“Ho, Neddie boy!” called Uncle Wigwag, the gentleman bear, to the little boy bear who was coming home from school, swinging his books in a strap that dangled from his paw. “Ho, Neddie boy, your mamma wants you!” “She does?” asked Neddie. “What for?”
“To go to the store for a bushel of lemons!” said Uncle Wigwag, waltzing around on one paw, and holding the other up in the air like a jumping-jack dancing on top of a frosted cake.
“Oh, now I know you’re joking,” said Neddie, for Uncle Wigwag was a funny old bear gentleman, always playing tricks.
“Well, I am joking, just the least little bit,” admitted Uncle Wigwag, blinking both his eyes slow and careful like, so as not to get any dust in them. “But really your mamma does want you to go to the store. She told me to tell you just as soon as you came home from school.”
“What does she want?” asked Neddie. “I 224was going over to Jackie Bow Wow’s house to play football with him.”
“Your mamma wants you to go to the bakery for a lemon pie,” said Uncle Wigwag, scratching his left ear with his right paw, which is not an easy thing to do. “I just said a bushel of lemons for fun, you know. But really I think I’d like a pie with a bushel of lemons in.”
“So would I!” exclaimed Neddie. “I love lemon pie. I hope mamma wants me to get a big one, with that funny white of egg stuff and sugar on top.”
“That’s the very kind I want,” said Mrs. Stubtail, the lady bear, coming to the door just then. “Get me a large lemon meringue pie, Neddie. You see we are going to have company to-night, and really I haven’t time to bake a pie, and Aunt Piffy is so busy with dusting and sweeping that she hasn’t either. And as for asking Uncle Wigwag to make a pie, why I’m afraid he’d play some joke with it—such as putting in sawdust, or filling the top with white cotton batting.”
“Yes, I guess maybe I would,” said Uncle Wigwag, smiling at himself, which is another hard thing to do. “I will have my joke. But as long as I have told Neddie what you want of him, I suppose I may go over and see Grandfather Goosey Gander now, may I not?” asked the old 225bear gentleman, turning a peppersault as easily as a cow can blow her horn.
“Yes, I won’t need you around here, as long as I have Neddie to run on my errands,” said Mrs. Stubtail. “But don’t play too many tricks, Waggy,” she said, calling Uncle Wigwag a pet name he sometimes went by. “And be sure to be back here for supper,” went on the lady bear.
“Oh, you may be sure I’ll not miss that!” exclaimed Uncle Wigwag with a laugh. “I want some of that lemon pie Neddie is going to bring home from the baker’s.”
So off went Uncle Wigwag to call on Grandfather Goosey Gander.
“Where is your sister Beckie?” asked Mrs. Stubtail, of Neddie, as she gave him the money to get the pie.
“Oh, she went over to Susie Littletail’s house, to talk about wax dolls, I guess,” spoke Neddie. “She told me to tell you she’ll be home to supper. I know I’ll be here to supper, anyhow,” went on Neddie, smacking his lips as he thought of the lemon pie. “Who are the company, mamma?”
“Mr. and Mrs. Silver-tip, a new family of bears who have moved into the cave across the street,” answered Mrs. Stubtail: “I want to make them feel at home.”
226“Do they like lemon pie?” asked Neddie.
“Oh, I guess so,” said Mrs. Stubtail.
“Oh, dear!” sighed the little bear cub.
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked his mother.
“So many people like lemon pie,” he replied. “I’m afraid there won’t be enough to go around. There’s Uncle Wigwag, and—”
“Oh, don’t worry!” laughed Mrs. Stubtail. “You may get the largest lemon pie the baker has.”
Then Neddie felt happy, and off he went to the baker’s as fast as his paws would take him. Sometimes he ran along on just his hind feet, walking almost like a real boy and like the trained bears you see in the circus. And again Neddie would drop down on his four feet and go along that way for a while, like a little poodle doggie.
It was quite cold and there was some snow on the ground. Not as much as the time Neddie jumped into the big drift, but enough to make some snowballs. Neddie made a fe............