“Pooh! I can go faster than that!” called Gruffo in his deep voice. “Watch me!”
Then he began to run, and, as he was bigger than Dido, of course he ran faster, and soon passed him.
“I can beat you, Gruffo!” cried Muffo. “See!” Then Muffo ran, and of course he easily ran ahead of the other two bear cubs.
“Let’s have another race,” said Dido, a little later. “I think I can beat you both then,” and slipping up behind Gruffo he began tickling him in his ear with a piece of tree branch.
“Ouch! What’s that, a bee?” cried Gruffo, brushing his ear with his paw, for his ear tickled. He did not see what Dido was doing.
“Let me alone, bee!” growled Gruffo. “That is, unless you will show me the hollow tree where you have some honey,” went on the bear cub. “If you do that you may tickle me all you please!”
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Muffo at the funny way Dido was tickling Gruffo. “Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!” and he nearly fell down, he laughed so hard.
Of course I don’t mean to say that bears laugh as we do, but they have their own way of making fun and laughing at it. So when I say, in this story, that a bear laughs, or talks or does anything, I mean he does it in a bear’s way, and not in our way.
“Where is that bee?” asked Gruffo. And then, as he heard Muffo laughing, and Dido giggling, Gruffo turned quickly and saw that it was his little brother tickling him in the ear with the stick.
“Here, you stop that!” cried Gruffo, and he reached out his paw to catch Dido. But Dido jumped back, and so quickly that he tripped over a tree root, and down he went, turning a back somersault.