When Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the two little bear children, had run away from home, as I told you in the story before this one, and had come to the woods where they heard the horn blowing, they did not know just what to do.
“That,” said Beckie, as she held her doll, Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin, tightly in her arms, “that surely must be the kind man who has the trained bear with the ring in his nose. Now we are safe and we will get many good things to eat, Neddie.”
“We had better take a peep before we run out from behind this bush,” said Neddie, slow and careful like. “Perhaps it is some other man with a horn, trying to fool us.”
You know the bear children had met in the woods, one day, a nice, kind trained bear, and with him was a man called the Professor, who led the bear around by a rope, fast to a ring in the bear’s nose. And the trained bear did tricks, such as turning somersaults and standing on his head, while the man collected, in his hat, pennies that people tossed to him.
The trained bear invited Neddie to travel around with him, promising that he would have popcorn and other good things to eat, but at first Neddie was afraid of the man with the brass horn.
So he ran home; but the more Neddie thought of it the more he wanted to run away and become a traveling trained bear. So he got his sister Beckie to go with him, and away they ran in the evening, leaving their home and their papa and mamma; and Aunt Piffy, the fat bear lady, and Uncle Wigwag, and Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear, and all their friends. Then they came to the woods and heard the brass trumpet blowing, as I have told you.
“Can you see anything?” asked Beckie, as she looked over her brother’s head, while he was peering through the holes in a bramble bush.
“Not yet,” answered Neddie. Just then there came another blast on the brass trumpet, and Neddie cried:
“Oh, yes! There he is!” And then Beckie saw the tame bear with the ring in his nose, instead of in an ear where some ladies wear theirs, and with the tame bear was the man with the long pole.
“Now, George,” the man was saying, “I guess we’ll go to sleep, and in the morning we’ll do some more tricks and get more pennies. Whoop-la! There’s your supper, George!”