“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 98thought 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 99Neddie 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, 100let 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 ............