But Uncle Bear got neither pudding nor sausage, for the Great Red Fox had made such a hubbub that Farmer John and his men came running, and three great dogs with them.
“Hi!” said they, “there is Uncle Bear after the sausages and puddings;” and there was nothing for him to do but to lay foot to the ground as fast as he could. All the same, they caught him over the hill, and gave him such a drubbing that his bones ached for many a long day.
But the Great Red Fox only waited until all the others were well away on their own business, and then he filled a bag with the best he could lay his hands on, opened the door from the inside, and walked out as though it were from his own barn; for there was nobody to say “No” to him. He hid the good things away in a place of his own, and it was little of them that Uncle Bear smelt. After he had gathered all this, Master Fox came home, groaning as though he had had an awful drubbing; it would have moved a heart of stone to hear him.
“Dear, oh dear! what a drubbing I have had,” said he.
“And so have I,” said Uncle Bear, grinning over his sore bones as though cold weather were blowing snow in his teeth.
“See, now,” said the Great Red Fox, “this is what comes of going into partnership, and sharing one’s wits with another. If you had made your choice when I asked you, your butter would never have been spoiled in the churning.”
That was all the comfort Uncle Bear had, and cold enough it was too. All the same, he is not the first in the world who has lost his dinner, and had both the drubbing and the blame into the bargain.
But things do not last forever, and so by and by the good things from Farmer John’s storehouse gave out, and the Great Red Fox had nothing in the larder.
“Listen,” says he to Uncle Bear, “I saw them shaking the apple-trees at Farmer John’s to-day, and if you have a mind to try the wits that belong to us, we’ll go and bring a bagful apiece from the storehouse over yonder at the farm.”