"Aker-choo! Aker-choo! A-ker-choo-o-o-o!"
Well, everything was going along nicely, and the housecleaning was almost over, when, all of a sudden, along came a hungry bear. He wanted something to eat—a beaver or a squirrel—he didn't much care which. And he was just going to grab up little Crackie Flat-tail, when, all at once, Toodle and Noodle saw him.
"Quick!" cried Noodle. "Beat the rug with all your might, Toodle!" And they did, and their tails made such a loud noise the bear thought it was a gun being fired at him, and he thought the dust was powder smoke, and away he ran as fast as his legs would carry him. So that's how Toodle and Noodle helped Mrs. Bushytail, and also saved their sister Crackie.
And then along came Professor Rat and Miss Lady Bug, to get Billie Bushytail's forgotten books and when the school teacher heard how all the children had left the school he laughed like anything, and said they did just right.
"But it must not happen again," he said, and it did not.
So now I've got to stop, but next, in case the teakettle doesn't bite the nutmeg grater and stick the rolling pin in the pie, while they try to tag the sugar bowl, I'll tell you about Toodle and the singing bird.
[STORY XXXI]
TOODLE AND THE SINGING BIRD
"Children," said Mrs. Flat-tail, the beaver lady, to Toodle, Noodle and their little sister, Crackie, one morning as they were starting for school, "I think you had better take your lunch, and not come home to dinner this noon; I am going to be very busy, canning sweet-flag root, and birch bark, so we will have something to eat this winter. I really wouldn't have time to get you anything to eat."