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, 26“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.
27“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 28Neddie, 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 29to 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 30higher 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 31they 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.
32“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.