Well, he was sitting there, reading his paper, and sort of not looking what he was doing. He reached out his paw to take his cup of tea, with his eyes still on the paper, and when he picked up the cup and started to drink from it, there was no tea in it. Instead, Uncle Wigwag had put in some ink, and when Mr. Whitewash, not looking at it, started to drink it, the ink spilled all over his white fur. It made him look like a spotted clown in the circus.
“Ha, ha!” laughed Uncle Wigwag. “That’s a fine joke!”
“I don’t think so,” said Mr. Whitewash. “And you had better look out, or I’ll play a joke on you.”
Then Uncle Wigwag felt sorry he had done such a thing, and he helped Mr. Whitewash clean the ink off his white fur. Neddie and Beckie helped also. And a little later the Polar bear gentleman said to the two children:
“You just watch and see what a trick I shall play on Uncle Wigwag.”
So Neddie and Beckie watched, though they didn’t see anything for some time. But toward dark that evening, when Neddie was bringing in his wood to fill the box behind the kitchen stove, he heard some one crying in the fields across the way from the bear cave.
“Help! Help! Oh, help!” called a voice.
“Why, who can that be?” asked Beckie, who was watching Neddie bring in the wood.
“I’m sure I don’t know,” answered the little bear boy, “but I’m going to see.”
“Oh, you’d better not,” spoke Beckie. “Maybe it’s the bad old lion.”