For Uncle Wigwag, hiding behind a stump, had heard just what Neddie and Beckie had planned to do to get some honey cakes. And the old joking gentleman bear said to himself:
“Now, I’ll play a joke on those children. It isn’t right for them to do that, and I’ll teach them a lesson.”
So he went out on the back steps, where the pans of honey cakes were cooling. Honey cakes, you know, are made from honey and sugar and other sweet things, and are very good. Little bear children love them more than anything else.
“Let me see now. What trick shall I play?” said Uncle Wigwag to himself. “Oh, I know. I’ll put a lot of glue on the back steps, and make them all sticky like fly paper. Then, when Neddie and Beckie come up to get the honey cakes they’ll step in the glue, and they’ll be held fast, and they’ll make such a fuss that their mamma and Aunt Piffy will hear them. They’ll come out, and I guess those bear cubs will never take any more honey cakes without asking.”
So Uncle Wigwag got a lot of sticky glue from the doll factory where they glue dolls’ wigs on, and he spread the sticky stuff all over the back steps, where, on the top rail, Mrs. Stubtail had set the honey cakes to cool.
Oh, how delicious they smelled! Uncle Wigwag could not help taking one, but of course that was all right, as he paid his board to Mrs. Stubtail.
Then Uncle Wigwag spread out the sticky glue, taking care not to step in it himself, and then he went and hid behind a stump to see what would happen when Neddie and Beckie came softly along to get the honey cakes.
But something else happened. I’ll tell you all about it if you’ll listen.
Neddie and Beckie hurried out of school that afternoon. They had managed to get through their lessons, and were very anxious to eat some of the honey cakes—that is, if their mamma would let them.
“I hope they’re out on the stoop when we get there,” said Beckie.
“Oh, you honey cakes!” exclaimed Neddie, jolly-like. “Of course they’ll be there.”
And just then, as it happened, there was a bad old wolf behind the fence. And he heard what the bear cub children were saying.
“Honey cakes, eh?” exclaimed the wolf. “I guess I’ll go get some for myself.”
So he ran through the woods, a shorter way than Neddie and Beckie went, and the old wolf got there first, just as the one did in the Little Red Riding Hood story.