“beckie,” said mrs. stubtail, the lady bear, as she came into the sitting-room in the cave-house where the little cub girl was playing with her rubber doll; “beckie, i wonder if you are well enough to go to the store for me?”
“of course i am, mamma,” answered beckie. “my cold and cough is all cured now. i can go to school next week, i think.”
“i hope so,” said mrs. stubtail, “for you have been very ill.”
i told you, you know, about how beckie had to take some very bitter, sour medicine, and how she fooled the bad lion with it.
and, since her illness, beckie had not been to school. but she was better now, and that’s why mrs. stubtail thought perhaps the little bear girl could go to school.
“well, as long as you think you are able to be out,” went on the mamma bear, “i’d like you to bring me a cake of yeast. i want to bake some bread.
176“i would go to the store for it myself,” went on mrs. stubtail, “only i have to stay in the house, since aunt piffy is visiting over at mrs. wibblewobble’s duck pond, and i expect mrs. bow wow the dog lady might call this afternoon. that’s why i asked you to go for the yeast, beckie.”
“oh, mamma, i don’t in the least mind,” said beckie, politely. “i think the walk will do me good. it is a nice day, though it does look as though it were going to snow. and i’ll take my doll, isabella trolleycar jamkitchen, along with me. she needs the air, too.”
“well, wrap up warmly,” spoke mrs. stubtail, “and don’t catch any more cold.”
“no, and i won’t let the cold catch me!” laughed beckie, as she looked for her little red jacket, hanging on the hat rack.
so the little bear girl started off through the woods to go to the store for a yeast cake for her mamma.
the store was kept by a nice, kind old pussycat lady, and when beckie got there the pussycat was just drinking a saucer of warm milk.
“would you like some, my dear?” asked she of beckie.
“thank you, i would,” said the little bear girl, politely.
177so before buying her yeast cake, beckie had some nice, warm milk, and a molasses cookie, which the cat lady storekeeper baked all by her own self.
“now be careful, and don’t lose your change,” said the lady cat, as she gave the pennies to beckie. “and put the yeast cake in your pocket, where it won’t fall out.”
“i will,” answered beckie.
off she started for home, with the pennies and the silver-covered yeast cake rattling about in her pocket. now a yeast cake, as i guess you all know, is something to make a loaf of bread light and fluffy. the yeast makes the bread all full of little holes, so that the butter won’t fall off it when you spread it on.
well, beckie was going along, thinking how much nicer it was to be well than ill, and she was wondering what the animal girls would say to her when she went back to the school, when, all of a sudden, beckie heard some one crying behind a clump of bushes.
“my goodness!” cried the little bear girl. “that’s a man!”
you see she could tell right away that it was no animal crying.
“yes, it’s a man!” thought beckie, and she got ready to run as soon as she could see which 178way to go, so as not to run into the man. for most men, beckie knew, would like to carry away a little bear cub like herself.
then beckie heard the crying again and a voice said:
“oh, dear! how sad i am. poor george has run away and left me!”
“george!” thought beckie. “why, that was the name of the nice, tame, trained bear that neddie and i ran off to travel with some time ago. i wonder if that man can be the professor who blew on the shiny, brass horn?”
so beckie peeked around the corner of the bramble briar bush, behind which the crying man was hiding, and she saw that he wasn’t the professor gentleman at all.
he was a hand-organ man, with a nice fur coat, and he was crying as hard as he could cry, that man was.
“i don’t think he’d be cruel to me,” thought beckie. “anyhow, he’s in trouble, and maybe i can help him. besides, hand-organ men most always have monkeys, and if they are kind to the monkeys they’ll probably be kind to little bear girls. i’m going to ask him if i can help him.”
just then the hand-organ man cried again, and said:
179“oh, dear! oh, george, why did you ever run away and leave me?”
oh, i forgot to tell you that the reason beckie knew the crying man played a hand-organ was because there was a hand-organ standing up against a tree near him. only he wasn’t playing it just then. you can’t very well play a hand-organ and cry at the same time. at least i never saw any one do it, though, of course, it may be done.
“what is the matter, hand-organ man?” asked beckie, politely, making a little bow, as she stepped in front of him. “why do you cry, and who is george? was he a little bear?”
“oh, no,” said the man, who could understand bear talk, and speak it, too. “no, george was not a bear. he was a monkey, and he used to do lots of tricks as i played the music. but he has run away and left me.”
then beckie noticed that there was no monkey with the hand-organ, as there should have been, by rights.
“so you are crying for george; is that it?” she asked the man who was wiping away his tears on the back of his cap.
“that is just why, little bear girl,” he said. “i have no monkey to do funny tricks when i play the music, and, unless i have a monkey, the 180people will not give me pennies. oh, i have no money, i can’t get any, and i am so hungry.”
“poor hand-organ man!” exclaimed beckie. “maybe i could be a monkey for you.”
“you!” exclaimed the man. “why, you are too big. but i thank you just the same.”
“i know i am a little larger than a monkey,” said beckie, “but i can do tricks. i learned them from some circus animals, when my brother neddie and i ran away with a bear named george. at first i thought you meant the bear george.”
“no, my monkey was named george, too,” said the hand-organ man. “but let me see you do some tricks.”
so beckie danced around in the woods, and played soldier, as she had seen the bear george do, and she climbed a tall tree and then she stood on her hind paws and begged like a little poodle dog, and the man exclaimed:
“why, that’s just fine! now we’ll have a little music!”
so he played a jolly tune and beckie did more tricks. then the man said:
“will you come with me for a while, little bear girl, and do tricks for the people while i play? in that way i may get some pennies, even if i have no monkey.”
181“yes, i will come with you for a little while,” said beckie, “but i can not stay very long, for my mamma expects me home with the yeast cake.”
so beckie went with the hand-organ man, down to the city where he played. and such nice tricks as the little bear girl did! the hand-organ man said she was better than his monkey, and i guess the boys and girls who saw beckie climb a telegraph pole thought so too. anyhow, the man got lots of pennies, which beckie took up in his cap, passing it around in her paws.
then it was time for her to go home, but the hand-organ man was sorry to have her leave him.
“maybe i’ll help you again some day,” said beckie.
“i hope so,” said the man, and he didn’t cry any more, for he had many pennies to buy food. and he gave beckie half of the pennies for her own self. wasn’t he good?
and on the way home a bad old tiger from the circus chased beckie, but she threw the bright, shining yeast cake at him, and the tiger thought it was a bullet from a bang-bang gun, and he was so frightened for fear he might get shot that he ran off and left beckie alone.
then she picked up the yeast cake, which was 182only bent sideways a little bit, and got safely home with it, and it made a nice loaf of bread.
and on the next page, if the wallpaper doesn’t jump down off the ceiling and go to sleep in the baby’s crib, i’ll tell you about neddie playing the piano.
