“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Joie, “my back itches me terribly, and I can’t reach the place to scratch it. Oh, dear!”
Now, there’s nothing worse than to have an itchy place in your back and not be able to scratch it. Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, knew that, so with his claws he gently scratched Joie’s back for him and tickled the little kitten boy very much.
But if Joie had met one of the bad bears, why, my goodness me, and some peanut butter on your cracker! The bad bear would, just as soon as not, have taken Joie off to his den and made him pull chestnuts out of the fire for the other bears to eat. That’s what it is to be a bad bear!
And that was the cave-house in the woods which Beckie had to go past on her way home from the store with the yeast cake. But she was not afraid, even of the bad bears.
However, one of the bad bears, looking out of a window in his cave-house, saw her coming and he said to his brothers:
“Ha! There’s that goody-goody little Stubtail girl! I’m going to get her in here and pull her hair!”
“How are you going to do it?” asked another bear.
“I’ll show you!” spoke the first one.
So he went to the cupboard and got a lot of sweet buns. Bears, you know, love buns almost more than anything else. If ever you see some tame bears in a cage or in a park give them a few buns, and see how they enjoy them. That is, if the keeper lets you, not otherwise.
So this bad bear, who wanted to pull Beckie’s hair, just because she was good, threw a bun out of his window. It fell close to the little bear girl, who looked at it in surprise.