“I wish I hadn’t! I wish I hadn’t! I wish I hadn’t!” sobbed Boxer over and over, as he tried to get away from that dreadful smell and couldn’t.
CHAPTER XXXIII
WOOF-WOOF TURNS UP HER NOSE
I pray you be not one of those
Who boast the scornful turned-up nose.
Mother Bear.
Now all the time that Boxer had been losing himself more and more and getting into more and more trouble, Mother Bear had been worrying about him, and she and his twin sister, Woof-Woof, had been everywhere but the right place looking for him.
You remember that Mother Bear and Woof-Woof had been away from home when Boxer decided to run away. When they returned, Boxer had been gone so long that Mother Bear’s nose failed to find enough of his scent to follow. So when she started to look for him, she started in the wrong direction. Of course, she had to take Woof-Woof with her, and because Woof-Woof got tired after a while, Mother Bear couldn’t hunt as thoroughly as she would have done had she been alone.
At first Woof-Woof felt very badly indeed at the loss of her little twin brother. Down in her heart she admired him for his boldness in running away, but when she thought of all the dreadful things that might happen to him out in the Great World, she became very sorrowful. This was at first. After she had tramped and tramped and tramped behind Mother Bear, tramped until her feet ached, she became cross. She blamed Boxer, and quite rightly, for those aching feet. The more they ached the crosser she became, until she tried to make herself believe that she didn’t care what happened to that heedless brother.