shortly, with his
customary objection to being interrupted. Then he thought better of
it, and added amiably: "That's a sensible question--a very natural
question; and I'll give you the answer to it in half a minute. I've
got to tell you my yarn in my own way, you know--you ought to know it
by this time--but you'll see presently just why the bees acted so
differently in the two cases.

"Well, as soon as Teddy Bear had got rid of his assailants he clawed
down through the leaves and twigs and moss--like _I_ did just now, you
remember, till he came to the damp, cool earth. Ah, how he dug his
smarting muzzle into it, and rooted in it, and rubbed it into his ears
and on his eyelids! till pretty soon--for the bee stings do not poison
a bear's blood as strongly as they poison us--he began to feel much
easier. As for the rest of his body--well, _those_ stings didn't
amount to much, you know, because his fur and his hide were both so
thick.

"At last he sat up on his haunches and looked around. You should have
seen him!"

"I'm glad I wasn't there, Uncle Andy," said the Babe, earnestly shaking
his head. But Uncle Andy paid no attention to the remark.

"His muddy paws drooped over his breast, and his face was all stuck
over with leaves and moss and mud--"

"_We_ must look funny, too," suggested the Babe, staring hard at the
black mud poultice under his uncle's swollen eye. But his uncle
refused to be diverted.

"And his glossy fur was in a state of which his mother would have
strongly disapproved. But his twinkling little eyes burned with wrath
and determination. He sniffed again that honey smell. He stared up at
the bee tree, and noted that the opening was much larger than it had
been before his visit. A big crack extended from it for nearly two
feet down the trunk. Moreover, there did not seem to be so many bees
buzzing about the hole."

The Babe's eyes grew so round with inquiry at this point that Uncle
Andy felt bound to explain.

"You see, as soon as the bees got it into their cunning heads that
their enemy was going to succeed in breaking into their storehouse,
they decided that it was more important to save their treasures than to
fight the enemy. It's like when one's house is on fire. At first one
fights to put the fire out. When that's no use, then one thinks only
of saving the things. That's the principle the bees generally go upon.
At first they attack the enemy, in the hope of driving him off.