“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 too heavy for neddie and beckie to lift so high.
“but i wonder how we are to get up on the plank now?” asked the little girl bear.
“you can climb up my neck, if you don’t scratch me too much,” said the spotted giraffe, who was as tall as a stepladder. so neddie climbed up the neck of one giraffe, on one side of the elephant, and beckie climbed up another giraffe on the other side, the bear children taking care not to scratch the tall, spotted creatures. then the little bear cubs got on the plank over the elephant’s back both at the same time, balancing themselves nicely, and then they began to teeter-tauter! up and down they went, while beckie sang this song.
101“teeter-tauter
bread and water.
up and down we go.
sometimes i am very high
then again i’m low.”
well, the bear cubs were having a fine time, when along came the circus man and the professor, who owned george, the trained bear. the two men, who could speak and understand bear, and all other animal languages, watched neddie and beckie doing the teeter-tauter trick beckie had thought up all by herself.
“that’s pretty good,” said the circus man, speaking bear talk, and nodding toward the two little bears.
“yes, indeed,” said the professor. then the two of them talked for some time in their own language, which beckie and neddie could not understand very well.
beckie and neddie felt very proud that the circus man and the professor should like their trick. but a little later, when the poll-parrot came over to them, and told them something, they did not feel so happy. the poll-parrot said:
“oh, you don’t know what i heard! i heard those two men talking about you two little bears. 102i can understand man talk, and talk it myself, you see.”
“what did they say?” asked neddie, sliding down off the teeter-tauter. that let beckie come down suddenly with a bump, but she fell on a pile of soft shavings, so she did not get hurt in the least.
“what did they say?” asked the parrot. “why i heard them say that they were going to dress you two bears up like clowns, and make you go down south where it’s warm weather even if it’s winter up here. down there the professor is going to take you and george and an elephant, and make you do that see-saw trick. oh, you’re going to be taken away from here!”
beckie and neddie looked at each other. they had never thought such a thing would happen when they did their little trick.
“oh, dear!” cried beckie as she thought of going farther and farther away from her home and her mamma. “i wish we’d never run away, neddie!”
“so do i!” exclaimed neddie. “but i’ll not let them send us down south! listen, beckie, we must run away again, only this time we’ll run back home!”
“oh, goodie!” cried beckie, clapping her paws.
103“come on—right away!” said neddie. “we’ll go before the professor and the circus man see us!”
so the two little bear children slipped out of the back door of the barn. they wished they could kiss george, the big, kind bear, good-by, but it was impossible—which means you can’t do it.
oh! how fast neddie and beckie ran. over the fields and through the woods they went, until the circus barn was left far, far behind. and finally, just as night was coming on, the two little children bears reached the cave in the side of the hill where they lived, and they were safe home again, and oh! how glad their papa and mamma and aunt piffy, the fat bear lady, were to see them. and of course mr. whitewash, the polar bear, and uncle wigwag, the trick-playing bear, were glad also. and oh! such a good supper as neddie and beckie had.
“we’re never going to run away again!” they said.
so that’s all to this story, but in the next one, if the dog barking at the moon in our backyard doesn’t take off his collar and tie it on my pussy cat’s neck, i’ll tell you about neddie stubtail and little wuzzy fuzzytail.
