So Neddie ran back home to the cave-house, and Beckie sat down on a stump that stuck up above the snow, and in her warm fur Beckie cuddled the cold birdie, holding her paws over it to keep off the frosty north wind.
“Cheep! cheep!” went the small birdie, and soon it was nice and warm and could flutter its wings a little.
“Do you feel better now?” asked Beckie.
“Oh, much better,” answered the fluttering creature. “Thank you so much for warming me.”
“But how did you happen to get in the snowbank?” asked Beckie.
“It was this way,” explained the bird. “Yesterday all my friends and brothers and sisters flew away down South, where it is warm. But I stayed to have a game of tag with Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl, and I was left behind. Then it got colder and colder, and I could not fly. I fell into the snow and there I stayed until you came to get me out. I can never thank you enough.”
“Pray do not think of that,” said Beckie most politely. “I am glad we could save you. I suppose it was your feather that stuck in Neddie’s ear when he took a peppersault dive through the snow.”
“Yes,” said the birdie, “it was a loose one from my tail. And it is a good thing it came off, otherwise you would never have known I was here.”
“Very true,” answered Beckie. Then she warmed the poor, cold little birdie some more in her fur, and wondered when Neddie would be back with the hot milk and the bread crumbs.
All of a sudden, as Beckie was sitting there on the stump, warming the birdie, out from behind an old apple tree came the biggest fox Beckie had ever seen. He was much larger than the little bear girl. In fact, he must have been the grandfather of all the foxes.