“Oh, never mind! Don’t cry!” said Neddie. “I’ll take you home. Why did you hide under the leaves?”
“Well,” said Wuzzy, “when I heard you coming along through the woods, I didn’t know who it was. I thought maybe it was a bad bear, so I hid under the leaves. Boo-hoo!”
“Don’t cry!” said Neddie again. “I’ll take care of you.”
“Oh, boo-hoo!” still sobbed Wuzzy.
“Don’t say boo-hoo!” spoke Neddie. “Just say it backward for a change—say ‘Hoo-boo!’ Maybe that will make you stop crying.”
“Hoo-boo!” said Wuzzy Fuzzytail, the little fox boy, and, surely enough, when he said that he stopped crying at once.
Then Neddie took the paw of the little fox boy in his own big one, and away they went through the woods together toward the hollow log where Wuzzy lived with his papa and mamma.
“I’m awful glad you found me, Neddie,” said Wuzzy Fuzzytail to the bear boy. “I wish I could do you a favor for being so kind to me.”
“Oh, that’s all right!” said Neddie, sort of careless-like. “Maybe you can, some day.”
Well, they were going along through the woods, when, all of a sudden, they saw right in front of them the bad old skillery-scalery alligator.