“Now for my trick,” said Beckie when she and her little brother were over on the side of the circus barn where the elephants lived. “I was thinking, Neddie, that if we could get a long plank, or board, we could put it over the back of one of the big elephants. Then you could get on one end of the board and I’d get on the other, and we would see-saw and teeter-tauter up and down, and the people who watched us would like the trick very much.”
“Yes, I think that would be fine!” cried Neddie. “Why, that isn’t a girl’s trick at all! It’s good enough for any of the boys! We’ll do it, and maybe we’ll get a lot of sweet buns and some lollypops, too! Why, that’s as good a trick as some that George does!”
And George was a pretty good trick bear, too, let me tell you. When the Professor blew on his brass horn, Ta-ra-ta-ra-ta-ra! George would somersault, or peppersault, and march like a soldier and do all things like that.
Well, Neddie and Beckie found a long teetery-tautery plank in the barn, and then they asked the kind old elephant, who had once helped Neddie, if he would let them put it on his back for a see-saw.
“Why, to be sure I will,” kindly said the elephant, and with his long rubbery, stretchy trunk he put the plank on his own back, for it was quite too heavy for Neddie and Beckie to lift so high.
“But I wonder how we are to get up on the plank now?” asked the little girl bear.
“You can climb up my neck, if you don’t scratch me too much,” said the spotted giraffe, who was as tall as a stepladder. So Neddie climbed up the neck of one giraffe, on one side of the elephant, and Beckie climbed up another giraffe on the other side, the bear children taking care not to scratch the tall, spotted creatures. Then the little bear cubs got on the plank over the elephant’s back both at the same time, balancing themselves nicely, and then they began to teeter-tauter! Up and down they went, while Beckie sang this song.
“Teeter-tauter
Bread and water.
Up and down we go.