For a few seconds he stood his ground, battling frantically.

Then, with an agility that you would never have dreamed his chubby form to be capable of, he went swinging down from branch to branch, whining and coughing and spluttering and squealing all the way.
From the lowest branch he slid down the trunk, his claws tearing the bark and just clinging enough to break his fall.
"Reaching the ground, he began to roll himself over and over in the dry leaves and twigs till he had crushed out all the bees that clung in his fur." "But why didn't the rest of the bees follow him?
They followed this other bear to-day!" protested the Babe feelingly.
"Well, they didn't!" returned Uncle Andy quite 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.