WHEN MR. ELEPHANT AND MR. BEE HAD A QUARREL.
"I certainly would like to hear it," your Aunt Amy said when Mrs. Mouser Cat ceased speaking, as if waiting for some such permission.
"Well, in the first place you must understand that there was once an Elephant and a Bee that were the very best of friends," Mrs. Mouser Cat said as she curled her tail around her fore paws to prevent them from being chilled by the draft. "One day the Elephant had walked a long distance, and thought he would sit down to rest for a little while. Now it seems the Bee had been flying around there, and he had got tired too, so he laid down on the grass and went to sleep.
"Now what do you think? When Mr. Elephant sat down he happened to hit Mr. Bee's hind foot, and then there was a time! Mr. Bee talked disgracefully, so it is said, to Mr. Elephant, and you would have thought they never had been friends; but Mr. Elephant didn't answer him back, because he was a peaceable kind of an animal, and knew that the least said is the soonest mended.
"When Mr. Bee got through scolding, they went on their journey again. I don't know where they were traveling, but that doesn't make any difference in the story. Off they started, and after a while it seemed as if Mr. Bee got to feeling better, and Mr. Elephant said:
"'I'm glad to see that you've got over being cross, for it was all an accident, my hitting your foot.'
"'Oh yes,' Mr. Bee answered, as if he intended to be friendly again. 'We'll try to forget all about it. Have you seen anything of my collars and cuffs since we started?'
"'Why, no,' replied Mr. Elephant. 'Have you lost them?'
"'I haven't seen them since we left home, and I believe they must be in your trunk.'
"'I think not,' Mr. Elephant said; 'but you can go in and look for them, if you choose.'
"Now Mr. Bee hadn't got over his cross fit a little bit, and he was only waiting for a chance to pay Mr. Elephant back. Well, he crawled into the trunk just as far as he could get, and then he gave poor Mr. Elephant the very hardest sting you ever dreamed about.
"'Oh me, oh my!' Mr. Elephant howled. 'What a wicked little thing you are! I'll fix you for that!' and then he hunched himself together, and gave the biggest kind of a big sneeze. Now if you never saw anything of the kind, you can't have an idea what a commotion it made when Mr. Elephant did that, and, bless your heart, that was the last of Mr. Bee. I don't know what became of him, and neither does anybody else. He must have been dashed to pieces in the terrible wind that was raised, and it served him good and right, too, for he deserved it just as much as ever Mr. Bear did when he got so worn out by Mr. Man's boy Tommy."