“Not as this bear,” growled Grumpy, patting his middle sorrowfully.
CHAPTER 14
Ozwold And His Friends Rush On
“That was a fine place for you, Scraps,” chuckled Peter as the oztrich thudded good humoredly along the sunny road. “You’d rather sing than talk anyway. But singing and dancing all your life, whew! How would you play base ball to music, I wonder. Imagine singing out signals and trying to make a home run to a waltz.”
“The dinners were the saddest,” sighed Grumpy, licking his chops hungrily. “Do you see any biscuit bushes or carrot trees around here?”
“There’s some kind of a tree in that field,” answered Peter, “but the fruit is up so high we couldn’t reach it, anyway.”
“I could,” grunted the little bear eagerly. “Let’s stop and try.” The oztrich had spied some especially appetizing rocks by the roadside and was quite willing to stop. So Peter placed his egg child beside him and, while they ran off to investigate the fruit tree, Ozwold lunched quite contentedly on a couple of cobblestones. The tree was about as tall as a cocoanut palm and clustered at the top were large green fruits about the size of watermelons.
Requiring no luncheon, Scraps danced off to amuse herself and, as Peter and Grumpy blinked hungrily upward, two of the melons detached themselves from the branch of the tree and came sailing gracefully downward.