For miles we ran and cried, and cried!”
Old Mother Bear replied:
“Do dry your eyes, oh dear, oh dear,
I’ve a pair of stockings left from last year.”
Then Cousin Nanny Goat dried her eyes on her blue silk pocket handkerchief and Sammy Small Tail dried his eyes on his red silk pocket handkerchief, and they watched Old Mother Bear go to a chest and draw out a pair of stockings!
As she gave them to those cunning animals they shouted:
“You’re so good we’ll not shed another tear,
We wish you Merry Christmas every year.”
As they danced off with their stockings, it grew near and nearer, Christmas Eve.
One evening as Sammy Small Tail hopped by Old Mother Bear’s house he peeped in the window. There she sat still in her red rocking chair. The knitting needles lay idle on the window-sill but they could see things with their eyes. They said: