Mouser Cats Story | Page 6

had got tired too, so he laid down on the grass and went to sleep.
"Now what do you think? When Mr. Elephant sat down he happened to hit Mr. Bee's hind foot, and then there was a time! Mr. Bee talked disgracefully, so it is said, to Mr. Elephant, and you would have thought they never had been friends; but Mr. Elephant didn't answer him back, because he was a peaceable kind of an animal, and knew that the least said is the soonest mended.
"When Mr. Bee got through scolding, they went on their journey again. I don't know where they were traveling, but that doesn't make any difference in the story. Off they started, and after a while it seemed as if Mr. Bee got to feeling better, and Mr. Elephant said:
"'I'm glad to see that you've got over being cross, for it was all an accident, my hitting your foot.'
"'Oh yes,' Mr. Bee answered, as if he intended to be friendly again. 'We'll try to forget all about it. Have you seen anything of my collars and cuffs since we started?'
"'Why, no,' replied Mr. Elephant. 'Have you lost them?'
"'I haven't seen them since we left home, and I believe they must be in your trunk.'
"'I think not,' Mr. Elephant said; 'but you can go in and look for them, if you choose.'
"Now Mr. Bee hadn't got over his cross fit a little bit, and he was only waiting for a chance to pay Mr. Elephant back. Well, he crawled into the trunk just as far as he could get, and then he gave poor Mr. Elephant the very hardest sting you ever dreamed about.
[Illustration: When Mr. Elephant Sneezed.]
"'Oh me, oh my!' Mr. Elephant howled. 'What a wicked little thing you are! I'll fix you for that!' and then he hunched himself together, and gave the biggest kind of a big sneeze. Now if you never saw anything of the kind, you can't have an idea what a commotion it made when Mr. Elephant did that, and, bless your heart, that was the last of Mr. Bee. I don't know what became of him, and neither does anybody else. He must have been dashed to pieces in the terrible wind that was raised, and it served him good and right, too, for he deserved it just as much as ever Mr. Bear did when he got so worn out by Mr. Man's boy Tommy."

WHEN TOMMY GOT THE BEST OF MR. BEAR.
"Is that another story?" your Aunt Amy asked, and Mrs. Mouser replied with a laugh:
"Yes, and it is a good one, too. Last year there was an old Mr. Bear living near this farm, who was the most quarrelsome animal you ever saw, and besides that, he was wicked. Do you know, he made up his mind that he would bite a big piece out of Mr. Man's boy's leg, just because Tommy drove him away when he was stealing honey. So one night he crept up to the well, and got into the bucket, letting himself way down to the bottom where he could float around until Tommy came out to get a pail of water.
"'I'll have him sure,' Mr. Bear said to himself, 'for when he pulls up the bucket in the morning, I'll jump out and grab him, so he can't get away.'
"Well, Tommy went to the well at just about the same time as usual, and when he started to raise the bucket with the windlass, he found it was terribly heavy. He thought some one must have been putting rocks in it to play a joke on him, so he kept on turning the crank around until the bucket was nearly to the top, and then he saw what was the matter:
[Illustration: Mr. Bear Makes a Mistake.]
"'My goodness!' he cried. 'There's Mr. Bear, and it's water I'm after, not bear!'
"Then Tommy Man let go of the windlass, and of course down went Mr. Bear to the bottom of the well with a bump that nearly shook him to pieces.
"Now almost anybody might have thought that Tommy would run away after that; but no, he made up his mind to serve Mr. Bear out good and hard, so he went to work winding up the windlass again. Then, when he had hauled Mr. Bear nearly to the top, he let him go back with a worse bump than before, and so he kept on doing this same thing thirteen or fifteen times, until Mr. Bear was so sore and bruised that he couldn't do much of anything more than hold himself on to the edge of the bucket.
"By that time Tommy had got all the sport he wanted, and he let Mr. Bear crawl out of the bucket. I have heard it said that it