"Ah, ha!" growled the bear. "Now I have you!"
"Oh, dear!" cried Toodle. "What do you want?"
"I want you and the chestnuts, too," said the bad bear. "Come, get ready! I'm going to carry you off to my den!" and he came nearer to poor Toodle.
The little beaver boy looked to see if he could find anyone to help him. But Billie and Johnnie Bushytail were far off, looking for more chestnut trees, and no one else was near. Even when Toodle whacked with his tail on the ground, the way his papa had taught him to do when there was danger, no one came to help the beaver boy.
"Well, here's where I grab you!" growled the bear, and he was just going to hug Toodle in his sharp claws and maybe scratch him, for all I can tell, when, all of a sudden, Toodle saw a big pile of the prickly chestnut burrs he had brushed together.
"Ah, ha!" thought Toodle. "These will do for that bear."
And with one sweep of his tail along the ground, Toodle sent those burrs in a regular shower in the bear's face. The sharp, prickly stickers stuck in the soft and tender nose of that bear and made him sneeze and cough, and have the toothache and turn a somersault all at once. And then the bear cried:
"Oh, woe is me! I'm all stuck up. I guess I'll go home!"
And home to his den he went, leaving Toodle and the chestnuts alone, and pretty soon Billie and Johnnie came back, not having found any more nut-trees. So Toodle told them about the bear, and how he had driven him off, and the squirrels said the beaver boy was very brave. Then they divided the chestnuts, and went home, and now it's time for you to go to bed.
But on the page after this, if the piece of cheese doesn't jump out of the mouse-trap and scare the clothesline into the waste paper basket, I'll tell you about Toodle and Noodle on the ice.