A bear celebrates a bumper harvest. As he happily prepares to make pancakes to celebrate, he's harassed by a pack of mice. After a chase, the clumsy bear is frustrated and defeated by the mice.

The bear seeks help from a tabby cat, but when the cat catches mice for him, the bear finds them too small and imposes a rule that fat mice can only be traded for fat fish, while the other two can only eat thin fish. This angers the cat. To get the big, fat fish, the cat devises a clever plan: first, he uses the bear's food to feed the mice until they're well-fed, and then he gives them away. This way, the bear gets the fat rats he imagined, but loses his precious food.