“Let me go first! Let me go first!” cried Beckie, and Neddie did, most politely. And, before they knew it, those two bear children had climbed the smooth telegraph pole they never thought they could scale, and the ’gator could not get them.
What do you think of that?
Then George and the Professor drove the bad alligator away, not being the least bit afraid of him or his tail either, for that matter, and the man called:
“You may come down now, Beckie and Neddie. At last you have learned to climb a pole, though it did take the alligator to make you. You will never forget it. Come down, and go to sleep, and in the morning we will travel on.”
So Beckie and Neddie came down the pole, and curled up in the soft warm leaves to sleep, glad enough that they had on thick fur coats, for the weather was very cold. And soon they were safe in by-low land.
And now, if the church steeple doesn’t reach up and tickle the clouds so that they giggle and let a lot of rain fall on my umbrella, I’ll tell you next about Neddie doing a trick.
STORY VIII
NEDDIE DOES A TRICK
Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the little children bears, did not sleep very well the first night they ran away from home to become trained animals. There were several reasons for this.
In the first place they had to sleep out of doors, and not in their own nice cave-house. And then, too, their papa and mamma were not with them.
“It—it’s lonesome,” whispered Beckie, waking up in the dark and putting out her paw to touch her brother. “Oh, Neddie, I wish I’d stayed home!”