"To be sure I do!" replied the bear. "That was, indeed, a famous hunt! It gave us our whole winter's supply of honey. And we might have got twice as much more, if it hadn't been for the accident."
"Tell us about it," said Toto. "I wasn't with you, you know; and then came the moving, and I forgot to ask you."
"Well, it was a funny time!" said the bear. "Ho! ho! it was a funny time! Coon, you see, had discovered this hive in a big oak-tree, hollow from crotch to ground. He couldn't get at it alone, for the clever bees had made it some way down inside the trunk, and he couldn't reach far enough down unless some one held him on the outside. So we went together, and I stood on my hind tip-toes, and then he climbed up and stood on my head, and I held his feet while he reached down into the hole."
"Dear me!" said the grandmother, "that was very dangerous, Bruin. I wonder you allowed it."
"Well, you see, dear Madam," replied the bear, apologetically, "it was really the only way. I couldn't stand on Coon's head and have him hold my feet, you know; and we couldn't give up the honey, the finest crop of the season. So—"
"Oh, it was all right!" broke in the raccoon. "At least, it was at first. There was such a quantity of honey,—pots and pots of it!—and all of the very best quality. I took out comb after comb, laying them in the crotch of the tree for safe-keeping till I was ready to go down."
"But where were the bees all the time?" asked Toto.
"Oh, they were there!" replied the raccoon, "buzzing about and making a fine fuss. They tried to sting me, of course, but my fur was too much for them. The only part I feared for was my nose, and that I had covered with two or three thicknesses of mullein-leaves, tied on with stout grass. But as ill-luck would have it, they found out Bruin, and began to buzz about him, too. One flew into his eye, and he let my feet go for an instant,—just just for the very instant when I was leaning down as far as I could possibly stretch to reach a particularly fine comb. Up went my heels, of course, and down went I."
"Oh, oh!" cried the grandmother. "My dear Coon! do you mean—"