Sometimes I am very high
Then again I’m low.”
Well, the bear cubs were having a fine time, when along came the circus man and the Professor, who owned George, the trained bear. The two men, who could speak and understand bear, and all other animal languages, watched Neddie and Beckie doing the teeter-tauter trick Beckie had thought up all by herself.
“That’s pretty good,” said the circus man, speaking bear talk, and nodding toward the two little bears.
“Yes, indeed,” said the Professor. Then the two of them talked for some time in their own language, which Beckie and Neddie could not understand very well.
Beckie and Neddie felt very proud that the circus man and the Professor should like their trick. But a little later, when the poll-parrot came over to them, and told them something, they did not feel so happy. The poll-parrot said:
“Oh, you don’t know what I heard! I heard those two men talking about you two little bears. I can understand man talk, and talk it myself, you see.”
“What did they say?” asked Neddie, sliding down off the teeter-tauter. That let Beckie come down suddenly with a bump, but she fell on a pile of soft shavings, so she did not get hurt in the least.
“What did they say?” asked the parrot. “Why I heard them say that they were going to dress you two bears up like clowns, and make you go down South where it’s warm weather even if it’s winter up here. Down there the Professor is going to take you and George and an elephant, and make you do that see-saw trick. Oh, you’re going to be taken away from here!”
Beckie and Neddie looked at each other. They had never thought such a thing would happen when they did their little trick.