“Come, children, it’s time to get up!” called Mrs. Stubtail, the bear lady, as she stood at the foot of the stairs in the cave-house, on the side of the green hill, one morning. “Come, Neddie! Come, Beckie!” Up out of their beds in the soft, brown autumn leaves jumped Neddie and Beckie.
“Oh, is that the Professor man, going to make us do our trick of see-sawing on the elephant’s back?” cried Beckie, rubbing her eyes.
“Or maybe it’s George, the tame bear, calling us,” said Neddie. Then he and his sister looked at each other, and they both laughed.
“Why, we’re in our own home!” exclaimed Beckie, looking around.
“So we are! And not in the circus barn at all!” added Neddie, as he noticed his own room in the cave. Then he and his sister laughed again, jumped into their little bear suits, and slid down the stair rail to breakfast.
 
105“Well, isn’t it good to be home again?” asked Mrs. Stubtail, as she put some more corn griddle cakes on the stove to cook.
“Indeed, it is!” said Beckie.
“And I guess you didn’t get any nice sweet maple syrup honey like this when you ran away from home, to go with the Professor man, and George, the trick bear; did you?” asked Aunt Piffy, the fat old lady bear.
“Indeed, we didn’t!” exclaimed Beckie, as she took another cake. “And when you called us to breakfast just now, mamma, we thought we were back in the barn again, with all the circus animals.”
“Well, what are we going to do to-day?” asked Neddie, as he pushed back his chair. And, just as he did it, Uncle Wigwag, the old gentleman bear, who was always playing tricks on the animal children, tipped Neddie over backward.
“Oh, my!” cried the bear boy.
“Don’t be frightened!” called Uncle Wigwag with a laugh. “I’m not going to let you fall!” And with that he caught Neddie, chair and all, up in his big paws and gave him a bear hug; he was so glad to see his little nephew back home again.
“Well, I know what I’m going to do,” said Beckie, “I’m going to give my doll, Mary Ann 106Puddingstick Clothespin, a nice bath, and put a clean dress on her.” For, you see, the rubber doll had got rather mussed up traveling around through the woods.
“I know what you are both going to do,” said Mrs. Stubtail, with a smile. “You are both going to school. You have missed enough lessons as it is, running off the way you did.
“I’ll not punish you, although you did give us a bad fright, but you really must go back to school.”
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Neddie, scratching his nose with his claws.
“That’s what I say!” spoke Beckie. You see, she and Neddie had been out of school nearly a week now, and it was rather hard to go back again.
But they were pretty good little bear children—not too goody-goody, you know, but good enough—and so they went to school.
And something happened soon after they reached their classes. Neddie talked in school. You see, the way it was, Joie Kat leaned over and asked him:
“Where have you been all this while?”
And Neddie answered back:
“Oh, in a circus. I’ll tell you all about it at recess.”
107The teacher heard them whispering, and kept both the little bear boy and the kitten chap in after school. Joie Kat got out first, because he finished his punish-lesson sooner than Neddie.
And when Neddie Stubtail finally got out of school there was none of the other animal boys to be seen. Every one, from Sammie Littletail, the rabbit, to Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, had all run off to play.
“Well,” said Neddie, “I guess I’ll have to go home alone. Never mind, maybe I’ll have an adventure.” An adventure, you know, is something that happens; like when you drop your candy-penny down a crack in the boardwalk.
Well, Neddie was walking along through the woods, and wishing he could find a lollypop,............