Did you ever put up a stovepipe? No, I guess you did not. Well, it is not easy work, as Mr. Whitewash soon found. Either the pipe he got from Grandfather Goosey Gander was too large to fit in the chimney hole or else the chimney hole was too small to let the pipe slide in. Anyhow, Mr. Whitewash tried and tried again, and once more, but the pipe would not fit.
“I guess I’ll have to get on a stepladder,” said the polar gentleman, breathing hard.
“Oh, how black your paws are!” exclaimed Aunt Piffy, the fat lady bear.
“Yes, it comes off the stovepipe,” said Mr. Whitewash. “Please bring the stepladder.”
So Aunt Piffy and Mrs. Stubtail went for the ladder, but in bringing it through the kitchen door it slipped and caught on Mrs. Stubtail’s paws, so that she fell down, and so did the fat lady; and Aunt Piffy lost her breath.
Aunt Piffy could hardly get her breath back again, either, but she caught it just as it was slipping out of the door and then she was all right again—at least for a while.
“Now I guess I’ll fix this pipe!” cried Mr. Whitewash, as he stood upon the ladder. Carefully he shoved the stovepipe into the chimney hole, but still it stuck.
“It must go in!” cried the polar bear gentleman, “or else we can’t have a fire in the stove to cook dinner.”
Then he gave a big push on the pipe. But something slipped. Part of what slipped was the stepladder and the other part of what slipped was Mr. Whitewash and the third part of it was the stovepipe.
Down they fell in a heap together on the floor.
“Oh, me! Oh, my!” cried Mrs. Stubtail. “Shall I get the doctor?”
Mr. Whitewash didn’t say anything for a little while, and then he remarked:
And he certainly needed it, for the soot from the stovepipe had scattered all over him, and instead of being a pure white bear, he was speckled black and white now, like those dogs which always run along under a carriage.
But when Aunt Piffy and Mrs. Stubtail tried to brush the black soot off Mr. Whitewash, they found they were only making it worse. The brush scattered the black all over him instead of leaving it only in spots.
“I guess you had better not try,” said Mr. Whitewash. “I’ll take a bath after I get this pipe up.”
“Can you get it up?” asked Mrs. Stubtail.