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!”