and again they shouted, but only the echoes answered them.
“It’s of no use!” said Beckie, and she was almost ready to cry, for her
cough was hurting her again. Then Neddie thought of something.
“I have it!” he cried. “I’ll make a tooting horn out of birch bark, like
the one the hunter man had. I’ll blow on the horn, and surely some one
will hear that.”
“Oh, goodie!” cried Beckie, clapping her paws. Then she felt better.
Neddie with his sharp claws quickly stripped off some white birch bark
from a tree. He rolled the bark into a sort of cornucopia, large at one
end and small at the other. He put the small end to his mouth.
“Toot! Toot! Toot!” went the little bear boy on the birch bark horn.
Again and again he blew it. Finally Beckie said:
“I hear some one coming!”
Surely enough there was a sound in the bushes.
“Come and get us!” cried Neddie.
“I’m coming,” said a voice, and then, instead of their papa or uncle
bear, out jumped the bad old skillery-scalery alligator.
“Now I have you!” he cried, snapping his teeth.
“Oh, no, you haven’t!” said Neddie. And with that he blew such a blast
from the tooting horn in the face of the ’gator that the bad creature
turned a somersault and a peppersault mixed together and away he ran
back to the drug store, where he belonged. Then Neddie blew some more
tunes on the tooting horn, and this time his papa, who was searching in
the woods, heard him and came to get his little boy and girl bear.
So Neddie and Beckie weren’t lost any more, and soon they were safely
home, and I’m glad to say that Beckie’s cough got no worse. And they had
hot mush for supper with sweet molasses on.
And in the next story, if the lady downstairs doesn’t come up and take
my typewriter to get her baby asleep with, I’ll tell you about Beckie
and the hand-organ man.
[Illustration]
STORY XXII
BECKIE AND THE HAND-ORGAN MAN
“Beckie,” said Mrs. Stubtail, the lady bear, as she came into the
sitting-room in the cave-house where the little cub girl was playing
with her rubber doll; “Beckie, I wonder if you are well enough to go to
the store for me?”
“Of course I am, mamma,” answered Beckie. “My cold and cough is all
cured now. I can go to school next week, I think.”
“I hope so,” said Mrs. Stubtail, “for you have been very ill.”
I told you, you know, about how Beckie had to take some very bitter,
sour medicine, and how she fooled the bad lion with it.
And, since her illness, Beckie had not been to school. But she was
better now, and that’s why Mrs. Stubtail thought perhaps the little bear
girl could go to school.
“Well, as long as you think you are able to be out,” went on the mamma
bear, “I’d like you to bring me a cake of yeast. I want to bake some
bread.
“I would go to the store for it myself,” went on Mrs. Stubtail, “only I
have to stay in the house, since Aunt Piffy is visiting over at Mrs.
Wibblewobble’s duck pond, and I expect Mrs. Bow Wow the dog lady might
call this afternoon. That’s why I asked you to go for the yeast,
Beckie.”
“Oh, mamma, I don’t in the least mind,” said Beckie, politely. “I think
the walk will do me good. It is a nice day, though it does look as
though it were going to snow. And I’ll take my doll, Isabella Trolleycar
Jamkitchen, along with me. She needs the air, too.”
“Well, wrap up warmly,” spoke Mrs. Stubtail, “and don’t catch any more
cold.”
“No, and I won’t let the cold catch me!” laughed Beckie, as she looked
for her little red jacket, hanging on the hat rack.
So the little bear girl started off through the woods to go to the store
for a yeast cake for her mamma.
The store was kept by a nice, kind old pussycat lady, and when Beckie
got there the pussycat was just drinking a saucer of warm milk.
“Would you like some, my dear?” asked she of Beckie.
“Thank you, I would,” said the little bear girl, politely.
So before buying her yeast cake, Beckie had some nice, warm milk, and a
molasses cookie, which the cat lady storekeeper baked all by her own
self.
“Now be careful, and don’t lose your change,” said the lady cat, as she
gave the pennies to Beckie. “And put the yeast cake in your pocket,
where it won’t fall out.”
“I will,” answered Beckie.
Off she started for home, with the pennies and the silver-covered yeast
cake rattling about in her pocket. Now a yeast cake, as I guess you all
know, is something to make a loaf of bread light and fluffy. The yeast
makes the bread all full of little holes, so that the butter won’t fall
off it when you spread it on.
Well, Beckie was going along, thinking how much nicer it was to be well
than ill, and she was wondering what the animal girls would say to her
when she went back to the school, when, all of a sudden, Beckie heard
some one crying behind a clump of bushes.
“My goodness!” cried the little bear girl. “That’s a man!”
You see she could tell right away that it was no animal crying.
“Yes, it’s a man!” thought Beckie, and she got ready to run as soon as
she could see which way to go, so as not to run into the man. For most
men, Beckie knew, would like to carry away a little bear cub like
herself.
Then Beckie heard the crying again and a voice said:
“Oh, dear! How sad I am. Poor George has run away and left me!”
“George!” thought Beckie. “Why, that was the name of the nice, tame,
trained bear that Neddie and I ran off to travel with some time ago. I
wonder if that man can be the Professor who blew on the shiny, brass
horn?”
So Beckie peeked around the corner of the bramble briar bush, behind
which the crying man was hiding, and she saw that he wasn’t the
Professor gentleman at all.
He was a hand-organ man, with a nice fur coat, and he was crying as hard
as he could cry, that man was.
“I don’t think he’d be cruel to me,” thought Beckie. “Anyhow, he’s in
trouble, and maybe I can help him. Besides, hand-organ men most always
have monkeys, and if they are kind to the monkeys they’ll probably be
kind to little bear girls. I’m going to ask him if I can help him.”
Just then the hand-organ man cried again, and said:
“Oh, dear! Oh, George, why did you ever run away and leave me?”
Oh, I forgot to tell you that the reason Beckie knew the crying man
played a hand-organ was because there was a hand-organ standing up
against a tree near him. Only he wasn’t playing it just then. You can’t
very well play a hand-organ and cry at the same time. At least I never
saw any one do it, though, of course, it may be done.
“What is the matter, hand-organ man?” asked Beckie, politely, making a
little bow, as she stepped in front of him. “Why do you cry, and who is
George? Was he a little bear?”
“Oh, no,” said the man, who could understand bear talk, and speak it,
too. “No, George was not a bear. He was a monkey, and he used to do lots
of tricks as I played the music. But he has run away and left me.”
Then Beckie noticed that there was no monkey with the hand-organ, as
there should have been, by rights.
“So you are crying for George; is that it?” she asked the man who was
wiping away his tears on the back of his cap.
“That is just why, little bear girl,” he said. “I have no monkey to do
funny tricks when I play the music, and, unless I have a monkey, the
people will not give me pennies. Oh, I have no money, I can’t get any,
and I am so hungry.”
“Poor hand-organ man!” exclaimed Beckie. “Maybe I could be a monkey for
you.”
“You!” exclaimed the man. “Why, you are too big. But I thank you just
the same.”
“I know I am a little larger than a monkey,” said Beckie, “but I can do
tricks. I learned them from some circus animals, when my brother Neddie
and I ran away with a bear named George. At first I thought you meant
the bear George.”
“No, my monkey was named George, too,” said the hand-organ man. “But let
me see you do some tricks.”
So Beckie danced around in the woods, and played soldier, as she had
seen the bear George do, and she climbed a tall tree and then she stood
on her hind paws and begged like a little poodle dog, and the man
exclaimed:
“Why, that’s just fine! Now we’ll have a little music!”
So he played a jolly tune and Beckie did more tricks. Then the man said:
“Will you come with me for a while, little bear girl, and do tricks for
the people while I play? In that way I may get some pennies, even if I
have no monkey.”
“Yes, I will come with you for a little while,” said Beckie, “but I can
not stay very long, for my mamma expects me home with the yeast cake.”
So Beckie went with the hand-organ man, down to the city where he
played. And such nice tricks as the little bear girl did! The hand-organ
man said she was better than his monkey, and I guess the boys and girls
who saw Beckie climb a telegraph pole thought so too. Anyhow, the man
got lots of pennies, which Beckie took up in his cap, passing it around
in her paws.
Then it was time for her to go home, but the hand-organ man was sorry to
have her leave him.
“Maybe I’ll help you again some day,” said Beckie.
“I hope so,” said the man, and he didn’t cry any more, for he had many
pennies to buy food. And he gave Beckie half of the pennies for her own
self. Wasn’t he good?
And on the way home a bad old tiger from the circus chased Beckie, but
she threw the bright, shining yeast cake at him, and the tiger thought
it was a bullet from a bang-bang gun, and he was so frightened for fear
he might get shot that he ran off and left Beckie alone.
Then she picked up the yeast cake, which was only bent sideways a little
bit, and got safely home with it, and it made a nice loaf of bread.
And on the next page, if the wallpaper doesn’t jump down off the ceiling
and go to sleep in the baby’s crib, I’ll tell you about Neddie playing
the piano.
STORY XXIII
NEDDIE PLAYS THE PIANO
“Come, Neddie!” cried Mamma Stubtail, the lady bear, one day, as she
went to the door of the cave-house and looked out in front where Neddie,
the little boy bear, was playing football. “It’s time to practice your
music lesson, Neddie.”
“Oh, dear!” cried the little bear boy. “I wish I was a player-piano!”
“What a funny wish!” said Beckie, who was taking her doll, Elizabeth
Jane Huckleberrypie, out for a walk.
“Why do you want to be a player-piano, Neddie?”
“Then I wouldn’t have to practice my music lesson,” said the little bear
boy.
However, since his mamma had called him, Neddie started to go in. Then
Tommie and Joie Kat, the kitten boys, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the
puppy dog boys, called to him:
“Where you going, Neddie?”
“I have to practice my music lesson,” he answered, and he went into the
cave-house, but he didn’t feel very happy. He sat down to the piano, and
he began to play:
“Tinkle-tinkle tinkle-tink!
Dum-te dum-dum dum-dum doo!
Plinko-plunko smasho-bang!
How I wish that I was through!”
That’s the kind of a tune Neddie had to play for his exercise music
practice lesson, and really he didn’t do it well at all. For you see he
was anxious to go back to play football with the boy animals.
And that’s often the way it is when real boys and girls have to practice
music lessons. I wish it were not so, for there is nothing nicer in this
world than music, and in order to play it well you have to practice. And
some day, if you take music lessons, you’ll be glad that you did run up
and down the piano keyboard with your fingers when you had much rather
be out having games with your friends. For it is very nice to be able to
play tunes.
But Neddie didn’t think so as he sat on the piano stool, drumming away,
and looking at the clock, every now and then to see when his time would
be up, so that he could go out and play with his animal friends.
Finally the clock struck five and Neddie finished his practice with a
bang. It wasn’t music at all, but he did not care.
“Hurray!” he cried. “Practice is over. Now I can have some fun!”
Out of doors he rushed and more than ever he wished he were a
player-piano, so that all he’d have to do would be to jump up and down
with his feet when he wanted music. That is a good way to make nice
sounds, too, on the player-piano, and I can play one or two pieces
myself, that way. But, oh, how I wish I could play by hand!
However, Neddie’s friends were glad to see him come out again. They
played football and nearly broke the window in Mrs. Wibblewobble’s duck
pen, so that she had to run out and call to them:
“Now, boys, you must go right away from here. Play football somewhere
else.”
So Neddie, the little bear boy, and his friends had to move along and
look for a vacant lot where they could kick around their football
without breaking any windows.
That night, when Mr. Stubtail, the bear papa, came home, he asked
Neddie:
“Did everything go all right in school to-day?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Neddie politely.
“And when you came home did you practice your music lesson?”
“Yes, sir,” answered Neddie, and he was glad he had not skipped it, as
he sometimes did.
“Very good,” said Mr. Stubtail. “Then on Saturday afternoon I will take
you and Beckie to a nice moving picture show.”
“Oh, joy!” cried Beckie, clapping her paws.
“Oh, happiness!” said Neddie, and he was glad again that he had not
missed his music practice.
Well, that night, after Neddie had finished his home school-work, he
wanted to sit up a little longer to read a fairy story. His mamma let
him do this, but when it came time for Neddie to go to bed, he had not
finished the story. So he begged:
“Oh, can’t I stay up just a little longer, mamma?”
Then, as he had been such a good boy, Mrs. Stubtail said that he might,
so Neddie settled down into the deep-cushioned easy chair, and read all
about how the pink fairy turned herself into a pumpkin and rolled down
hill so the giant couldn’t make a Jack-o’-lantern of her.
And then quite a lot of things happened. Mrs. Kat, the mother of Tommie
and Joie and Kittie Kat, came in to call on Mrs. Stubtail. And Nurse
Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, came to ask Aunt Piffy what the old
lady bear did for dyspepsia when she ate cheese for supper. And
Grandfather Goosey Gander came in to play a game of Scotch checkers with
Uncle Wigwag, while Mr. Whitewash, the Polar bear, went out to look for
a cake of ice on which to sleep, for, he always liked things cold, you
know.
And there were so many things going on that no one thought anything
about Neddie. There he sat in the big chair, reading the fairy story
until he fell asleep. Then, as it happened, all the company went home at
once and in a hurry, and when Papa and Mamma Stubtail locked up the
cave-house, and put the cat down cellar, no one thought that Neddie was
asleep in the big chair. His sister Beckie had gone up to bed some time
ago, and every one thought Neddie was in bed also.
So upstairs in the cave-house went all the big folks, not knowing that
Neddie was in the chair. And there he stayed until it got real late and
dark. And, oh, so quiet was it in the house! Why, you could have heard a
pin drop, if any one had let one fall.
All of a sudden Neddie awakened. He sat up with a jump, and looked all
around in the dark. Of course he couldn’t see anything, for it was all
black.
Then, hardly knowing where he was, Neddie rubbed his eyes with his paws,
but still he could scarcely see. Then he noticed a little light from the
street lamp outside, shining in through the window, and he could tell
where he was.
“Why!” he exclaimed, “I’m home, in my own house! I fell asleep in the
big chair. Huh! I guess I’d better go up to bed!”
Neddie stretched himself, and was wondering if he could find his room in
the dark, without waking every one up, including Mr. Whitewash, who was
asleep on a cake of ice, when, all of a sudden, Neddie heard a noise. It
was right under the window, near which he had been sleeping, and he
listened to a voice, saying:
“Now we’ll break in through the back door, and we’ll take Neddie and
Beckie and carry them off to our den and never let them out again.”
“Yes, that’s just what we’ll do,” answered another voice, and then
Neddie tiptoed to the window, and looking out he saw two bad old lions
that had run away from a circus. They were coming to get Neddie and
Beckie.
“Oh, what shall I do?” thought Neddie.
“Those lions can easily break into our house. And if I call out to papa
and mamma now the lions will hear me and they’ll jump in through the
window and get me before I have a chance to run.
“Oh, what can I do? How can I scare those lions away?”
Just then Neddie heard a tiny mousie run up and down on the piano keys,
making a little tinkling sound. This made the little bear boy think of
something.
“I have it!” he whispered to himself in the darkness. “I’ll go in to the
piano, and I’ll play the loudest bang-bang tune I know. Maybe the lions
will think it’s thunder and lightning and guns shooting off, and they
may be afraid and run away!”
So Neddie stole into the piano room and, all of a sudden, he banged his
paws down on the loud keys as hard as he could. Then he played on the
tinkle-tinkle keys, and again on the thunder notes. The lions, who were
just going to break into the cave-house, heard the noise. They had never
heard music in the dark night before, and they thought it was thunder
and lightning.
“Oh! wow!” cried one lion, “we’re going to be caught in a storm! Come on
home to our cave!”
“I’m with you!” growled the other lion, shivering, and away they ran, as
frightened as could be, because Neddie remembered enough of his music
lesson to make a thunder sound that he had practiced several times.
“And I’m never going to make a fuss about practice again,” he said.
“Music is a good thing, after all. It scares lions away.”
Of course everybody in the cave-house woke up when Neddie played the
piano, and when he told his papa and mamma why he did it, to drive away
the lions, they said he had done just right.
Then everything got quiet, and Neddie finished his sleep in bed. And
nothing more happened. So, pretty soon, if the trolley car doesn’t run
off the track and bunk into the dishpan and make a big dent in it, I’ll
tell you about Neddie and Beckie going to a party.
STORY XXIV
NEDDIE AND BECKIE AT A PARTY
One day, when Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the little boy and girl bear,
came home from school, where they had said their lessons, each one
getting a good mark for not whispering—one day, as they ran in the house
to get a honey cake, they saw two little white envelopes lying on the
dining-room table.
“Hello!” exclaimed Neddie, looking at them. “Here’s some post-office
mail mamma has forgotten to open.”
“I’ll take it to her,” spoke Beckie, as she put her school books on the
sideboard; “I think she’s in the kitchen. And while I’m out there I’ll
get the honey cakes.”
“Good!” cried Neddie, as he wiggled his little tail. “And while you are
about it, get as many honey cakes as you can, Beckie.”
“I will,” answered the little bear girl. Bears are very fond of sweet
cakes, you know, especially if they have honey in them.
But when Beckie took up the tiny envelopes she gave a little squeal of
surprise, just like a baby piggie under a gate, and she said:
“Why, Neddie! These are for us—they are letters, with our names on!”
“Are they?” asked Neddie. “Sure enough!” he cried as he looked. “I
wonder who can be writing to us?”
“The best way would be to open them and find out,” suggested Aunt Piffy,
the fat old lady bear, as she came up from down cellar, where she had
gone to keep the apples from getting lonesome. Oh, Aunt Piffy was the
kindest old lady bear you ever heard of. She was even kind to the apples
and potatoes, and all things like that.
“Open your letters,” she said to Neddie and Beckie, “and then you can
tell whom they’re from.”
Beckie began to tear open her envelope, but Neddie, after looking at his
for a moment, said:
“Oh, ho! I know. This is a joke of Uncle Wigwag’s! I’m not going to let
him fool us!”
Uncle Wigwag, you know, was an old gentleman bear who was always playing
tricks, or jokes, on Neddie and Beckie, and sometimes on Aunt Piffy,
too.
Just then in came Mr. Whitewash, the Polar bear gentleman.
“Has anybody seen my cake of ice?” he cried. “I can’t find it. Some one
must have my cake of ice!”
You see, being a white Polar bear, from the North Pole, Mr. Whitewash
always used to sit on a cake of ice to keep cool, and he often mislaid
it, or couldn’t find it, just as Grandma CluckCluck, the old lady hen,
used to lose her glasses.
“Where is my cake of ice?” asked Mr. Whitewash, as he looked all around
the bear cave-house.
“Oh, my goodness me sakes alive and some horseradish-mustard!” cried
Aunt Piffy. “I think I put your cake of ice under the stove, to have it
out of the way while I swept, and by this time——”
“Yes, by this time it must be all melted!” cried Mr. Whitewash, as he
rushed out to the kitchen. And, as luck would have it, just then,
through the door, came Mrs. Stubtail, the mamma bear, and in her hand
she had a plate of honey cakes, that she had just baked. Of course Mr.
Whitewash rushed right into her, but he didn’t mean to. Down went Mrs.
Stubtail, down went the honey cakes—down went Mr. Whitewash, and such a
mix-up you never saw in all your life!
But no one was hurt, I’m glad to say, though some of the honey cakes
were broken. But that did not hurt them, and Neddie and Beckie picked
them up and their mamma let them eat the pieces.
Then Mr. Whitewash managed to find his cake of ice under the stove. It
was not quite all melted, but nearly. However, there was enough left for
him to sit on and keep cool, until the ice man came with another cake.
Then when everything was quiet Neddie took up his envelope again, and
said:
“Look, Mr. Whitewash, Uncle Wigwag is trying to play another joke on
us.”
“No, I do not think so,” answered the white Polar bear gentleman. “He
has not been in the house in some time. He and Uncle Wiggily Longears,
the rabbit gentleman, are playing a game of hop butterscotch on the duck
pond. I think your letters are no joke.”
“Then I’m going to open mine!” exclaimed Beckie, and when she had done
so and had read the writing inside, she called out:
“Oh, Neddie! It’s an invitation to a party! Kittie Kat, the little pussy
girl, is giving a party and she’s asked me to come to it. Is yours an
invitation, too?”
“Why, yes, it is,” said Neddie slowly. “I guess I’ll go.”
“Go? Of course we’ll go!” cried Beckie. “I wonder what dress I’ll wear?”
“Oh, that’s just the way with girls!” cried Neddie. “As soon as they
hear of a party they begin thinking of dress.”
“Pooh! I guess you boys are just as fussy about wearing a new necktie!”
said Beckie, as she waggled her little stubby tail.
Well, to make a long story short, Neddie and Beckie got ready to go to
the party Kittie Kat was to give. It took place three nights after the
invitations came out, and Neddie and Beckie, the little bear children,
each one dressed very nicely, went on and on through the woods and over
the fields to the Kat home. It was not very far, and there was a bright
moon shining in the sky, so they were not afraid.
And I just wish you could have been to the party, which Kittie Kat gave
for all her animal children friends. No, on second thought, perhaps, it
is just as well you were not there. The animal children wouldn’t know
you, and they might have been frightened. But some day I’ll take you
around myself to call on them, and after that they won’t mind you.
Anyhow, everybody whom Beckie and Neddie knew seemed to be at Kittie’s
party. Her brothers, Tommy and Joie Kat, waited on the door and let in
the guests as they came. Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit
children, were there, and Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys,
and Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the ducks, and oh!
everybody.
And such fun as they had! They played all sorts of games, such as little
bear in the corner, hide the potato, lose the piano and find the
molasses. And whoever found the molasses could have some of the sweet
stuff on a spoon. Neddie and Beckie liked this game the best of all.
Then there was another game. Kittie Kat brought in an empty barrel, and
in the bottom she put a box of candy.
“Now,” said Kittie, “whoever can reach over in and down and get that box
of candy may have it. But, mind you, you’ve got to get it with your
paws, you can’t use a stick or a hook to pull it up.”
Now the barrel was quite a deep one, and though all the animal boys and
girls tried, they could not reach down and get the box of candy.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Beckie, “this is just the kind of a trick Uncle
Wigwag would play!”
“Well, it’s only in fun,” said Kittie Kat, with a laugh, “and when
you’ve all tried and can’t do it, I’ll turn the barrel upside down, the
candy will drop out and we’ll all have some.”
“Wait! I haven’t finished yet!” called Neddie Stubtail. “I think I can
claw up that candy!”