"Now I will go in and eat them all up," thought the bear, smacking his lips and gnashing his sharp teeth. So with his long toenails he unlocked the door and went softly into the house, where Jacko and Jumpo and their papa and mamma were fast asleep. No one heard the bear come in--that is, no one but the little black cricket in the thimble near the fireplace. He heard the shaggy, savage creature, and all at once that cricket chirped and cried out:
"Wake up! Wake up, everybody! You'll all be eaten!" And the cricket sang his happy song so loudly that Jacko and Jumpo and Mr. and Mrs. Kinkytail awakened at once, just as though they had heard an alarm clock.
Then Mr. Kinkytail took a club and began beating on the bottom of the dishpan, and the bear heard it and he thought it was the fire engines coming after him, so he jumped out of the front door to get away. And he jumped so hard that he fell to the ground and broke two of its toenails, and it served him right, I think.
So that's how the cricket saved the Kinkytails from being robbed and eaten up, and they were very thankful to him. And he stayed with them all winter, and sometimes he had cherry pie for supper.
Now next I'm going to tell you about the Kinkytails and the doll's house--that is, if the alarm clock will stop making figures all over my paper so I can write the story, and if the coffee pot doesn't step on the rolling pin's toes.
"Now, boys," said Mrs. Kinkytail to her two monkey sons one morning, "this is Saturday, and there isn't any school, so I wish you would go on an errand for me."
"Where is it, mamma?" asked Jacko. "Do you want us to go to the store to get some molasses, so we can make candy?"
"No, indeed, I do not!" she exclaimed. "I have plenty of molasses in the house, and I can't let you make candy today, though I may some other time."
"Then do you want us to get some corn so we can pop it, and make popcorn balls?" asked Jumpo, trying to stand up on the end of his tail. But he couldn't do it very well, so he wound his tail around the gas fixture in the ceiling and hung head downward.
"Don't do that," said his mother. "All the blood may run to your head and there won't be any in your feet, and you may get the epizootic. But I don't want any popcorn from the store. What I want you to do is to go over to Grandfather Goosey Gander's house and borrow the chopper machine he grinds up things in. I am going to make some cabbage chow-chow and some chew-chew and some tomato pickles and I want to grind up all the things in the food chopper.