for the candy. At first he could not get hold of the box. Farther and
farther he leaned over the edge, and his hind paws came up off the
floor.
“Look out, Neddie! You’ll fall in!” cried Beckie.
And that is just what Neddie did. All of a sudden into the barrel he
went, head over paws and everything. “Ker-bunko!” went Neddie.
Everybody laughed when he went down inside the barrel, and when he
bobbed up again, holding the candy in his paws, the animal children
laughed more than ever. For Neddie was all covered over with white. He
looked just like Mr. Whitewash, the Polar bear gentleman, only smaller.
“Oh, Neddie, what happened to you,” asked Beckie, in surprise.
“I know!” exclaimed Kittie Kat. “That barrel had flour in it, and I
didn’t dust it all out. The white flour is all over Neddie’s fur.”
And so it was, but no one minded.
“I don’t care. I got the candy anyhow,” said Neddie as he jumped out of
the barrel. Then he gave all the animal children some of the sweet
stuff, and when a few more games were played it was time to go home.
Neddie and Beckie went through the forest, and when they were almost at
the bear cave, Beckie said:
“Some one is following us through the woods. Maybe it’s a bad lion.”
“Bur-r-r-r-r! I hope not!” cried Neddie. He turned around to look, and
there it was, a bad circus lion. But an instant later the lion roared
out:
“Oh, excuse me, Mr. Whitewash, I didn’t know it was you!” and then the
lion ran away. You see he looked at the white flour still on Neddie’s
fur, and the bad lion thought he saw the big, strong Polar bear
gentleman, while it was really only little Neddie. Then the bear
children ran safely home.
So you see it was a good thing Neddie fell into the flour barrel and got
all white after all, as it scared away the bad lion. And next, if the
horsie doesn’t jump out of his picture frame on the wall, and run over
my typewriter with the pony cart, I’ll tell you about Neddie in the
snowbank.
STORY XXV
NEDDIE IN A SNOWBANK
“Mamma,” said Neddie Stubtail, the little boy bear, as he got up from
the supper table one evening, “may I go over to Sammie Littletail’s
house to-night?”
“What for?” asked Mrs. Stubtail.
“Oh, we’re going to play with his magic lantern,” answered Neddie.
“We’re going to show some funny pictures. All the boys are going to be
there.”
“Oh, I wish I could go,” cried Beckie, the little girl bear, as she
looked to see if her green hair ribbon had turned pink. But it had not,
I am sorry to say.
“Pooh! You wouldn’t want to be the only girl there,” spoke Neddie.
“Oh, yes, I would,” exclaimed Beckie. “I like boys better than I do
girls,” and she wasn’t at all bashful-like as she said that. Some girls
are that way, you know.
“Well, maybe I’ll take you some other night,” said Neddie. “But may I go
over this evening, mamma?”
“Well, I guess so,” answered the lady bear, slowly. “But first you must
study your school lessons.”
“Oh, I’ll do that,” cried Neddie eagerly. “I’ll learn my reading lesson
and my number work. I haven’t got much. I’ve just got to find out how
many apples a man would have left if he bought two peaches for five
cents and sold a bushel of potatoes for thirteen musk melons.”
“What a funny thing to want to know,” laughed Beckie. “Who asked you
that question?”
“I don’t know,” replied Neddie. “It’s in the book, that’s all I know,
and I’ve got to find the answer for myself. I’m not sure, but I think
it’s a dozen honey cakes. Now please don’t bother me any more, Beckie,
for I’m going to study.”
“Oh, I won’t bother you,” said the little girl bear. “I’ve got to study
my own lessons. And after that I’m going to make a sky-blue-pink dress
for my new doll, Lillian Cheesecake Clothes-basket.”
Neddie hurried with his studying so that he might go over to the house
of Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, and see the magic lantern show.
A magic lantern, you know, is something like a moving picture show, only
different. I guess you’ve seen one, so I don’t need to tell you about
it.
Well, Neddie finished his home school-work, and I guess he did as you
boys and girls may often have done—he skipped the hard parts and only
took the easy questions, such as how to spell dog, and cat, and rat, and
apple, and cake.
Then Neddie put on his hat and coat, and started to go over to Sammie
Littletail’s house. It was not a great way there through the woods. The
moon was shining brightly, just as it was the night before, when Neddie
and Beckie went to Kittie Kat’s party, and Neddie fell into the flour
barrel, as I had the pleasure of telling you in the story before this
one.
When Neddie got to Sammie Littletail’s house he saw many of his little
animal boy friends there, and Sammie was all ready to start the magic
lantern show.
And, oh! what a nice show it was! A white sheet was tacked on the wall,
and on that the pictures were shown. There was one picture of some
little dogs in a country called Germany, walking around on their hind
legs and eating pie with a spoon. Then there was another picture of a
cow blowing her horns to make a nice tune so the grasshoppers could
dance.
After that Sammie showed a picture of a big lion, roaring in his loudest
voice, and, so as to make it seem more like a lion, Neddie, the little
bear boy, growled as loudly as he could, stooping down under the table
to hide himself.
And when that picture was shown, and when Neddie growled, Jilly
Longtail, the little mousie boy, was so scared that he cried right out
loud:
“I want to go home! I want to go home!”
Of course, every one laughed at him, but for all that poor little Jilly
was quite frightened.
“Why, it’s only a picture,” said Neddie, as he crawled out from under
the table, where he had been trying to roar like a lion. “Don’t cry,
Jilly,” and he wiped away the tears of the little mousie boy on his soft
fur.
Well, after that more pictures were shown, and then Mrs. Littletail, the
rabbit lady, brought out some nice sweet cakes for the animal boys, and
Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl, who was a sister to Sammie, as I
guess you know, helped her mamma pass the cakes around to every one.
Well, everybody had a good time, and when it came the hour for the boys
to go home, which was quite early, Sammie looked out of the window and
exclaimed:
“Why, it’s snowing hard!”
“Snowing lard, did you say?” asked Neddie.
“No, not lard, and not butter either,” answered Sammie, with a laugh. “I
said it was snowing hard—h-a-r-d—not soft, you know.”
“Oh, now I see!” cried Neddie. “Well, I’m glad it’s snowing, for we can
have some fun, making snow men, and building forts and sliding down
hill.”
“I’m glad, too!” exclaimed Tommie Kat, the kitten boy, “for it will soon
be Christmas, and I always like snow at Christmas.”
Everybody else at the magic lantern show said the same thing, and soon
they had started for their homes, because it kept snowing harder all the
while, and they did not want to get snowed in.
Neddie Stubtail, the little bear boy, hurried along, kicking his paws
through the snow, and thinking what fun he would have with his sister
Beckie on their way to school next morning.
“I’ll get out my sled and pull Beckie,” thought Neddie. He would do
this, you see, because Beckie could not come to the magic lantern show.
Well, Neddie was walking along, and he was putting out his tongue and
letting the snowflakes melt on it, sort of tickling himself like, when,
all of a sudden, Neddie heard a roaring sound, and a voice cried:
“Ah, ha! Now I’ve got you. You shan’t fool me this time by covering
yourself with flour and making believe you’re a Polar bear. I’m after
you!” And out from behind a snowbank rushed the bad old circus lion who
had chased Neddie and Beckie the night before, when they were on their
way home from the Kat party.
“Oh, my!” exclaimed Neddie. “I guess I’d better run!” And run he did,
through the snow, as fast as he could. But the lion ran, too, and he was
almost catching up to Neddie, when, all at once, the little bear came to
the edge of a hill.
He came to it so suddenly that he couldn’t stop himself, and the first
thing the little bear knew he slid over the top of the hill. Down he
fell, right into the middle of a big bank of snow, on the other side.
Now a snowbank isn’t hard like the iron bank in which you put your
pennies, and so Neddie wasn’t hurt the least mite, I’m glad to say.
Gracious, if he had fallen on a hard iron bank, I don’t know what might
have happened. I guess maybe he’d have broken his toothache anyhow. I’m
not saying for sure, but maybe.
Anyhow, Neddie fell “ker-flop!” into the soft snow, and the fluffy
flakes closed up over his head, not leaving any hole to show where he
had gone in. So that when the bad lion came to the edge of the hill and
looked down, expecting to see the little bear boy, he couldn’t see him
at all, at all. For Neddie was hidden by the kind snowbank.
“My, that’s rather queer,” said the lion, sort of roaring to himself and
scratching his nose with his tail. “Very strange to be sure! I’m
positive that bear boy is around here somewhere. I’ll just call and make
him come out.”
So the lion called:
“Hey, you, Neddie Stubtail! Come out of where ever you are and let me
bite you!”
But, of course, Neddie was too smart for that. He just stayed hiding
under the snowbank, and finally the bad lion went away through the
storm, growling to himself and wondering what had happened to Neddie.
But Neddie stayed in the snowbank for some time, and then finally the
little bear chap began wondering how he was ever going to get out to go
home. For the snowbank was very big.
And then a funny thing happened. Neddie’s warm breath melted a hole in
the snowbank and the little bear boy could look out just as if he were
looking through a window in a snow house. And in the shining moonlight,
for it had stopped snowing, he saw, a little way off, the very cave in
which he lived. Then he scratched hard with his paws and breathed hard
with his warm breath and soon he was out of the snowbank. A little later
he was safe in his own house. And oh my! how glad his mamma was to see
him!
So he had quite an adventure, which goes to show that you can never tell
what will happen when a lion chases you. And on the next page, if the
popcorn doesn’t go bang up against the ceiling and knock the gas light
down cellar, I’ll tell you about Neddie and Beckie helping Uncle Wigwag.
[Illustration]
STORY XXVI
HELPING UNCLE WIGWAG
One day, when Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the little bear children, came
home from school, they saw in the dining-room Uncle Wigwag, the funny
old gentleman bear, who was always playing jokes. And Uncle Wigwag was
laughing and chuckling, and giggling to himself, bobbing up and down,
and tickling himself on his ribs to make himself laugh all the harder.
And then he’d sit down in a chair and hold his sides with his paws
because they ached so from his jollity.
“Why, what in the world can be the matter with Uncle Wigwag?” asked
Beckie, dropping her books, and hurrying toward him.
“Maybe he’s sick,” suggested Neddie. “I guess I’d better run for Dr.
Possum.”
“Sick! He isn’t sick at all!” exclaimed Aunt Piffy, the fat old lady
bear. “He’s just up to some of his tricks. If you ever joke with me
again that way,” she went on, looking at Uncle Wigwag sort of
sharp-like, “if ever you do that again, I’ll never give you any maple
sugar on your honey cakes.”
“Oh, what did he do? Tell us!” cried Neddie and Beckie, while Uncle
Wigwag laughed harder than ever.
“Why he came home from the five-and-ten-cent store—I guess it must have
been,” explained Aunt Piffy, “and he gave me a box to open. He asked me
if I didn’t want a new side hair comb, and of course I did. Well, when I
opened the box out popped a green snake. I was so scared that I ran down
cellar and hid, and I nearly lost my breath, and could hardly find it
again. Oh, dear!” and Aunt Piffy fanned herself with her apron, she was
so warm.
“Well,” said Uncle Wigwag, and he stopped laughing long enough to talk.
“I really didn’t say there was a side comb in the box, Aunt Piffy.
Besides, it wasn’t really a snake, you know,” he said, turning to Neddie
and Beckie. “It was only a snake made of paper, with a spring inside
like a jack-in-the-box.”
“Oh, I know,” said Neddie. “Where is it? Let me take it, and I’ll play a
joke on some of the fellows at school.”
“Take it!” exclaimed Aunt Piffy. “I don’t want to see it again. And mind
you!” she said to Uncle Wigwag, shaking her paw at him, “if you joke
with me any more—no maple sugar on your fried eggs for breakfast.”
“Oh, I’ll be good,” said the old bear gentleman.
But it was very hard for Uncle Wigwag to stop playing jokes. A little
later that afternoon he gave Beckie what she thought was a candy egg,
and when she tried to bite into it, thinking it was nice and sweet, the
egg popped open, and a little chicken inside, made of paper and
feathers, crowed just like a rooster, and Beckie nearly jumped out of
her hair ribbon, she was so surprised.
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Uncle Wigwag. “That was a good joke!”
“I don’t think so,” said Beckie, sort of sorrowful-like.
“Don’t you? Well, maybe it wasn’t,” spoke Uncle Wigwag. “Anyhow, here’s
a penny for you to buy some real candy.” Uncle Wigwag was always that
way—first he’d play a joke on you and then he’d do you a kindness. He
was quite nice after all.
And a little later Neddie was looking for a pencil to write down some of
his home school-work on his paper pad.
“Here’s a good pencil,” said Uncle Wigwag, taking one from his pocket.
Neddie didn’t think anything, and started to write with the pencil. But,
as soon as he did so, it bounced out of his paw and jumped around on the
floor. For inside it was a jumping-jack. It was a trick pencil, you
know, and Uncle Wigwag had played another joke.
“Excuse me while I laugh,” said the old gentleman bear. And Neddie
laughed, too, for he rather liked the trick pencil.
And then Uncle Wigwag played another trick. Oh, but he was full of them
that day! wasn’t he? I guess he must have been roaming around two or
three five-and-ten-cent stores to find those jokes.
The last trick Uncle Wigwag played was on Mr. Whitewash, the white Polar
bear gentleman. Mr. Whitewash used to have a cup of tea every afternoon,
while he sat down to read in the paper about whether it was going to be
cold or hot the next day.
Mr. Whitewash used to sit on a cake of ice, you know, because he liked
everything cold, except his tea, and he did not like warm weather at
all.
Well, he was sitting there, reading his paper, and sort of not looking
what he was doing. He reached out his paw to take his cup of tea, with
his eyes still on the paper, and when he picked up the cup and started
to drink from it, there was no tea in it. Instead, Uncle Wigwag had put
in some ink, and when Mr. Whitewash, not looking at it, started to drink
it, the ink spilled all over his white fur. It made him look like a
spotted clown in the circus.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Uncle Wigwag. “That’s a fine joke!”
“I don’t think so,” said Mr. Whitewash. “And you had better look out, or
I’ll play a joke on you.”
Then Uncle Wigwag felt sorry he had done such a thing, and he helped Mr.
Whitewash clean the ink off his white fur. Neddie and Beckie helped
also. And a little later the Polar bear gentleman said to the two
children:
“You just watch and see what a trick I shall play on Uncle Wigwag.”
So Neddie and Beckie watched, though they didn’t see anything for some
time. But toward dark that evening, when Neddie was bringing in his wood
to fill the box behind the kitchen stove, he heard some one crying in
the fields across the way from the bear cave.
“Help! Help! Oh, help!” called a voice.
“Why, who can that be?” asked Beckie, who was watching Neddie bring in
the wood.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered the little bear boy, “but I’m going to
see.”
“Oh, you’d better not,” spoke Beckie. “Maybe it’s the bad old lion.”
“Yes, and maybe it’s Uncle Wiggily, the nice rabbit gentleman. He may be
in trouble,” went on Neddie. “Come on, it isn’t far. We’ll go see. We
must help Uncle Wiggily, you know.”
There was no one else in the bear cave just then to go to the help of
whoever was calling, as Mrs. Stubtail and Aunt Piffy had gone over to
the house of Mrs. Kat, the kitten children’s mamma, to ask about making
sugar pie. So Neddie and Beckie had to do whatever they were going to do
all by themselves.
They hurried on toward where they heard the voice. It was still calling:
“Help! Help! Oh, will no one help me?”
“Yes, we are coming!” answered Neddie, and then he and Beckie ran around
the corner by a stump, and they saw, sitting there, Uncle Wigwag, the
old joking bear gentleman himself. He did not seem to be in any trouble,
and the bear children wondered what had happened to him.
“Help! Help!” he called.
“Why, what is the matter?” asked Neddie. “If you are in trouble why
don’t you come away? I see no one hurting you.”
“No, you can’t see it, but I’m in trouble just the same,” said the bear
gentleman making a funny face. “I am frozen fast to a cake of ice!”
“Frozen to a cake of ice?” said Beckie in surprise.
“Yes. It’s a trick played on me by Mr. Whitewash, but I am not
complaining about it. It serves me right for playing so many jokes
to-day, especially the one on him with the ink.
“I was walking along, thinking of a new joke to try, when I saw what I
thought was a nice seat here by this old stump. The seat had a blanket
over the top, and a sign saying:
‘PLEASE SIT DOWN ON ME!’
“Well, of course, I sat down, and before I knew it I was frozen fast.
You see there was a cake of ice under the blanket, and I’m sure Mr.
Whitewash put it there, just to fool me.”
“I guess he did,” said Neddie, and he could hardly keep from laughing,
for Uncle Wigwag looked so funny, frozen fast.
“Can’t you help me?” asked the bear gentleman. “You see Mr. Whitewash
can sit on a cake of ice without freezing to it, for he is used to
living at the North Pole, but I am not. Oh, dear! I’m freezing tighter
and tighter. I may have to stay here all night.”
“Oh, no, we will help you,” said Neddie kindly. So he and Beckie blew
their warm breath on the cake of ice, and soon it was melted enough so
that Uncle Wigwag could pull himself loose. And very glad, indeed, he
was to get up. Then along came Mr. Whitewash saying, as he combed his
claws through his white fur:
“Well, I see my trick worked after all.”
“Yes,” spoke Uncle Wigwag, “it did. And it served me right. Now let’s
all go and have some hot chocolate, for I am chilled through.” So they
had the hot chocolate in the drug store, and everybody was happy, and
Uncle Wigwag didn’t play any more tricks until the next time.
And if the cat in our back yard doesn’t try to walk across the clothes
line and fall off into the ash can, I’ll tell you next about Beckie
Stubtail and her wax doll.
STORY XXVII
BECKIE AND HER WAX DOLL
Beckie Stubtail, the little girl bear, who lived in the cave-house near
the nice woods, had more dolls than any real girl I know of, except
maybe the daughter of Santa Claus—that is if he has any children. But,
of course, Santa Claus must have children of his own, or else how could
he love so many children that belong to other persons—always giving them
nice things at Christmas, and all that?
Oh, yes, I know, lots of folks say there isn’t any Santa Claus at all,
but you and I know differently, don’t we? And if those persons don’t
believe it, I can show them, right on the roof of my house, the very
same chimney down which Santa Claus comes every Christmas.
That ought to make them believe, oughtn’t it now? Well, I guess yes, and
some lollypops besides!
But what I started to say was that Beckie Stubtail, the little girl
bear, had more dolls of different sorts than any real child. Of course a
daughter of Santa Claus wouldn’t count, for she could go to her papa’s
big present-bag and take out as many dolls as she wanted—or rocking
horses or jumping-jacks or anything else. So I don’t mean her.
Really Beckie had the mostest dolls, if you will kindly let me use such
a word, which I know isn’t just right. Beckie had a rubber doll that
would bounce up and down when you dropped her in the bath tub or on the
floor. That doll’s name was Sallie Ann Kissmequick.
And then there was a rag doll, with shoe buttons sewed in her face for
eyes. And the funny part about that doll was that she always kept
looking at her feet. I suppose it was on account of the shoe buttons.
“But best of all,” said Beckie, when she was talking about her toys to
Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl, “best of all, I like my sawdust doll,
Matilda Jane Shavingstick. She is just lovely!”
“What funny names your dolls have,” said Susie.
“Yes, some of the names were given them by my Uncle Wigwag. He’s always
playing tricks, and jokes, you know.”
“I know!” exclaimed Susie with a laugh, as she remembered how Uncle
Wigwag, the funny old bear gentleman, had played one joke too many a few
days before and how he had frozen himself fast to a cake of ice that Mr.
Whitewash, the Polar bear gentleman, used as an easy chair.
“And I like my clothespin doll, too,” went on Beckie, for she did have a
doll made of a clothespin, with inky eyes.
“I like my wax doll best of all,” said Susie. “My Uncle Wiggily Longears
gave her to me last Christmas. Oh, she’s such a darling! Her cheeks are
so pink and her eyes are so blue, and she can open and shut them, too,
and she can say ‘Mamma’ and ‘Papa,’ when you push on a spring in her
back.”
“Oh, I wish I had a wax doll!” exclaimed Beckie, the little girl bear,
sort of sad-like. “But I don’t s’pose I’ll ever get one, even if
Christmas is coming.”
Now, you boys needn’t go away just because you think there’s nothing but
dolls in this story. I’m going to put in a real scary part pretty soon.
In fact, it’s coming around the corner of my typewriter now and I’ll be
up to it in a minute.
Well, Susie, the rabbit girl, and Beckie, the little bear girl, talked a
lot more about dolls. I could write down what they said, but I guess you
girls know pretty much what it was, anyhow, and as for the boys—well,
I’ll just say that the two little animal girls kept on saying such
things as, “Oh, she’s just too sweet for anything!” “She’s a darling!”
“And she blinks her eyes so natural!” All doll-talk, you know.
Well, Beckie and Susie walked on through the woods, and pretty soon they
came to a place where there was an old hollow stump. In the summer time
a nice family of birds lived in it. They were some relation to Dickie
Chip-Chip, the sparrow boy, but now all the birds had flown away down
South, where it was nice and warm. For it was winter in bear-land, you
know.
All the while Beckie Stubtail was wishing and wishing she had a wax
doll, with real hair, and then, all of sudden, she looked at the old
hollow stump, and, my goodness me sakes alive, and some molasses
cookies, she saw a lovely wax doll there.
“Oh, look!” cried Beckie. “What a sweet doll. Whose can she be?”
“Why, she’s yours, of course,” said Susie with a smile, as she wiggled
her long rabbit ears.
“Oh, I only wish she was!” cried Beckie, clapping her paws. “But how do
you know?”
“Oh, it’s easy enough to tell that,” answered Susie. “That doll is
yours, Beckie. It must be. You see, I have a wax doll, so I don’t need
another. You have no wax doll and you want one.”
“Indeed I do, very much!” exclaimed Beckie.
“Then she is yours—take her,” went on the little rabbit girl. “I’m sure
she is meant for you.”
“But who could have left her here?” asked Beckie wonderingly.
But Susie did not know this, nor did Beckie. But it would not surprise
me the least bit if Santa Claus himself had dropped that doll in the
hollow stump. You know he often comes around a few days before Christmas
to see how things are getting on and to find out what boys and girls and
animal children need. So I think it’s safe to say that Santa Claus left
that doll in the hollow stump for Beckie.
Anyhow, the little bear girl clasped in her paws the lovely wax doll,
and then she and Susie looked at her and made her open and shut her
eyes, and they felt of the soft wax in the doll’s pink cheeks, and they
were both happy, especially Beckie.
“Let’s go home!” exclaimed Susie. “I’ll get my wax doll and we’ll play
house.”
“All right, we will!” said Beckie.
So she and Susie, the little rabbit girl, started back through the
woods, Beckie carrying her new wax doll. Well, they hadn’t gone very far
before, all of a sudden, out from behind a tree, sprang the bad old
skillery-scalery alligator, and he popped out into the path, in front of
Beckie and Susie, and he wound his long double-jointed tail around them
so they couldn’t move and there he had them fast.
“Ah, ha!” cried the bad old alligator, blinking his fishy eyes, “now I
have you both, and a little baby, too.”