“Mr. Whitewash will lend you his cake of ice to skate on, if the pond doesn’t freeze,” said Neddie.
And then the school bell rang, and the animal children had to hurry on, so they would not be late.
Such fun as they had in school that day! It was so near Christmas that the professor-teacher was not very strict, and when the children missed their lessons he gave them another chance.
And the Professor let Beckie draw a picture of Santa Claus on the blackboard, with a red cap, and fur on the coat and a big pack on his back—I mean Santa Claus had all these things on, though of course the blackboard had also, after Beckie got through drawing.
Well, when school was out, Neddie and Beckie ran home with the rest of the animal children, but, all of a sudden, as the little bear boy came to the old hollow stump, where Bully, the frog, used to give jumping lessons in summer, Neddie happened to think that he had left his reading book in school.
“I’ll run back and get it,” he said. “You go on, Beckie, and I’ll soon catch up to you.”
But Neddie Stubtail didn’t come back as soon as he thought he would, for when he got to the school he found that a little mouse boy had taken the reading book down a rat hole to look at the pictures. And by the time Neddie got his book back it was quite late, and growing dark.
“But I’m not afraid,” said Neddie as he hurried on toward home, with the book under his paw. On and on he went, through the wood. It became darker and darker. Neddie began to whistle, so he could not hear any rustling in the bushes. For when the bushes rustled he imagined it might be the skillery-scalery alligator, or maybe a bad wolf after him.
But nothing like that took place, and soon Neddie was almost home. Then all of a sudden something did happen. Just as he was passing under a big oak tree, with the brown leaves on it shaking in the wind, the little bear boy heard a buzzing sound, and then a crash and a bang, and a rattle, and some one cried:
“Oh, dear! Now I have gone and done it! Oh, my, yes! and some reindeer-lollypops besides! Oh, what am I going to do now? And not half my work done!”