“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.  But if they find that he is going to succeed in breaking in and burglarizing the place, then they fling themselves on the precious honey which they have taken so much pains to store, and begin to stuff their honey sacks as full as possible.  All they think of then is to carry away enough to keep them going while they are getting established in new quarters.  The trouble with the fool bear who has got us into this mess to-day was that he tackled a bee tree where the outside wood was too strong for him to rip open.  The bees knew he couldn’t get in at them, so they all turned out after him, to give him a good lesson.  When he got away through the underbrush so quickly they just turned on us, because they felt they must give a lesson to somebody.”

“We didn’t want to steal their old honey,” muttered the Babe in an injured voice.

“Oh, I’m not so sure!” said Uncle Andy.  “I shouldn’t wonder if Bill and I’d come over here some night and smoke the rascals out.  But we can wait.  That’s the difference between us and Teddy Bear.  He wouldn’t even wait to clean the leaves off his face, he was so anxious for that honey, and his revenge.

“This time he went up the tree slowly and quietly, keeping out of sight all the way.  When he was exactly on a level with the entrance he braced himself solidly, reached his right paw around the trunk like lightning, got a fine hold on the edge of the new crack, and wrenched with all his might.

“A big strip of half-rotten wood came away so suddenly that Teddy Bear nearly fell out of the tree.

“A lot of bees came with it; and once more Teddy Bear’s head was in a swarm of little darting, piercing flames.  But his blood was up.  He held onto that chunk of bee tree.  A big piece of comb, dripping with honey and crawling with bees, was sticking to it.  Whimpering and pawing at his face, he crunched a great mouthful of the comb, bees and all.

“Never had he tasted, never had he dreamed of, anything so delicious!  What was the pain of his smarting muzzle to that ecstatic mouthful?  He snatched another, which took all the rest of the comb.  Then he flung the piece of wood to the ground.

“The bees, meanwhile—­except those which had stung him and were now crawling, stingless and soon to die, in his fur—­had suddenly left him.  The whole interior of their hive was exposed to the glare of daylight, and their one thought now was to save all they could.  Teddy Bear’s one thought was to seize all he could.  He clawed himself around boldly to the front of the tree, plunged one greedy paw straight into the heart of the hive, snatched forth a big, dripping, crawling comb, and fell to munching it up as fast as possible—­honey, bees, brood-comb, bee-bread, all together indiscriminately.  The distracted bees paid him no more attention.  They were too busy filling their honey sacks.”