STORY VIII NEDDIE DOES A TRICK

 Neddie and Beckie Stubtail, the little children bears, did not sleep very well the first night they ran away from home to become trained animals. There were several reasons for this.

In the first place they had to sleep out of doors, and not in their own nice cave-house. And then, too, their papa and mamma were not with them.

“It—it’s lonesome,” whispered Beckie, waking up in the dark and putting out her paw to touch her brother. “Oh, Neddie, I wish I’d stayed home!”

“Hush! Go to sleep!” advised Neddie, kindly¹. “You’ll wake up George, the trained bear, and the Professor man if you talk.”

“Are they asleep?” whispered Beckie, feeling down in the leaves to see if her doll, Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin, was all right.

“Sure they’re asleep,” answered Neddie. “Hear ’em snore?”

66And, truly enough, you could hear that bear George snore as real as anything, honestly you could. What? You didn’t know bears snored? Well, did you ever sleep near one? I guess not! So, you see, you can’t tell. But I can.

“And it will soon be morning,” went on Neddie, “and then, maybe, we’ll travel on and on, and not have any lessons to do, and we may get buns and popcorn².”

“Yes, the trained bear did mention about buns,” said Beckie, and then, thinking of sweet buns and crackers³ she did manage to go to sleep.

But, oh! she did miss her mamma, and Aunt Piffy, the old bear lady, who was so fat. And more than once Neddie wished he might wake up and see Uncle Wigwag, even if the old bear gentleman did play a trick on him. And as for Mr. Whitewash⁴, the Polar bear, Neddie would have given a whole penny to see him again for even a second.

Still, he had run away of his own free will, Neddie had, and he must make the best of it.

“Besides, I like it!” he said to himself. “I’m going to learn to be a trained bear, and, when Beckie and I get a lot of money we’ll go back home and make mamma and papa rich.”

Neddie thought it would be very easy to do this. In fact, he was a very kind little bear and 67had not meant to do wrong when he asked Beckie to run away with him.

But now let us see what happened.

Morning came at last. The sun rose from behind the hills, where it had slept all night, and made a bright light through the trees, from which all the leaves now had fallen.

“Well, children, did you sleep well?” asked George, the trained bear, as he wet his big paws in a spring of water and washed his face.

“Pretty well, thank you,” answered Neddie, politely.

“Do you think we will get some buns and popcorn to-day, George?” asked Beckie, anxiously.

“We might,” said the trained bear. “I’m sorry I made you think we trained bears had that sort of food every day. But if we don’t get it to-day I’m sure we will on Thursday, which will be Thanksgiving. And, anyhow, to-day we’ll travel on, and you’ll see me do my tricks, and you’ll hear the Professor blow his bugle⁵ and sing, and you’ll see the people standing⁶ around to look at me and wonder. And, who knows? perhaps you may do some tricks yourselves.”

“We can climb a telegraph pole, anyhow,” said Beckie, a bit proudly. “Even if it did take an alligator⁷ to scare us into doing it.”

68“Well, we’ll have breakfast and travel on,” said the Professor, after a bit. Then he reached in the bag again and pulled out some more dried bread.

“Only that!” whispered Neddie, and he thought of what a nice meal the folks at home were having—huckleberry pancakes, maybe, with maple⁸ sugar on, and hot buns and milk sweetened with honey.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Beckie, but she was a brave little bear girl and made up her mind not to find fault, especially after having run away when she didn’t really have to. So Beckie washed the face of her rubber doll, Mary Ann Puddingstick Clothespin, and made believe give her some breakfast.

Then Beckie and Neddie ate their dried bread, and so did George, the trained bear, and the Professor ate some too. Then the Professor played a lively tune⁹ on his bugle:

“Ta-ra! Ta-ra-ta! Ta-ra-ta! Ta-ra-ta! Ta! Ta!” he blew.

It was quite nice and jolly and made all the bears feel better.

“Here we go!” cried the Professor. “Forward—march! Here we go!”

He tossed¹⁰ the long pole to George, who shouldered it just like a gun, and marched on 69with his head high in the air, while Beckie and Neddie laughed at him, he was so funny.

“Oh, I guess we’ll like this after all,” said Neddie.

“Maybe,” spoke¹¹ Beckie, as she hugged her rubber doll.

But every one was very sad back in the cave-house where the Stubtail children lived. As soon as morning had come Aunt Piffy, going in to call Neddie and Beckie, saw that they were not in their beds.

“They’re gone!” cried the nice, fat old lady bear.

“They’re up to some trick,” said Uncle Wigwag, who, always playing tricks himself, thought that other bears would do the same thing.

“We must find them,” said Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear.

But although they looked all over they could not find Neddie and Beckie, of course, for the children were with the Professor and the trained bear, far, far away. You knew that, didn’t you?

Oh! how badly papa and mamma Stubtail felt, and they called a nice dog policeman to help find Neddie and Beckie. But I’ll tell you about that part later. This story is about Neddie’s trick.

After breakfast, as I said, the Professor, 70George, the trained bear, and Neddie and Beckie went on and on through the woods.

“Soon we will come to a village,” said the Professor. “There George will do some of his tricks, and you little bears can climb a telegraph pole, or maybe the church steeple. Then the people will laugh and clap their hands and give us things to eat.”

“Buns and popcorn balls?” asked Beckie, anxiously.

“Yes, I think so,” said the Professor.

Soon they did come to a village, and the Professor blew some sweet notes on his bugle. At once a lot of children came running out to watch the bears, and when they saw Neddie and Beckie the children said:

“Oh, aren’t they cute!”

One little girl even touched Beckie’s fur, and Beckie liked to feel the tiny hand. Beckie and Neddie were getting so they were not afraid of real folks. Then George, the trained bear, did some of his tricks, turning somersaults, playing soldier and the like.

“Now you little bears will do a trick,” said the Professor. “Come, Neddie, climb a pole!” And he blew on the bugle.

Neddie looked for a pole to climb, but just then he saw a fat woman, almost as fat as Aunt 71Piffy, coming down the street. The fat woman had a basket of eggs on her arm, and the eggs were very heavy.

“Oh, I must help her!” said Neddie, politely, for his mamma had always taught him to be polite to ladies, whether they were fat or not.

So Neddie waltzed over to take the basket of eggs so that he might help the woman. She saw the bear coming and, not knowing Neddie was kind and tame and trained, she screamed and ran. Neddie ran after her, and just as he put his paw on the handle of the basket of eggs he slipped on a banana peeling, and so did the fat lady. Down they both went, ker-thump, and the basket of eggs fell also—and——

Well, you can imagine what happened! Neddie and the fat woman were just covered with the whites and yellows of eggs—all stuck up like—and everybody laughed like anything. Really they could not help it.

“Oh, what a fine trick!” cried the boys and girls, clapping their hands.

“Yes, but it is too expensive a trick to do every day,” said the Professor. “I shall have to pay for those eggs, I guess.” And the fat woman made him pay almost a dollar, and nobody gave Neddie or Beckie any buns, or popcorn balls, either.

72“Well, we’ll travel on,” said the Professor. “We may get some ice cream in the next place.” So on they went after Neddie had washed off the sticky eggs from his fur in a brook¹² of water.

And next, if the rubber plant doesn’t stretch itself out and take all the lumps of sugar from the salt cellar¹³, I’ll tell you about the Stubtails’ Thanksgiving.

 

1 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

2 popcorn   

n.爆米花

参考例句：

• I like to eat popcorn when I am watching TV play at home.当我在家观看电视剧时，喜欢吃爆米花。
• He still stood behind his cash register stuffing his mouth with popcorn.他仍站在收银机后，嘴里塞满了爆米花。

3 crackers   

adj.精神错乱的，癫狂的n.爆竹( cracker的名词复数 )；薄脆饼干；（认为）十分愉快的事；迷人的姑娘

参考例句：

• That noise is driving me crackers. 那噪声闹得我简直要疯了。
• We served some crackers and cheese as an appetiser. 我们上了些饼干和奶酪作为开胃品。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 whitewash   

v.粉刷，掩饰；n.石灰水，粉刷，掩饰

参考例句：

• They tried hard to whitewash themselves.他们力图粉饰自己。
• What he said was a load of whitewash.他所说的是一大堆粉饰之词。

5 bugle   

n.军号，号角，喇叭；v.吹号，吹号召集

参考例句：

• When he heard the bugle call, he caught up his gun and dashed out.他一听到军号声就抓起枪冲了出去。
• As the bugle sounded we ran to the sports ground and fell in.军号一响，我们就跑到运动场集合站队。

6 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

7 alligator   

n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼)

参考例句：

• She wandered off to play with her toy alligator.她开始玩鳄鱼玩具。
• Alligator skin is five times more costlier than leather.鳄鱼皮比通常的皮革要贵5倍。

8 maple   

n.槭树，枫树，槭木

参考例句：

• Maple sugar is made from the sap of maple trees.枫糖是由枫树的树液制成的。
• The maple leaves are tinge with autumn red.枫叶染上了秋天的红色。

9 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

10 tossed   

v.（轻轻或漫不经心地）扔( toss的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）摇荡；摇匀；（为…）掷硬币决定

参考例句：

• I tossed the book aside and got up. 我把书丢在一边，站了起来。
• He angrily tossed his tools and would work no longer. 他怒气冲冲地扔下工具不肯再干了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

12 brook   

n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让

参考例句：

• In our room we could hear the murmur of a distant brook.在我们房间能听到远处小溪汩汩的流水声。
• The brook trickled through the valley.小溪涓涓流过峡谷。

13 cellar   

n.地窖，地下室，酒窖

参考例句：

• He took a bottle of wine from the cellar.他从酒窖里拿出一瓶酒。
• The little girl hid away in the cellar.小姑娘藏在地下室里。