"Let me go if I give you this," begged
the bunny uncle.
"Maybe I will, and maybe I won't," said the bear, cunning like. "Let
me see what it is."
He took the basket from Uncle Wiggily, and looking in, said:
"Ah, ha! An apple turnover-dumpling with oranges in it! I just love
them! Ah, ha!"
"Oh," thought Uncle Wiggily. "I hope he eats it, for then maybe I can
get away when he doesn't notice me. I hope he eats it!"
And the bear, leaning his back against the pine tree in which the
woodpecker had been boring holes, began to take bites out of the apple
dumpling which Nurse Jane had baked for Grandpa Goosey.
"Now's my chance to get away!" thought the bunny gentleman. But when
he tried to hop softly off, as the bear was eating the sweet stuff, the
bad creature saw him and cried:
"Ah, ha! No you don't! Come hack here!" and with his claws he pulled
Uncle Wiggily close to him again.
Then the bunny uncle noticed that some sweet, sticky juice or gum, like
that on fly paper, was running down the trunk of the tree from the
holes the woodpecker had drilled in it.
"Oh, if the bear only leans back hard enough and long enough against
that sticky pine tree," thought Mr. Longears, "he'll be stuck fast by
his furry hair and he can't get me. I hope he sticks!"
And that is just what happened. The bear enjoyed eating the apple
dumpling so much that he leaned back harder and harder against the
sticky tree.
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