dear!” cried poor Beckie Stubtail.

But the bad bears did not get a chance to take her into their house. Just as they were going to do it along came Mr. Whitewash, the kind polar bear. He was looking for Neddie to tell him Uncle Wigwag was only joking about the red paint to make a log green. And then Mr. Whitewash saw the bad bear grab Beckie who had picked up the buns.

And what do you think Mr. Whitewash did?

Why, the big, brave white polar bear went right up to the bad black bear and he cuffed him on the ears with his broad paws, and pushed him back inside his own house, and then he tickled that furry creature in the ribs until the bad bear had to laugh whether he wanted to or not, and then Mr. Whitewash just grabbed Beckie up under his paw and hurried away home with her. And, oh, how angry the bad bears were, because they could pull no one’s hair.

“Beckie, you must be very careful about going near that bear house again,” said her mamma when she heard the story.

“I will, but, anyhow, I got the buns,” said Beckie, as she gave Neddie some.

So that’s all now, if you please, but the next story will be about Neddie and the bees’ nest—that is, if the nutmeg grater doesn’t scratch the piano and make it cry when the rubber doll tries to play a song on it.

STORY III
NEDDIE AND THE BEES’ NEST

One day, when Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the little boy and girl bears, started for school, Uncle Wigwag, the funny old bear gentleman who, with Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, was building a sitting-room on to the cave-house out of a hollow tree log, said:

“Neddie, when you come back from your lessons this afternoon I shall have something for you to do.”

“All right,” answered Neddie politely, as he stood up on his hind legs and reached for a bunch of grapes growing on a vine in the woods. “All right, Uncle Wigwag. Do you want me to go after some blue paint to color a board pink?” and Neddie laughed.

Uncle Wigwag laughed too, for you see he was always playing jokes on Neddie and Beckie, and he remembered when he had once sent the little bear boy for the wrong kind of paint.

“No,” answered the old gentleman bear, “nothing like that, Neddie; I just want to take you for a walk in the woods, and have you go see Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, with me. Uncle Wiggily is going to sell his automobile and buy a new car, so maybe he’ll give us his old one.”

“Oh, joy! I hope he does!” cried Neddie.

“So do I!” exclaimed Beckie.

Then she and her brother went to school and learned their lessons, such as how to make beds in hollow stumps, and how to scratch their letters on the white bark of a birch tree and how to keep out of dangerous traps, and all things like that.

And all the while Neddie was wondering whether or not Uncle Wiggily would give them his old automobile.

“If he does,” thought the little bear boy, “we can have lots of fun. It will be better than sliding down hill or eating ice cream cones.”

Well, after a while, school was out, and the blackboards could take a rest and the pieces of chalk could lie down on the back of the erasers and go to sleep. Out trooped the animal children.

“Come on, Neddie!” cried Joie Kat, the kitten boy. “Let’s have a game of tag!”

“Or run a race!” added Tommie Kat.

“No, I’ve got to go home,” said Neddie. “My uncle is going to take me with him.”

So he did not stop to play, but hurried on. Beckie, however, played with Kittie Kat and with Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl, and Alice and Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girls.

“Well, here I am, Uncle Wigwag!” at last called Neddie, as he ran up to the old bear gentleman. “Come on!”

“Just a minute, Neddie. Sit down on this board while I saw it in two, will you? I want it for the front steps,” said Uncle Wigwag.

So Neddie, thinking nothing wrong, sat down on the board, which was placed between two stumps, resting on them. And no sooner had Neddie seated himself, than “Crack!” went the board, breaking right in the middle, and down Neddie went. But he wasn’t hurt, for Uncle Wigwag, when he played this trick, had placed a pile of soft leaves for Neddie to fall on. They were just like a cushion.

“Excuse my joke!” laughed Uncle Wigwag. You see he had nearly sawed the board in two before Neddie arrived, and when the little bear boy sat on it the pieces were just held together by a few shreds of wood. Of course, they easily broke with Neddie’s weight.

“Oh, that’s all right! I don’t mind!” laughed Neddie, brushing the dried leaves off his fur. “You must have your joke, I suppose, Uncle Wigwag.”

“Indeed I must,” answered the old gentleman bear. “But here is a penny for you to buy a lollypop, because you took my trick so good-naturedly.”

Then Uncle Wigwag, shaking his head, set off through the woods with Neddie to the house of Uncle Wiggily, the rabbit gentleman, to ask for the old auto.

“Hum! Let me see!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, when Uncle Wigwag had asked him. “My old auto, eh? Well, I will think about it. Sit down, Mr. Wigwag, and I’ll consider it.”

“And may I go off and buy a lollypop?” asked Neddie, hoping that, by the time he came back, Uncle Wiggily would have given Uncle Wigwag the old auto.

“Yes, toddle off!” exclaimed Uncle Wigwag, so Neddie toddled off.

On and on he went through the woods, and pretty soon he came to a tree on the side of which he saw something sticky. A number of flies were buzzing around it, and at first Neddie thought it was flypaper. But when he went closer he smelled something sweet, and putting the tip of his paw on it, and then putting his paw to his mouth, Neddie found the sticky stuff on the tree was honey; just as you wet the tip of your finger when you want to see whether there is sugar or salt in the pepper dish.

“Ah, ha! Honey!” cried Neddie. “I just love honey! It is better than lollypops!”

He put his red tongue on the sticky stuff, and licked off all he could reach. Then he stretched up with his paws and got more. Finally he could reach up no farther.

But he looked up, and he saw a big black lump high in the tree, and Neddie said to himself:

“That must be where the most honey is. I’ll climb up and get some, and take some home to mamma and Beckie.”

Now, Neddie could climb a tree very well. All bears can, even little baby ones, for they have sharp claws for that very thing. So Neddie got ready to climb, and before doing so he sang this little song:

“Honey, honey in a tree,

Some for you and some for me.

Oh! how I do love sweet honey,

I can get this without money!”

Then Neddie began to climb. Higher and higher he went in the tree, and as he went up he could smell the sweet honey more and more, and his mouth fairly watered for it.

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.

“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.

But when it came night they had gotten nothing like a Thanksgiving dinner, nor did they have any invitation to eat one with friends, either.

“I—I wish we were home,” said Beckie, and some tears came into her eyes. The tears didn’t quite fall out, but almost.

“Well, wait until to-morrow,” suggested Neddie. “Something may happen then, and it isn’t Thanksgiving until to-morrow, you know.”

Well, the next day came. It was Thanksgiving, and still there was no sign of a fine, big dinner for the bears or the Professor. They had slept that night in the woods, the Professor cuddling up close to big George to keep warm in the bear’s thick fur. And though they had some cookies and cakes and apples to eat, it was far from being what Beckie or Neddie would have had, had they not run away from their cave-house.

“We’ll travel on,” said the Professor, “and see what happens.”

Well, they had not gone very far, before all of a sudden they saw a man running through the woods. And right after him came a big lion, roaring as loudly as he could roar. And the lion was switching his tail from side to side, and every now and then, reaching out his claws to grab the man.

“Oh, save me! Save me!” cried the man.

“Bur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!” roared the lion.

“Oh, can’t you help the poor man?” asked Beckie, of George, the big bear.

“I’ll try,” said George. Then he ran after the lion, and with the long pole which the Professor let George carry as a soldier-gun, George tripped up the roaring lion beast. Just then the Professor blew a loud blast on his brass horn, and Beckie and Neddie threw a lot of oak tree acorns at the lion. All this frightened the lion very much, especially when he felt the acorns hitting him. He thought they were bullets, and he thought the noise of the brass horn meant that a lot of soldiers were coming after him.

So away ran the lion through the woods, and the man was safe. Oh, how thankful he was!

“You saved my life,” he said to the Professor, and to Neddie and Beckie and George. “What can I do for you? where are you going?”

“We are looking for a Thanksgiving dinner,” said the Professor, “but we have not found it yet.”

“Ha! Say no more!” cried the man, quickly. “Come with me! I will give you the best Thanksgiving dinner you ever ate!”

“Who are you?” asked Beckie.

“I am a circus man,” answered the one the lion had chased. “But we do not give shows in winter. I have all my animals in a big barn, not far away. This morning that lion would not bring in a pail of milk when I asked him to, and to punish him I said he could have no dinner. So he chased me, and I don’t know what he would have done had he caught me. But you saved me, the lion has run away, and I suppose a policeman monkey will catch him. But you—come to my animal barn and you may have the dinner I was going to give the lion, as well as all you can eat besides. Come on!”

“Oh, at last we are to have a Thanksgiving dinner!” cried Neddie. “Oh, joy!” And Beckie clapped her paws.

Then the Professor and Beckie and Neddie and George, the big bear, followed the circus man. He led them to a big barn in the woods. And, oh! all the animals that were there—elephants and tigers and good lions, and zebras and more bears and lots of monkeys, and giraffes with necks so long that they could pick an orange off a church steeple, and cunning little ponies, and a hippopotamus with a mouth like a red flannel bag—and hundreds of others.

“Welcome to our Thanksgiving dinner!” all the animals cried to Beckie and Neddie when they saw the Stubtail children. “Eat all you want!”

And such a dinner as it was! From cranberry sauce to popcorn balls and honey cakes and blueberry pie and chestnuts and cider—and, oh, dear! I mustn’t write any more about it or I’ll get the indigspepsia. Anyhow it was a grand dinner, and in the middle of it who should come back but the bad lion who had chased the circus man.

“I’m—I’m sorry I was bad,” roared the lion. “May I have a piece of pie?” Then the circus man forgave him, and the lion had a good dinner. And Beckie and Neddie stayed in the circus barn all night, feeling quite happy.

And I hope you have a good dinner on Thanksgiving—each and every one of you. But don’t eat too much. Then on the page after this, if the fishman doesn’t blow his horn in the phonograph and scare the player-piano, I’ll tell you about Neddie and the elephant.

STORY X
NEDDIE AND THE ELEPHANT

It was the day after Thanksgiving. Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the two little bear children, awoke in the barn where the circus man kept all his animals during winter, when he was not giving a show in the big tent. Neddie and Beckie felt very nice and comfortable, for they had had a good holiday dinner when they had almost given up expecting one; they had a nice warm place to sleep, and they were happier than at any time since they had run away from home to join George, the big trained bear, and the Professor, his master, who led George around by a chain fast to a ring in his nose.

“Are you there, Neddie?” called Beckie from her bed in the nice clean sawdust. She was hugging her doll Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin.

“Of course I’m here,” answered Neddie, blinking both his eyes, and wiggling his little short tail. “Aren’t you glad you ran away now with me, sister, so you can become a trained bear?”

“Yes—I guess so,” answered Beckie. “Still, I’d like to see my mamma, and nice fat Aunt Piffy, just once.”

“Oh, we’ll go back home pretty soon,” said Neddie. “When we have earned some money. Then papa and mamma will forgive us for running away.”

“I hope so,” went on Beckie. “And I hope that Uncle Wigwag won’t play any jokes on us.”

“Oh, he’s sure to do that, but we mustn’t mind,” said Neddie, as he hopped up and shook the sawdust out of his ears.

George, the tame bear who did tricks, was already up, and he was waltzing around to where a lot of monkey ladies were getting breakfast for the circus animals. Then the Professor, who led George around by the nose when the bear did tricks, stretched out and yawned and said to the circus man:

“It was very kind of you to let us stay here all night.”

“Pray do not mention it,” said the circus man politely. “I hope you rested well.”

“Yes, but I did not get to sleep very early,” said the bear Professor. “I think perhaps I ate too much mince pie, with strawberry ice cream on it.”

“And I didn’t sleep very good, either,” went on Beckie. “But it was because the elephant snored so that I was afraid he would shake the roof down on our heads.”

“Oh, you mustn’t mind that,” said the circus man with a laugh. “Nosey, that’s the elephant’s name, you see, really never does any harm. He’s as gentle as a kitten and as playful as a frog.”

“Well, I wouldn’t like him to jump on me,” said Neddie with a laugh. “He’s a good bit larger than Bully, the frog, who lives near the beaver pond back home.”

Then breakfast was ready, and the monkey ladies waited on the tables at which the circus animals sat down. And, in order that they would not step on their own tails, the monkey ladies tied them around their necks in a double bow. This made them look nice, and also kept them from catching cold in their ears.

Neddie and Beckie Stubtail had a good breakfast and they were thinking of staying with the circus man, instead of going off looking for adventures with George, the Professor, when the circus man called:

“All ready now! First class in somersaults!”

“Why, he sounds just like our school teacher!” exclaimed Neddie. “I didn’t think we’d have school when we left our home.”

“This isn’t regular school,” explained the circus man, “but my animals have to study their lessons, just the same. How do you think an elephant could waltz and play a hand organ, to say nothing of standing on a tub and wagging his tail, if he did not have lessons and practise them? Of course we have to have a sort of school.”

“And I think I’ll send Neddie and Beckie to it,” said the Professor. “They could learn tricks then much better than I could teach them, and George and I would have more time to collect pennies and buns and popcorn balls.”

“Would you like to go to school to me, and learn tricks?” asked the circus man of the bear children, and they said they would.

“Very well, then,” said the circus man. “As soon as I have taught my new elephant how to stand on his head I’ll begin, and give you a lesson.”

Then the new elephant, who, as yet, knew hardly any tricks, had to get out in the middle of the sawdust ring and learn to stand on his head. It was not easy, either. One of the older elephants had to show the new elephant a number of times before he could do it even a little bit. But finally he could, and the circus man said:

“Now stay standing on your head for ten minutes, Frisko. It will be good practice for you. Don’t get down! Stay right as you are. Now then, second class in fast running!” and the circus man took a lot of ponies over to one side of the barn to have them practice for the races.

And all the while, Frisko, the new elephant, had to stand on his head. The Professor took George, the bear, off to one side of the circus barn to teach his pet a new trick, and as Beckie had to wash and dress her rubber doll, Neddie was left with nothing to do. So he walked over and watched the new elephant learning the trick of standing on his head.

“Do you like it?” asked Neddie, the bear boy, of the elephant.

“Oh, yes, I don’t mind,” said the big creature. “Oh, dear!” he suddenly cried. “Oh, me! Oh, my!” and a big tear, about as large as a cup of water, came in each of the elephant’s eyes.

“Why, what is the matter?” asked Neddie kindly.

“Oh, my back itches me something terrible!” said Frisko, the elephant, “and I daren’t get down from standing on my head to scratch it. Oh, dear!”

Now, if there is one thing worse than another it is to have an itchy place where you can’t scratch it. Neddie knew this as well as anybody. It’s as bad as wanting to sneeze when some one scares you out of it, and really that’s the very worst thing that can happen.

“Oh, my!” went on the elephant, and he wiggled about, and tried to scratch the itchy place on his back, but he couldn’t, and he didn’t dare get down from standing on his head, for fear the circus man would be angry at him, and oh! such a lot of trouble as he had.

But Neddie thought of a plan.

“How would you like to have me scratch your back for you Frisko?” asked the little bear boy. “I won’t dig my claws in very deep. Shall I scratch you?”

“If you only would,” sighed the elephant. So Neddie gently scratched the big creature who was standing on his head. “Ah, that is lovely. I feel so much better now,” said the elephant. “I can stand this way as long as I have to.”

But he did not have to stand on his head much longer, for the circus man came over pretty soon and said to Frisko:

“That will do. You recited your lesson very nicely. Now you may go to the kitchen and get a lump of sugar.”

And the elephant did—a large lump, for he had a large mouth, you know.

“Now, Neddie Stubtail, I think I’ll see what sort of lesson tricks I’ll give you to study,” went on the circus man. “First, let me see you climb up this pole.”

There was a big round pole, like a telegraph one, sticking up in the middle of the circus barn floor.

“Oh, I can’t do that!” said Neddie. But then he remembered how he and Beckie had once gone up the telegraph pole the time the skillery-scalery alligator was after them. Up and up went Neddie, sticking his claws into the soft wood. Beckie, watching her brother, felt very proud of him, and so did George, the tame trained bear.

Neddie was almost at the top, when, all of a sudden, the pole began to tip over and over and over.

“Oh, it’s falling!” cried Beckie. “Neddie, look out! You’ll be hurt!”

No one knew what to do. There was great excitement. The lions roared and the tigers snarled. Then Frisko, the elephant, who had practiced standing on his head, and whose back Neddie had so kindly scratched, came rushing up, swallowing the last of his lump of sugar, and this elephant cried:

“Make way for me. I am strong. I can hold up that pole until you make it fast so it will not fall. I’ll save Neddie.”

And the elephant did. In his strong trunk he held the pole up straight until other elephants nailed it to make it firm and steady. Then Neddie could come safely down. The elephant had saved him. So you see you should always scratch an elephant’s back when you can.

And now about the next story. Let me see. I think, in case the feathers in the lady’s hat do not tickle the milk pitcher so that it falls off the table and spills all the cream, I’ll tell you about Beckie and the monkey.

STORY XI
BECKIE AND THE MONKEY

Many things happened to Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the little bear boy and girl, while they stayed with the circus man in the barn where they had their Thanksgiving dinner. Oh many, many things happened, but I have only room to tell you of a few of them.

The two little bears cubs had been in the circus barn about a week, and though they liked it very much, and, though George, the tame trained bear, and his master, the Professor, and the other man, and the elephant and the lions and tigers were all very kind to Neddie and Beckie, they began to wish they were home.

“I—I’m sort of sorry we ran away,” said Beckie one morning, as she put a new dress on her rubber doll, Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin. It was only her own pocket handkerchief that Beckie used for a doll’s dress, but it did very well for all that.

“I guess I’m a bit sorry, too,” said Neddie. “We have learned some tricks, to be sure, and I can turn a somersault almost as good as George can, but still it isn’t as much fun as I though it would be.”

“I guess running away never is,” said Beckie.

“But we have had some fun,” went on Neddie.

“Do you mean the time you did the trick of climbing the pole here in the barn, and it toppled over with you and the elephant had to hold it up?” asked Beckie. “Was that fun?”

“I was too scared to think it was funny, but it might have been jolly for the others,” laughed Neddie.

Then the two little bear children, who had run away from their home in the cave-house on the side of the hill, walked around the circus barn. They listened to the lions having their roaring lessons, in which the seals, who juggled rubber balls on the ends of their noses, also joined. Then Neddie and Beckie looked at the tall giraffes take a lesson in picking oranges off the top rafters of the barn, and at the hippopotamus, who had to have his sore throat looked at by Dr. Possum, who always attended the sick circus animals.

“My! You have a very sore throat,” said Dr. Possum to the hippopotamus when he had looked at it. The hippo opened his mouth so wide that Dr. Possum could get right inside, which he did, sitting on the hippo’s tongue in order to see better. “Yes, a very sore throat,” went on Dr. Possum. “You must gargle it.”

So he gave the hippo some medicine, and the hippo gargled his throat and really he made such a funny noise, like thunder, doing it that Beckie and Neddie had to laugh. And that made the hippo sneeze so that he could not gargle.

“When are we going out traveling around again?” asked Neddie of the Professor and George. “Are we always going to stay here with the circus animals?”

“No, indeed,” answered the Professor as he blew a nice tune on his brass horn. “But it is getting too cold for traveling now, and sleeping out in the woods. Besides, all the children are saving up their pennies for Christmas, and they will not drop any in my cap when I go around after George has done his tricks.

“So I think we will stay with the kind circus man and his pets for some time—at least until it gets warmer. Meanwhile, Neddie, I want to show you a new trick that you can do with George. I’ll have you ride on his shoulders, carrying a broom, and I think that will make the people laugh, and when people laugh they give you more pennies than otherwise.”

“Oh, goodie! I’m going to learn another trick!” cried Neddie in delight. Then the Professor took the little bear boy off to one side of the barn, near the place where the elephants slept in the hay, and, with the big, kind, tame bear, George, they practiced the new trick, the Professor blowing a tooting-toot-toot-tune on his brass horn every once in a while.

This left Beckie to play by herself, but she was not lonesome, for she had her rubber doll to take care of, and she could watch the hippo gargle his big red flannel throat, and she looked at the monkeys doing tricks in their cages.

Beckie was not very lonesome. But perhaps if she and Neddie could have seen what was going on back in their cave-house by the hill, they would have run to their papa and mamma as fast as their legs would take them, for Mr. and Mrs. Stubtail were very lonesome for their children. So was Aunt Piffy, the fat bear lady, and also Uncle Wigwag and Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear.

“If my children do not soon come home to me,” said Mrs. Stubtail, wiping her eyes on her apron, “I don’t know what I shall do.”

“I know,” said Mr. Whitewash, “Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, and I will start off and find them. If Uncle Wiggily could find his fortune he can find lost children.”

“That is a good idea,” said Papa Stubtail. “If Neddie and Beckie do not soon come back I’ll get Uncle Wiggily after them.”

And, all this while, mind you, Neddie and Beckie were in the circus barn.

Well, after Beckie had given her rubber doll a nice wash in the parrot’s bathtub, the little bear girl heard some one crying. At first she thought it might be some bad animal, pretending to be in trouble, so as to catch something for his supper. Then Beckie remembered that she was safe in the circus barn, where all the animals were her friends.

So she looked around, and there she saw a great big grandfather monkey crying, and holding his face in his paw. He was all hunched up and stooped over as if he hadn’t a friend in the world, and he looked very sorrowful.

“Oh, what is the matter?” asked Beckie, kindly.

“I have a terrible toothache,” said the monkey gentleman.

“Oh, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Beckie. She knew what a toothache was, once having had one herself. “Why don’t you do something for it?” she asked.

“I don’t know what to do,” said the grandfather monkey. “That is, unless I have it pulled, and I don’t want to do that.”

“I don’t blame you,” said Beckie, “still it might be better to have it out.”

“If they could just pull out the ache, and leave the tooth in, I would not mind it so much,” went on the monkey. “But when they pull the tooth just to get out the ache—that is too much! Oh, dear!” and he almost stood up on the end of his tail, the pain was so bad.

Beckie glanced about the circus barn. No one seemed to be looking after the toothache monkey. All the other monkeys were practicing on their hand organs, and all the other animals were reciting their different lessons. Beckie and the old Grandfather monkey were all by themselves.

“I know what I’ll do,” said the little bear girl. “I’ll just slip out and go to Dr. Possum’s and get some toothache medicine for you. That may stop your pain.”

“Oh, will you?” cried the grandpa monkey. “That will be very kind of you.”

So Beckie left her rubber doll asleep, and slipped out of the circus barn when no one was looking. She hurried to Dr. Possum’s office and got some very strong medicine. Then, when she went back, she put some on some cotton and then she put the cotton in the hole of the monkey’s tooth, and soon it was all better.

Then, as Beckie had nothing else to do, she thought she would go to sleep with her doll, which she did, lying down in the soft, clean sawdust. Beckie slept and slept, and so she did not see the bad old skillery-scalery alligator slip in through the barn door which she had left open when she came in with the toothache medicine.

Nearer and nearer came the ’gator to Beckie. She did not see him, neither did Neddie nor the circus man, nor the Professor nor George, the big bear, or they might have driven him away.

“Ah, ha! Now I’ll get her!” whispered the alligator to himself. “She is asleep and can’t see me. I’ll just carry her off to my den, and then—Ah, we shall see what will happen then!”

But Beckie was not to be carried off by the ’gator. All of a sudden the grandpa monkey, whose toothache was all better now, saw the skillery-scalery creature.

“Wake up, Beckie! Wake up!” cried the good monkey. “Get out of the way, and I’ll attend to that alligator.”

Beckie awakened, and rolled out of the way just in time, or the alligator might have grabbed her. Then the monkey took four pawfuls of sawdust and threw it in the eyes of the alligator and down his throat and into his mouth and nose and ears, making the ’gator sneeze forty-’leven times. And whenever a ’gator sneezes that way he can’t harm anybody.

That’s what happened to this skillery-scalery alligator, and away he went, taking his humpy-bumpy tail with him. So Beckie was saved, which shows that you should always stop a monkey’s toothache when you can.

Then the bear children and the circus animals had their supper, and there was pickled ice cream for those who wanted it. And, in the next story, if the baby doesn’t sit down in the peach basket so tightly that we have to take the poker to get her out, I’ll tell you about Neddie and Beckie going back home.

STORY XII
NEDDIE AND BECKIE GO HOME

“Oh, Neddie!” exclaimed Beckie Stubtail, the little girl bear, as she rolled over in the clean shavings on the floor of the barn where the circus animals stayed during the cold winter months.

“Oh, Neddie, I’ve just thought of the nicest game we can play! Oh, it’s just too lovely for anything!”

“Pooh! A girl’s game!” answered Neddie, the boy bear, as he looked under a pile of sawdust to see if he could find popcorn ball, or maybe an ice cream cone. Mind, I’m not saying for sure, but maybe. Anyhow, Neddie found nothing good to eat, so it doesn’t make any difference.

“I don’t want to play any girls’ games,” went on Neddie.

I don’t call Neddie very polite, myself, but then you may think differently. Beckie looked sort of disappointed, and her paws, in which she was holding Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin, her rubber doll, trembled a little, and Beckie thought sure she was going to have to use her pocket “hankerwitch” (which is just the same of your handkerchief) to wipe away her tears.

For Beckie was lonesome, and she wanted her mamma, and the little girl bear wished she hadn’t run away from home with her brother to go with the Professor and George, the big, tame, trained bear with the ring in his nose. Yes, indeed, Beckie was sorry she had run away.

I guess Neddie was sorry, too, for, after pawing about a bit in the sawdust, he looked at his sister, and when he saw her lips quivering, and that she was trying to reach for her hankerwitch without him seeing it—then Neddie did what he should have done at first, and said:

“Oh, well, Beckie, maybe a girl’s game would be nice after all. We aren’t doing much here. Tell me about it.”

“I will,” said Beckie, and she brightened up and smiled as well as little girl bears can smile, and she patted her little rubber doll, and said:

“Now, Neddie, just as soon as Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin is asleep I’ll tell you about the trick I thought up all by myself.”

So Neddie waited until the rubber doll should close her eyes, and go fast, fast to sleep. It took some time.

“Well, isn’t that doll asleep yet?” asked Neddie after a bit. He was anxious to know what trick Beckie was going to tell about.

“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.”

“What is it?” she asked as she looked to see if her doll, Sarah Janet Picklefeather, was nicely covered up in the puppy dog’s basket, so she wouldn’t get cold while Beckie was at school.

“We’ll just play a trick on Uncle Wigwag,” went on Neddie. “He plays so many on us that it’s about time we played one on him.”

“Oh, yes, let’s do it!” cried Beckie, clapping her little paws. “But it won’t be a mean or an unkind trick, will it, Neddie? For Uncle Wigwag is very good to us, and gives us lollypops, even if he does play a joke on us now and then.”

“Oh, no, it won’t be a bad trick,” said Neddie, laughing. “Only a funny one.”

So the two little bear children went on to school, talking on the way of the joke they would play on Uncle Wigwag. In fact, Neddie was thinking so much about this that he did not pay enough attention to his lessons, and when the teacher asked him: “Why does a cow eat grass?” Neddie answered: “Because it’s a joke!”

You see, he was thinking of the one he and Beckie were going to play. But the teacher didn’t know that, so she made Neddie go down to the foot of the class for not answering correctly.

Well, when school was out, Neddie and Beckie hurried off by themselves to play the joke on Uncle Wigwag.

“Have you thought of what to do yet?” asked Beckie.

“Yes,” said Neddie, “you know it was cold last night, and the little puddle of water near our cave-house is frozen over. It’s as slippery as glass. Now we’ll cover the puddle over with some sawdust, so you can’t see the ice. Then we’ll make believe write a letter to Uncle Wigwag and we’ll put it on the top of the sawdust in the middle of the frozen puddle.

“He’ll run out to get the letter, when we tell him there is one for him, and he’ll slip on the ice and go down ‘ko-bunk!’”

“Oh, but won’t he get hurt?” asked Beckie, anxious-like.

“No, for his fur is so thick now that he won’t feel the fall,” said Neddie. “Come on, we’ll play the joke on him.”

So the two little bear children got some sawdust, and, when no one was looking, they sprinkled it on the ice so the slippery stuff could not be seen.

Then they made believe write a letter to Uncle Wigwag, and, putting it in a large envelope, with his name on the outside, they put this right in the middle of the frozen puddle, tossing it there so they themselves would not have to walk on the ice and maybe fall down.

“Now, we’ll hide behind this tree,” said Neddie, “and watch for Uncle Wigwag to fall down.” They had left word with Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, to tell Uncle Wigwag, as soon as he came in, that there was a letter for him on the sawdust. Mr. Whitewash, not knowing anything of the joke Neddie was playing, said he would tell Uncle Wigwag of the letter.

Well, after a while, when Neddie and Beckie had been hiding behind the tree for some time, out came Uncle Wigwag.

“Now, watch!” whispered Neddie. “See him tumble when he gets on the ice!”

But, instead of going over and picking up the letter, Uncle Wigwag put a box down on the ground, near the path by which Neddie and Beckie went to school, and then the old gentleman bear himself went and hid behind a tree.

“Oh, what do you know about that!” whispered Neddie. “He is playing a joke on us, just as I said he would. There’s nothing in that box but a piece of brick, or maybe a lot of stones. Uncle Wigwag expects we’ll pick it up, thinking it’s candy, and when we open it he’ll cry ‘April fool!’ even if it isn’t the month to play those jokes.”

“I believe that’s what he is doing,” said Beckie, laughing.

“Well, we’ll just not be fooled,” went on Neddie. “We’ll leave the make-believe box of candy alone, and wait until we see Uncle Wigwag go out on the ice after his letter and fall down.”

So the two little bear children, laughing to themselves at the joke they were playing on their fun-loving uncle, waited behind the tree. Uncle Wigwag waited behind his tree, too.

Pretty soon, along came Tommie Kat, the kitten boy. He saw the white box on the path, and cried:

“Oh, joy! I guess this is something good!”

“Watch him get fooled!” whispered Neddie. But lo and behold! Tommie opened the box and there it was filled with the nicest kind of candy! There wasn’t a stone or brick in it.

“Oh, yum-yum!” cried Tommie, as he ate the sweet stuff.

“Oh, dear!” cried Beckie. “It was candy, after all. What kind of a joke do you call that?”

“I—I don’t know,” answered Neddie, rubbing his nose with his paw. “I guess Uncle Wigwag played a different one this time.”

“Then we oughtn’t to play a mean joke on him, as long as he played such a nice candy joke on us,” said the little bear girl.

“I guess you’re right,” agreed Neddie. “We’ll tell him not to go get that letter.”

But, before they could do this, Tommie Kat saw the white envelope out on the sawdust-covered ice puddle.

“Oh, joy!” he cried again. “Maybe that’s more candy!” And, before either Beckie or Neddie could call to him, Tommie rushed out to get the make-believe letter. And as soon as he got on the ice, which he couldn’t see because of the sawdust on top, down he went ker-bunko! his feet sliding out from under him, and the candy scattering all over.

“Oh, dear!” cried Tommie Kat. “I’m all sawdust! And the nice candy! Oh, dear! It’s all lost!”

Neddie and Beckie rushed out from behind their tree.

“We didn’t mean that you should fall, Tommie,” said Neddie, as he helped the little kitten boy to stand up. “That was for a joke on Uncle Wigwag.”

“Well, I don’t call it a very nice joke,” said Tommie, rubbing his nose. “But, anyhow, I did find some candy. Help me pick it up.”

“I guess that was for us,” said Beckie. “It was one of Uncle Wigwag’s jokes!”

As the bear children and the kitten boy were picking up the scattered sweet stuff, out came Uncle Wigwag from behind his tree.

“Ha! Ha!” he cried to Neddie. “I guess I fooled you after all, didn’t I? And so you were going to fool me, too, eh? But Tommie got my joke instead. Oh, dear!” and he laughed so hard that he got the hiccoughs, and Aunt Piffy had to rush out of the cave-house to pat him on the back.

And then, all of a sudden, the bad bear, in whose nose Beckie had stuck the needle when she was making her doll’s dress, came rushing up, growling and wanting to bite some one. But Neddie Stubtail, brave little chap that he was, threw a hard lollypop at the bad bear, hitting him on his sore nose, making him cry, “Wow!” and run away off in the woods where he belonged.

Then the rest of the candy was picked up, and Beckie and Neddie said they were sorry they had tried to play the ice trick on Uncle Wigwag, and everything was all right.

And on the next page, if the penholder doesn’t let the ink bottle fall out of the window and make a black mark on the sidewalk, I’ll tell you about Mr. Whitewash and the stovepipe.

STORY XVI
MR. WHITEWASH AND THE STOVE PIPE

“Oh, dear!”

“What’s the matter?”

“Where’s all that smoke coming from?”

“Oh, ker-choo! Wuzz! Fuzz!”

“Snicker-snacker-snookum!”

Every one seemed shouting at once.

There was great excitement in the cave-house, where the Stubtail family of bears lived. Neddie and Beckie, the two little bear children, had jumped out of bed and were choking and sneezing in the hall.

“Why, the house is filled with smoke!” cried out Aunt Piffy, the fat old lady bear, and she puffed so hard because her breath nearly got away from her, that she almost slid downstairs.

“Is the house on fire?” asked Papa Stubtail, as he looked around for a pail of water.

“Maybe this is one of Uncle Wigwag’s tricks,” said Beckie, as she wiped the tears out of her eyes. She wasn’t exactly crying, you understand, but you know smoke always makes tears come into your eyes.

“No, no! There’s no fire!” called Mamma Stubtail, from down in the kitchen. “I was getting breakfast when the stovepipe suddenly fell down. I guess you’ll have to come and fix it, Hiram,” she called to Mr. Stubtail. His first name was Hiram, you see.

“Let me do it,” said Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, and before any one else could hurry down to the kitchen Mr. Whitewash had slid down the stairs, and soon he had the stovepipe in place again, and the stove cooked things without smoking, and Mrs. Stubtail finished getting breakfast.

But that wasn’t all about Mr. Whitewash and the stovepipe. Just you wait until you get to the end of the story and you’ll see.

Soon breakfast was over, and Beckie and Neddie had started for school. Then Mr. Stubtail went to work, and Uncle Wigwag went over to call on Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, to talk about Christmas and Santa Claus.

That left Mr. Whitewash home with Mrs. Stubtail, who was washing the breakfast dishes.

“How did the stovepipe happen to come down?” asked Mr. Whitewash, curious-like.

“I guess it’s getting old and couldn’t stand up much longer,” answered the lady bear. “The first I knew it had tumbled over and the smoke poured out.”

“Yes, there was lots of smoke,” said Mr. Whitewash. “We all were frightened. I must take a look at that pipe,” which he did, putting on his glasses so he could see better.

“Ha!” he cried, after a bit. “I thought so. That stove needs a new pipe. I’ll go after it and fix it before the children come home. Then we won’t have any more trouble when you get up to get the breakfast, Mrs. Stubtail.”

“That will be very kind of you,” said the lady bear.

So off Mr. Whitewash went to get the stovepipe. And very nice he looked, too, walking along through the woods and over the fields, with his white fur all combed out like a French poodle’s when he’s had his bath. Mr. Whitewash was snow-white—and when he walked along sometimes his friends took him for a snowman, and threw snowballs at him. But Mr. Whitewash never minded that.

Well, he got to the stovepipe store all right, but the cow gentleman, who kept it, said:

“I am very sorry, Mr. Whitewash, but we are all out of stovepipe this morning. I expect some in at the end of the week.”

“But I cannot wait that long,” said the white polar bear gentleman. “Our old pipe may fall down any day, and fill the house with smoke again. Then the fire engines will come out and squirt water in our cave, and there’ll be a terrible time. I must have some stovepipe.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do,” said the cow gentleman. “I sold some pipe to Grandfather Goosey Gander, the duck gentleman, the other day, and after he used it awhile he said he wanted a different kind.

“So he took down that I had sold him, and got some different kind. The old pipe is out in his back yard now, and I think he would give it to you.”

“It will do no harm to ask, anyhow,” said Mr. Whitewash.

Over he went to the house of Grandfather Goosey Gander, and there, surely enough, was the pipe.

“Certainly you may have it,” said the duck gentleman. “I am glad to give it to you. But be careful, for it is full of black soot, and it may get on your white coat.”

“Oh, I can wrap it up in a paper,” said Mr. Whitewash, which he did. Then, taking care not to get the stovepipe, though it was wrapped up, against his snow-white fur, off Mr. Whitewash started for the cave-house, where he lived with the Stubtail family.

Did you ever put up a stovepipe? No, I guess you did not. Well, it is not easy work, as Mr. Whitewash soon found. Either the pipe he got from Grandfather Goosey Gander was too large to fit in the chimney hole or else the chimney hole was too small to let the pipe slide in. Anyhow, Mr. Whitewash tried and tried again, and once more, but the pipe would not fit.

“I guess I’ll have to get on a stepladder,” said the polar gentleman, breathing hard.

“Oh, how black your paws are!” exclaimed Aunt Piffy, the fat lady bear.

“Yes, it comes off the stovepipe,” said Mr. Whitewash. “Please bring the stepladder.”

So Aunt Piffy and Mrs. Stubtail went for the ladder, but in bringing it through the kitchen door it slipped and caught on Mrs. Stubtail’s paws, so that she fell down, and so did the fat lady; and Aunt Piffy lost her breath.

Aunt Piffy could hardly get her breath back again, either, but she caught it just as it was slipping out of the door and then she was all right again—at least for a while.

“Now I guess I’ll fix this pipe!” cried Mr. Whitewash, as he stood upon the ladder. Carefully he shoved the stovepipe into the chimney hole, but still it stuck.

“It must go in!” cried the polar bear gentleman, “or else we can’t have a fire in the stove to cook dinner.”

Then he gave a big push on the pipe. But something slipped. Part of what slipped was the stepladder and the other part of what slipped was Mr. Whitewash and the third part of it was the stovepipe.

Down they fell in a heap together on the floor.

“Oh!” screamed Aunt Piffy.

“Oh, me! Oh, my!” cried Mrs. Stubtail. “Shall I get the doctor?”

Mr. Whitewash didn’t say anything for a little while, and then he remarked:

“Please get me a dusting brush!”

And he certainly needed it, for the soot from the stovepipe had scattered all over him, and instead of being a pure white bear, he was speckled black and white now, like those dogs which always run along under a carriage.

But when Aunt Piffy and Mrs. Stubtail tried to brush the black soot off Mr. Whitewash, they found they were only making it worse. The brush scattered the black all over him instead of leaving it only in spots.

“I guess you had better not try,” said Mr. Whitewash. “I’ll take a bath after I get this pipe up.”

“Can you get it up?” asked Mrs. Stubtail.

“Of course I can,” said Mr. Whitewash.

So up on the stepladder the polar bear gentleman got again, and he tried to fix the stovepipe. He almost had it in the chimney hole, and he was just getting ready to holler “Hurray!” when, all of a sudden, there was a growling noise at the back door, and Mrs. Stubtail screamed:

“Oh, a lion! Here’s a lion coming after us!” and she and Aunt Piffy ran in the parlor and hid under the sofa.

“Bur-r-r-r-r-r!” roared the lion. “I’m a bad chap from the circus; and I’ve come after Beckie and Neddie!”

Then he roared again, and so loudly that he made the stepladder tremble. This shook it so that Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, fell down again. This time the stovepipe landed right on top of his head, like the tall silk hat Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, wears. And the soot from the stovepipe scattered all over Mr. Whitewash some more until he was as black as a piece of coal.

“Get out of here!” called Mr. Whitewash to the bad lion, and the lion was so scared at seeing a white bear suddenly turn black, and wear a stovepipe for a hat, that he ran away as fast as he could, taking his tufted tail with him. So he didn’t get Neddie or Beckie after all, and a little later Mr. Whitewash got the pipe all nicely fixed.

Then he took a bath, for, oh! he was so black! But soon he was as nice and white again as a French poodle. So there was no more trouble with smoke in the Stubtail cave-house, and when Beckie and Neddie came home from school they made molasses taffy on the stove.

So that’s all I can tell you now, but on the page after this, in case our cat doesn’t try to walk the telephone wire and fall off into the rose bush, I’ll tell you about Papa Stubtail in a trap.

STORY XVII
PAPA STUBTAIL IN A TRAP

Now to-night I’m going to tell you a story about something sad that happened to Hiram Stubtail, the papa bear. And I will not make it any sadder than I can help. But still I have to tell things exactly as they happened, or it would not be fair, and we must always try to be fair and honest in this world, no matter what happens. Even when we’re sad we must try.

But I will say this, though there is a sad part to the story, there is also a glad part. And the glad part I’ll put in last, so that when you go to bed you will dream about that. I always like to have pleasant dreams; don’t you?

Once I dreamed I found a lot of money and to make sure I’d have it when I awakened I put it under my pillow. But when I woke up the money was all gone. Dream money always does that, you know. It disappears.

And once I dreamed I found a lollypop, and when I put my hand under my pillow there it was—all sticky! My little girl had put it there to keep safe for the night. So that part of my dream came true.

But I started to tell you about Papa Stubtail’s trouble, and I guess you don’t want to hear about my troubles.

Anyhow, one Saturday, when there was no school, Beckie and Neddie Stubtail, the two little bear children, started off to the woods to see if they could have any fun. It was quite cold, and it seemed as if it were going to snow, but they did not mind that, for they had on their warm fur coats.

“I know what let’s do!” exclaimed Beckie. “Let’s go over and call on Uncle Wiggily. You know since he found his fortune he has lots of money, and he might give us some to get a popcorn ball with.”

“All right, I’ll go with you,” agreed Neddie. So they went to the house of the old gentleman rabbit. They found him at home, and he was glad to see them. And, surely enough, he gave each of the bear children a penny to buy a popcorn ball. Bears are very fond of those sweet things, you know.

Well, while Neddie and Beckie were enjoying the popcorn balls, their papa had started to come home from where he worked in the bed factory, making nice fuzzy mattresses, fluffing them up with his sharp claws, for little bears to sleep on.

“I will go home a little early to-day,” said Mr. Stubtail, to himself, “and take Neddie and Beckie to a football game. They will enjoy that.”

Well, as he was walking along, thinking how funny it was for Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear gentleman, to put up a stovepipe and get all black—as Mr. Stubtail was thinking of this, I say—all of a sudden he heard some one crying:

“Help! Help! Oh, will no one help me?”

“Ha! Who can that be?” exclaimed Mr. Stubtail, looking all around, and thinking maybe it might be one of his own children, little Neddie or Beckie, in trouble.

But he could see no one, though the voice still cried out:

“Help! Oh, please help me!”

“I would help you if I could see you,” said Mr. Stubtail, looking up and down and sideways and even around the corner. Still he could see no one, and then the voice said:

“Here I am, right down by this board fence!”

Then Mr. Stubtail looked more closely, and he saw, crouched on the ground, at the bottom of a board fence, Jollie Longtail, the little boy mousie.

“Oh, there you are!” exclaimed Mr. Stubtail. “But why are you crying, Jollie, and why don’t you run away?”

“I can’t run away,” answered the mousie boy, “because my long tail is fast through a knot hole in the fence, and that is the reason I am crying.”

“Your tail fast through a knot hole in the fence?” exclaimed Mr. Stubtail. “Why, how did that happen?”

“Well, you see,” explained Jollie. “I was creeping along here, looking for a piece of cheese, when my tail slipped through the hole. And, before I knew it, another boy mousie named Snippy-Snoopy, who doesn’t like me, came along and tied a knot in my tail so I couldn’t pull it back through the hole again. And here I am held fast. Will you please untie the knot in my tail? I can’t reach it.”

“Oh course I will!” exclaimed the bear gentleman, and very gently, so as not to hurt Jollie, he untied the knot in the mousie boy’s tail, so Jollie could run along home.

“Oh, thank you so much!” he called to Mr. Stubtail, most politely. “And if ever I can do you a favor I will!”

Then Mr. Stubtail hurried on home, thinking how nice it would be to take Beckie and Neddie to the football game. And I guess Mr. Stubtail was in such a hurry that he did not notice where he was going for, all of a sudden, he stepped into a steel trap.

“Snap!” it went shut, catching him on the paw. And, oh! how it did hurt.

“My goodness me! Oh, dear! This is terrible!” cried Mr. Stubtail. “I am caught!”

He tried to pull his paw out but the more he pulled the worse it hurt, and he had to stop. Then he tried to lift up the trap in his other paw, thinking maybe he could carry it to the blacksmith shop and have it filed off. But the trap was fast to a tree by a big chain and Mr. Stubtail could not get it loose. There he was caught fast.

This is the sad part of the story. I’ll make it just as short as I can and get to the glad part.

Well, poor Mr. Stubtail stood there in the trap not knowing what to do. He thought he would never see his home again, or his wife, or Neddie, or Beckie, nor yet Mr. Whitewash and Aunt Piffy and Uncle Wigwag.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Mr. Stubtail. “What ever shall I do? Soon the hunter who put this trap here will come along and get me. Then it will be all up with Papa Stubtail.”

But just then he heard a little rustling in the dried leaves, and a tiny voice asked:

“Can I help you, Mr. Stubtail?”

The bear gentleman looked down and saw Jollie Longtail, the mousie boy, whose tail he had untied a little while ago.

“Oh, Jollie, it’s you, is it?” asked Mr. Stubtail. “No, I’m afraid you can’t help me. You see, this trap and chain are made of iron, and though you have very sharp little teeth to gnaw through wood, you can’t gnaw iron.”

“No,” said Jollie, “I can’t do that, but maybe I could go and get help for you.”

“So you can!” cried Mr. Stubtail, trying not to let the little mousie boy see how much pain he was in. “The very thing, Jollie. Run home and get Mr. Whitewash and Uncle Wigwag, and any one else you can, to come and get me out of this trap before the hunter comes.”

Away ran the mousie boy as fast as he could go. But it was a long way to the cave-house—not very far for a bear gentleman, perhaps, who can take long steps, but quite a distance for a little mouse chap.

“But I’ll get there in time!” cried Jollie. “I must save Mr. Stubtail, for he saved me. I’ll get there!”

Faster and faster he ran on. Once a bad fox tried to grab Jollie, but the mousie hid under a log until the fox had passed on. Again a big horned owl bird, with staring eyes, swooped down on him but Jollie dodged under a stone and the bird stubbed its beak, and didn’t get the mouse.

Then Jollie reached the cave-house and told what had happened to Mr. Stubtail.

Mrs. Stubtail was so excited that she nearly fainted and fell into a tub of water when she heard the news.

Aunt Piffy lost her breath completely this time, and it was several seconds before Jollie could run after it for her and bring it back.

“What!” cried Neddie, for he and Beckie had come home. “My papa in a trap!”

“Yes, and he needs help quickly!” cried Jollie.

“Then I’ll go get my uncle and Mr. Whitewash!” said Neddie. Off he rushed to find Uncle Wigwag and the polar bear gentleman. They also got Uncle Wiggily, and Gup, the kind, strong horse, and as many other animal gentlemen as they could, and back they hurried to where Mr. Stubtail was in the trap.

Together, with the help of a kind circus elephant, they pulled the trap open and the bear gentleman was free. Then they all hurried away before the hunter man, with his gun and dogs, could get them. Mr. Stubtail limped a little and was lame for some time, but that is better than staying forever in a trap.

When he got home his wife was out of the tub of water, and she and Aunt Piffy made some nice salve for Mr. Stubtail’s sore foot. Then they had a lovely supper with honey ice cream, and everybody was happy and they couldn’t do enough for Jollie Longtail. And this is the glad part of the story.

So this shows you that you should always untie a knot in a mousie’s tail if you can, for you never can tell when a mousie might help you.

And no more to-night, if you please, but very soon, if the milkman’s horse doesn’t come up on our front stoop and take our doormat to wipe his feet on, I’ll tell you about Mamma Stubtail’s honey cakes.

STORY XVIII
MAMMA STUBTAIL’S HONEY CAKES

“Oh, mamma!” cried little Neddie Stubtail, the bear cub, as he got ready to go to school one morning. “What is it that smells so good in your kitchen?”

“What smells so good?” spoke Mrs. Stubtail, the mamma bear. “Well, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the tea kettle boiling.”

“Oh, mamma, you’re joking just as Uncle Wigwag often does,” said Beckie, the little bear girl. “I, too, smell something good. Are you making candy?”

“Now, you children just run along to school and say your lessons,” said Mrs. Stubtail, as she looked to see if there was any stove blacking on her apron. But there was none, I’m glad to say.

“Little bears should be seen and not heard,” said Aunt Piffy, the fat old lady bear, as she came up from down cellar, where she had been looking to see if any dust had gotten in the eyes of the potatoes.

“Oh, but we smell something good!” cried Neddie. “Do tell us what it is, mamma.”

Then he and his sister Beckie sniffed and snuffed real hard, to try and find out what it was that smelled so good. It was like molasses candy and popcorn and lollypops and ice cream cones, all rolled into one. But Neddie and Beckie could not tell exactly what it was.

Anyhow, the school bell rang just then, and they had to run on to their lessons, so they didn’t have time to find out what it was their mamma was cooking in the kitchen that smelled so nice.

But at noontime, when they came home for dinner, they discovered the secret. Neddie ate up his dessert and then he blinked both his eyes at his sister Beckie. That meant, in bear language:

“Come on outside. I want to talk to you.”

Then Beckie wiggled both her ears and this meant: “All right. I’ll be out in a minute.”

And when Beckie met Neddie outside the house and they were on their way to school, Beckie asked:

“What is it, Neddie? What smelled so good?”

“It’s honey cakes,” said he.

“Honey cakes?” exclaimed Beckie. “Why, we don’t have them until Christmas.”

“I know,” said Neddie, “but it’s almost Christmas now. Mamma is making a lot of honey cakes. That’s what smelled so good this morning. They’ll be done this afternoon and she’ll put them out on the back steps to cool, as she always does.”

“Well, is that all?” asked Beckie, anxious-like.

“No, not quite,” said Neddie. “When we come home from school you and I will go softly up on the back stoop and we’ll get some of the honey cakes. They’ll be cool by then.”

“Oh, but that’s not right!” cried Beckie, “We can’t eat mamma’s honey cakes without asking her.”

“I didn’t say anything about eating them,” spoke Neddie. “I just said we’d take a few cakes in our paws. Then we’ll go to mamma and say we saw the cakes out on the back stoop, and we’ll ask her if we can eat them. Mind you, we won’t take so much as a smitch of one before we ask her!

“But when she sees we have the cakes of course she’ll let us take a nibble. Even Aunt Piffy would do that. Otherwise we’d never get a honey cake until Christmas. Will you do it?” asked Neddie.

“Oh, well; yes, I guess so,” said Beckie. “But I’m afraid it isn’t exactly right.”

“Oh, yes, it is,” said Neddie. “Now, come on to school, and when we come home this afternoon we’ll get some honey cakes.”

But I’m afraid, after all, that what Neddie was going to do was not exactly right. However, let us see what happens, as the telephone girl says.

Neddie and Beckie went on to school, but they did not do very well in their lessons, for they were thinking so much about honey cakes. And if they had known that Uncle Wigwag, the old bear gentleman, who was always playing tricks, had heard them talking about what they were going to do, maybe they would not have felt so happy.

For Uncle Wigwag, hiding behind a stump, had heard just what Neddie and Beckie had planned to do to get some honey cakes. And the old joking gentleman bear said to himself:

“Now, I’ll play a joke on those children. It isn’t right for them to do that, and I’ll teach them a lesson.”

So he went out on the back steps, where the pans of honey cakes were cooling. Honey cakes, you know, are made from honey and sugar and other sweet things, and are very good. Little bear children love them more than anything else.

“Let me see now. What trick shall I play?” said Uncle Wigwag to himself. “Oh, I know. I’ll put a lot of glue on the back steps, and make them all sticky like fly paper. Then, when Neddie and Beckie come up to get the honey cakes they’ll step in the glue, and they’ll be held fast, and they’ll make such a fuss that their mamma and Aunt Piffy will hear them. They’ll come out, and I guess those bear cubs will never take any more honey cakes without asking.”

So Uncle Wigwag got a lot of sticky glue from the doll factory where they glue dolls’ wigs on, and he spread the sticky stuff all over the back steps, where, on the top rail, Mrs. Stubtail had set the honey cakes to cool.

Oh, how delicious they smelled! Uncle Wigwag could not help taking one, but of course that was all right, as he paid his board to Mrs. Stubtail.

Then Uncle Wigwag spread out the sticky glue, taking care not to step in it himself, and then he went and hid behind a stump to see what would happen when Neddie and Beckie came softly along to get the honey cakes.

But something else happened. I’ll tell you all about it if you’ll listen.

Neddie and Beckie hurried out of school that afternoon. They had managed to get through their lessons, and were very anxious to eat some of the honey cakes—that is, if their mamma would let them.

“I hope they’re out on the stoop when we get there,” said Beckie.

“Oh, you honey cakes!” exclaimed Neddie, jolly-like. “Of course they’ll be there.”

And just then, as it happened, there was a bad old wolf behind the fence. And he heard what the bear cub children were saying.

“Honey cakes, eh?” exclaimed the wolf. “I guess I’ll go get some for myself.”

So he ran through the woods, a shorter way than Neddie and Beckie went, and the old wolf got there first, just as the one did in the Little Red Riding Hood story.

“Ah! ha!” exclaimed the wolf, as he smelled the honey cakes. “Now for a good meal! I’m glad I heard Neddie and Beckie talking about this. Oh, you honey cakes!”

The old wolf went softly to the stoop. He looked all around, but he saw no one. Mrs. Stubtail was washing the dishes and Aunt Piffy had gone to lie down and take a nap. Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, was over visiting Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, and Uncle Wigwag, as we know, was hiding behind the stump.

The wolf saw no one, and up the back steps he went to get the honey cakes that were set out there to cool. But something happened.

All of a sudden the wolf stepped in the glue and stuck fast. All four feet were caught in the sticky stuff and when the wolf tried to get loose he only stuck the faster.

“Oh, wow!” howled the wolf. “Oh, dear, I’m caught!”

Uncle Wigwag, hiding behind the stump, heard the noisy noise and, not yet having seen the wolf, he cried:

“Ah, ha! Now I have caught Neddie and Beckie. I guess this will be a lesson to them not to take honey cakes again!”

Out rushed the old gentleman bear, and when he saw the wolf caught in the glue, instead of the little bear cub children, Uncle Wigwag did not know what to say, he was so surprised.

And when the wolf saw the bear gentleman he cried:

“Oh, dear! Don’t bite me! I’ll be good! I’ll not take any of your honey cakes!”

“You’d better not,” spoke Uncle Wigwag. And then the wolf was so frightened that he managed to pull his feet loose from the sticky glue, and away he ran without a single honey cake.

And when Neddie and Beckie came along later to take some cakes, intending to ask if they could eat them, they found every one so excited at the bear cave that they didn’t take any cakes at all. Besides, Mamma Stubtail had lifted the honey cakes inside after the wolf made such a racket.

“But you were almost caught!” said Uncle Wigwag to Neddie and Beckie, as he told them what he had heard them say. Then they promised never to think of such a thing again, and their mamma gave them each some nice honey cakes for supper. But the wolf had none, and it served him right.

So Uncle Wigwag played his trick just the same, though, on a wolf instead of the bear children. Then Aunt Piffy scrubbed all the glue off the back steps and everybody was happy.

And in the next story, if the molasses jug doesn’t go down cellar and cry in the coal-bin so the coal is all stuck up, I’ll tell you about Neddie and the kindling wood.

STORY XIX
NEDDIE AND THE KINDLING WOOD

“Neddie! Neddie! Where are you?” called Mrs. Stubtail, the mamma bear, one afternoon as she stood on the back steps, which were still colored dark from the glue that Uncle Wigwag had put there, the time Neddie and Beckie were going to take the honey cakes, as I told you in the other story. “Neddie! Neddie!” called the mamma bear.

There was no answer for a moment, and then Tommie, the little kitten boy, came running as fast as he could run.

“What’s the matter, Tommie Kat?” asked Mrs. Stubtail. “Is a bad rat chasing you?”

“Oh, no, not a bad rat,” answered Tommie, as he quickly hid under an old ash can. “You see we’re playing hide and seek, and Neddie, he’s it. I’m hiding away from him. Don’t tell where I am; will you?”

“Of course not,” said Mrs. Stubtail, with a laugh. “So that’s why Neddie didn’t answer me,” she went on. “He’s playing a game. Very well, Tommie Kat, but when you get in homefree, or when Neddie finds you, just tell him for me, if you please, that I want to see him.”

“I will,” promised Tommie Kat, and then he pulled his tail in close under the ash can so when Neddie came to look for him he wouldn’t see him.

Truly enough, in a short time, Neddie Stubtail, the little boy bear, came looking for all the animal children who were playing the game. He found Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck, hiding under some corn meal sacks. Then he saw Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel, in a nut bag, and Neddie saw Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow cuddled up together behind the rain water barrel.

But Neddie could not find Tommie Kat, and finally the little boy bear had to call out:

“Givie up! Givie up! Come on in free!”

This meant that when Tommie ran out from where he was hiding Neddie would not tag him, and the kitten boy would not be “it.” So out Tommie came from under the ash can, and Neddie said:

“Oh, so that’s where you were; eh?”

“Sure I was,” said Tommie. “But say, Neddie, your mamma wants you.”

“Really?” asked Neddie.

“Really, truly, and truly ruly,” laughed Tommie.

Just then Mrs. Stubtail came out and called again:

“Neddie! Neddie! I want you!”

“What is it, mamma?” asked Neddie, politely, and wondering where he would hide when it came his turn.

“I want you to bring me in some kindling wood for the stove, so I can easily make a fire in the morning to get breakfast,” said the bear lady.

“Oh, mamma, I don’t want to!” exclaimed Neddie. “I want to play hide and seek some more. It’s my turn to hide, and I know a dandy place where they can’t find me. Sammie Littletail, the rabbit, has to be it, and he’ll never find me.”

“Well, my dear little bear boy,” spoke Mrs. Stubtail, “I know you like to play, but you must also help me. Bringing in the wood is one of your tasks. So don’t make a fuss about it.”

“All right, mamma, I won’t,” said Neddie, eagerly. “Only do I have to bring in the wood right away?”

“It would be better to get it in before dark,” said Mrs. Stubtail, “but I don’t mind if you wait a little while longer. Only don’t forget it, and don’t be too long. It soon gets dark, you know, and you can’t see to get me nice sticks of wood. But go on and play a while longer.”

Mrs. Stubtail wanted to be kind to Neddie, but she also wished him to feel that he had certain things to do, and must do them.

Well, Neddie went on playing hide and seek, and he hid in the big clothes basket that was in the yard. He pulled a clean sheet from the line over him, and really the basket looked as though it were filled with clothes from the wash.

Of course when Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, who was searching for the other animals this time, passed by the basket, he only saw the sheet, and never thought that Neddie was hiding under it. So Sammie didn’t find Neddie, though he did all the other animal boys, and such fun as Neddie had when he ran in home free.

“I told you that you couldn’t find me!” he said, as he tried to stand on one ear, but he couldn’t because his ear bent double. Then Neddie fell down, and he knocked over Peetie Bow Wow and Peetie bumped up against Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck, and for a time it looked just like an animal circus.

Well, Neddie Stubtail was having so much fun that he forgot all about bringing in the kindling wood for his mamma. Then, all of a sudden it got dark—so dark that the animal boys couldn’t play hide and seek any more—and Neddie remembered the wood.

“Oh, dear!” he exclaimed.

“What’s the matter?” asked Charlie Chick, who was also playing the game.

“I forgot all about the wood,” spoke Neddie. “You stay and help me carry it in; won’t you? I’ll give you a honey cake, if you do, Charlie.”

“Well, I’d like to very much,” said Charlie Chick, “for I am very fond of honey cakes. But my mamma told me to come home just as soon as it got dark. I’ve got to help shell some yellow corn for breakfast. Good-bye!”

Then Charlie Chick trotted off to his chicken coop, and all the other animal boys went to their homes, though Neddie asked each of them to stay and help him bring in the wood.

But none of them could, for they, too, had little things to do at home.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Neddie. “I’ve got to bring in the kindling wood all alone. And it’s dark! But I suppose it serves me right for letting it go so long. Next time I’ll not.” And I suppose it did serve Neddie right, though that did not make it any the more pleasant.

So the little bear boy went out to the woodpile. It was so dark he could hardly see, but still he was brave, and he made up his mind he was not going to ask Uncle Wigwag, or Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, to help him.

“For it’s my own fault for not bringing in the wood earlier,” thought Neddie.

He hurried all he could, and brought in one pawful, which he put in the wood-box behind the stove. His mamma didn’t say anything when Neddie stood there in the kitchen a minute, sort of waiting-like, as though he hoped she would excuse him.

Mamma Stubtail really felt sorry for her little bear cub, but she knew it would be a good lesson to him. And there are more kinds of lessons in this world than you learn from your school books, you know.

So Neddie went out to the woodpile again, and it was darker than ever. The little bear boy piled his paws full of the firesticks and started for the house. It was quite a distance, and before Neddie got there some one stepped up behind him and grabbed him tightly.

“Oh, dear!” cried the little bear boy. “Who is it?”

“It is I! The skillery-scalery alligator!” was the answer, given in a shivery sort of voice. “At last I have you! I have been waiting until it was dark enough for me to carry you off without any one seeing me. Now I’ve got you. Come along!”

“No, I’m not going!” cried Neddie, and he struggled to get loose. But he couldn’t, for the ’gator held him too tightly.

“Oh, help! help!” cried poor Neddie.

“Hush! No more of that!” snarled the skillery alligator, and he held one paw over Neddie’s mouth so the little bear boy couldn’t call for help.

“Come along!” cried the alligator, and he started to drag Neddie away.

And then the little bear cub thought of something. In his paws were a lot of sharp, jagged sticks of wood. As quickly as a flash Neddie dropped all but one of these sticks of wood. This one he grasped tightly in his paws, and with that stick he gave that bad alligator such a whack on his nose that tears came into his eyes.

“Oh, wow! Trolley cars, and ice cream cones! What happened to me?” cried the alligator. “Did it thunder and lightning?”

“No! I did it with my little stick!” cried Neddie and he gave the ’gator another whack, if you will excuse my saying so. Then the alligator cried “Wow!” again, and more tears came into his eyes, and he could not see through so much salt water, and then Neddie managed to wiggle loose and run into the house. And the ’gator had too much of a toothache to follow, so the little bear boy got away after all. And the skillery-scalery alligator went to the dentist’s, to have his tooth fixed.

After that, Uncle Wigwag helped the little bear boy bring in the rest of the wood, and never again did Neddie let his work go until dark. And on the next page, if the coffee grinder doesn’t take a bite out of the gas stove and make it sing in its sleep, I’ll tell you about Beckie and her cough medicine.

STORY XX
BECKIE AND HER COUGH MEDICINE

“Ker-choo! Ker-choo! Ker-choo!” sneezed little Beckie Stubtail, the bear girl, as she sat up in her bed of straw one night. “Ker-choo! A-ker-choo! Boo-hoo!”

“My goodness me sakes alive and some castor oil!” cried Aunt Piffy, the nice old bear lady, waking up from a sound sleep in the next room. “What ever is the matter, Beckie?”

“Oh, dear! I don’t know!” cried Beckie, as she rubbed her eyes in the dark. “But I feel so queer! My nose is all stopped up, and I can’t breathe and my throat tickles and I’m cold——”

“Oh my goodness!” cried Aunt Piffy, jumping out of bed so quickly that she almost stepped on the pussy cat’s tail.

Mrs. Stubtail, the mamma bear, had also heard her little cub girl sneezing and coughing, and Mamma Stubtail jumped up too, and ran to Beckie’s room, turning up the night light so she could see what was the matter.

“What is it, Beckie? What has happened?” asked mamma.

“Oh, dear! I’m so miserable,” said poor Beckie, crying.

“Oh, no wonder!” remarked Aunt Piffy. “See, she is all uncovered, and she has taken cold. We must put her feet in hot mustard water at once, and send for Dr. Possum. Oh, the dear child is going to be ill!”

“I hope not,” said Mamma Stubtail, but she was afraid just the same.

Then such a time as there was with the two lady bears bustling around to look after Beckie. And all through it Papa Stubtail never waked up, for he had worked hard that day, and was a sound sleeper. But Uncle Wigwag, the funny old bear gentleman, did awaken, and, putting on his dressing gown and slippers, he stuck his head in Beckie’s room, and asked:

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes,” said Aunt Piffy. “You might heat some water. We want to give Beckie a hot bath.”

“I will,” said Uncle Wigwag, and he didn’t try to play any tricks at all then, but heated the water at once. And Uncle Wigwag was very fond, too, of playing tricks and jokes, let me tell you.

Well, soon Beckie was nice and warm, and she had soaked her paws in mustard water, and taken some sweet medicine. And all this while Neddie her little bear brother, had not awakened from his sleep.

But Mamma Stubtail and Aunt Piffy were kept very busy until nearly morning looking after Beckie. Finally she did not cough or sneeze so much, and she fell asleep. Everybody was glad.

“When it’s morning we’ll have Dr. Possum,” said Mrs. Stubtail, softly.

Well, morning came after a while, but it always seems to come very slowly when you are awake and waiting for it, especially if some one is ill. And Beckie was quite ill. She seemed to get worse all the while.

When Dr. Possum came, right after breakfast, he felt of Beckie’s paw to tell how fast her pulse was beating. Then he made her put out her tongue to see how red it was, and the animal doctor gentleman said: