“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 few in his paws, tossing them up into the air—the snowballs i mean he tossed, not his paws—and he caught the snowballs as they came down.
pretty soon neddie came to the baker’s, and he said:
“i want the largest lemon pie you have, if you please.”
227“all right,” said mr. peetie skeezex, the baker, “you shall have it. i have a specially fine large one.”
then he brought out from the oven the loveliest lemon meringue pie neddie had ever seen. it was almost as large around as a christmas drum, and on top was a lot of that white fluffy stuff made from eggs, and it was browned just the least little bit, and sprinkled with powdered sugar, and around the edge was some sort of curly-cue stuff like twisted rope, and the pie was as pretty as one picture and part of another one.
“oh, yum-yum!” cried neddie when he saw the lemon pie. he could not help it, and he could hardly stop from taking a taste. but the baker knew what hungry bear boys might do to a lemon pie, so mr. peetie skeezex put the lemon pie in a paper and tied it very tight.
“there you are, neddie,” he said to the little bear boy. “there’s your pie. hurry home with it.”
“i will,” answered neddie. “we’re going to have it for supper. we’ve got company coming.”
“fine!” said mr. skeezex, giving neddie a sweet cake to keep him from getting too hungry on the way home with the pie. i guess the baker was afraid that maybe neddie might bite the pie, 228just to see if it were real. but if neddie had a sweet cake of his own to nibble on, this might not happen.
neddie started for home, carrying the big lemon pie as carefully as the milkman brings in a bottle of cream for the cat, and the little boy bear was about half way to the cave-house, when, all of a sudden, while he was thinking how he could get two pieces of pie for supper, all at once out from behind a mulberry bush jumped an old sea lion.
“bur-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!” roared the sea lion, shaking his whiskers from side to side. “bur-r-r-r-r!”
“oh, dear!” cried neddie, standing still with the lemon pie, he was so frightened. “oh, dear!”
“bur-r-r-r-r-r! wow! woff! snuff! bur-r-r-r!” growled the sea lion. “don’t be afraid, little bear boy.”
well, now, i leave it to you, wouldn’t anybody be afraid to be stopped on their way home with a lemon pie for supper—stopped by a sea lion who growled like that? i guess they would. neddie stubtail was, anyhow. and by rights, that sea lion ought to have been in the ocean where he belonged. but the ocean was so cold, on account of the ice being in it, that the sea lion had flopped 229out. and now he was going to catch neddie. oh, dear!
“don’t be afraid,” said the sea lion to neddie. “i am not going to hurt you. what have you there?”
“a lemon pie, if you please,” answered neddie, his teeth chattering.
“bur-r-r-r-r!” growled the sea lion. “give it to me. i am very fond of lemon pie. i like it better than lollypops.”
“but, if you please,” said neddie, “this pie is for supper. we have company coming.”
“that matters not to me,” said the sea lion. “give me that pie!”
and then brave neddie, thinking he must save the pie, whatever else happened, gave a big jump. right over the sea lion’s head he went, and then how neddie ran for home!
“ha! you can’t get away like that!” cried the sea lion, and after neddie he flopped. well, neddie ran as fast as he could, and the sea lion flopped as fast as he could, and the bad creature had almost caught the little bear boy when, all at once part of the lemon pie slipped off the bottom crust.
right through a hole in the bag it went, and into the path it fell, and before the sea lion could stop himself he had slipped on the slippery lemon 230stuff of the pie and head over flippers he went, slipping and sliding, until he came to the top of a hill, and he fell over that and down into a bramble briar bush, and he didn’t get out for a week and a day.
so neddie was saved, and he got safely home with the rest of the pie, and only a little bit had fallen off, so there was enough left for him and for beckie and the company, and even for uncle wigwag.
so that’s the story of neddie and the lemon pie and if the iceman doesn’t take our refrigerator home with him to keep his little pussy cat warm in, i’ll tell you next about beckie and the cold birdie.
