Up came the farmer to put the cover back on the beehive, after having taken out what honey he wanted. The farmer looked, rubbed his eyes, and looked again.
“Well, bless my stars!” he exclaimed. “A toy Woolly Dog in my beehive! I wonder how it got there? Some children must have been out here playing while I was in the house, and they tossed their dog there. It’s a wonder they weren’t stung. Well, unless I want a honey Dog, I’d better take him out.”
The farmer lifted the Woolly Dog from the hive and laid him on the ground. Then the top of the beehive, or house, was put in place, and the bees began working again at gathering more honey for the man. The Queen bee started to lay more eggs to hatch out more bees, and she laughed to herself as she thought of the visitor to her hive.
“He certainly was a queer chap—so fuzzy,” hummed the Queen. “And how he would have howled if my children had stung him on his little black nose. But perhaps it is just as well they didn’t.”
So the Woolly Dog got through that adventure rather well, I think, but still he was far from home—that is, far for him, as he was not as large as a real dog.
“I’ll take you up to the house,” said the farmer, talking to himself, but looking at Donald’s toy. “You are a pretty handsome toy,” he bee-keeper went on. “But you must have been in a war,” he added, with a laugh, as he turned the Dog over and saw where he had been cut and sewed up. “Yes, you certainly must have been in a war!”
As the farmer reached the house, his wife came out with a basket of eggs. She saw in his hand the Woolly Dog.
“Where did you get that?” asked the farmer’s wife, in surprise.
“I found it in one of my beehives. Put it away until Mary comes to visit us and we’ll give it to her baby.”
“No, indeed!” exclaimed his wife. “Why, that Woolly Dog belongs to Donald Cressey!”