



Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.









BED TIME STORIES


CURLY AND FLOPPY TWISTYTAIL
(THE FUNNY PIGGIE BOYS)


BY


HOWARD R. GARIS


Author of "SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL," "JACKO AND JUMPO
KINKYTAIL," "THE UNCLE WIGGILY STORIES," "THE DADDY SERIES," "CIRCUS
ANIMAL STORIES," "THE ISLAND BOYS," ETC.


ILLUSTRATED BY LOUIS WISA




CONTENTS

Curly Twistytail Is Named

Floppy Gets His Name

Pinky's Rubber Ball

How Curly Helped Mother

Curly and the Elephant

Flop and the Bag of Meal

Piggy Boys at School

Curly Is Vaccinated

Curly and the Spinning Top

Flop and the Turtle

Curly and the Chestnuts

Baby Pinky and the Doctor

Curly and the Big Apple

The Piggies and the Pumpkin

The Piggies In a Cornfield

Flop Has a Tumble

Mr. Twistytail's Lost Hat

Mother Twistytail's New Bonnet

Curly and the Sour Milk

Flop and the Pie Lady

The Piggies and the Jelly

Flop and the Marshmallows

The Piggies and the Fish

Curly and the Afraid Girl

The Piggies At the Party

Floppy and the Bonfire

Flop and the Skate Wagon

Pinky and the Lemon

The Piggies and Santa Claus

Floppy and the Stockings

The Twistytails' Christmas




STORY I

CURLY TWISTYTAIL IS NAMED


Once upon a time, not so very many years ago, in the days when there
were fairies and giants and all things like that, there lived in a
little house, on the edge of a wood, a family of pigs. Now these
pigs weren't like the pigs, which perhaps you children have seen on
most farms. No, indeed! They were just the nicest cleanest, sweetest
pigs you ever dreamed of--not that pigs on a farm can't be clean, if
they want to, but, somehow or other, no one seems to have time to
see that they are clean. I guess it would take some one like Jennie
Chipmunk to sweep and dust their pen for them.

Anyhow the pigs I am going to tell you about were very different
from most pigs, and they had some very funny adventures.

First, there was the papa pig, and his name was Mr. Archibald
Twistytail though no one ever called him anything but Mr. Twistytail
except maybe his wife, when he forgot to bring up a scuttle of coal
so she could do the washing. And then, of course there was Mrs.
Twistytail--she was the mamma pig. And there were two little boy
pigs, and for a time they didn't have any names, as their papa and
mamma were so busy that they couldn't think what to call them. So
they just said "Here sonny!" or "Hi, Bubby," whenever they wanted
them to come in, or eat their dinner.

One of these little boy pigs always wore short trousers with stripes
painted on them, and the other little piggie chap's trousers were
like a checker-board.

And then--oh, but I almost forgot about the little baby pig. She was
the sweetest little creature you can imagine, and her right name was
Pinky, because she was so pink, just like a baby's toes when she
sleeps in her crib. But Pinky was hardly ever called by her right
name, almost every one said just "Baby," and that answered very
well.

And now I'm going to tell you how one of the pigs got his name. He
was the oldest pig of the three children, and one day he and his
brother thought they would go out for a walk.

"Come along!" exclaimed the oldest boy pig. "Maybe we will have an
adventure, such as Uncle Wiggily Longears used to have," for you see
the pigs knew Uncle Wiggly almost as well as you do.

"All right," said the younger boy pig. "Where shall we go?"

"Off in the woods," spoke his brother. "The woods are full of
adventures."

So they strolled out of their house, and started for the woods. I
forgot to say that the Twistytail family of pigs lived in a regular
house--of course not the kind you boys and girls live in, but still
it was a very good house for pigs. It had tables in it, and chairs
and beds and all things like that. And the reason they were called
"Twistytail" was because their tails did have a sort of twist or
turn in them.

Well, the two pig boys wandered on through the woods, and pretty
soon they came to two paths, one leading to left and the other to
the right.

"Let's go this way," said the older pig boy, who yet didn't have any
name, and he pointed his leg toward the right-hand path.

"No, I think we will find an adventure on this road," said his
younger brother, and he started off to the left.

"Oh, there you go!" cried the older pig boy. "You never want to do
what I like!"

"Well, I've got just as good a right to go this way as you have to
go that way," answered the younger piggie-iggie, and so those two
brothers, instead of keeping together and looking for adventures,
separated, and one went one way, while the other went the other way.
And now you just wait and see what happens.

All of a sudden, as the older piggie boy was walking along, digging
up nice sweet roots with his nose--for you know that is the way
piggies dig--all of a sudden, I say, there was a growling noise in
the bushes, and before the little pig boy could jump out of the way,
or even call for his mamma or papa, a big black bear sprang out from
inside a hollow stump, and grabbed him. Right in his paws he grabbed
that little pig boy.

"Oh, ho!" growled the big black bear. "You are just what I've been
waiting for. Now for a nice roast pork dinner. Oh, yum! yum!"

"Oh!" squealed the little pig boy. "Surely you don't mean to eat me,
Mr. Bear! Please let me go!"

"Indeed I'll not!" exclaimed the bear. "I was hiding here, hoping
Sammie Littletail or Uncle Wiggily would come along, so I could have
a rabbit dinner, but you will do just as well. Come along!"

And so the bear carried off the little piggie boy farther into the
woods, intending to take him to a den where there was a good hot
fire. And all the while the little piggie tried to get away but he
couldn't because the bear held him so tightly in his paws.

Pretty soon the bear came to his den. Then he said:

"Let me see, now. I must have some apple sauce to go with my roast
pork dinner. I'll just tie this little pig to the fence while I go
off and get some apples to make into sauce. I can cook the apples
and the pig on the same fire."

Then the bear looked blinkingly at the little pig, and said:

"Let me see. How can I tie him to the fence? Oh, I know, by his
tail. I'll just fasten him by his tail." And that's what he did,
tying the poor little piggie to the fence by his tail, with a piece
of wild grape vine for a string. And the bear wound the grape vine
string, that was fast to the little pig's tail around and around the
round rail of the fence. Then the bear went off after apples for
sauce.

Well, of course the poor little pig felt very badly, and he didn't
know what to do. He even cried a little bit, but I'm sure you won't
blame him for that, will you? And he said:

"Oh, I wish my little brother was here. He might help me!"

And then, all of a sudden, there was a rustling in the bushes, and
the little pig, who was tied by his tail to the fence, thought it
was the bear coming back. But it wasn't, for all at once a voice
called out:

"Oh, brother! What has happened to you?" And there was the piggie's
little brother looking for him.

"Oh!" cried the pig boy who was tied to the fence by his tail. "A
bear caught me. A big black bear! He is going to eat me as soon as
he comes back with the apple sauce. Save me!"

"Indeed I will," said the little brother. And with his sharp teeth
he gnawed through the grape vine string, and then his brother was
free. "Come on!" exclaimed the littlest pig. "We must run home away
from the bear!"

And they did, getting back to their house safely, and oh! how
disappointed that bear was when he returned with the apples and
found his pig dinner gone. He was so peevish that he threw all the
apples away.

And when Mrs. Twistytail saw her little boy she exclaimed:

"Oh, my sakes alive! How did you get that curl in your tail?"

"I--I guess that was where the bear tied me to the fence," said the
piggie boy, and so it was. His tail was all curled tight, like a
little girl's hair. His mamma tried to take the curl out with a warm
flatiron, but the kink stayed in the tail, and so Mr. Twistytail
said:

"I guess we'll have to call our piggie boy by the name of Curly
after this," and so they did, and that's how one piggie boy got the
name of "Curly Twistytail."

And in case the shells don't all come off the eggs and leave the
feathers sticking out for a sofa cushion, I'll tell you next how the
other little pig got his name.




STORY II

FLOPPY GETS HIS NAME


One day, oh, I guess it must have been about a week after Curly
Twistytail, the little pig boy, had the adventure with the bear, and
his brother rescued him, as I told you in the story before this
one,--one day Curly's brother, who hadn't any name as yet, said:

"Oh, Curly, let's go out for another walk, and maybe something will
happen to us."

"All right," agreed Curly, "only I hope a bear doesn't happen. It's
no fun to think you're going to be turned into roast pork and eaten
with apple sauce," for that is what the bear was going to do, you
know.

So off the two little pig brothers started, and their mamma called
after them:

"Now, stay together. Don't go one on one path, and one on another,
as you did before, and have trouble. Stay together, and help one
another."

"We will!" they answered, and really they meant to, but, you see,
little pigs sometimes forget, just as real children do.

On they went together. Curly and his brother who hadn't any name,
except that sometimes people called him "Bub," or maybe "Son," or
even "Hey, Johnnie!" though that wasn't his real name at all.

Pretty soon, in about as long as it takes to eat a lollypop if you
don't hurry to get down to the stick part of it--pretty soon the two
piggie boys met Grandfather Squealer, who was the grandpapa of all
the pigs in that part of the country.

"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the old gentleman pig, "Oh, ho! How are you
today, Curly?"

"Very well, sir, thank you," replied the pig boy politely, and he
looked around to see if the curly kink had come out of his tail
where the bear had tied him to the round fence rail, but the curl
was still there.

"And how is this other little chap?" went on Grandpa Squealer, as he
took a pinch of snuff, and then looked in his vest pocket to see if
he had any spare pennies. "How are you, Bub?" he asked. "You haven't
any name yet, have you?"

"No sir," answered the brother of Curly. "I wish I had, though," and
he also wished that Grandpa Squealer would find a penny so that he
and his brother could buy a lollypop, and that wish came true, if
you will kindly believe me. For the old gentleman pig did find two
pennies.

"There now, boys," he said, "run along to the candy store. And maybe
you can buy a name for yourself," and he playfully pulled the ears
of Curly's brother. Then Grandpa Squealer sneezed again and walked
on, and so did the two boy pigs.

"I'm going to buy a corn lollypop," said Curly.

"I think I'll buy a sour-milk one," said his brother, for you know
little pigs, and big ones, too, like sour milk as much as you like
yours sweet. Isn't that funny?

So they walked on together, talking of different things, and pretty
soon they came to a place where there were two stores. One was
painted red and the other was painted blue.

"I'm going in the red store for my lollypop," said Curly.

"Oh, let's go in the blue one," suggested his brother. "Maybe I can
buy a name for myself in there. I am tired of being called 'Bub' and
'Johnny,' and names like that."

But the two brothers couldn't agree, so Curly went in the red store
and his brother in the blue one. The blue store was kept by an old
lady dog, and when the little pig, who, as yet, had no name,
entered, the old lady dog storekeeper looked over the counter and
asked:

"Well, little pig boy, what do you want?"

"If you please," he answered, "do you keep names to sell?"

"Why, what a funny question!" barked the dog lady. "The only names I
have are names of candy, and I'm sure you don't want any of those,
do you? There is peppermint and spearmint and cinnamon and lemon
drops and cocoanut kisses and lollypops and jaw-breakers and tootsie
rolls and chocolate--do you want any of those names?"

"No," replied the little pig boy, "I don't think I like any of those
names for myself. I wouldn't want to be called Cocoanut Kisses, nor
yet Lollypops, nor even Tootsie Rolls. Oh dear! I wish I could get a
name such as my brother Curly has. But maybe I will some day. And
now, if you please, I'll have a sour-milk lollypop."

So the old lady dog storekeeper gave it to the little pig boy, and
he handed her his penny. He was just taking the paper off the
lollypop, and was going to eat it--the lollypop, not the paper, you
understand--and go out and see if his brother had come out of the
red store, when, all of a sudden, a little puppy dog boy who had
just come in from school saw the pig boy in the store, and right at
him he sprang with a bow wow bark.

"Here! Come back!" cried the lady storekeeper who was the mother of
the puppy dog boy. "Let that little pig alone."

"I'm only going to play tag with him," answered the puppy dog, and
with that he sprang at the piggie and caught him by the ear. He
really didn't mean to, but his teeth closed fast on poor piggie's
ear, and there they stuck.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" howled piggie. "I'm caught! Oh let me go. Please let
me go!"

"Yes, let go of him at once, you naughty boy!" cried the doggie's
mamma, as she made a grab for his tail. But just then piggie began
to run, squealing as hard as he could, and as the doggie did not let
go of his ear, the little barking chap was dragged along too. And
then out from the red store ran Curly and he squealed and his
brother squealed, also, and the boy dog barked, and so did the
storekeeper lady dog, and such a time you never heard in all your
life! Oh! such a racket!

"Let go my ear! Let go my ear!" squealed the pig, and the doggie boy
tried to let go but he couldn't, until Curly got hold of him by the
left leg and pulled him loose.

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" cried the piggie who had bought the sour milk
lollypop. "Is my ear pulled off, Curly?"

"No, but it is hanging down like anything," said his brother. "I
guess its broken!"

"Oh, I am so sorry!" exclaimed the little boy dog. "I didn't mean to
do it. I was only going to tag you, but I slipped. Come in the house
and my mamma will put some salve on your ear, and I'll give you an
ice cream cone."

And just then Grandfather Squealer came past, and he saw Curly's
little brother, with his ear hanging down, going flippity-flop, and
the old gentleman said:

"Oh ho! I think I will call you Flopear, or Floppy for short. That
is a good name, and it just fits you." And so after that the second
little pig was always called Floppy for his ear never stood up again
but always hung down like a bell clapper. But the salve soon made it
well, and the storekeeper lady gave Floppy and Curly each an ice
cream cone.

So that's all now, if you please, but in case the butcherman doesn't
throw the loaf of bread at the candlestick and scare the lamp
chimney I'll tell you in the story after this about Pinky
Twistytail's rubber ball.




STORY III

PINKY'S RUBBER BALL.


"Now, children," exclaimed Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, one
morning, when she had given Curly and Floppy and Baby Pinky their
breakfast of sour milk with cornmeal stirred in it, "now, children,
run out and play. I have the sweeping and dusting to do, and then I
am going to make an apple pie."

"Oh, goodie!" cried Curly. "Do you want us to help you, mamma?"

"No, I'm afraid you would eat more apples than you would put in the
pie," said Mrs. Twistytail with a laugh. "Run along now."

"Come on Curly," said Floppy and he ran out and turned a somersault,
even though it was near winter, for he felt happy, now that he had a
name and didn't have to be called "Bub" or "Johnny" or something
like that.

"What shall we do?" asked Curly.

"Let's build a fort and play soldier," suggested Floppy. "Pinky can
be a prisoner and we'll make believe capture her, and then we'll
rescue her, and shoot off make-believe guns, and--"

"No--No!" cried Baby Pinky, as she tried to stand up on the end of
her twisty tail, but she couldn't, for it was too slimpsy and not
stiff enough. She fell down, but her brothers picked her up, and
then the curl came back in her tail.

You see, after the bear had tied Curly to the fence and made his
tail all frizzy-like, all the other pigs, including Pinky and Floppy
wanted their tails to curl also, and their mamma had to do it for
them, twisting them around the rolling-pin. And she even curled her
own, and her husband's, that that's why all pigs have curly tails
now, because it's stylish, you see.

"Why don't you want to play soldier?" asked Floppy of his little
sister.

"Oh, it's too scary!" she said. "And the guns make so much noise. If
you won't shoot off any guns I'll play."

"Pooh!" exclaimed Curly, "all soldiers have to shoot guns! You
couldn't be a soldier with a gun that didn't make any noise."

"Then I'm not going to play," said Pinky, who was just the color of
the inside of a shiny sea shell. "I'll bounce my rubber ball," she
went on, "and you boys can play soldier."

So she bounced her ball that Grandfather Squealer had given her,
while Curly and Floppy as I'll call him for short, made a fort out
of cobs from which they had gnawed all the corn, and they had a fine
time. They were off playing in the woods, while Pinky stayed near
the house.

She was hoping her mamma would soon have the apple pie baked and
would call her in and give her a piece, when, all of a sudden, as
Pinky bounced her ball, it went high in the air, but it didn't come
down again right away.

"My! What can have happened?" thought little Pinky, and she looked
around, and there she saw a great big fuzzy fox, standing behind
her. And the fox cried out, as he rubbed his nose:

"Did you hit me with that rubber ball?"

"Yes--yes--perhaps I did," said poor Baby Pinky, trembling so that
she nearly shook the curl out of her tail. "I tossed my ball up in
the air, but I'm sure I didn't mean to hit you with it. Please
forgive me."

"No, indeed, I will not!" exclaimed the fox. "Your rubber ball hit
me right on the nose when it came down, and I caught it. And, just
for that, I am going to carry you away with me and make a pork pie
of you!"

"Oh, please don't!" begged Pinky, shaking more than ever, and she
squealed as loudly as she could, but her mamma did not hear her, for
she was beating up some eggs to make a cake, and the egg beater made
so much noise that she couldn't hear her own little girl. And Curly
and Floppy were shooting off their make-believe guns, and making so
much noise in the woods that they couldn't hear, and there was the
fox about to carry off the poor little piggie girl to his den. Oh,
wasn't it terrible?

"Here we go!" cried the fox, and with that he grabbed up poor Pinky,
tossing her rubber ball on the ground. Up it bounced, and, hardly
knowing what she did, the little pig girl caught it in her foot,
holding it tight. Then the fox slung her across his back and ran off
with her, Pinky squealing all the while as hard as she could.

"Squeal away!" growled the old fuzzy fox. "You'll soon stop it when
I put you in the pork pie!"

And Pinky kept on squealing. Pretty soon the fox ran through the
woods where Curly and Flop were playing soldier, but the fox didn't
know that. Pinky did, however, and when she got beneath the trees
she squealed louder than ever, hoping her brothers would hear.

"Keep quiet!" barked the fox.

"No! No!" exclaimed Pinky, and she squealed again. Oh! she squealed
like anything. Then Curly heard her. So did Flop.

"That sounds like Pinky," said Curly, blinking his eyes.

"It surely does," agreed his brother. "Something must have happened
to her." They ran out of the fort they had made of corncobs piled
one on the other, and they saw their little baby sister being
carried off by the fox. Wow! Think of that!

"Here, you let our Pinky alone!" cried Curly bravely.

"No! No! No!" answered the bad fox.

"Then we'll shoot you!" shouted Flop. "Shoot him, Curly!"

Then those two brave pig boys shot their make-believe guns at the
fox. "Bang! Bang! Bung! Bung!" But do you s'pose he stopped for
that? Not a bit of it! On he ran, faster than ever, carrying away
Pinky, and Curly and Flop ran after him, but what could they do? It
looked as if the little pig girl would soon be made into pork pie,
when she suddenly called out:

"Oh, boys! My rubber ball! Fill it with water and squirt it at the
fox!" and she threw her ball to Curly.

"Don't you dare squirt rubber-ball water at me!" howled the fox, for
he was very much afraid of getting his tail wet.

"Yes we will!" shouted Curly and with that he caught the ball his
sister tossed to him. It only took him a second to stop at a mud
puddle and fill the ball with water. Then, taking careful aim, just
as a brave pig soldier boy should, he squeezed the ball, and "Zip!"
out squirted the water all over the bad fox.

"Oh wow! Double wow, and pumpkin pie! That water went right into my
eye!" howled the fox, and then, with his tail all wet, so that it
weighed ten pounds, or more, that fox was so utterly frightened and
kerslostrated that he let go of poor little Pinky and ran off to his
den, and he didn't have any pork pie for a long time afterward.

"Oh, you saved me!" cried Pinky to her two brothers, when they had
picked her up, and started back home with her.

"You helped save yourself," said Curly. "You and your rubber ball,"
and he and Flop were very glad their sister had not been carried off
by the bad fox.

And on the next page, if the washtub doesn't fall out of its crib
and knock a hole in the tea kettle so that all the lemonade runs
out, I'll tell you how Curly helped his mamma.




STORY IV

HOW CURLY HELPED MOTHER


"Well, this is certainly a fine day for washing!" exclaimed Mrs.
Twistytail, the pig lady, one morning as she got up from the nice,
clean, straw bed where she had slept with little Pinky. "I must get
right to work and hang out the sheets and pillow-cases so the sun
will make them nice and white."

So she hurried through with the breakfast of sour milk with corn
meal and sugar cakes, and as soon as Mr. Twistytail had gone to the
factory, where he helped make sausage for buckwheat cakes, Mrs.
Twistytail said:

"Now, children, do you want to help me wash?"

"Oh, yes, mamma!" they all cried at once.

"I'll turn the wringer," said Curly, "for I am good and strong."

"And I'll put the clothes pins in the basket and have them all
ready," said Pinky, for, though she was only a little girl pig she
could easily carry the clothes pins.

"What can I do?" asked Flop, the other little pig boy. His real name
was Floppy, or Flop Ear, but I call him Flop for short you see.

"Oh, you can bring me in the sticks to make the fire," said his
mamma, and soon the three piggie children were working away as fast
as they could, helping their mamma, who was busy sorting out the
clothes.

Soon the fire was made, and the sudsie-soapy water was boiling the
clothes to sort of cook them nice and clean, and Pinky had the
clothes pins all ready. Flop had put up the line, after he had
brought in the firewood, and Curly was all ready with the wringer.

Well, you should have seen Mrs. Twistytail rub-adub-dub the clothes
up and down on the washboard. My! how she did scatter the suds all
over, and once some splashed right up in her eye, but she only
laughed and sang a funny little song.

"Ready now, Curly!" she called to her eldest little boy. "Ready to
wring out the clothes through the first water!"

So Curly turned the wringer, which doesn't ring like a bell, you
know, but squeezes all the water out of the clothes so they will dry
better. Around and around Curly turned the wringer handle, and the
clothes came out like corn out of the popper.

"Oh, what fun!" cried the little pig boy, and his brother and sister
thought it was very jolly to help their mamma.

"Now, you may run away and play for a while," said the pig lady. "I
have to get the rinsing and bluing waters ready."

So Curly and Flop and Pinky ran out in the yard to play. Flop and
Pinky saw a little boy and girl pig whom they knew, and they began
playing, but Curly walked about, thinking maybe he might find a
penny, when all of a sudden he saw his mamma hurrying out of the
kitchen.

"Where are you going, mamma?" he called to her. "Is the washing all
done? Can't I wring any more clothes?"

"Oh, yes," she answered. "There are plenty more to wring out even
yet, but they must wait. Mrs. Littletail, who lives down the street,
has just sent in to say that her little rabbit boy Sammie has the
stomach ache and I am taking over some hot peppermint tea for him.
The washing can wait until I get back."

On ran Mrs. Twistytail to make Sammie Littletail feel better, and
just then her own little boy Curly had a great idea.

"I'll just slip in and finish the washing for mamma," he said to
himself, as he saw that Flop and Pinky were still playing tag.
"Won't she be s'prised when she comes in and sees the clothes all
hung up to dry?"

So Curly hurried into the kitchen and there he saw a lot of water in
a tub, and the pile of clothes in the basket ready to be rinsed and
blued and hung out to dry. Then Curly began to help his mamma to
make her surprised.

Into the tub he plumped the clothes, and then, fastening on the
wringer, he began to wring them out as dry as he could. There were a
lot of sheets and pillow-cases, and these last were like bags, full
of wind and water when you put the open end in between the rubber
rollers first. And then, when they came toward the closed end. My!
how they would puff out and make a funny sissing noise.

Curly always liked to wring out the pillow-cases this way, and he
had lots of fun. Soon he had a big basket of clothes ready to hang
on the line. Wasn't he the smart little piggie boy, though?

Out into the yard he carried the basket of clothes. It was hard
work, but he managed it. And how the wind did blow! It was all Curly
could do to hold the big sheets from blowing away, but somehow he
did, and he didn't want to call Flop or Pinky to help, for he wanted
to surprise them, too, as well as his mamma.

Well, he had hung up quite a lot of clothes to dry, and then came a
large pillow-case. The wind was blowing harder than ever, and as
Curly tried to hang the case on the line a big, strong breeze just
took hold of it, puffed it out like a balloon, and then--and then,
my goodness me, sakes alive! the wind took the pillow-case right up
in the air, and as Curly was hanging tightly to it, he went up also!

Right up into the air he went, sailing and sailing, just like an
aeroplane, and he cried out:

"Mamma! Papa! Flop Ear! Pinky! Save me!" But none of them heard him,
and he went higher and higher until the pillow-case, full of air
like a balloon, caught in a tree, and there was the little piggie
boy held where he couldn't get down. Oh, dear me, wasn't that
terrible?

Curly didn't know what to do. The tree was too big for him to jump
down and he couldn't climb very well. He thought he would have to
stay up there forever, maybe. But he didn't. Pretty soon Sammie
Littletail's stomach ache was all better and Mrs. Twistytail came
home. The first things she saw were the clothes hanging out on the
line--that is, all but the pillow-case that had taken Curly up in
the tall tree.

"My goodness me! sakes alive and a corn cob," exclaimed Mrs.
Twistytail. "The children must have done this to help me. My, but I
am surprised. But I wonder where they are?" Then she saw Flop and
Pinky playing tag, but she couldn't see Curly.

"Oh, Curly, Curly, where are you?" she called, and her little boy
answered:

"I'm up in the tree with the pillow-case!" Then his mamma saw him
and she nearly fainted. But she didn't quite faint, and then she
telephoned for a fireman with a long ladder, who came and got Curly
safely down.

So that's how he helped his mamma, and he surprised her more than he
meant to, but it all came out right in the end. And soon the washing
was all done, and the firemen gave each of the pig children a penny.

So that's all now, but in the next story, in case the oil can
doesn't slide down the clothes pole and break the handle off the
pump, so the angle worm can't get his ice cream cone, I'll tell you
about Curly and the elephant.




STORY V

CURLY AND THE ELEPHANT


When Curly Twistytail, the little pig boy, was digging away with his
nose in the front yard, one day, hunting for lollypops, or maybe ice
cream cones, under the grass, for all that I know; one day, I say,
as he was rooting away, he heard his mamma calling:

"Oh, Curly; Oh, Flop Ear! I want some one to go to the store for
me."

"That means I've got to go," thought Curly, as he looked around to
see if his tail was still kinked into a little twist.

"I'll have to go because Flop is off playing ball with Bully the
frog. Well, there's no use getting cross about it," so, giving a
cheerful grunt or two, just to show that he didn't at all mind,
Curly ran around to the back door and said:

"What is it, mamma? I'll go to the store for you?"

"Oh, there you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Twistytail. "Well, I want a
dozen eggs, and be sure to get fresh ones, and don't smash them on
the way home."

"I won't," said the little piggie boy, and with that he ran down the
street squealing a tune about a little monkey who hung down by his
tail, and when he went to sleep he sat inside the water pail.

Well, Curly got the eggs all right, and he was on his way home with
them, when, all at once, as he came to the corner of the woods,
where an old stump stood, out from behind it jumped a bad dog.

"Ha, what have you in that bag, little piggie boy?" asked the bad
dog, catching hold of Curly by his ear so that he could not run
away.

"Eggs," answered Curly. "There are eggs in this bag for a cake my
mamma is going to bake."

"No, you are mistaken," said the dog, gritting his teeth. "Those
eggs are for me, I want to eat them," and he reached out his paw for
the paper bag.

Now, though Curly did not know it, this was a bad egg dog--that is,
he liked to eat eggs raw, without ever boiling or frying them, and
that kind of a dog is the worst there is. No one likes him, not even
the old rooster who crows in the morning.

"I'll just take those eggs," said the bad dog, "and, though I don't
know how to make a cake, still I can manage to eat them," and with
that he took an egg out of the bag, chipped a little hole in the
shell, and drank up the yellow and white part just as you would
drink an ice cream soda. And, mind you, that dog never even winked
an eye! What do you think of that?

"Number one!" the dog exclaimed, as he reached for another egg. "Now
for number two!"

And oh! how badly Curly felt when he saw his mamma's eggs going that
way. It was almost as bad as if he had dropped the bag on the
sidewalk and smashed them, only, of course, it was not his fault.

Then the little piggie boy decided to be brave and bold. The bad dog
was eating the second egg, and he had his nose tipped up in the air,
so the white and yellow of the egg would run out of the shell down
his throat, when, all of a sudden, Curly pulled himself loose from
the dog's paw and grabbed up the bag with the ten eggs in it and ran
away as fast as he could.

"Here! Come back!" cried the bad egg dog, as he threw the empty
shell at Curly. "Come back here with the rest of my eggs!"

"Your eggs! No indeed!" cried Curly, and he didn't in the least mind
when the egg shell hit him on the end of his nose, for, being empty,
you understand, the shell didn't hurt any more than a piece of paper
would have done.

"Ha! If you won't come back I'll chase after you!" barked the bad
egg dog, and with that he began chasing after Curly.

Faster and faster ran Curly, and faster and faster came the dog
after him, until he had nearly caught the little piggie boy. Then
Curly thought to himself:

"Well, maybe if I roll one more egg to him he'll stop to eat that
and let me alone. Anyhow, nine eggs will be enough for a cake, and I
can tell mamma how it happened that the others were lost."

So the piggie boy stopped running long enough to take an egg out of
the bag and roll it along the sidewalk toward the dog.

"Ah, ha!" growled the dog. "Egg Number Three!" and he stopped to eat
the yellow and white part of it. Of course, Curly ran on, and he got
some distance ahead, but you see the more eggs the dog ate the
faster he could run, so on he came, and he had almost caught up to
Curly when the little piggie boy thought again:

"Well, here goes for another egg!"

So he rolled a second one toward that bad dog, who ate it, hardly
stopping at all, and on he came again.

"Now, I have you!" the dog cried, as he threw the empty shell at
Curly, striking him on the nose once more. "Now, I'll get all the
eggs, and besides, I'll bite your tail off for running away!"

"Oh, how dreadful!" thought Curly, and he wondered how it would feel
to have no tail. He was running as fast as he could, and he was
wishing a policeman or fireman would save him from the bad dog,
when, all at once, out from a yard with a high fence around it
sprang something big and white, with yellow legs, and there came a
hissing sound, just as if water were being squirted out of a hose.
Then a voice said:

"Here, you bad dog, let my friend Curly alone! Run away, now, or
I'll nip you on your toes and nose! Skip! Hiss! Scoot!"

And that dog was so frightened that he didn't think a single thing
more about eggs, but he just tucked his tail between his legs, where
it wouldn't get in his way, and off he ran.

"Oh, saved at last!" gasped Curly, as he sat down on the curbstone
to rest, "and I still have eight eggs left for mamma's cake." Then
he looked up to see who had rescued him, and it was old Grandfather
Goosey Gander, the father of all the geese. The brave creature had
hissed at the bad egg dog and frightened him away.

"Oh, how thankful I am to you," said Curly, politely, "and when the
cake is baked you shall have a piece, Grandpa Goosey."

So he went on home with the rest of the eggs and--well, I do
declare! I have forgotten all about the elephant! I know he was to
be in this story, somewhere, but there's no room now, so I'll have
to put him in the next one, which will be about Flop and the bag of
meal--that is, if the clothes-basket doesn't fall on the gas stove
and make the rice pudding go down the cellar to hide away from the
rag doll.




STORY VI

FLOP AND THE BAG OF MEAL


Now, let me see, I promised to put in this story, something about
the elephant; didn't I? That's because I left it out of the story on
the page before this, where Curly had such a dreadful time with the
bad egg dog.

Well, now, if I leave the elephant out of this story I promise that
I'll give each one of you an ice cream cone with a raisin in it. All
you'll have to do--in case I forget to tell about the elephant and
how he helped Flop--all you have to do, I say, is to come up to my
house and say "Magoozilum!" at me, just like that, and turn two
somersaults on the parlor rug, and the ice cream cone is yours for
the asking.

But now let's get right at the story. You see it happened this way.
Once upon a time, when Curly and his brother Flop were out in the
yard of the piggy-house, playing "ring around the apple tree," their
mother called to them:

"Oh, boys! come in here!" she said, and when they got to the kitchen
where she was working, she asked them: "Do you know what I'm
making?"

"Pies," said Curly.

"Pudding," suggested Flop, as he tried to make his slimpsy ear stand
up straight, but he couldn't.

"Neither one," said their mother. "But if one of you will go to the
store for me I'll make a Johnny cake for supper."

"A Johnny cake?" asked Curly. "Is it called that because a boy has
to be named Johnny to eat it?"

"No," answered his mother with a laugh, "but lots of boys named
Johnny do eat it. However, just at the last minute I find that I
have no corn meal. Now who wants to go to the store for a bag full,
so I can make the Johnny cake?"

"I went for the eggs, last time," said Curly, sort of slow and
thoughtful like.

"Then I suppose it's Flop's turn to go for the bag of meal," said
his mother. "But I do hope the bad dog doesn't chase him."

"Oh, I'm not afraid, mamma," said the little piggie boy. "If he
comes after me I'll throw corn meal dust in his nose and make him
sneeze, and then he can't see to catch me."

"Very well," said Mrs. Twistytail, so she gave Flop the money for
the bag of meal. Off he started to the store, while his brother,
Curly, went back in the yard to play hop-skip-and-jump, all by
himself.

Flop went along the street, whirling his tail in a little circle
like a pin-wheel, or a merry-go-round, and he was thinking how good
the Johnny cake would taste, when, all of a sudden, he heard a
noise.

It was a noise something like thunder, yet not quite so loud, and
Flop was wondering what it was, when, all at once, as he turned
around the corner, he saw a big elephant sitting on a stump, and
crying as hard as he could cry. And this elephant had made the
noise.

Ah ha! That's the time I caught you; I've got the elephant in this
story after all, so you can't have the ice cream cones this time.
But never mind, maybe some other day you may.

Anyhow, there was the elephant crying, and he shed as many tears as
you could cry in a year, even if you've been vaccinated. And Flop
instead of being afraid, went right up to the big creature and said,
most politely:

"What is the matter? Can I help you?"

"Eh? What's that?" exclaimed the elephant. "Bless my trunk strap!
It's a little pig. Oh dear!"

"What is the matter?" asked Flop.

"Oh, I ran a big sliver in my left hind foot," said the elephant,
"and I can't get it out. I've tried to pull it with my tail, but my
tail isn't long enough, and I can't even reach it with my trunk. And
I was to go to the codfish ball tonight, and now I can't, for I
never could dance with a sliver in my foot."

"Perhaps I can pull it out," said Flop, and when the elephant held
up his foot, which was nearly as large as a washtub, the little
piggie boy could see the splinter as plainly as anything.

"I'll get it out," he exclaimed and then he wound his kinky, curly
tail around the splinter and pulled it right out of the elephant's
foot as quick as a wink.

"Oh, how kind of you!" cried the big creature. "If ever I can do you
a favor I will. Now I can go to the party tonight and dance. But
I'll just sit here awhile and rest, before I go."

So Flop went on to the store to get the corn meal, and he told the
man about how Mrs. Twistytail was going to make a Johnny cake and
how he had pulled the splinter out of the elephant's foot, and the
store man said:

"You are a brave little piggie boy, and here is a lollypop for you."

Well, Flop was on his way home, carrying the bag of meal, and he was
taking little nips and nibbles off the lolly-pop, when all at once
what should happen but that, out from behind a tree sprang the bad
skillery-scalery alligator.

"Ah, ha!" he cried. "Now I have you. Now for some roast pork and
apple sauce!" and he made a grab for Flop, but he didn't quite catch
him, I'm glad to say. And how that little piggie boy did run! Faster
and faster he ran, carrying the bag of meal for the Johnny cake, but
still the 'gator came after him and almost had him.

"Oh, will no one save me?" cried Flop, for he could hardly run any
more, and then all of a sudden, he came to the place where the
elephant was still sitting on a stump, resting himself.

"Oh, help me! Help me!" cried Flop.

"Indeed, I will!" shouted the elephant. And with that, in his strong
trunk, he lifted Flop up on his broad back. Still the skillery-scalery
alligator came on, and he cried in his rasping voice:

"I want that pig!"

"Oh you do, eh?" asked the elephant, sarcastic like. "Well, you
can't have him. Take that!" and then the elephant just reached
around back with his trunk and took some corn meal out of the bag
that Flop held and the elephant blew the meal in the alligator's
eyes and nose and mouth and then--

"A-choo! Aker-choo! Boo-hoo! Hoo hoo! Splitzie-doo! Foo-foo!"
sneezed the alligator, turning forty-'leven somersaults. "Oh, dear
me, what a cold I have!" and he sneezed so hard that all of his back
teeth dropped out, and he couldn't bite any one for nearly a week.
And then he crawled off, leaving Flop to go home in peace and
quietness and watch his mamma make a Johnny cake.

And when the cake was baked they gave the kind elephant some to take
to the codfish ball with him, and that's the end of this story, if
you please.

But on the next page, if I have left any of those ice cream cones
with raisins inside, to give to the trolley car conductor when he
punches my transfer, I'll tell you about the piggie boys at school.




STORY VII

PIGGY BOYS AT SCHOOL


One day Curly, the little pig who had such a funny shaped tail, said
to his brother, Flop Ear:

"Say, let's run off and look for adventures as Uncle Wiggily, the
old gentleman rabbit, used to do!"

"Where shall we run?" asked Flop.

"Oh, almost anywhere," answered Curly. "We'll go down the road,
toward Sylvan Way, and out beyond the old black stump, and turn the
corner around the place where the apple tree grows, and then we'll
see what will happen."

"All right," agreed Flop, so the two little pig brothers started
off. Their mamma was making some red flannel pies in the kitchen,
ready for winter, and of course she did not see them go, or perhaps
she might have stopped them.

Pretty soon, in a little while, oh, maybe in about an hour and a
half, Curly and Flop came to a building all made of red brick, with
a chimney sticking from the top for the smoke to come out of, and a
lot of doors and windows in it.

"I wonder what that is?" said Flop.

"Maybe it's where the skillery scalery alligator lives," suggested
Curly.

"Oh, no, he lives in a rocky cave under the water," spoke Flop.
"This isn't his house."

"Then it's where the bad fox lives," went on Curly as he put his
nose down in the dirt to see if he could find any hickory nuts
there.

"No, the fox lives in a stump," said Flop. "I don't know what this
place can be."

And then, all of a sudden, before you could take a brush and paint a
picture of a lion on a soda cracker, all of a sudden the piggie boys
heard a lot of voices singing a song like this:

    "We are little children,
     To school we love to go;
     We run along,
     And sing a song,
     In rain or hail or snow."

"Oh, ho!" exclaimed Curly. "That's a school, that's what it is."

"To be sure," agreed his brother. "Let's go in and learn our A B C's
and then we can go home and tell mamma all about it. This is an
adventure, all right."

"I believe it is," said Curly. So the two little piggy boys walked
along through the front door of the school, right into the room
where the nice lady bug teacher was telling the children how to make
a straight line crooked by bending it, and how to put butter on
their bread, by spreading it.

"Oh, my!" exclaimed a little rabbit girl, as she saw the two piggie
boys in school. "Look at that!"

"Quiet! No talking!" said the lady bug teacher.

"Oh, but this is like Mary's little lamb, only it's different," said
Jonny Bushytail, the squirrel boy, as he remembered the verse about
the lamb in school. Only this time it was pigs.

And, all this while Curly and Flop just stood there, in the school
room looking about them and wondering what they had better do. For
they had never been to school before; not even in the kindergarten
class.

"This is a funny place," said Flop.

"Isn't it?" agreed Curly. "They all seem quite surprised to see us."

"They do, indeed," agreed Flop and, as a matter of fact, all the
animal children in the school were laughing. But the teacher--she
didn't laugh. Instead, she said:

"Quiet, if you please! Fold your paws, everybody! Now, that the
little pigs have come to school we must see how much they know, so
we can tell what class to put them in." So she said to Curly:

"Spell cat:"

"D-o-g," spelled the little pig boy.

"Wrong," said the teacher. "I guess you will have to go in the
kindergarten class." Then she said to Flop Ear; "Spell boy."

"G-i-r-l," spelled Flop.

"Wrong," said the teacher. "You, too, will have to go in the
kindergarten class. Now, I wonder if either of you piggy boys can
make a paper bird in a cage."

So she gave each of them a pair of scissors and some red paper, and
blue and pink and yellow and brown and all colors like that. But my
goodness sakes alive and some candy with cocoanut on the top! Curly
and Flop had never learned to cut things out of paper, and of course
they did not know how. They just cut and slashed and didn't make
anything but scrips and scraps.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed the teacher. "Such piggie boys I never saw!
They can't even be in the baby kindergarten class!"

"Maybe they can do something," said Susie Littletail's new baby
sister. "Some trick or anything like that."

"Of course we can!" cried Curly, who was ashamed that his brother
and himself could do nothing the teacher asked. "Just watch us!" he
cried.

So he stood up on the end of his tail and spun around like a top,
and then he made a squealing noise like a horn and played a tune
called "Ham and Eggs are Very Fine, but Ice Cream Cones are Better."
Then Flop turned a somersault and stood on one leg, and then the two
piggie boys danced up and down together like leaves falling off a
tree.

"Oh! those little fellows are smarter than I thought they were,"
said the lady bug teacher. "I guess they can be in our first class
after all."

And just then a great big, bad, black bear rushed into the
schoolroom, and he was going to grab up about forty-'leven of the
animal children.

But Curly suddenly shouted:

"Here, you scoot away from us or I'll make a bee sting you on the
nose!" and as the bear was very much afraid of being stung on the
end of his soft and tender nose, he ran away as fast as he could and
stayed in his den, eating postage stamps for nearly a week, and
didn't bother anybody.

Then the teacher and all the animal children thought the piggie boys
were very clever indeed, and the lady bug invited them to come to
school whenever they wanted to. And Curly and Flop said they would
come.

Then they ran home to dinner and that's all there is to this story.
But on the next page, in case the little girl with brown eyes
doesn't cut all the green grass for the rag baby's hair ribbon, I'll
tell you about Curly being vaccinated.




STORY VIII

CURLY IS VACCINATED


About two days, or maybe three days and part of another one, after
Curly Twistytail and his brother, Flop, had run away to school and
had performed their funny tricks, as I told you in the story before
this one, something else happened. And this is the way it was:

Curly was out in the yard in front of the piggy house one morning,
raking up the leaves and thinking what fun he would have making a
fire and roasting some ears of corn, when he heard his mamma
calling:

"Oh, boys! Where are you?"

"Here I am," answered Curly as he jumped over a pile of leaves and
fell into the middle of them. But it did not hurt him, as they were
so nice and soft.

"And here I am, too!" exclaimed Flop, and the other little piggie
boy, who was up in a hammock, swinging with one of the Katy Dids,
jumped down and ran to the back kitchen door.

"What is it, mother?" called both the little piggie boys together.

"I want one of you to go to the store for me," she said, "I need
some chocolate to put on top of a cake."

"Oh, I'll go!" exclaimed Floppy and Curly together, quickly, and you
could not tell which one spoke first. But Mrs. Twistytail said:

"Well, I think I'll let Floppy go, and when he comes back I'll give
you each some of the cake."

So off Flop ran to the store, squealing as hard as anything because
he was so happy. At first Curly felt a little sad that he couldn't
go to the store, for the man who kept it always gave the piggie boys
a sweet cracker or something like that. But, of course, only one was
needed to carry the chocolate.

"Never mind," said Curly's mamma to him. "You may go next time."

So then he felt better, and he was thinking what fun it would be to
have a piece of chocolate cake, when all of a sudden he stopped to
think.

"I guess I'll go to school again!" he exclaimed. "That will be fun.
Yes, I'll go to school!"

So off he started, while his brother was getting the chocolate at
the store, and pretty soon Curly came to the place where the lady
bug school teacher had her classes of animal children in a hollow
stump.

Curly knocked at the door, and when the teacher came to open it he
made his best bow.

"Well, what is it, little piggie boy?" asked the teacher, kindly.

"If you please," said Curly, "I want to come to school."

"Very good," said the teacher. "I think you may. You and your
brother were so kind as to scare off the bear, so you may come to
our class. But, first, let me ask you--have you been vaccinated?"

"Vaccinated?" repeated Curly. "Is that like a lollypop?"

"No, that is having the doctor scratch your leg with a toothpick so
you won't get sick and have the epizootic," said the teacher. "Let
me see your paw."

So she looked at Curly's paw, which he held out, and she saw that he
had never been vaccinated, so she said he would have to have that
done to him before he could come to school every day.

"You go home," said the teacher to the little piggie boy, "and get
vaccinated. Then come back in about a week."

So, as Curly wanted to go to school very much, on his way home he
went past Dr. Possum's office. And going in, he said:

"I want to be vaccinated, doctor, so I can go to school."

"Very well," answered Dr. Possum. "We'll do it."

So Curly rolled up his sleeve, and the doctor scratched his paw with
a toothpick, and put some funny kind of yellow salve on it, and
wrapped it up in a little celluloid cap to keep the snowflakes from
it, and also that no mosquitos could bite it.

"Now, in about a week your arm will begin to itch," said the doctor,
"and it will tickle you, and then, after a bit, you will be
vaccinated, and you can go to school."

"Very good," said Curly, and he wondered why all little animal
children had to be vaccinated, and have the mumps and the measles-pox
and epizootic, and all things like that, but he couldn't guess,
and so he didn't try.

He was rolling down his sleeve, and Dr. Possum was putting away the
toothpick with which he had vaccinated the little piggie boy, when,
all of a sudden, into the room jumped a big fuzzy fox, crying out:

"Oh, Joy! Oh, good luck! Oh, hungriness! Here I have a pig dinner
and an opossum dinner all at once! Oh, happiness!"

Then he made a jump, and was just going to grab Dr. Possum and Curly
too, when the little piggie boy cried out:

"Vaccinate him! Vaccinate him, Dr. Possum. That will make him so
itchy that he can't bite us."

"The very thing!" cried Dr. Possum, and before the big fuzzy fox
could get out of the way Dr. Possum vaccinated him on the end of his
nose with the toothpick all covered with the funny yellow salve, and
the fox was so kerslostrated that he jumped over his tail seven
times, and then leaped out of the window, leaving Curly and Dr.
Possum in peace. And in about a week--oh, how that fox's nose did
itch! Wow! And some sandpaper besides!

As for Curly, he was vaccinated very nicely, indeed, and he could go
to school when his arm got well. And what happened next I'll tell
you in the story after this, and it will be about Curly and the
spinning top--that is, it will if the pink parasol coming up the
street doesn't slip on the horse chestnut and make the pony cart
fall down the coal hole.




STORY IX

CURLY AND THE SPINNING TOP


"Oh dear!" cried Curly one morning, before his papa, Mr. Twistytail,
the pig gentleman, had started for work. "Oh dear, how dreadful I
feel!"

"Why, what is the matter?" asked his papa, as he looked in the back
of the shiny dishpan to see if his collar was on straight.

"Oh, my arm hurts so!" went on Curly. "It all seems swelled up, and
it has a lump under it and I don't feel a bit good. Oh dear!"

"It's his vaccination," said his mamma. "It is beginning to 'take'
now, and it pains him."

"What is beginning to 'take', mamma?" asked Curly. "It is beginning
to take the pain away? Because if it isn't I wish it was. Oh dear!"

"It will soon be better," said Mrs. Twistytail. "Would you like some
nice yellow cornmeal ice cream, or some lollypops, flavored with
sour milk?"

"Neither, mamma," answered the piggie boy. "But I would like
something to amuse me."

"All right," answered the pig lady. "Then I'll send Flop Ear down to
the store to get you a toy. Come Floppy," she called, "go and get
something with which to amuse your brother," for you see Flop hadn't
yet been vaccinated, and his arm was not sore.

"What would you like?" asked Flop of his brother. "Shall I get you a
mouth organ, or a kite, so you can fly away up to the clouds?"

"Neither one," said Curly. "I want a spinning top that I can make go
around when I lie down in bed. And I want it to make music and jump
around on a plate and slide on a string and all things like that."

"All right," said Flop Ear. "I'll try to get it for you."

So he went down to the eleven-and-six-cent store to buy a spinning
top for his brother. And he found it, too. It was a top all painted
red and blue and yellow and green, and when you wound it up, and
pressed a spring, it spun around and around as fast as anything,
making soft and low music like the wind blowing through the trees on
a summer night, and sending the mosquitoes all sailing away to the
north pole.

"I know Curly Tail will like this," said Flop Ear.

So the store man wrapped the top up for him in a nice piece of blue
paper, tied with a pink string, just the kind they have in the drug
store, and Flop started back with the top to amuse his little sick,
vaccinated brother.

And when Curly saw that top, all colored red and green, and blue and
yellow and skilligminkpurple, as it was, he felt better at once,
and, sitting up in bed, he began to spin it on a nice smooth board
that his brother brought up from the woodpile for him.

Around and around on the board spun the top, looking like a pinwheel
on the night before Fourth of July, and Curly's sore arm began to
feel better all at once.

Then Flop started to run down in the yard to play hop scotch with
Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs, and Curly said:

"Some day, Flop, when you've been vaccinated, I'll get you a top to
amuse you."

"Thank you," spoke Flop most politely, as he slid down the banisters
and bumped off on the last step with a bounce.

So Curly played with his spinning top, and his brother was down in
the yard, having fun, when, all at once in at the window where Curly
was in bed, jumped a great big snail. Now a snail is an animal that
has horns, and he lives in a shell that grows on his back, and he
goes very slowly. But sometimes, when he has eaten red pepper for
his lunch, he can go as fast as anything. And this was what had
happened to this snail. He had eaten red pepper, and he fairly
jumped in at the window where Curly was lying in bed.

"Bur-r-r-r!" warbled the snail, "Here I am," and he made a grab for
the little piggie boy, for he was a very large snail indeed, as big
as a dog house.

"Look out for my vaccination!" cried Curly. "Don't hit my arm,
please."

"Oh, what do I care for vaccinations!" cried the snail. "If you
don't give it to me at once, so I can throw it away, I'll stick you
with my horns," and he wiggled them at Curly just as a mooley cow
would have done.

"Give you my vaccination!" cried Curly. "Why, how can I, when it's
fast on my leg?"

"No matter!" snapped and snipped the snail. "Give it to me at once,"
and he reached over, and he was just going to squeeze Curly Tail's
vaccination, and maybe hurt him like anything for all I know, when,
all of a sudden, the little piggie boy thought of his spinning top.

It was all wound up, ready to spin, so Curly just pushed the spring,
and whizzicum-whazzicum, around and around went the top, on the
board in bed, right in front of the snail. And when the queer
creature, with his home on his back, saw it he cried out:

"Oh, merry-go-rounds! Oh, pin wheels! Oh, circus hoops!" For it made
him dizzy to see the top spinning around, you see. "Stop it!" he
begged, but Curly would not, and at last the snail got so dizzy from
watching the spinning top that he fell right over backward on it,
and around and around he went, faster and faster, until, all of a
sudden, just as when you get off a merry-go-round before it stops
moving, that snail was tossed off from the top right out of the
window into the mulberry bush, where he belonged, and so he didn't
stick Curly with his horns after all. Wasn't that good?

So that's how Curly, with his spinning top, got the best of the
snippery snail, and a few days later the little piggy boy could go
to school whenever he wanted, for his vaccination was all better.
And as for that snail, well, the less said about him the better--at
least in this story.

And pretty soon, in case the man who is taking up the dried leaves
in the street, doesn't put the rag baby in his bag and take her off
to gather chestnuts, I'll tell you about Flop Ear and the frozen
turtle.




STORY X

FLOP AND THE TURTLE


"Bur-r-r! Whew! Ice cream!" exclaimed Curly, the little piggie boy,
one morning, as he hopped out of his bed in the clean straw and ran
to the head of the stairs to see if breakfast was ready. "It's cold!
Terrible cold!"

"Of course it is," agreed Flop, his brother. "It will soon be winter
and time for chestnuts and popcorn and sliding down hill and all
that. Of course it's cold."

"I hope there is some warm water to wash in," went on Curly.

"Warm water! What's that!" cried his papa from the next room.
"Nonsensicalness! Cold water is better for you. It will make your
skin nice and rosy. Wash in cold water."

So Curly, whether he wanted to or no, had to sozzle and splash
himself all over in cold water, and really it did him good, for it
made him feel nice and warm and made his ears and nose as red as a
pink flannel blanket.

Then the two piggie boys were ready for breakfast, and they had hot
corn meal cakes, with sour-milk and maple syrup sprinkled on them,
and eggs, with the shells taken off, and warm milk and all things
like that.

Then it was time for Curly to go to school, but as for Flop, he had
not yet been vaccinated, and so he could not go to blackboard
classes and learn how to add two and two together and make a mud pie
of them, or how to write his name with red chalk that made blue
marks.

"What are you going to do while I'm at school?" asked Curly of his
little piggie brother, who was playing in the front yard.

"Oh, I think I'll build myself a little house out of corncobs," said
Flop, "and then I'll go over and tell Jennie Chipmunk that she can
put her rag doll to sleep in it."

"Fine!" cried Curly. "And when I come home from school I'll bring
you each a lollypop."

So Curly put on his warm checker-pattern coat and stuck his paws in
little red mittens, for it was quite cold that morning, and off he
went to school.

But his brother, who had to stay home because he was not vaccinated,
looked out in the yard, and pretty soon he said:

"Oh, I guess I'll go out and take a walk. Maybe I can find something
or have an adventure."

So out Flop walked in the yard, and pretty soon, in a little while,
not so very long, he came to a place where there was something that
looked like a black stone with yellow marks on it.

"That's just what I'm looking for," said Flop, as he saw the queer
stone. "I heard my mamma saying the other day that she needed some
weight to keep the kitchen door from blowing shut. This stone will
be the very thing for her."

So over he ran to where he saw the thing that looked like a stone,
and he picked it up, no matter if it was cold. For there was frost
on the ground--white frost that made everything look as though a
little shower of snow had fallen--and everything was cold and
frozen.

Into the house ran Flop, the little piggie boy, carrying his black
stone, all streaked with yellow.

"Oh, see what I have found for you, mamma!" he exclaimed. "It will
keep the kitchen door from blowing shut."

"So it will," said his mamma. "What a kind boy you are." So she took
the stone and placed it where it would keep the kitchen door from
slamming, and going shut, and then she made a custard pie so that
Curly could have some when he came home from school.

Pretty soon the pie was done, and Flop was almost asleep in the nice
warm kitchen waiting for his piece. His mamma suddenly called to
him:

"Flop, will you watch the pie for a minute while I run across the
street and borrow a yeast cake from Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck
lady?"

"Yes, of course I will," said Flop, rubbing his sleepy eyes. Then he
looked all around the kitchen, and on the table where it was cooling
he saw the nice pies his mamma had made, and he thought how good a
piece would be, and then he also saw something else.

Into the kitchen came creeping a bad old egg dog--the same one who
had tried to get the eggs from Curly a few days before.

"Pies!" cried the bad egg dog! "Custard pies! How I love 'em! Yum-yum!"
and with that he made a jump and he was just going to eat the
lovely custard pie Mrs. Twistytail had made when Flop said:

"Here, you let that pie alone, if you please. It isn't yours. It's
my mamma's."

"No matter!" growled the bad egg dog. "I will eat it anyhow, and you
can't stop me!"

And with that he started to throw Flop out of the window, but the
little piggie boy cried:

"Oh, what shall I do? Will no one help me?"

"Yes, of course. I will!" answered a voice, and then that queer
object, which Flop had thought was a stone, began to move. Out of a
shell came a long neck, and a head with a sharp mouth on the end,
and out came four sharp claws, and instead of a stone there was a
mud turtle as large as life. Really there was, I'm not fooling a
bit!

"I'll help you!" cried the brave turtle.

"Oh, you!" said Flop. "I thought you were a stone to keep the
kitchen door from swinging shut."

"No, I am a turtle--a frozen turtle," said the voice. "At least I
WAS frozen. The cold weather made me so slimpsy-slopsy that I
couldn't move, if you will kindly excuse me saying so. But as soon
as I got warmed up in your nice kitchen I became as lively as ever.
I'll soon fix that dog. Watch me!"

And all of a sudden the turtle bit that dog on the end of its tail,
and the dog ran off howling, and so he didn't get any of the nice
pie, and he didn't bother Flop, nor Curly and his vaccination, any
more, and that night they gave the turtle some hot lemonade so he
wouldn't catch any more cold from having been almost frozen by the
frosts. And as for that dog, why a dentist pulled one of his ears
next day.

So you see what Flop thought was a stone turned out to be a frozen
turtle who did him a great favor. And ever after that whenever Mrs.
Twistytail made pie the turtle was always in the kitchen to keep the
door open, and drive out any bad dogs in case they happened to get
in.

And so no more now, if you please, as I am sleepy, and I know you
must be, too. But in case the little girl in Montclair doesn't drop
her doll on the sidewalk, and spill the sawdust all over the stick
of molasses candy I'll tell you next about Curly and the chestnuts.




STORY XI

CURLY AND THE CHESTNUTS


"Why, Curly," exclaimed the nice old lady owl school teacher one
day, when the class in drawing was doing its lesson. "Why, Curly
Twistytail! I'm certainly surprised at you!"

Of course, all the animal children looked over at the little piggie
boy, and at his brother Flop, also; but Flop had done nothing. And
what do you suppose it was that Curly had done?

Why, instead of drawing a picture of a pail of sour milk, as the
teacher had told him to do, he had made a picture of a monkey-doodle
sitting on top of a Jack o'Lantern pumpkin. Wasn't that just awful!
Well, I guess yes, and some tooth brushes besides.

"Oh, Curly, how could you?" asked the owl teacher, in a sorrowful
voice.

"I--I didn't mean to," spoke the little piggie boy. "I--I guess it
just--happened."

You see, during the drawing lesson, when the animal children were
supposed to make different pictures on their papers, the teacher
would fly around the room softly and come up from behind the desks.
Thus, she could look over the animal children's shoulders and see
what they were doing, when they didn't know it. It was then that she
had seen what Curly, the pig, drew.

"Well, Curly," went on the owl teacher, sadly, "of course, it was
wrong of you to make that kind of a picture, and, though I do not
like to do it, I shall have to punish you. You will have to stay in
after school."

And so that's how it was that Curly did not go out with the other
animal children when school was dismissed. He had to stay in and
clean off the blackboards, but he didn't mind that much, and really
he was sorry for being a little bit bad.

"You may go now," said the owl school teacher, after a while, and
Curly hurried home, feeling a little sad, and wondering what his
mamma would say to him. He also wanted to hurry and have some fun
with his brother, Flop.

Well, as Curly was going through the woods, all of a sudden, under a
tree, something fell and hit him on the nose. He jumped to one side
and exclaimed:

"Who is throwing stones at me?"

But no one answered, and Curly went on. Soon something else fell
down, and hit him on the ear.

"I say!" he cried. "Would you please stop that? Is that the
skillery-scalery alligator, or the fuzzy fox?"

But no one answered him, and Curly hurried on, thinking that perhaps
bad fairies might be trying to have fun with him, or maybe turn him
into a ham, or a piece of bacon, or something like that.

Well, he had not gone on much farther when, all at once, another
something pattered down from a high tree, and struck him on the nose
again.

"Oh, I say!" cried Curly, "please stop!" for this time it had been
something sharp that hit him. "That isn't fair!" went on the little
piggie boy. "Who is throwing things at me?"

He looked down on the ground, and there he saw something like a
rubber ball, only it was a sort of greenish brown color, and had
stickers all over on it. And then it burst open, and out rolled
three little brown things.

"My word!" cried Curly, just like an English piggie boy. "My word!
What is this?"

"Ha! Ha!" laughed a voice behind him, and turning quickly around
Curly saw Jacko Kinkytail, a hand organ monkey, hanging by his tail
from a tree branch. "Ha! Ha!" laughed the monkey again. "Don't you
know what those brown things on the ground are?"

"No indeed," replied the piggie boy. "What are they?"

"Chestnuts," said Jacko the hand organ monkey. "They are chestnuts,
and they fell off the trees and hit you. No one was throwing stones
at you, though the prickly burrs inside of which the chestnuts are,
seem as large as stones."

"Chestnuts, eh?" spoke Curly. "What good are they?"

"To eat," answered the monkey. "We will build a fire and roast some,
and you will like them very much."

"Goodie-oodie!" squealed Curly, and, as he and the monkey began to
gather up the chestnuts, the piggie boy was rather glad, after all,
that he had been kept in, though of course he was sorry that he had
made the wrong picture in drawing class.

So while Curly gathered up the chestnuts, rooting them out from
under the leaves with his nose, that was like a piece of rubber, and
stamping them out of the prickly burrs with his sharp feet--while he
was doing this, I say, the monkey was making a fire to roast the
nuts.

Soon Curly had quite a pile of them by an old stump, and the monkey
had built a hot fire.

"Now, we will roast the chestnuts," spoke Jacko, and he put several
pawsful on the hot coals.

"And when will they be roasted?" asked Curly.

"Soon," answered the monkey. "We will have a game of tag while we
are waiting."

And, all of a sudden, as they were playing tag, out from under a big
flat stone, came the bad skillery-scalery alligator, with a tin horn
on his back. Oh! but he was a bad fellow!

"Ah, ha!" he cried. "Now I have you! Now I will have a piggie boy to
eat and a monkey boy to wait on the table. Come along, both of you!"
and the bad alligator made a grab for the two friends and was about
to carry them off to his den.

"Oh, please let me go!" begged Curly.

"Yes do!" asked the monkey. "Let us go."

"No! No!" snapped the alligator. And just then there sounded this
noise:

"Bang! Bang! Snap! Crack! Bang! Boom!"

"Oh I what is that?" cried the 'gator. "Oh! the hunters with their
guns are after me. I must run! This is no place for me!"

Then, dropping Curly and the monkey, the bad alligator ran away as
fast as he could, and didn't hurt either of them, and the "bang-bang!"
noises kept getting louder and louder.

"Oh, what are they?" asked Curly, who was almost as much frightened
as the alligator had been at the strange sounds.

"Nothing but the roasting chestnuts," answered Jacko the monkey.
"They are bursting and making noises like guns because the fire is
so hot, and because I forgot to make holes in the nuts to let the
steam out. But it is a good thing I did, for they burst and scared
the alligator."

"Indeed, they did," agreed Curly.

"And we'll roast some more chestnuts in place of the burst ones,"
said the monkey, and he did, and Curly had as many as he wanted, and
some to take home. Soon he arrived at the piggie-house, and every
one was glad to see him and the chestnuts, and that's all to this
story.

But in case the pretty Red Cross nurse with the blue eyes and the
jolly laugh says that it's all right for the trolley car to jump
over the house and play tag with the chimney, I'll tell you next
about Baby Pinky and the doctor.




STORY XII

BABY PINKY AND THE DOCTOR


One night, in the piggie house where Mr. and Mrs. Twisty tail lived
with their three children, there was a crying noise.

"Hey! What's that?" asked Curly, one of the piggie boys, as he threw
some of the straw from his bed over on the one where his brother
Floppy slept.

"Oh, I don't know. Cats howling, I guess," answered Flop. "Go to
sleep and don't mind 'em."

So he and Curly tried hard to go to sleep again, but you know how it
is, sometimes, the more you try to close your eyes, and dream, the
wider awake you get. It was this way with the two piggie boys,
though you can hardly blame them for not sleeping, as the crying
noise sounded louder and louder.

"That isn't cats," said Curly, after a while.

"No," agreed Flop. "I guess it isn't. Sounds more like Baby Pinky
crying. I wonder what's the matter?"

"Let's get up and look," suggested Curly who always liked to be
doing something, even at night. So the two piggie boys crawled
softly from their beds and looked out of the door. They saw in the
next room their papa scooting around in his bare feet, carrying a
kettle of hot water, and then they heard their mamma saying:

"There, there now, little one. Your pain will soon be better. Don't
cry and wake up the boys."

"Oh, we are awake!" exclaimed Curly through the open door of his
room.

"What's the matter?" asked his brother. "Is somebody sick?"

"Baby Pinky is," answered Mrs. Twistytail. "But go to sleep. We'll
call you if we want you." The two piggie boys saw their papa getting
more hot water, and other things, from the kitchen, and they heard
their mamma walking around with their baby sister, and they tried to
go to sleep, but they didn't rest much, for they were too anxious.

During the night they managed to doze off, but still they heard
noises through the house, and when it was almost morning, but when
the stars were still twinkling, they heard their papa go softly out
of the front door. And they heard their mamma say: "Tell the doctor
to come as soon as he can, Archibald." You see, Mr. Twistytail's
first name was Archibald. And he answered:

"Yes, I'll get him soon," and then the two boys heard their papa
sort of blowing his nose hard and coughing, as if he had a bad cold.
You see, papa pigs feel as badly when their little children get sick
as real papas do, every bit.

Now in the morning, when the sun was up, there was a busy time at
the pig-house. First came Grandfather Squealer, the oldest pig of
them all, and he was a very nice gentleman.

"You boys must be very good and quiet," he said to Curly and Flop.
"For your little sister is very sick, and may have to go to the
hospital."

"What's a hospital?" asked Curly.

"It's a place where they make sick folks get well," answered
Grandfather Squealer. "Now, you boys get ready for school. The
doctor is still here, and may be for some time."

And so Dr. Possum was--up in the room looking after poor sick Pinky.
There was something the matter inside her--I didn't know what it
was, but anyhow she had to go to the hospital to have it fixed, just
as when the clock doesn't go, the jeweler has to put new wheels in
it, or fix the old ones.

"But I don't want to go to the hospital," squealed Pinky, when they
told her she would have to. "I want to stay home," and she made such
a fuss that Dr. Possum said:

"This isn't good for her. We must get her to be more quiet, or she
will be very ill."

"Oh, please let us try to get her quiet," begged Curly, who, with
his brother, heard what was said. "We'll do some funny tricks, and
stand on our tails, and sing a little song, and then Pinky will want
to go to the hospital."

"Very well," spoke Dr. Possum, so the two piggie boys did all the
tricks they could think of, from whirling around on the ends of
their tails to rolling themselves down a hill, like a hoop, with an
apple in their mouths. As Pinky watched them, she felt a little
better, and when the big ambulance automobile came to take her to
the hospital she was almost laughing.

And even when she got in the nice big hospital, so clean and neat,
she wasn't frightened, for the little squirrel nurses were so kind
to her and they looked so pretty in their caps and blue dresses that
Pinky felt sure she was going to like it there. And then the doctor
said to her.

"Now, Pinky, little girl, I will have to hurt you the least bit, but
no more than I can help, and after it is over you will be all better
and you will have no pain and you will be well. Are you going to be
a brave little piggie and stand for it?"

"Ye--yes," faltered Pinky, but when the time came for them to really
make her better, and when it hurt, she cried out:

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" and she wiggled so hard that the
nurses and doctors could hardly hold her, just as when some children
get vaccinated.

"This will never do," said Dr. Possum. "If she doesn't keep quiet we
cannot make her get well."

"I can't!" cried Pinky. "I can't! I can't!"

Well, no one knew what to do, until just then Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, came along, and he saw at once
what was the matter.

"I'll fix it!" he exclaimed. "If Curly and Flop will stand outside
the hospital and sing funny songs while the doctor is fixing Pinky,
she will not mind it in the least."

"We'll try it," said Dr. Possum. So the two piggie boys began to
sing funny songs under Pinky's window. They sang about the mousie
who had a rubber nose, and every time he blew it he bounced on his
tiptoes. Then there was another one about a doggie, who could not
wag his tail, because he'd fastened on it the monkey's drinking
pail. And when Pinky heard these songs she felt much better, and she
let the doctor do whatever he had to do to her.

And when he hurt her quite badly (though, of course, he did not mean
to, for it was to make her better), and when Pinky cried, Curly and
Flop danced harder than ever and sang about the kittie who had a
penny hat, and when the ribbons all fell off she gave it to a rat.

Pinky laughed at that, and when her two brothers chased after Sammie
Littletail, the rabbit, and made him jump over a telegraph pole just
for fun, she felt so jolly that Dr. Possum could finish making her
all better, and she never cried once again.

So this shows you that even little animal children can go to the
hospital and not mind it at all, though I hope none of you boys and
girls ever get ill enough to have to go. And in a short time Pinky
was all better, and she was glad she had let the doctor do what he
had to.

So on the next page, in case the baking powder doesn't shoot the
sponge cake in the bathtub and make the towel ring the bell, I'll
tell you about Curly and the big apple.




STORY XIII

CURLY AND THE BIG APPLE


One day, oh, I guess it was about a week after Baby Pinky went to
the hospital, something else happened to the two piggie brothers.
And, as most of it happened to Curly, I have named this story for
him, though Flop had a part in it.

When her piggie boys came home from school one afternoon Mrs.
Twistytail said to them:

"I wonder if you don't want to go to the store for me?"

"Of course we do mamma," spoke Curly as quickly as ice cream melts
on a hot day.

"Certainly," added Flop, and the funny part of it was that the two
brothers had just planned to go off in the woods and play soldier
and Indian after school.

But as soon as they heard that their mamma wanted them to go on an
errand for her, they at once made up their minds that they would go
to the store first and play afterward.

"What do you want, mamma?" asked Curly. "Is it a cake of milk
chocolate, because if it is--"

"We'll help eat it," finished Flop quickly with a laugh.

"No, all I need is some cornmeal to make pancakes with in the
morning," spoke the pig lady. "Run along now, but you need not hurry
back, and you may play on the way."

Curly and Flop whistled through their noses at hearing this, for
they knew they could have some fun after all, and away they started
for the store. The old gentleman duck who kept it, and who was a
forty 'leventh cousin to Grandfather Goosey Gander, wrapped the
cornmeal in two separate bags, so that Curly could carry one, and
Flop the other.

"That will make it even," said the store duck, as he gave the piggie
boys each a sweet cracker.

Back home they started, playing tag, and hide the acorn, and all
such games like that, including one called "Please Don't Pull My
Tail and I Won't Pull Yours." That's a very funny game.

Well, all of a sudden, as Curly and Flop were going along, they came
past a field where a kind old rat gentleman was picking his apples
off the trees. There were many of the apples, and they had to be put
in barrels and brought into the cellar.

"Oh, don't those apples smell good," said Flop as he leaned over the
fence and looked at them.

"Indeed they do," agreed Curly. "They remind me of apple pie and
cheese."

Then the rat gentleman looked up, saw the piggie, and said:

"Come in, boys, and you may each have one apple. Help yourselves."

"Thank you, very much," spoke Curly. "Come on!" he cried to his
brother Flop, "we'll each take a big apple, and there will be enough
for a pie when we get home."

"Oh, but we can't carry big apples, with the bags of meal," said
Flop. "I'm going to take a middle-sized apple."

"Well, I'm not. I'm going to take the largest I can find in the
field," declared Curly, and he went hunting for a specially large
one.

Of course, in a way, it was all right to do this, for the rat
gentleman had told them to help themselves, but you just wait and
see what happens.

Curly picked out a very large apple--the very biggest one that grew
on the trees, but Flop was content with a smaller one. Then the
piggie brothers started for home again.

Curly had hard work to carry the big apple and also his bag of corn
meal, and first he would have to put one down to rest his legs, and
then put down the other to rest his paws. But Flop could easily
carry his middle-sized apple and the meal. Finally Curly said:

"Flop, can't you help me?"

"I'm afraid not," answered his brother, "though I would if I could.
But I have all I can do to take care of my apple and the meal. Why
don't you get a smaller apple?"

"Because I want the big one," said Curly quickly.

Well, he was staggering along with the big apple and also his bag of
cornmeal, but his brother was going along much more easily, when,
all of a sudden, out from the bushes sprang the fuzzy fox.

"Ah ha!" he cried. "This time I have good luck! Here are little pigs
to make roast pork, and they have with them the apples for apple
sauce. Oh, joy is me! Now for a fine dinner!"

With that he made a grab for both the piggie brothers, but they
managed to jump away. Off ran Flop with his middle-sized apple and
the cornmeal, and after him came Curly, only he could not go so fast
because his apple was so big.

"Wait! Wait!" begged Curly of his brother.

"I can't!" was the answer. "I'll send a policeman back to help you.
But if you will let go of the big apple you can easily run away from
the fox, for he is old, and not a good runner. Drop the apple."

"No, indeed!" cried Curly. "I want the biggest one I can find!" So
he held tightly to the apple, and also to the cornmeal, and on he
ran, but the fuzzy fox was getting nearer and nearer, and almost had
him.

"I've got you!" suddenly snapped the fox. "I'll have roast pork and
apple sauce tonight all right!" and he was just going to grab Curly
and the apple and bag of meal, when out from the bushes jumped Uncle
Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit.

"Here!" he cried to the fox. "You stop chasing Curly, and go home to
your den!" and with that Uncle Wiggily stuck out his rheumatism
crutch, and tripped up the fox so that went tumbling head over
heels, and when he got up he was so lame that he could not chase
even a snail for more than a week.

"Run! Run!" called Uncle Wiggily to Curly and the little piggie boy
did run, and, after some trouble, he got safely home with his big
apple and the meal, but Flop was there ahead of him.

"After this," said Uncle Wiggily, when he came up to the piggie
house, "after this, Curly, don't take such a large apple, and you
can run better when a fox chases you."

"I'll be careful after this," promised the piggie boy, and I guess
he was. Anyhow it was a good lesson to him. And that night he and
his brother had cornmeal pancakes with apple sauce on, and Uncle
Wiggily stayed to supper.

Now in case the automobile tire doesn't jump into the frying pan,
and pretend it's a sausage for the lady in the purple dress to eat,
I'll tell you next about the piggie boys and the pumpkin.




STORY XIV

THE PIGGIES AND THE PUMPKIN


"Well, well!" exclaimed Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, as she went
to the cupboard and looked in. "Whoever would have believed it?"

"Believed what, mamma?" asked Pinky, the little baby pig, who had
been in the hospital, but who was now much better.

"Why, there isn't a bit of bread for supper!" went on Mrs.
Twistytail. "And your papa will come home from the office so hungry
as never was! Oh, my! I must run right out to the store and get a
loaf."

"Can't Curly or Flop go?" asked the baby pig, as she looked to see
if her hair ribbon was on crooked, but it wasn't. I'm glad to say.

"They aren't here," said the mamma pig. "I guess they must be off
playing football, or seeing if there is any ice on the skating
pond."

"Then let me go, mamma," suggested little Pinky. "I'm sure I could
ask for a loaf of bread and carry it home, too."

"No, you are quite too small," said the pig lady. "I'll go myself to
the store and I'll ask Mrs. Goosey Gander, next door to come in and
stay with you."

But she didn't have to do that, for a few minutes later in came
Curly and Flop, the two nice boy piggies, and they were just as glad
as could be to go to the store for their mamma.

Well, they started off all right, and soon they were at the bread
store, where the baker cat wrapped up a nice loaf in pink paper and
they started for home, going as fast as they could, so as to be
there before their papa came to supper.

And, what do you think? Just as they reached the spot where stood
the old stump, with the knobs growing on the side of it, like warts
on a toad's back, they heard a voice saying:

"I wonder what I shall do with it? It is quite too large to cook,
and I have no little boys to give it to. I think I must let it roll
down hill into the pond."

"Who is that speaking?" asked Curly of his brother.

"I don't know," said Flop Ear, "but it sounds like the kind
rat-gentleman who gave us the apples."

"That's just who it is," said the voice. "And who are you, if I may
ask?"

"Two piggie boys," was the answer. "Can we help you?"

"Well, I have here a very large pumpkin," was what the rat gentleman
said. "It is too large to cut up into pies, and I thought maybe some
one might like it to make a Jack o' lantern of. Would you like it?"

"Indeed we would!" cried Flop. And Curly said the same thing.

So the nice old rat gentleman called the two piggie boys into his
farmhouse and he gave them the pumpkin.

Oh! so big as it was! I'm sure I never could tell you what a fine,
large pumpkin he gave to Curly and Flop. The one that was turned
into a coach for Cinderella was very small along side of this.

"What shall we do with it?" asked Flop Ear.

"Make a lantern of it, of course," said his brother. "We can scoop
out the insides, and cut the eyes and nose and mouth, put a candle
in it, and have a lot of fun."

"All right," said Flop, "we'll do it."

So they tied a string around the pumpkin and lifted it between them,
each one carrying his share. And the loaf of bread was put on top,
where it would not fall off.

Well, the piggie boys had not gone very far, carrying the pumpkin
home to make a Jack o'lantern, when, all of a sudden, out from
behind a lot of bushes, jumped a big wolf. Isn't it funny how those
bad creatures seem to always bother the piggie boys? Every once in a
while something is happening to them.

I can't help it. I wish I could, but you know I have to write things
exactly as they happen. Anyhow, out from behind the bushes jumped
the wolf, and as soon as he saw those sweet, tender little piggies
he exclaimed:

"Oh joy! Oh, happiness! Oh, appetite! Now is my chance! I shall
certainly grab those two piggies and carry them off to my den."

And he chased after Flop and Curly.

But, as luck would have it, they heard him coming, and they started
to run with the big pumpkin and the loaf of bread. Still the wolf
came closer and closer.

"I'll have you in a few minutes!" he cried.

"I believe he will!" exclaimed Flop. "What shall we do?"

"What can we do?" asked Curly, as he helped his brother to jump over
a stone, and lifted the pumpkin at the same time. "What can we do?"

"Why not make a Jack o'lantern of the pumpkin and scare the wolf?"
suggested Flop. "Some of our friends did that once."

"We haven't time," said Curly. "If we stopped to make a Jack
o'lantern the wolf would catch up to us and grab us. I'll tell you
what to do. Let's scoop out a hollow place in the pumpkin and get
inside it. Then the wolf won't see us."

"Good!" cried Flop. So he and his brother ran on as fast as they
could to get far ahead of the wolf. Then they stopped for a minute,
and, with their sharp hoofs, they cut the top off the pumpkin. Then,
with their digging noses, they dug out the soft seeds, and soon the
pumpkin was all hollowed out, so they could jump inside.

"Get in!" cried Curly to Flop.

"What about the loaf of bread?" asked his brother.

"Never mind that. We can get another. We must get away from the
wolf," cried Curly.

So they jumped inside the pumpkin, and only just in time, for the
wolf came rushing down the hill. But Curly and his brother wiggled
themselves inside the pumpkin, and away it rolled down toward the
piggies' house. The wolf saw the loaf of bread on the hill, and he
thought sure the piggie boys were near it. So he made a grab, but he
did not get them.

For of course they were inside the pumpkin, rolling over and over,
like a rubber ball down hill. The wolf chewed up the bread, and then
he saw the rolling pumpkin. Then he happened to think:

"Perhaps the pigs are inside that!" After it he ran, but it was too
late, for by that time the piggie boys were safely at home. Into
their front yard rolled the pumpkin, off flew the top, and out they
jumped to tell their papa and mamma and baby Pinky all about it.

And Grandpa Goosey Gander loaned Mr. Twistytail a loaf of bread for
supper. As for the wolf, he ran back up the hill as mad as anything
about the way he had been fooled, and ever after that he never ate
any pumpkin pie.

So that's all there is to this story, but in case the new brick
chimney doesn't fall down in the rice pudding and make the trained
nurse wild because her doll carriage has no wheels, I'll tell you on
the next page about the piggie boys in the corn field.




STORY XV

THE PIGGIES IN A CORNFIELD


One day--oh! I guess it must have been about two grunts and a squeal
after Curly and Flop, the two piggie boys, had the adventure with
the pumpkin--something else happened to them. In the first place,
they had to stay in after school.

Now, please don't get worried, nor think anything bad of them on
that account. They did not have to stay in because they whispered in
class, or anything like that. No, they stayed in to help their
teacher clean off the blackboards, but when they got out all the
other animal children were gone.

"Come on, let's run," suggested Flop, "and maybe we can catch up to
them."

"I wish we could!" exclaimed Curly, "for Jackie Bow Wow, the puppy
dog, borrowed my pencil and forgot to give it back."

So the two piggie boys ran as fast as they could, but they could see
nothing of the other animal children--not even little Jennie
Chipmunk, who could not go very fast, for every time she saw any
dust on a stone or a tree stump she used to stop and brush it off
with her tail. She was so neat and clean, you see, and as she had to
stop quite often, on account of there being so much dust, she
couldn't go fast at all.

But, as I said, Curly and Flop couldn't even catch up to her, which
shows you that they had stayed in after school for quite some time.

"Oh! they'll all be home long before us," said Curly after a bit,
sitting down on a stone to rest.

"I guess so," agreed his brother, as he made his two ears stand up
straight and then flop down again. "But never mind, I think you can
get your pencil from Jackie Bow Wow tomorrow."

"Yes," spoke Curly, and then they went on a little farther until
they came to a corn field. The corn was all cut down, and stood in
big bunches, called shocks--not the kind of shocks you get from an
electric battery, though, but corn shocks.

"Oh, let's take a short cut through the corn field," suggested
Curly. "Maybe then we can get ahead of the others."

"All right," said Flop. "We'll do it." And, though they had never
gone through this corn field, because it was owned by a cross old
alligator gentleman, they now started to crawl under the fence. Just
as they were inside the field they heard a little voice crying:

"Oh, dear! What shall I do. Oh, my poor tail!"

"What's that?"' asked Flop in alarm.

"I don't know," answered Curly. "Maybe it's the bad old fuzzy wolf."

"Let's hide!" exclaimed Flop, and they were looking for a place to
hide when they happened to see a poor little girl mouse near a shock
of corn, and her tail was held fast by a stone that had fallen on
it.

"Was that you crying?" asked Flop.

"It was," said the mousie girl. "Oh my poor tail! How can I ever get
loose?"

"We'll help you," spoke Curly. "We'll root up the stone with our
strong noses, and then you'll be all right."

"Of course we will," agreed Flop. "Oh, how glad we are that you
aren't a wolf," he added, and then he and Curly, with their noses
which were made stretchy like a rubber ball, soon had the stone off
the mousie girl's tail, and she was all right, except that her tail
was sore. But when her mamma could put some salve on it that would
be all better, too.

"Oh! I can't tell you how thankful I am to you," said the mousie
girl to the piggie boys. "Some day I will help you."

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Flop. "How can a little mousie girl like you help
us two big boys?"

"Hush!" exclaimed Curly. "It isn't polite to laugh when any one
offers to do you a favor, even if they are little. Besides, maybe
she MIGHT be able to help us some day."

"Of course," spoke the mousie, and she felt rather badly because
Flop Ear had laughed.

"Oh, excuse me!" exclaimed Flop. "I didn't mean to. I'm sure I hope
you can help us, little mousie."

So the two piggie boys went on through the corn field, hoping they
wouldn't meet the cross old alligator man, who owned it, and who
didn't like animal boys. And the mousie went on her way.

"I think we'll soon catch up to the others," said Flop after a bit.

"I guess so," agreed Curly. "And when we do---"

"Hark!" suddenly exclaimed Floppy. "Some one is coming!" Curly heard
it, too, and he stopped talking. He looked around the corner of a
stone and whispered:

"It's the old alligator man himself. What shall we do?"

"Run!" exclaimed Flop. "Run as fast as we can."

So he and Curly started to run but my goodness me sakes alive and a
postage stamp! No sooner had they gone ten steps than the cross old
alligator man saw them, and after them he came as fast as he could
crawl on his four legs, wiggling his humpy tail. "Oh, he'll get us,
sure!" wailed Floppy.

"Run faster!" urged Curly.

Well, they both ran as fast as they could, squealing with fright,
and the alligator man was coming right after them, and he had almost
caught them when, all of a sudden, a little squeaky voice called
out:

"In here, boys! Crawl right in here, under this shock of corn, and
he can't see you!"

They looked, and there, in front of a sort of cave, that was made in
one of the upright piles of corn, stood the little mousie girl who
had been pinched by the stone on her tail.

"In here!" she cried. "Quick, before he comes, and he won't know
where you have gone!"

"But he'll know we're hiding in the corn," said Flop.

"Quick! Get inside and talk afterward!" said the mousie girl.
"Besides there are so many piles of corn that the alligator man
won't know which one you're hiding in, and it will take him all
night to peek into them all. And after dark I'll show you the way
home."

So into the shock of corn crawled Curly and Flop pulling a lot of
stalks behind them to close the hole, and they were only just in
time, for, an instant later, up rushed the alligator man. Of course
he could not see the piggy boys, and he was much surprised.

"But I know they're hiding somewhere!" he growled. And it all
happened just as the mousie girl said. The alligator man peeked in
nearly all the corn shocks, but he didn't happen to look in the one
where Curly and Flop were hiding. And pretty soon it was dark, and
then the piggies came out and the mousie girl showed them the way
home, and the alligator man did not get them. So, you see, the
mousie helped the piggie boys after all.

And next, in case the salt cellar doesn't hide in the pepper caster
and make believe it's a mustard plaster I'll tell you about Flop
having a tumble.




STORY XVI

FLOP HAS A TUMBLE


"Come boys!" called Mamma Twistytail, the pig lady, one morning, to
her two little boys, Curly and Flop. "Come, hurry, or you'll be late
for school!"

"Oh, I guess we have time enough," spoke Flop, as he looked around
for the football he and his brother had been playing with. "It's
early yet."

"No, it isn't," answered his mamma. "Our clock is slow by your
papa's watch. Hurry now, I think I hear the bell ringing!"

"All right," answered Curly. "Come along, Flop." You see, he
sometimes called his brother Flop, for short. So they kissed their
little sister, Baby Pinky, good-by, and went on to school.

As they hurried along, they met Jackie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boy,
and Curly said:

"Oh, Jackie, where is my pencil you borrowed?"

"Here it is!" cried Jackie, turning a somersault, as he used to do
in the circus, and he handed the pencil to Curly on the end of his
nose--Jackie's nose I mean.

"We chased after you last night, when we got out of school,"
explained Curly, "and we had a dreadful adventure in the corn field
with the alligator man," and he told his doggie chum all about it,
just as I wrote it for you in the story before this one.

So Jackie, and Curly and Flop hurried along together toward the
school, when, all at once, they came to a nice, big, slanting cellar
door, just right for sliding down, and on it was a sign which read:

    "NO ONE MUST SLIDE DOWN
     THIS CELLAR DOOR!"

"Now isn't that queer," said Jackie Bow Wow.

"It certainly is," agreed Curly.

"I wonder why no one is allowed to slide down," spoke Flop. "It's a
dandy door for sliding. I've a good notion to try it."

"No, you mustn't!" said his brother. "We are almost late for school
now."

"Oh, but I would just love to slide down it," went on Flop, sort of
hanging back, while his brother and Jackie went on ahead. "I wonder
if a giant lives under that door, or a fairy?"

"Maybe that's the reason no one must slide down it," went on the
little piggie boy. But no one answered him and, though he looked all
around the cellar door, he could see no reason why he should not
slide down it.

"Maybe it's got slivers in, and they'd stick in me," went on Flop,
as he came closer to the door, but it was as nice and smooth as
heart could wish.

"Well, this is certainly queer," said Flop. "Here is the nicest
sliding cellar door in all the world and no one is allowed to slide
down it. I wonder who lives in the house," and he looked up at the
house to which the cellar door belonged, but it was all closed up,
and shutters were over the windows.

"I guess no one is at home," thought the little piggie boy.

"Say, aren't you coming to school?" called back Jackie Bow Wow, for
he and Curly were some distance down the street by this time.

"Yes, come on, or you'll surely be late," said Flop Ear's brother.

"I'm coming!" cried Flop, but he thought he would take just one more
look at the sliding door.

"I would like to have just one slide on it," he said. "I believe
I'll try it."

He looked ahead to where his brother and Jackie were and decided
that if he did take one slide he could run and catch up to them, and
not be late.

"Here goes;" said Flop, and he laid his books down on a clean stone.

Then he read the sign once more:

    "NO ONE MUST SLIDE DOWN
     THIS CELLAR DOOR!"

"I guess it's only a joke," decided Flop. "Now for one good slide
and then I'll go to school."

So he went around to the side of the door, where there was a stone,
and, by stepping on this, and giving a little jump, the piggie boy
got to the top part of the sliding door, ready for a coast down.

Of course he had no sled on which to slide, but his trousers were
good and thick, and he knew he could not wear a hole in the seat
just this once. So he gathered his legs together under him, gave
himself a little push and down the slanting door he went as nicely
as an icicle in the middle of the Fourth of July.

"Wow! This is great!" cried Flop. "I guess the other fellows will
wish they'd taken a slide. This is nifty!"

I don't know myself what "nifty" means, but Flop said it, so I have
to write it down.

Faster and faster he slid down the cellar door. It was a long one,
and now he was half way to the bottom.

"Oh, won't we have fun sliding after school!" the little piggie boy
cried. "I don't see why they looked rather sorrowfully after her
brothers and put up that sign not to slide. This is the best cellar
door I ever saw."

Faster and faster he slid, laughing and shouting in glee, and he was
almost at the bottom and he was wondering if he would have time for
just one more coast before school, when all of a sudden:

"Crack! Slam! Smash! Ker-bunk!"

Right down through the cellar door fell poor Flop, and down the
cellar steps into a tub of water. Into that he went ker-splash! For,
you see, the cellar door had broken with him and let him right
through, almost half way to China, it seemed.

Into the tub of water went Flop, getting wet all over. But he
managed to crawl out after a while, and as he stood there,
shivering, in the cellar, looking up at the broken door through
which he had fallen, a nice little old rat lady came out of the
house, and, looking at Flop, said:

"Dear me! What a terrible accident. Too bad! Did you hurt yourself,
little piggie?"

"N-no-not much," answered Flop. "But I--I'm all wet."

"So I see," said the rat lady. "But I thought there was a sign on
the door, telling no one to slide down."

"So there was," admitted Flop, "but I didn't see why it was there,
so I slid anyhow."

"I put the sign there because the door was so rotten that I knew the
first one who slid down it would fall through," said the rat lady.
"And to think, some one did fall!"

"Yes'm," said Flop, "I fell."

"Well, don't do it again," said the rat lady, "and tomorrow I'll
have a new cellar door made. Now let me dry you off."

So she kindly did, but Flop was late for school. And--well, I
suppose it couldn't be helped, even if he had to stay in. But on the
next page, in case the mousetrap doesn't catch the cheese by the
tail and make it squeal, I'll tell you about Mr. Twistytail's lost
hat.




STORY XVII

MR. TWISTYTAIL'S LOST HAT


"Hey, Curly can you be out?" called Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the
puppy dogs, as they stood in front of the piggie boys' house one
morning when there was no school. I forget whether it was Saturday
or because the owl lady school teacher had to go and take her music
lesson.

Anyhow, there was no school, and as Peetie and Jackie stood in front
of the pig house and called:

"Hey, Curly! Hey, Flop! Come on out!"

"Of course we will!" cried Curly. "What are you going to do?" and he
and his brother hurried with their breakfast and ran out in the
yard.

"Let's play football game," suggested Jackie, "like we did the other
day."

"No, let's go off in the woods and play camping out," suggested
Curly.

"Yes, that will be more fun," added Flop, and then the two puppy dog
boys thought the same thing, so off to the woods they started.

"I wish I could go," said Baby Pinky, as she their chums.

"Never mind, Pinky," said Mrs. Twistytail. "I'm going to bake pies,
and I'll make a specially little one just for you."

"Oh, goodie!" cried Pinky, and then she went out in the yard to play
in her go-cart. Pretty soon along came Jennie Chipmunk and she
played with Pinky, so the little pig girl didn't mind so much, after
all, that her brothers had gone away.

But now let us see what happened to Curly and Flop, to say nothing
of Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow. On and on they went through the woods,
and pretty soon Jackie found a nice juicy bone, and Peetie found a
bit of meat, while Flop found an ear of corn and his brother picked
up a big turnip.

"Oh, joyfulness!" exclaimed Flop. "Now we can have a lunch in the
woods, just like real camping out!" And so they did. Under a tree,
on the soft leaves that floated down from the branches above, with a
flat stone for a table, and sticks for knives and forks, the piggie
boys and their chums ate their lunch and had lots of fun. Then Curly
said:

"Now let's play soldier," and so they did, with sticks for guns, and
when the boy animals called out: "Boom! Boom!" and "Bang! Bang!" it
sounded as real as anything.

Well, they were running around in the woods, shouting and laughing
and making believe they were soldiers at war, when all at once, just
as Curly passed in front of a hole that seemed to go away under
ground, he saw something roll out. It was something round and black
and hollow, and at first the little piggie boy thought it was a big
black stone. But, when he looked a little closer, he saw that it was
a hat--a man-pig's hat--just the kind they always wear.

"Oh, Flop! Oh, fellows! Come here!" called Curly. "See what rolled
out of the hole under this old tree."

Of course, they all came running up at that, and stopped playing
soldier, and they gathered around the hat.

"Whose is it?" asked Jackie Bow Wow.

"Where did it come from?" inquired Peetie, making his tail go round
like a pin wheel.

"It's our papa's hat!" suddenly cried Flop. "I can tell because it's
got his initials inside," and, surely enough there were the letters
"A.T." inside the hat, standing for "Archibald Twistytail."

"Our papa's hat!" exclaimed Curly. "Is it possible?"

"Of course, it is," said Floppy, as he picked it up. "Papa has lost
his hat."

"But it rolled out of that hole," said Curly, "and it isn't lost,
for we have found it."

"Then if papa's hat came out of that hole, our papa must be in
there," said Flop.

"Why, of course," agreed Jackie Bow Wow.

"But what is he doing in there?" asked Curly, "and what sort of a
place is it? I can't see him," he added, as he stooped down and
tried to look into the hole.

"I don't know what he's doing in there," said Flop, "but I know what
sort of a place that hole is. It's a wolf's den, and the wolf has
our papa, Most likely he's eating him now, and he threw the hat out
because he couldn't chew it--the wolf, I mean."

"Oh!" cried Curly, jumping up and down, he felt so badly.

"Oh; oh!" barked Jackie Bow Wow.

"Oh! oh! Double Oh!" growled Peetie Bow Wow. "What shall we do?"

"We must get him out of there!" exclaimed Flop as quickly as a
rubber band can play the "Annie Laurie" song. "There are four of us
here, and we have our wooden guns. I guess we are a match for one
wolf. We must save our papa."

"Of course!" agreed Curly, bravely.

"But how?" asked Jackie Bow Wow.

"Listen," said Flop, just like a telephone girl.

"A wolf always have two doors to his den--a back one and a front
one. This is the front one--where our papa's hat rolled out. Now,
Jackie, you and Curly go to the back door, and make a noise like a
soup bone. The wolf will think some company has come to supper with
him, and he'll run to the back door. As soon as he gets there,
Jackie, you bark like anything, and, Curly, you fire off your wooden
gun."

"But what will you do?" asked Curly of his brother.

"Peetie and I will stay at the front door," said Flop. "As soon as
we hear you making the noise we'll rush in the den by the front door
and get papa and help him out. Then we'll all run away."

Well, every one thought that was a fine plan, and they did just as
Flop said. The wolf came rushing to his back door when he heard the
noise there, and maybe he wasn't surprised to see Curly and the
puppy dog! Then Flop and Peetie rushed in the front door, and there,
inside the den, they found poor Mr. Twistytail tied to the table
leg.

"Quick!" cried Flop. "Bite the ropes, Peetie." And the puppy dog
did, and Mr. Twistytail was free. "Now, come with us!" cried Flop,
and he and his papa and Peetie ran out of the wolf's den just in
time, for the bad creature, seeing he had been fooled at his back
door, rushed up to bite the pig gentleman.

But he was too late, that wolf was, for the piggie boys and their
papa and the puppy dog boys got safely away, and the wolf didn't
dare follow because he was afraid of the wooden guns. Then when they
were all safe home, including the hat, Mr. Twistytail told how the
wolf caught him as he was coming back from work, and how his hat
accidently rolled out of the den. And if it hadn't been for the hat
maybe Mr. Twistytail would not have been saved.

Anyway, he was not hurt a bit, and in the next story, in case the
bicycle doesn't roll over the egg basket and make an omelet out of
the pin cushion, I'll tell you about Mamma Twistytail's new bonnet.




STORY XVIII

MOTHER TWISTYTAIL'S NEW BONNET


"Archibald," said Mrs. Twistytail, the lady pig, to her husband at
the breakfast table one morning, "I think I shall have to have some
money today."

"Money? What for?" he asked. "Do the children need new shoes, or
have we no more coal left?"

"No, I want the money for myself," said the pig lady. "I need a new
bonnet, and I am going down town this morning and get it at the five
and ten dollar store."

"Very well," said Mr. Twistytail, good-naturedly, so he put his foot
in his pocket and took out a lot of money, which he gave to his
wife. Then he kissed Baby Pinky, and Curly and Flop good-by and went
to work in the phonograph factory where he put the squeaks in the
wheels.

"Oh, if you are going shopping for a new bonnet, mamma!" exclaimed
Flop, "may I come with you?"

"Yes, and may I?" asked Curly, as he spun around on his front paws
like a top under a Christmas tree. "And if you have any money left,
mamma, after getting your bonnet, maybe you will buy us each a hot
ice cream soda."

"Oh you boys!" cried Mrs. Twistytail with a laugh. "No, I am afraid
I can't take you two with me, for it is Baby Pinky's turn. You boys
had a nice time the other day, playing in the woods, when you saved
your papa and his hat from the wolf's den, and so now it is Pinky's
turn to have some fun. I'll take her shopping with me."

"Oh goodie!" cried Baby Pinky, and she jumped into her go-cart and
out again, making the springs jounce up and down like anything.

"But I'll give you and Flop each a penny," said Mrs. Twistytail to
Curly, "and you can buy some corn candy with sour milk on top."

That pleased the boy piggies very much, and they ran off to school
with their pennies, while Mrs. Twistytail got ready to go shopping
after her bonnet with Baby Pinky. Pretty soon they went down town
and in the five and ten dollar bonnet store.

"Have you any bonnets?" asked Mrs. Twistytail.

"Indeed I have," said the nice lady frog who kept the store. "I have
all kinds of bonnets," and then she sang a little song that went
something like this, to the tune "High diddle-diddle:"

    "I've bonnets of ribbon, and bonnets of paper,
     I've bonnets both red, white and blue.
     Some bonnets of leather, for cold stormy weather,
     And bonnets of feathers and glue.

    "I've bonnets becoming, and some that are stunning;
     I've bonnets to wear upside down.
     And if you will try one, I'm sure you will buy one,
     To go with your new party gown."

"I'm sure I will, too," said Mrs. Twistytail, as the frog lady
finished and made a little bow to the looking-glass. "You may show
me the blue one," she went on, and frog lady did.

"Oh, mamma! That is lovely!" cried Baby Pinky. "But I think one with
more flowers on would be nicer."

"I think so, too," spoke the pig lady, and so she bought a bonnet
with a lot of flowers on it that looked as real as those which grow
in the woods and fields. Then Pinky and her mamma started for home,
Mrs. Twistytail wearing her new bonnet.

"We'll take the short cut through the woods," said the pig lady when
they had alighted from the trolley car on which a nice toad
gentleman was the conductor, because he could hop on and off so
quickly, and not step on any one's toes.

So through the woods went Mrs. Twistytail and Pinky, and they had
not gone very far when, just as they got to the wolf's hollow log
den out of which Mr. Twistytail's hat rolled that day, up sprang the
bad, impolite old animal himself and grabbed the pig lady and her
little daughter.

"Ah, ha! Now I have you!" cried the wolf. "Your husband got away
from me, Mrs. Twistytail, but I have you, and you can't get away,
and I have Pinky, too!" and he held them both tightly, in his paws.

"Oh, please let us go!" begged Pinky.

"No," growled the wolf, sticking out his red tongue because he was
so hungry.

"Oh, do!" pleaded Mrs. Twistytail. "I'll give you all the money I
have left from shopping if you'll let us go."

"No! No!" answered the wolf, more growlier than before. "You have
none left. Besides money is no good to me--I can't eat money!"

"Oh, mercy!" cried Pinky. "Are you going to eat us?"

"Indeed I am," said the wolf, smacking his jaws, and then Pinky and
her mamma tried as hard as they could to get away from the wolf, but
they could not. Holding them tightly in his paws, the wolf started
for his den, and, seeing Mrs. Twistytail's new bonnet, he took it
off her head, roughly like, and said:

"And I can't eat this! I guess I'll throw that away, as I did your
husband's hat. But no one will see it and come to rescue you as they
did him."

"Oh, my lovely new bonnet!" cried Mrs. Twistytail, and Pinky felt so
badly that she cried. But you just wait a minute and see what
happens to that bad old wolf.

The wolf was just going to toss the bonnet, all covered with almost
real flowers as it was, away up in a tree and just about to carry
the pig lady and Pinky down into his den, when, all at once, there
was a buzzing sound in the air and a voice cried:

"Ah, ha! Here are some flowers. Now we can get some honey!"

"Indeed we can," said another voice up in the air. "It is rather
late for such blossoms, but I am glad we saw them in time. Come on,
now, everybody, get the honey!"

And with that a whole swarm of stingery honey bees flew down from
the sky toward Mrs. Twistytail's flowered bonnet that the wolf held
in his paw. You see, the bees thought the flowers were real and that
they could gather honey from them.

And then, just as Pinky saw the bees, she had an idea and she cried
out:

"Oh, dear little bees! That is my mamma's new bonnet, and the wolf
has caught us. Please sting him and make him let us go!"

"Don't you dare sting me!" growled the wolf. "Take the bonnet if you
wish, but don't touch me," and he threw the bonnet to one side.

Some of the bees alighted on the bonnet, and as soon as they found
that the flowers were not real they got quite angry. And they
thought the wolf had played a trick on them, so they flew at him,
and stung him on his nose and tail and eyes and lips and even on his
tongue, until he cried out with pain and fright. Then he let go of
Pinky and her mamma and ran down into his den, and the pig lady was
safe. The bees never stung them once, but were very kind to them,
and with their wings brushed the dirt off Mrs. Twistytail's bonnet
so that it was as good as new.

Then the bees flew away, Mrs. Twistytail and Pinkey went safely
home, and the wolf had to stay in his den for a week and put witch
hazel on his stings.

So that's all tonight, if you please, but next, in case the kitchen
stove doesn't go out on the porch and play hide-and-seek with the
hammock, I'll tell you about Curly and the sour milk.




STORY XIX

CURLY AND THE SOUR MILK


"Oh, mamma!" exclaimed Curly the little piggie boy, as he rushed
into the house one noon and nearly upset his little sister Pinky, in
her new go-cart. "What do you think? There isn't going to be any
school for two weeks!"

"Why not?" asked Mrs. Twistytail, who was just getting dinner.

"Because the schoolhouse roof blew off in the storm last night,"
said Flop, who was Curly's brother, "and it will take two weeks to
put a new one on. So the nice owl lady teacher said we could have a
vacation. Oh, I'm so glad!"

"My goodness me, sakes alive and some Montclair caramels!" cried
Mrs. Twistytail. "A school vacation this time of year--so near
winter. I never heard of such a thing."

"But it will be all the nicer," said Curly, "and we can go after
chestnuts every day. Hi-yi! Hurrah!" and he squealed and jumped
around the room, and so did Flop, and they were the two most
delighted little pigs you ever saw. Just then along came Uncle
Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit.

"What's this!" he cried. "What is going on here?"

"No school!" squealed Curly. "No school! We have a vacation!"

"The very thing!" suddenly said the old gentleman rabbit. "I was
just wishing it was summer time, so some of my animal friends could
come away with me. I am going on a little vacation trip myself, and
I thought I would have to go alone. But if there is no school, then
Curly and Flop can come with me."

"Where to?" asked Flop.

"To Raccoon Island in Lake Hopatcong," answered Uncle Wiggily.
"We'll go up to my bungalow, stay two weeks and have a good time."

"Oh, fine!" cried Curly.

"Oh, joyousness!" squealed Flop, as he spun about on one leg and
tickled Baby Pinky with the other.

Well, that afternoon, Mamma Twistytail got the two boys ready, and
off they went with Uncle Wiggily to Raccoon Island in Lake
Hopatcong, which is a very nice place. It was beginning to get dark
when they arrived, and, after they had eaten some candy, and Uncle
Wiggily had opened the bungalow, he looked around and said:

"Now, boys, you will have to go to the store for something for
supper."

"What shall we get?" asked Flop.

"Well, see if you can get a cabbage or a turnip for me," spoke the
old gentleman rabbit, "and for yourselves whatever you like. Here is
the money."

"I want some sour milk," spoke Curly, for you know piggie boys like
sour milk as well as you do sweet.

"And I want a corncob cake," went on Flop.

"Very well, go down to Pop Goes the Weasel's store and get it," said
Uncle Wiggily, and the two boys started off to the other end of the
island, where Pop Goes the Weasel kept a grocery store. Flop got his
corncob cakes first, and as Curly had to wait for the milk to get
sour he said to his brother:

"Now, Flop, you hurry back with Uncle Wiggily's cabbage and carrots,
and I'll soon come with my sour milk."

"Won't you be afraid?" asked Flop, for the woods were now quite
dark.

"Afraid! Nonsensicalness no!" exclaimed Curly, "and a bouquet of wild
flowers besides. Run along."

So Flop ran back toward the bungalow, and pretty soon Pop Goes the
Weasel said the milk was sour enough, and he gave it to Curly in a
pail.

Through the dark woods went the little piggie boy, and he had not
gone very far before he heard some one crying, and a voice saying:

"Oh, dear! I'm lost! I can't find my bungalow, and I can't find my
motorboat, and I'm afraid--dreadfully afraid!"

"Ha! I wonder who that can be?" thought Curly Tail. "Perhaps it may
be the bad alligator trying to scare Cora Janet. No, that can't be,"
he went on, "for Cora Janet is down in Montclair, making funny music
tunes on the piano."

Then he heard the gentle little crying voice again, and he knew it
was somebody in trouble, Curly did, and he called out:

"Who is there?"

"I am," sobbed a voice.

"And who are you?"

"My name is Ethel Rose," went on the voice, "and I am lost. Oh,
please help me. I'm so afraid!"

"Of course, I'll help you," spoke Curly bravely. "But why is your
name Ethel Rose?--that is two names."

"I don't know," answered the little girl, and then she stepped out
from the bushes where she had been crying, and the moon shone down
on her face and her ear-rings and dark hair, and Curly said:

"Now I know why they call you Ethel Rose."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you are as pretty as a rose," and at that Ethel laughed.
"But come," went on Curly, "I'll show you the way to our bungalow,
and then Uncle Wiggily will take care of you."

"Oh, will he?" cried Ethel Rose, and so she walked along beside
Curly, who was carrying his pail of sour milk. And, all of a sudden,
when they were near the bungalow, there was a rustling in the
bushes, and out jumped a big black bear.

"Ah, ha!" the bear cried. "Now I have you Curly, and you, too, Ethel
Rose! Oh, how nice! You come with me and I will tell your fortune!"

"But I know my fortune already," said Ethel Rose, and she was just
ready to cry again, for she did not like bears.

"Never mind, come along to my den, anyhow!" growled the bear. "I am
going to have roast pork for supper!" and he made a grab for Curly
and Ethel Rose, and caught them in his big claws.

And then, all at once, he saw the pail Curly was carrying--that bear
did--and he growled out:

"Ha! Ha! What have we here? Something good, I'll venture. Well, I'll
take that first!" And before Curly could stop him the bear tipped up
the pail and drank every drop of sour milk at one mouthful! And
then! Oh, dear!

"Wow! Woof! Snickery-snee! Bur-r-r! Lemons! Vinegar! Sourgrass!"
cried the bear. And his mouth was puckered up so from the sour
milk--just as when you eat lemons if you have the mumps--that the bear
couldn't open his jaws to take even one bite. And Curly knew this,
so he cried:

"Come on, Ethel Rose, we can get away now! Uncle Wiggily will save
us!" So Curly Tail helped Ethel Rose to run away and the bear's
mouth was so puckered up from the sour milk that he had to run down
to the lake to get a drink of water, and so Curly Tail and pretty
Ethel Rose got safely to the bungalow and away from the bear. And
that's all there is tonight, if you please.

But the next story, in case the marshmallow doesn't stick on Ethel
Rose's hair ribbon, and make a pin cushion of it, will be about Flop
and the pie lady.




STORY XX

FLOP AND THE PIE LADY


Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, and the two
piggie boys, Flop Ear and Curly Tail, were sitting on the porch at
the bungalow at Raccoon Island, Lake Hopatcong, wondering what they
could do next for their autumn vacation fun. Curly was trying to
take some snapshot photographs of a little red squirrel, who was
jumping down across the cot beds, all in a row like soldiers, and
Flop was wondering whether he could catch any fish.

"Well, we must do something," said Uncle Wiggily. "It isn't every
day you boys get a vacation after the regular summer one, so you
must enjoy it."

"We wouldn't have gotten it if the roof hadn't blown off our
school," said Flop, "and, as long as we're here, I say let's go off
in the woods and look for chestnuts."

"All right," said Curly, and they were just going to leave the
bungalow, when, all at once, there was a rustling in the bushes and
out came--no, not a bear or a wolf, or even a bad skillery-scalery
alligator, this time. No, it was a nice lady, with real soft, brown
hair, and the jolliest whistle you ever heard!

What's that? You didn't know ladies could whistle? Well, this one
could, and play the piano at the same time. Out she came from the
bushes, and she said:

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily, I'm so glad to see you and the two little piggie
boys."

"Well, we are glad to see you, too," said Uncle Wiggily, politely
making his best bow, "but I'm afraid I don't know you."

"Oh, yes, you do," said the lady. "I make pies, and if you like I'll
make one now."

"Will you, really?" cried Flop. "Oh, I would dearly love an apple
pie, with a bit of sour milk cheese."

"Then you shall have it," said the lady, as she trilled out a little
tune by whistling until it sounded like a bird in the lilac bush.
"Have you any apples?" she asked, puckering up her lips.

"Yes!" exclaimed Flop. "Here they are!" and he brought out a
basketful. The lady said they would make a lovely pie, so she rolled
up her sleeves, and spoke, saying:

"Now, I am sorry, but I would like you all to leave the bungalow.
You, Uncle Wiggily, and you, also, Flop and Curly. For when I make
apple pies I get all kerslostrated--which means fussed--if any one
is around. So kindly run away, and when you come back the pie will
be ready for you."

"All right; we'll go," said Uncle Wiggily. "I'll go pull my
motorboat up on dry land, so it won't get caught in the ice when the
lake freezes this winter, and you boys can help me."

So Curly and Flop went off to help Uncle Wiggily, and the pie lady--for
such they called her--started her baking. She peeled the apples
and cut them up, and then she got the piecrust mixed. Uncle Wiggily
had already built a fire so she did not have to do that. And all the
while she whistled and whistled, until it made you feel glad and
happy just to hear her. And when you smelled that apple pie baking--well,
say! I mustn't write any more about that, or I'll want to put
my typewriter down cellar, and go out hunting for the lady myself.

Pretty soon Flop, who was helping Uncle Wiggily with the motorboat,
sniffed the air, grunted once or twice, and said:

"I smell something good! I guess I'll go see what it is."

"All right," said Curly, who was quite tired from having assisted
his rabbit uncle to haul up the boat. "I'll stay here, Flop, and
when you find the good thing that you smell, bring me some."

So Flop promised, and he kept sniffling away, and the lovely smell
grew plainer and plainer as he moved toward the bungalow, until he
exclaimed:

"Ah, I know what it is! The pie lady! Oh, I wonder if the pie is
done?"

Nearer and nearer he went to the bungalow, and he heard a whistle,
and then he saw the pie lady bustling around with a long apron on,
and Flop asked:

"Is the pie done?"

"Almost, little piggie boy," she answered.

"You may wait for it to come out of the oven. How old are you?"

"Seven," said Flop, and then he asked the lady.

"What is your name?"

"Margaret," she answered. "Margaret More."

"More what?" asked Flop.

"More pies, I guess," laughed the pie lady as she whistled again,
this time just like a canary trilling when it swings at the top of
its cage in the sunshine. Curly laughed, too, and then the lady went
to the oven to take out the pie.

And, would you ever believe it if I didn't tell you? No, I'm sure
you wouldn't. But, anyhow, all of a sudden, out from the bushes came
a bad, fuzzy old wolf, and he stood in front of the bungalow,
crying:

"I smell apple pies! I smell apple pies! Also a little piggie boy!
Oh, what a fine lunch I am going to have!"

Well, Flop was so frightened that he couldn't even walk, much less
run, and all he could do was to squeal, "Oh dear!"

The pie lady heard him, and came running to the door of the
bungalow.

"What is the matter?" she asked, and then she saw the wolf.

"Oh, my!" she exclaimed. "What shall I do?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed the wolf, sticking out his red tongue. "I'll do
all that's necessary. But first I'll eat the apple pie, and then
I'll carry you and Flop off to my den!"

Well, when Flop heard that--heard that the wolf was going to eat the
lovely pie--he became real brave, that little piggie boy did.

"You shan't have that pie!" he cried.

Then the wolf, with a big jump, started for the bungalow to get the
pie and the pie lady, but what do you think Flop did? He just
grabbed up the pan of apple peelings--long, curling peelings they
were--and he threw them at the wolf! Right at the bad creature's
legs he threw them, and the apple peelings tangled up in the wolf's
fur and in his tail, and his legs and paws, and head-over-heels he
went, falling down on the ground and bumping his nose on a hard
stone.

"Oh, wow! Oh, woe is me! Oh too-badness!" growled the wolf, and he
ran away to his den to get some salve to put on his bumped nose, and
so he didn't get the pie lady, nor the pie, nor Flop, either, at
least not that day.

Then the apple pie was done, and the pie lady whistled a nicer song
than ever, and Curly and Uncle Wiggily came to the bungalow and they
all ate pie and were as happy as happy could be. But, as for the
wolf, the less said about him the better.

So on the next page, in case the door-knob doesn't tickle the dining
room bread-board and make the sawdust come out of the breakfast
oatmeal, I'll tell you about the piggie boys and the jelly.




STORY XXI

THE PIGGIES AND THE JELLY


One day, when Curly and Flop, the two piggie boys, had been at Uncle
Wiggly's bungalow on Raccoon Island for some days, the old gentleman
rabbit said to them:

"Now, boys, I have to go down to the store, kept by Pop Goes the
Weasle, to see about some butter and things for supper. Will you be
afraid to stay here alone?"

"Indeed we will not!" exclaimed Curly.

"Not even if the bad fuzzy wolf comes out of his den after more
apple pies?" asked the rabbit gentleman.

"Not even then!" exclaimed Flop. "If he does, I'll throw more apple
peelings at him, and trip him up so that he bumps his nose again."

"Good!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he limped off on his red, white
and blue rheumatism crutch. "And if the apple pie lady comes
whistling along again, get her to make us a prune pudding," he said.

"We will," promised the piggie boys, and then they began to play
games in front of the Lake Hopatcong bungalow, while Uncle Wiggily
went to see Pop Goes the Weasle, who kept the grocery store.

"Well, I guess she isn't coming," said Flop, after a while.

"Who?" asked Curly.

"The pie lady. I do wish she would, for I am hungry," and he looked
at the bushes, and, all of a sudden, they began to rustle, and the
piggie boys didn't know whether to run away or stay there.

"Maybe it's the pie lady," said Curly.

"Yes, and maybe it's the bad black bear," suggested Flop. "I'm going
to run into the bungalow!"

Well, he was just going to run, and Curly was going to follow, when,
all at once, a sweet gentle voice said:

"Oh, dear, I'm sure I'll never find any! Oh, and I want it so much!
I wonder where I could get any?"

The two piggie boys looked, and there they saw an Indian maiden
coming out of the bushes. They knew she was an Indian maiden because
her hair was in two long braids, hanging down in front of her, and
she had a brown dress on, and she was very beautiful, just like a
picture.

"We needn't be afraid of her," whispered Curly to his brother.

"No indeed," agreed Flop. "I wonder what it is she is looking for?"

"Jelly," answered the Indian maiden, who heard what the piggie boy
asked. "I am looking for a jar of jelly. Oh, I just love jelly, and
I haven't had any in so long that I forget how it tastes! Since
early morning I have been traveling looking for jelly, but I can't
find any. Some wild bees offered me honey, but I would like jelly.
Have you any?" and she looked at the bungalow.

"Why, I think we have some," said Curly politely.

"I'll go look!" exclaimed Flop, for they were both anxious to do
some kindness for the Indian maiden, whom they liked as soon as they
saw her. She was not a wild Indian, you know, but the kind that
lives in Montclair, maybe; a tame one.

So Flop ran in the bungalow to look for the jelly and Curly picked a
nice bunch of flowers for the Indian maiden, and she put them in her
hair and looked prettier than ever.

"Here is the jelly!" cried Flop, coming out with as much as he could
carry. "I'm sure Uncle Wiggily would want you to have it," he said,
and then he gave the Indian maiden a spoon and she began to eat
jelly and was as happy as anything.

"Oh, that is very good!" she exclaimed. "I hope some time I can do
you piggie boys a favor for being so kind to me." So she ate all the
jelly up--that is, all that was good for her--and she was just going
away, having thanked Curly and Flop, when all at once, on a sudden,
out from behind a tree came the big black bear. He waved his paws in
the air, and, wrinkling up his black nose, he growled out:

"Ha! I smell jelly! I'm going to have some, too, to eat on my roast
pork!" and he looked hungrily at the two piggie boys. They were both
too frightened to move, but the Indian maiden was brave.

"Come! Come! Give me that jelly!" growled and grumbled the bear!
"Then I'll take you piggie boys off to my den and make the Indian
maiden cook you."

"Oh, but I'll not do it!" said the Indian maiden whose name was
Pocohontas. "I like Curly and Flop, for they were kind to me and
gave me jelly."

"Well, then, I want jelly, too!" growled the bear. He made a jump,
intending to take the jelly away from the Indian maiden, but Curly
and Flop cried out:

"No, you don't! Get away from here at once, you bad bear."

"Well, if I go, I'll take you with me!" said the bear. "If I can't
have jelly I'll have you piggie boys!" and he caught one of them
under each paw.

"Oh, help!" cried Curly, trying to get loose, but he could not.

"Save us! Save us!" begged Flop, making his tail spin like a
pinwheel.

"I will save you!" called the Indian maiden.

"Oh, if I only had a bow and arrow I would shoot the bear and rescue
the two piggie boys! I know what I'll do. I'll make a bow and find
an arrow."

So she took a bent branch of a tree for the bow and for the string
she used some strands of her long braids. But the needed an arrow,
and all the while the bear was carrying Curly and Flop off to his
den.

"I know!" cried the Indian maiden. "A hat pin! My very longest and
sharpest hat pin! That will do for an arrow!"

She ran to where she had left her hat in the bushes when she was
looking for the jelly, and quickly got a hat pin. This she shot at
the bear from her bow.

"Whizz!" it went through the air, hitting the bear on the end of his
soft and tender nose.

"Oh, wow!" he cried. "Oh, woe is me!" and his nose pained him so
that he dropped Curly and Flop and back to the bungalow ran the
piggie boys as fast as they could. And the bear went off to put some
cooling mud on his nose, where the hat pin had hit him.

So that's how the Indian maiden saved the piggie boys from the bear,
and they gave her more jelly and thanked her, and then, using a long
thorn instead of a hat pin, which the bear carried off in his nose,
Pocohontas went off looking for more jelly, and Curly and Flop went
to asleep.

And next, in case the horse radish doesn't jump over the oysters and
scare them so they fall into the clam chowder, I'll tell you about
Flop and the marshmallows.




STORY XXII

FLOP AND THE MARSHMALLOWS


"Boys," said Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, to
Curly and Flop, the piggie chaps, one morning. "Boys, do you think
you can get along by yourselves this afternoon?"

"Why, I guess so," answered Curly, as he looked off across the beach
at Raccoon Island in Lake Hopatcong. "But where are you going, Uncle
Wiggily?"

"Oh, Pop Goes the Weasel wanted me to come down to his store and
have a game of Scotch checkers after dinner," said the old gentleman
rabbit. "He says he is lonesome since all the summer folk went
away."

"Of course, we can get along all right," spoke Flop. "We'll have our
lunch and, we'll do the dishes, so you can go and play Scotch
checkers with Pop Goes the Weasel."

"But what are Scotch checkers?" asked Curly.

"Oh, when you play that game," said Uncle Wiggily, "you have a nice
Scotchman standing near you all the while to cook Scotch scones over
a hot fire. And scones are good to eat; something like pancakes,
with maple syrup on, only different. It is fun to play Scotch
checkers."

"I should think so," said Flop. "And could you bring us a few
scones, Uncle Wiggily!"

"I'll try," said the old gentleman rabbit, "though Pop Goes the
Weasel and I are very fond of eating them when we play checkers."

So in the afternoon Uncle Wiggily went to visit his friend at the
store on Raccoon Island, and the two piggie boys stayed home to keep
house. And, when they had washed the dishes, Curly said:

"Now, Flop suppose we go looking for adventures. I'll go one way and
you can go the other, and we'll see who can find an adventure
first."

"All right," said the other little piggie boy. So they started away
from the bungalow. But as Curly fell asleep before he had gone much
farther than the Sylvan Way (which is a nice little rustic bench on
the island) no adventure happened to him. But wait until I tell you
what happened to Flop.

Off he started, and he had not gone very far before he heard some
one crying out:

"Oh, what shall I do with them? Oh, so many as there are! I never
can eat them all!"

"My!" exclaimed Flop, "I wonder if that is a bad bear who has caught
a whole lot of piggie or rabbit children? Who ever it is can't eat
them all, so it must be something extra good. I wonder what it is?"

So he hid behind a stump, and after a bit he peeked out and there he
saw his old friend, little Cora Janet, of Montclair, walking around
in the woods with a big box in her arms. And on the box was a sign
which read:

CANDY

"My gracious sakes alive and some lollypops!" exclaimed Flop. "She
has so much candy she doesn't know what to do with it! I wonder if I
can help her?"

So Flop jumped out from behind a bush, made a low bow, and said,
most politely:

"Can I help you, Cora Janet?"

"Oh, yes, you can!" she exclaimed. "You see I came up here looking
for the Indian Maiden who likes jelly so much. I thought I would
give her some of my marshmallows, as I have a whole box full-many
more than I can eat. But I can't find the Indian Maiden--Pocohontas--and
now I shall have to eat all the marshmallows myself."

"Why?" asked Flop, curious like.

"Because," answered Cora Janet, "because there is a big bear chasing
after me. He smells the sweet candy and he is so hungry that he will
want to eat the marshmallows and me, too. But if I could only get
rid of the candies he might let me alone. Oh, what shall I do? I've
toasted them, and roasted them and eaten them just as they are out
of the box, and put them in a cake and everything, but still the
bear chases after me!"

"Of course I do!" suddenly growled a voice in the bushes and just
then out popped the bear. The hat pin which the Indian maiden had
shot in his nose was out now, and that bear was as angry as
anything. He wanted to grab Cora Janet and take her off to his den I
guess. Anyhow he growled as angry as could be!

"Oh, what shall I do!" called the little girl. "How can I get rid of
all these marshmallows, for if the bear takes them it will only make
him the more hungry and then he will want to eat me, and you too,
Flop."

"That must never be!" exclaimed the little piggie boy. "Ha! I have
it!" he cried. "We will throw the marshmallows at the bear, and make
him so stuck up that he won't want ever to eat anything again except
pepper-hash!"

"Good!" cried Cora Janet. So she and Flop opened the box of
marshmallows. Just then the bear made a rush for them, intending to
grab them both in his big, long claws and carry them off to his den.

But Flop threw a sticky marshmallow candy, and it landed in one of
the bear's eyes and stayed there.

"Oh, wow!" cried the shaggy creature, and he could only see out of
one eye. Then Cora Janet threw another marshmallow and it closed up
the bear's other eye. Then he couldn't see at all.

"Oh, wow again! Double wow!" cried the bear. Then, as fast as they
could throw them, Flop and Cora Janet tossed the sticky marshmallow
candies. They stuck up the bear's nose so he couldn't hear, and got
in his ears so he couldn't smell. Oh! just listen to me, would you!
I'm so excited that I got that part wrong. But, anyhow, the bear
couldn't see, nor smell, nor hear. And then more marshmallows got in
his mouth, and they were like sponges, and he couldn't even bite any
one, for they stuck on his teeth like gum. Then Flop said:

"We are safe now, Cora Janet, and we have enough marshmallows left
to roast at the camp fire tonight."

And so they had. And that bear was so stuck up with the soft
marshmallow candies--in his eyes and nose and mouth and ears and
paws and tail and fur--that he had to go to sleep in the lake for a
week and a day to get them washed off.

So he didn't bother Cora Janet nor Flop any more, and pretty soon
Curly awakened and came back to the bungalow to hear about his
brother's adventure. And Uncle Wiggily came back from playing Scotch
checkers with Pop Goes The Weasel, and everybody was happy, even
Cora Janet, and they had roast marshmallows for supper.

And on the next page, in case the little boy across the street
doesn't slide down the front steps and scare the milkman's horse so
that it drinks up all the ice cream, I'll tell you about the piggie
boys and the big fish, and it will be a Hallowe'en story.




STORY XXIII

THE PIGGIES AND THE FISH


On the morning of the day when it was to be Hallowe'en, Curly Tail,
and Flop Ear, the two piggie boys, awakened in Uncle Wiggily's
bungalow, on Raccoon Island in Lake Hopatcong, and Curly Tail
whispered:

"What are you going to dress up like, Flop Ear?"

"Oh, I guess I'll make believe I'm a loaf of bread. What are you
going to be?"

"An apple pie," said the other little piggie boy, "I'll stick apples
all over myself, and some bits of pie crust, and when we get through
playing Hallowe'en we can eat them."

"Fine!" cried Curly Tail. "I wish I was going dressed up like an ice
cream cone, but then I'd melt so fast I wouldn't have any fun. So I
guess I'll be a loaf of bread."

"And we'll fool Uncle Wiggily, won't we?" said Flop Ear.

"We surely will," declared his brother. But if they could have
looked into the next room, and have seen Uncle Wiggily laughing to
himself, and winking his eyes, and rubbing his leg that had
rheumatism in it--well, maybe those piggie boys wouldn't have felt
so funny.

"Fool me, eh? Will they?" whispered Uncle Wiggily. "We'll see about
it," and then he hopped about on his crutch to help the boys get
breakfast.

"We must have all the good times we can," said the old gentleman
rabbit, "for soon the new roof will be on your school and you will
have to begin studying your lessons again. Be happy while you're
here, for soon the snow will fly and the ice will come, and we will
have to go away from the lake."

"Oh, we're going to have a good time, Uncle Wiggily," said Curly
Tail, or Curly, as I often call him for short, and then he looked at
his brother, and they both laughed and pretended it wasn't anything
at all. But Uncle Wiggily knew better.

"Well," said the old gentleman rabbit, after breakfast, "I guess
I'll go down and play Scotch checkers with Pop Goes the Weasel. You
boys can stay here, but if the bad alligator or the fuzzy fox tries
to get you, just call for me."

"All right," said Curly Tail, and when his uncle was out of sight he
and his brother began to dress up for Hollowe'en, which is the night
everyone puts on false faces you know.

One of the piggie boys made a lot of flour paste, colored with brown
sugar, and that was to fix him so he would look like a loaf of
bread. And Flop Ear made himself look like an apple pie.

"Now, we'll just practice, ready for tonight, when we're going to
fool Uncle Wiggily," said Curly Tail, and they did, having lots of
fun.

Just before supper Uncle Wiggily came home from having played Scotch
checkers with Pop Goes the Weasel. The old gentleman had something
under his coat, but when Curly Tail and Flop Ear asked him what it
was he only laughed and said:

"Oh, you'll soon see!"

Well, it got pretty dark, and Curly Tail and his brother thought it
was time for them to dress up and play a trick on their uncle. So
they took their false faces, one like a lump of buttered bread and
the other like a piece of cheese, and went out in the woods to
dress. They intended to come and knock on the bungalow door and see
what Uncle Wiggily would do and say when he saw them.

Pretty soon they were both ready, and, really, if I do say it
myself, Curly Tail looked just like a ten-cent loaf, with flour in
his buttonhole and all that, only he didn't have any real butter on,
as that was so greasy. And Flop Ear, or Flop, or Floppy, for short,
looked too cute for anything--just exactly like an apple pie, and
he even carried a bit of cheese to go with it, and a toasting fork.

"Now, we'll fool Uncle Wiggily," they said, as they started for the
bungalow. But they didn't know what had happened to the rabbit
gentleman. They hadn't gone very far before, out in a boat on the
lake, not far from shore, they heard a voice calling:

"Oh, help! Help! He's such a big one that I can't get him in, and
Percival has fallen overboard! Help! Help!"

"My goodness! What's that?" asked Curly Tail, in surprise.

"Some one must be in trouble," said Flop Ear. "Let's see who it is."

"But it might be the bad skillery-scalery alligator, with the lumps
on his tail," said the other piggie boy. Then Flop Ear looked out on
the lake, where it was all lighted by the moon and he said:

"I see a lady in a boat. Surely she would not harm us. And she spoke
of Percival--she must mean the old circus dog! I am going to see
what is the matter!"

"Better not! Maybe it's a trick to catch us!" said Curly Tail.

But just then a lady on the lake called again: "Oh help! He is such
a big one that I can't get him into the boat, and Percival has
fallen overboard!"

Then there was a great splashing, and a rustling in the bushes and
Flop Ear called:

"We're coming to help you, lady! What have you got that is so big?"

"A fish," she answered. "My husband, Percival, is a great fisherman
and he caught the biggest fish in all the lake, but it pulled him
out of the boat. However, I have hold of the pole and line, and the
fish is still fast to the hook. Oh, help me to catch him!"

So the piggie boys said they would, and they ran down to the shore,
and the lady in the boat passed them the pole. Then Curly and Flop
pulled as hard as they could, and old circus dog Percival scrambled
out of the water, and he helped pull, too, and, all of a sudden,
from the bushes along the edge of the lake--on dry land, but not in
the water--there suddenly flopped the biggest fish any one had ever
seen.

"Oh, what long ears the fish has!" cried Curly Tail, when the moon
shone on the fish. "I never saw a fish with ears!"

"I'm not a fish," said a voice. "Oh, please let me go. The hook is
caught in my collar. Please let me go!"

"Who are you?" asked Percival, in wonder.

"I'm Uncle Wiggily Longears," was the answer. "I dressed up like a
Hallowe'en fish to fool Curly Tail and Flop Ear. I was walking along
the shore in the dark, thinking I could catch the piggie boys, when,
all of a sudden, something caught in my coat collar, and I was
dragged through the bushes. I was choked so I could hardly speak,
and I didn't know what had happened to me."

"Oh, that's too bad," said Percival. "I guess I happened to catch
you on my fishhook by mistake, when I was tossing it around. But why
are you all dressed up?" he asked Curly Tail and Flop Ear and Uncle
Wiggily.

"Because it is Hallowe'en," said Flop Ear; "but I guess we have had
enough of it."

"Yes," said Uncle Wiggily, "come up into the bungalow and we will
duck for apples, eat marshmallows and have fun."

So Curly Tail took off his bread crumbs clothes, and Flop Ear his
apple pie suit, and Uncle Wiggily his fish scales, and they all took
off their false faces, and Percival and the lady whose name was
Gertrude, had a good time.

And in the next story in case the ash can doesn't roll off the roof
and fall on the dog house to scare the puppy cake I'll tell you
about Curly Tail and the little afraid girl.




STORY XXIV

CURLY AND THE AFRAID GIRL


One day, when Uncle Wiggily, the nice old gentleman rabbit, went
down to the store on Raccoon Island, in Lake Hopatcong, kept by Pop
Goes the Weasel, there was a letter there for Curly Tail and also
one for Flop Ear.

"I wonder who can be writing to the piggie boys," said the rabbit
gentleman. "I'll take the letters to them."

So he stopped to play just one game of Scotch checkers with Pop Goes
the Weasel, only they didn't quit finish it because Mr. Pop's cat
jumped on the middle of the board to catch a mosquito and scattered
the checkers all over.

"Scat!" cried Pop Goes the Weasel. "Why did you do that?"

"Never mind," said Uncle Wiggily. "She didn't mean to."

And really the cat didn't mean to, and the mosquito got away after
all, and Pop Goes the Weasel began picking up the checkers, but the
rabbit gentleman said:

"I'm afraid I can't stay to finish the game. I must get back with
the letters for Flop and Curly," calling them thus for short.

"Very well," said Pop, "and take them some sour milk chocolate candy
with my best wishes, for the letters may be from home, telling them
to come back to school."

And really, that is just what the letters said. They were from the
nice owl lady school teacher, saying that the roof was back on the
school now, and that in a few days all the animal children must
begin reciting their lessons again.

"Well, then, we must have all the fun we can the few remaining days
that we are to be on Raccoon Island," said Flop Ear.

"Correct," spoke Curly Tail. "Let's take a walk and see if we can
find an adventure."

So off they started from Uncle Wiggily's bungalow, and when they
came to a place where there were two paths through the woods, Curly
Tail said:

"Now, Flop Bar, you go one way and I'll go the other, and we will
see who first meets with an adventure."

"Very well," agreed Flop Ear, and off he went through the woods,
but, as nothing happened to him except that he fell down a well and
had trouble getting out again, I shall not tell his adventure.
Instead, I will relate what happened to Curly Tail.

On and on he went, and he was wondering what would happen to him,
when, all at once, as he came to a little river that flowed through
the island, he heard a voice saying:

"Oh, I shall never get across. I know I shan't. I'm so afraid of
water, and I know there are cat-tails and pussy willows and all
sorts of things like that around here. Oh! what shall I do? I want
to get across to see my grandmother, but how can I?"

"Hum! That is queer," thought Curly Tail. "I wonder who that can be?
I had better be careful, though, for it may be the fuzzy fox trying
to fool me."

So, carefully hiding himself behind a stone, he peered over the top,
and once more he heard the voice saying:

"Oh! isn't it dreadful to be afraid!"

"Why, it's a little mousie girl," exclaimed Curly Tail out loud.

"Of course, it is," said the little creature beside the river. "And
I'm afraid of the water, and the cat-tails and the pussy willows and
all that."

"There are no pussy willows out now, they only come in the spring,"
said Curly Tail. "Though there may be some cat-tails. But they are
not real cats, you know. They won't hurt you. Are you a little
afraid, mousie girl?"

"Yes, but that isn't my name," she said. "My name is Edna, and I'm
dreadfully afraid of the water. How shall I get across?"

"I'll get a big board and make believe it is a boat," said Curly
Tail. "Then you won't be afraid."

"Oh, yes, I will," she said. "Can't you think of some other way?"

Curly Tail shook his head, and even twisted up his ear, and then he
thought real hard.

"I have it!" he cried. "You shall get on the board boat, and all the
while you must keep looking up at the sky. Then you will not see the
water, and you'll think you're flying and you won't be afraid."

"The very thing!" cried Edna, the little afraid mousie girl. So
Curly Tail got a nice, big board for a boat, and pushed it into the
water. Then he got a pole to shove himself and the mousie girl
across the river, and they both got on the boat.

"Now mind!" exclaimed Curly Tail. "Keep looking up, and you won't be
afraid."

Off they started, and Edna wasn't much afraid. When they were about
halfway across, and she felt real glad that she would soon see her
grandmother, she said:

"Oh, I guess I'm brave enough to look at the water now. I think I'm
not afraid with you, Curly Tail."

"All right," spoke the little piggie boy, and he was just going to
tell the mousie girl to look down if she wanted to, when, all at
once, after the boat, with his big jaws open, and his tongue going
over his teeth like a nutmeg grater, came the bad skillery-scalery
old alligator, with a double hump on his tail.

"Oh, my!" thought Curly Tail. "If she looks down now, and sees that
alligator, she'll surely be so afraid that she'll faint, and maybe
fall into the water, and then I'll have to jump in to save her, and
the alligator will get us both. What shall I do?"

Well, the mousie girl was just going to look down, and she would
surely have seen the 'gator, when Curly Tail cried:

"Don't look! Don't look! Oh, lobster salad! don't look!"

"Why not?" asked the mousie girl.

"Because--because it's--it's a surprise!" was all Curly could think
of to say.

"Oh, if it's a surprise I must surely look!" said the mousie girl.
"I just love surprises!"

"I guess she won't like this kind!" thought Curly Tail, but what he
said was:

"Quick! Tie your handkerchief over your eyes, and make believe you
are playing blind man's bluff. Then you can't look until it's time.
Quick!"

So the mousie girl, whose name was Edna, did as Curly Tail told her.
She blinded her eyes, and then, the piggie boy knew she would not
see the 'gator. On came the ferocious creature, ready to swallow the
boat, Curly Tail and little afraid girl all at once. But Curly Tail
just stuck the push pole down the alligator's throat, and that made
the 'gator so angry that he lashed out with his tail, made a big
wave, and that washed the boat and the piggie boy and the mousie
girl safely up on shore. And then they were all right, for on dry
land they could run faster than the 'gator could.

"Where's the surprise?" asked Edna, as she took off the
handkerchief.

"There he goes," said Curly Tail, showing her the alligator, who was
swimming away, and Edna was glad she had not seen it when on the
boat or she knew she surely would have fainted. Then she went on to
her grandmother's, after thanking Curly Tail, and the little piggie
boy went back to the bungalow.

And on the next page, if the boys don't take my cocoanut cake for a
football and roll it up hill, I'll tell you about the piggies and
the dinner party.




STORY XXV

THE PIGGIES AT THE PARTY


One day a nice lady stopped in front of the house where lived Curly
and Floppy Twistytail, the two piggie boys, and called to them as
they were playing football in the yard.

"Is your mamma in?" asked the lady, as she looked to see if her
earrings were dingle-dangling.

"Yes," replied Curly Tail, "she is. Would you like to see her?"

"Indeed, I would!" exclaimed the lady, as she blinked her two eyes
and laughed in a jolly fashion.

"But she is lying down," explained Flop Ear, "so if you want to sell
her some new kind of soap to make our faces clean or some baking
powder that will puff a cake up like a balloon, I don't believe she
wants any."

"Bless your dear little pink noses!" exclaimed the lady. "I'm not
selling anything. I just came to ask your mamma if you could come to
my party."

"A party?" cried Curly Tail. "Are you getting up a party for us?"

"For all the animal children," explained the lady, whose name was
Sadie. "I want you all to come to my dinner party and have a good
time. It's going to be away up in Montclair."

"Oh, I guess we can come," spoke Flop Ear. "Are you going to have
ice cream?"

"Yes, ice cream," replied the Sadie lady, "and all sorts of good
things. Uncle Wiggily will be there, and all your friends, so I
wanted to ask your mamma if you could come."

"Of course we can!" cried Curly Tail. "We'll be there!"

"Very good," replied the lady whose name was Sadie. "Then I shall
expect you," and off she hurried to invite some other animal
children, her long earrings going dingle-dangle as she walked along,
and the rose in her hair falling over sideways.

You see, Curly Tail and Flop Ear had come back from Raccoon Island
at Lake Hopatcong, where they went to visit Uncle Wiggily Longears,
the old gentleman rabbit, while a new roof was being put on their
school in place of the one that had blown off. The piggie boys had
now been back for some little time, and in a few days school would
open again.

"But, before it does, we'll go to the lady's dinner party," said
Curly Tail, as he combed out the bristles on his back to make them
look like a paint brush.

"Indeed we will!" exclaimed his brother, and then they heard their
mamma stirring about in the house, so they knew she was awake.

"Let's go ask her!" suggested Curly Tail, and in they ran to tell
about the Sadie lady asking them to the party.

Their mamma said they might go, and they felt so happy that they
even let their little sister, Baby Pinky, play football with them.
And it would have been all right, except that when Flop Ear kicked
the ball to Pinky, she couldn't get hold of it in time, and it flew
up and broke Grandpa Squealer's window. But he said he didn't mind.

Well, in a few nights, it was time for the dinner party, and Curly
Tail and Flop Ear dressed in their best, with their velvet hats on
their heads, started for the high part of Montclair where the Sadie
lady lived.

And Oh! How nice the house looked when they got there. It was all
lighted up, and there were paper roses on the piano, for it was too
late for real ones, and the table was all set with nice dishes and
things to eat, and all of the piggie boys' friends were there, from
Sammie and Susie Littletail, to Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit
gentleman.

Then they began to eat, for this Sadie lady was one who loved animal
children, and was always giving dinner parties, and affairs like
that for them. Oh! Such good things as there were to eat, and when
it was all over, and the candy and nuts were served, the Sadie lady
read some poetry about a funny little lake, all made of sweet ice
cream, and every time you fell in it you had a funny dream.

Then, after supper, they all sat about the fire on the hearth--Uncle
Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey Gander and all the animal children, and
the Sadie lady and Uncle Wiggily told ghost stories, and all sorts
of other tales.

And, all of a sudden, just at the most scary part, where the big
giant falls down stairs, jumps over the cot bed and scares Cora
Janet's doll and Pocahontas and Ethel Rose--all of a sudden, I say,
just as Uncle Wiggily got to that part, there was a noise out on the
porch, and a voice cried:

"I want to come in! I must come in!"

"Oh, dear!" gasped Flop Ear.

"Who can that be?" asked Curly Tail, and he shivered so that you
would have thought he was eating cold ice cream again, only he
wasn't, for he was chewing on hot marshmallows.

"Let me in! Let me in!" cried the voice again.

"Oh, it's the bad skillery sealery alligator!" cried Flop Ear. "I
know it is."

"Or else the fuzzy fox!" spoke Curly Tail, and just then there was a
noise at the window, and they all looked up, and there stood a big
black bear, tapping his paws on the glass.

"Oh, wow!" cried Uncle Wiggily.

"Sour milk and maple sugar pancakes!" yelled Grandpa Squealer, and
everyone was so frightened that no one knew what to do. But the
Sadie lady cried out:

"Ha! I'm not going to have a bad bear break up my dinner party in
this way!" so she caught up a box of marshmallows, opened the
window, and tossed the white sugar coated candies right in the
bear's face.

All over him they flew, and he was so surprised that he thought it
was snowing big white flakes.

"Oh, wow!" the bear cried. "Winter is here, and I must hurry back to
my den before I get snowed in. I thought I was going to have a good
supper, but I guess I was mistaken. Oh, woe is me! It's snowing!
It's snowing!"

Then he ran down off the porch as fast as he could, and the Sadie
lady called up the policeman dog on the telephone, and she hollered
like anything because she was so excited.

But there was no need for the police, for the bear was so
kerslostrated by the marshmallows and the powdered sugar snow flying
all over him that he went and hid in his den for a week and a day,
and didn't bother anyone for sometime.

Then Ethel Rose, one of the real pretty girls at the party, and
Pocahontas, the Indian maid, and Cora Janet's doll and everybody
else had more ice cream, and then they went home; and so did Curly
Tail and Flop Ear, and the Sadie lady's dinner party was over, but
every one said it was just fine, and they wanted to know when she
was going to have another.

So that is all now, if you please, but on the next page, in case the
sewing machine doesn't pull all the threads out of my little dog's
hair ribbon, I'll tell you about Floppy and the bon fire.




STORY XXVI

FLOPPY AND THE BONFIRE


One night, after an election in Woodland, where the Twistytail
family of pigs lived, Curly, one of the piggie boys, asked his
brother Floppy if they couldn't have some fun.

"I guess so," spoke the other little piggie. "I have a big pile of
leaves, so why can't we make a bonfire?"

"The very thing!" cried Curly Tail. "There are always bonfires after
election, and we'll have ours now."

"And we'll invite all the other animal boys to help us," suggested
Curly Tail. "Sammie Littletail will want to come, I know, and so
will the squirrel boys, and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck, and the
Bow Wow puppy boys."

So, as it was after school, and they had done their home work
lessons, the piggie boys could run out and play. In a vacant lot,
not far from their house, Flop Ear had collected a big pile of
leaves, ready for the fire, and he said to Curly Tail:

"Now, if you go get the other fellows, I'll find some more leaves,
and some old boxes and barrels and we'll have a fine big fire."

"All right, I will," agreed Curly Tail. So off he ran over the
fields and through the woods to call all his friends to the bonfire
which Flop Ear was going to make.

"Now for a surprise!" exclaimed the little piggie boy who was left
near the pile of leaves. "I'll look for some potatoes and I'll put
them to roast in the bonfire and when it is all over we'll eat them,
and sit about the blaze, telling stories about the election."

So he crawled through a fence into a field near by, where there were
some late potatoes, and soon, with his strong, rubbery nose, he was
rooting them up. The field belonged to Grandfather Goosey Gander,
and Flop knew the old gentleman goose would not mind if the boy
animals took a few potatoes.

"Now to make the fire and roast them," spoke the little piggie boy,
and when he had shoved the leaves all up in a heap with his nose he
lit them with a match.

"Won't Curly Tail and the others be surprised when they come up, and
see the fire already going?" thought Flop Ear. "And they'll be more
surprised when I pull out the roast potatoes for them. Oh! I almost
forgot! I must get some salt to eat on them."

Into the house he ran, with his queer little kinky tail twisting
around like a piece of strawberry shortcake, and Floppy got the
salt. His mamma was busy getting supper, and she did not see him,
and as his sister, Baby Pinky, was practising her piano lesson on
the tin dishpan, she made so much noise Mrs. Twistytail did not hear
the piggie boy, so no one stopped Flop Ear.

Maybe if mamma had known that he had a bonfire she would not have
liked it, and I want you children--especially you little ones--to
promise Uncle Wiggily that you will never, never make a fire unless
some older person is there to watch you. Fires are very bad, you
know--and burns--Bur-r-r-r! How burns do hurt!

Well, anyhow, Flop Ear had his fire going, and the potatoes were
roasting in the hot leaves, and he had the salt all ready to eat on
them. As he came running back to the blaze, out of the shadows
stepped someone, and a voice said:

"Ah ha! Good evening! I was wondering who had made this good fire
for me."

"I--I did," said Flop Ear, "but I didn't make it for you. I made it
for us."

"Never mind, it will do very well for me," went on the voice. "It
will save me the trouble of kindling one to roast my pork sausage
and chops--I mean you!" exclaimed the voice.

Flop Ear gave a jump, and looked more closely at the figure in the
shadow by the fire. And then he saw that it was a big, bad old fox,
with a fuzzy tail.

"Oh! Oh!" gasped the little piggie boy. "You don't mean that, do
you; that you're going to roast me!"

"Exactly what I'm going to do," replied the fox, and he caught hold
of Flop Ear. "We will wait until the fire is a little hotter," he
said.

Oh, how poor Flop Ear did try to get loose, but he couldn't because
the fox held him too tightly. And the fire got hotter and hotter,
and the little piggie boy was hoping that Curly Tail and the other
animal boys would come back in time to save him, but he could
neither see nor hear anything of them.

"I guess I'm going to be roasted!" he cried. "Oh, if Uncle Wiggily
were only here. Or even Grandpa Squealer!"

"Ha! No one will come to save you!" snarled the bad fox, and just
then, what do you think? Out from the fire rolled some of the
potatoes Flop Ear was roasting for his friends. Out rolled two big
potatoes, and the fox, seeing them, exclaimed:

"Ha! What have we here? Something good to eat, I should say," and he
smelled the baked potato. "Oh Yum yum!" he cried, and he smacked his
lips. "That will go most excellently with roast pork. I think I will
eat one, and then I'll put you on the fire to cook," he said to Flop
Ear.

The little piggie boy didn't say anything, but he felt very bad. And
the fox, holding him with one paw, took up a roasted potato in the
other, and cracked it open with his teeth.

And then--!

Well, you know how hot roast potatoes are, just out of the oven, I
dare say. This one, from Flop Ear's bonfire, was even hotter. It was
just roasting hot, and the fox had bitten into it.

"Oh, wow!" cried the fuzzy creature. "Oh, double wow, and some ice
cream cones! Oh, pepper casters! Oh, mustard! Oh, my mouth, how it
burns! And my paws!"

And then he had to let go of Flop Ear, and run to the brook to get a
drink of cold water--that fox did--because the hot potato burned
his mouth so, but I guess it served him right.

Anyhow, Flop Ear was free, and the next minute along came Curly Tail
and all the other animal boys, and then of course the bad fox had to
run away and put cold cream on his tongue. Flop Ear told all that
had happened, and then the bonfire was made bigger than ever, and
when the roast potatoes were cool they all ate some, and had a fine
time.

So, that's all now, but in the next story, in case the pear doesn't
fall off the apple tree and hit the ragman on the nose, I'll tell
you about Flop Ear and the skate wagon.




STORY XXVII

FLOP AND THE SKATE WAGON


One morning Flop Ear, the little piggie boy, awakened in his bed of
straw, and said:

"I don't feel very well today."

"I wish I didn't, too," spoke Curly Tail.

"Why?" asked his brother in surprise. "I'm not fooling. Honestly, I
don't feel well. Do you want to be sick, too?"

"Just a little bit," answered Curly Tail. "Just sick enough so as
not to have to go to school."

"Oh, that's so!" exclaimed Flop Ear. "There is school today. I
thought it was Saturday, and I was sorry I didn't feel well, but
now---"

Well, as it happened it was Friday, instead of Saturday, and, of
course, there was school. But when Mrs. Twistytail heard that Flop
Ear did not feel well, she said:

"Perhaps you had better not go today. Just lie abed and maybe you
will be better by afternoon."

So Curly Tail had to go to school alone, and he felt rather
lonesome, and Flop Ear stayed at home, just like the little pig in
the story.

But pretty soon, oh, I guess about 10 o'clock, when it was too late
to go to school, Flop Ear got out of bed and said:

"I don't feel quite so badly now, mother. Maybe if I go out in the
air, I'll be all well."

"All right," she said, and there was a funny little twinkle in her
eyes. "But first you must take some castor oil, and then I will be
sure you will be better," she added.

Then Flop Ear wished he had gone to school, whether he felt well or
not, but there was no help for it; he had to take the castor oil.
After it was down--and it wasn't much fun swallowing it, let me tell
you--after it was down, Flop Ear walked out in the street sort of
slow and thoughtful-like, and wished he had someone to play with, or
something to do.

"It isn't so much fun staying home as I thought it would be," he
said. Just then, in an ash barrel, he saw one roller skate. It was
pretty well battered and worn, but the four wheels of it were good
yet, and Flop Ear, as he took it out and knocked the ashes from it,
said:

"Ha! One roller skate. Now if I had two I might have some fun, and
forget about the castor oil."

"You can have fun with one roller skate," said a voice behind the
little piggie boy, and turning, Flop Ear saw Uncle Butter, the goat
gentleman, just coming back from having delivered all his milk.

"How can you have fun with one roller skate?" asked Flop Ear.

"By making a skate wagon," said the goat gentleman. "I saw some boy
animals up in Roseville playing on them yesterday, and I'll tell you
how to make one. First, you have to have a box, a long, narrow
board, a stick and some nails and string."

"I can get all those!" exclaimed Flop Ear, and he did. Then Uncle
Butter took the roller skate apart at the place where it slid
together to be made smaller or larger. Right apart he took it, and
there were two wheels on one part and two on the other.

The goat gentleman used the string to fasten two wheels on one end
of the long narrow board and two wheels on the other end. Then he
nailed the box on the front end of the board, right over the front
wheels, and on top of the box he nailed the stick for a handle, just
as on a bicycle, only this handle was straight and not curved.

"There is your skate wagon," he said to Flop Ear. "You take it to
some street that runs down hill and you start at the top. Stand up
on the board, near the box, and lean against it so you won't fall
off. Take hold of the handles, and then push yourself off. Down the
hilly street you will roll on the skate wheels, just like a coaster
wagon."

"Fine!" cried Flop Ear, as he thanked Uncle Butter. Then he ran to
the top of a hilly, smooth street to try his skate wagon.

He stood up in the middle of the long narrow board, took hold of the
handles on top of the box, and steadied himself. Then, with one foot
he gave himself a good push, and down the hill he went as fast as
anything, making a noise just like a real roller skater boy only
louder.

"Oh, this is great!" he cried as he reached the bottom of the hill,
and ran back for another coast down it. Then Flop Ear forgot all
about being sick, and he had lots of fun riding on his skate wagon,
so you see that even one roller skate may be good for something.

Well Flop Ear was just going to coast down the hill for about the
forty-'leventh time when, all of a sudden, he heard a voice calling:

"Save me! Save me! Oh, help me!"

He looked around and there he saw a poor old lady cat being chased
by a bad dog that had once caught Uncle Butter to pull out his
horns. The lady cat was running as fast as she could with her tail
all swelled up like a bologna sausage.

"Save me from the bad dog!" she cried.

"Bow-wow! Woof! Woof! Bur-r-rr!" barked the dog. "I'll get you!"

"No you won't!" cried Flop Ear. "Get on my skate wagon!" he called
to the old lady cat, and with one jump she landed in the box. Flop
Ear gave a good push, jumped on the wagon himself, and down the hill
he went faster and faster, with the dog coming after him.

"Oh, he'll get us!" cried the lady cat.

"No he won't!" shouted Flop Ear. Faster and faster went the skate
wagon down the hill, and the bad dog tried so hard to catch up to it
that, all of a sudden, his legs got tied up in a hard knot--yes,
sir, just as hard a knot as if a sailor had made it. And, of course,
that dog turned a somersault, and went head over heels and he
couldn't run any more until one of his friends untied the knots in
his legs.

But by that time Flop Ear and the lady cat were safe at the bottom
of the hill on the skate wagon, and the dog could not get them. Then
the cat lady thanked the piggie boy very much, and gave him a penny,
and Flop Ear went to school that afternoon, and was all better, and
later he and Curly Tail had lots of fun on the queer wagon Uncle
Butter had told how to make.

And so in case the rose bush doesn't scratch the lilac leaves off
the pie plant and make the clothes line catch cold, I'll tell you
next about Baby Pinkie and the lemon.




STORY XXVIII

PINKY AND THE LEMON


One day, when Flop Ear and Curly Tail were at school, Mrs.
Twistytail, the pig lady, said to Baby Pinky, her little girl:

"Pinky, I am going to run across the street for a minute to ask Mrs.
Wibblewobble to lend me a spool of thread. It is so chilly out that
I don't want to take you along. So will you be afraid to stay here
alone, just a little while?"

"No, indeed, mamma," spoke Pinky. "Why, what is there to be afraid
of?" she asked with a laugh.

"Nothing in the least," replied her mother, "but sometimes little
girls, and boys, too, for that matter, are afraid to stay alone,
even when their mamma wants to go get a drink of water."

"Oh! I hope I'm not that kind, mamma," spoke Pinky.

"Then I'll just run across the street for a minute," went on Mrs.
Twistytail. "Everything is all right here. There is nothing on the
stove to boil over, but be careful not to go near the fire."

"No, I'll stay right here, mamma," said Pinky. "I'll look out of the
window, and watch the leaves dancing up and down in the breeze."

So Mrs. Twistytail went over to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady's
house, and Pinky sat down to wait for her to come back. But you know
how it is sometimes, when ladies get talking together, they have so
many things to say, about how to make the loaf of bread last longer,
and how high the butter is--so high that they have to get on a step
ladder to reach it--and how boys wear out their shoes and trousers
so fast and the newest way to fix your hair, and what to do when
your best dress gets all spotted with ice cream, and how scarce coal
is, and what a long winter we're going to have--all things like that
ladies find to talk about, and it was that way with Mrs. Twistytail
and Mrs. Wibblewobble.

Well, do you know, the first thing Mrs. Twistytail knew she had
forgotten all about what she came after--let's see now, what was it--I
declare I've forgotten myself. Just excuse me while I look back
and see. Oh! I remember, it was a spool of thread.

Yes, Mrs. Twistytail got so interested talking to the duck lady
about a new way to make a tight dress loose that she forgot all
about the spool of thread.

"Well, mamma is staying quite a long time," said Baby Pinky after a
bit, as she sat by the window. "I hope nothing has happened to her."
She looked, but she could not see her mamma coming back, and then
Pinky said:

"I guess I'll just dust off the piano, to keep busy, and it won't
seem so long until mamma comes home."

So she began knocking the dust off the piano to the floor just as
Jennie Chipmunk did it with her tail brush, and Pinky made so much
noise that she did not hear the door open and some one come in. That
is she did not until she heard some one walking in the room behind
her, and then the little piggie girl turned around and exclaimed:

"Oh, mamma! How you frightened me."

But, oh my! when she saw who was in the room, poor Pinky was
frightened more than ever. For there, with his face all swollen,
stood a bad old baboon who had escaped from the monkey circus down
the street.

"Bur-r-f! Ah ha! Wow! Now I have you!" barked the baboon, for they
make a noise something like a dog with the chicken-pox.

"Why, why, what is the matter?" asked Pinky, never dreaming that
there would be trouble, for she was such a gentle little thing. "Why
is your face all swelled up?" she asked.

"I have the mumps," explained the baboon, who had a blue nose. "I
have the mumps, and I am hungry. Little pigs are good for the mumps,
I have been told. I guess I'll take you."

"Oh! I'm sure you must be mistaken," said Pinky, politely. "Surely
you are wrong. I am not good for mumps, and I'm sure they're not
good for me."

"Nor me, either," cried the baboon, putting his paw to his swollen
jaw. "I don't want 'em but I have to have 'em, and, as you are the
only thing that's good for them, I'm going to take you away with me.
No, on second thought, I'll eat you up here and now."

"Oh, please don't!" cried Baby Pinky, and she wished, Oh! how she
did wish her mamma would come back. "How did you get in here?" she
asked.

"I just waited until I saw Mrs. Twistytail go out," said the
blue-nosed baboon, "and then I knew you were here alone. So in I came,
here I am, and now this is the end of you!"

"Oh, please don't hurt me!" cried Baby Pinky, but that savage
baboon, rubbing his blue nose with the end of his tail--for he had a
red tail--that baboon, I say, made a jump for Pinky.

"Oh!" she cried, as she leaped out of the way. "I'll get you
something to eat, and then you won't have to take me," and out into
the kitchen she ran, with the mumpy baboon after her. All Pinky saw
on the table was a lemon, and, thinking the baboon might like
lemonade, she caught hold of it, cut it open with a knife, and then--

Well, that baboon made a jump for her, and, as he did so, Pinky
accidentally squeezed the lemon. Now, as everybody knows, when you
have the mumps, if a person even says "pickles," or "vinegar," or
"lemons" to you, it makes your throat all pucker up and pain you
like anything, and you can't even seem to swallow. Mumps and sour
things don't seem to go together.

And when the sour lemon juice got in the baboon's mouth and eyes,
and some trickled down on his mumpy throat. Oh, wow! if you will
excuse me saying so.

"Bur-r-! Scumpf! Fuffphmn, Xzvbgetyriep! Bfrewcript!
Xvbnhytrwewqauitopekgsteredse!" cried that baboon, and no one could
understand what he said, not even a phonograph, for you see his
mouth and throat were nearly closed up by the puckery lemon.

And of course he couldn't eat Pinky, for he could not even swallow
some slippery elm, which as everybody knows, is the slipperiest
thing there is.

"B-r-r-r!" cried the baboon again.

"Zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcba!" and he said the alphabet backward.
Then, holding his mumpy jaws in both paws and winding his red tail
around his blue nose, out of the house he ran, leaving the little
piggie girl safe. And her mamma saw the baboon running away, and,
without even stopping for the spool of thread, she came home and
felt very badly that Pinky had been frightened.

"But you were very brave to hand the mumpy baboon a lemon," she
said, and I think so, too, for it was just the right thing.

And next, in case the fire shovel doesn't burn a hole in the
tablecloth and let the sugar run out and catch cold, I'll tell you
about the piggies and Santa Claus.




STORY XXIX

THE PIGGIES AND SANTA CLAUS


"Oh, so many things as I have for you to do today!" exclaimed Mrs.
Twistytail, the pig lady, to her two boys, Flop Ear and Curly Tail,
one morning. "Such a lot of work!"

"My!" exclaimed Flop Ear. "What is it, mamma? Have we wood to chop
or water to bring in?"

"Oh, neither one," said Mrs. Twistytail, with a smile, as she shook
the crumbs off the tablecloth, for the family had just finished
dinner. "I mean we have so many things yet to get for Christmas.
There are plums to buy for the plum pudding, and the candy and nuts
and oranges and figs and dates and the sour milk lollypops and
everything that Santa Claus hasn't time to bring."

"Why!" exclaimed Baby Pinky, who was putting on her new lemonade-colored
hair ribbon, "I thought Santa Claus brought everything."

"No, not quite everything," explained Mrs. Twistytail. "He brings
all the presents, of course, but he lets the papas and mammas get
the good things to eat, because different children like different
things. You wouldn't like, for instance, to have nothing but hickory
nuts, or walnuts, or chestnuts in your stockings, would you, boys?"

"No, indeed!" exclaimed Curly Tail and Flop Ear together, just like
twins, though they weren't.

"For those things are for Billie and Johnny Bushytail, the squirrel
boys," went on Mrs. Twistytail. "And they wouldn't like to have sour
milk, and cold boiled potatoes, and the things that you like.

"So, as I say, there are lots of things for us to do to get ready
for Christmas, and you boys will have to help me. I think today I'll
send you to the store for some raisins and citron and plums and
other things to make puddings and pies."

"Oh, goodie!" cried Flop Ear.

"And maybe we can clean out same of the cake and pie dishes after
you get through baking," suggested his brother.

"I think you may," said their mamma.

"But what can I do?" asked Baby Pinky, the littlest pig of them all.
"Can I go to the store for anything?"

"You will stay home with me," said Mrs. Twistytail, "and help me
bake. Now, boys, you had better start, so as to get home before
dark. Here are the things I want," and she gave them a list written
out on paper.

Oh! so many lovely victuals as there were! I can't write about them,
for I haven't had my supper yet, and I'm so hungry, when I think of
the good things, that I might even take a bite out of my typewriter,
and then I couldn't print any more stories for you, and that would
be too bad for me.

Anyhow, there were many good things that Mrs. Twistytail wanted, and
soon Curly and Flop were on their way to the store with a big
basket.

They got them all, and they took sniffs and smells, though not so
much as weenyteeny nibble of the Christmas things. But, oh! how they
did wish the time would come when they might really eat them!

"What do you most want for Christmas?" asked Curly as he and his
brother tramped on through the snow-covered woods.

"A toy steam engine," replied Flop Ear. "And what do you want, Curly
Tail?"

"A make-believe automobile."

"I hope we get them," went on Flop Ear with a sigh, and pretty soon,
off in the woods, they heard a voice calling:

"Whoa, now! Stand still there, if you please. Some of the things are
slipping off my sleigh, and I want to fasten them on. Whoa there,
reindeer!"

"Listen to that, would you now!" whispered Curly Tail to his
brother, as they hid down behind some bushes.

"Reindeer!" exclaimed Flop Ear. "There's only one person who has
reindeer and he is--"

"Santa Claus!" interrupted Curly Tail. "We've found Santa Claus,
Floppy, and this is the best chance in the world to tell him what
presents we want for Christmas!"

"That's right," agreed the other piggie boy. "We'll speak to him,"
and then they walked on a little farther and they saw the dear old
saint himself, with his red coat, all trimmed with white fur, and
his white beard, and he was as round and fat and jolly as anything.

"What ho! Hello!" cried Santa Claus, when he saw the piggie boys.
"What are you doing here?"

"We are on our way home from buying Christmas things," said Flop
Ear. "But have you really Christmas presents there, Mr. Santa
Claus?"

"I have indeed," replied the jolly old saint, with a twinkle in his
eyes. "But no one is allowed to see them until the right time. You
see I am traveling about, measuring the sizes of different chimneys,
so I can tell whether or not I can slide down them. Just as I got
here some of the toys began to slip off the sleigh and I stopped to
fasten them on. But I suppose you have your toys all picked out?"

"Yes," replied Flop Ear. "I want a toy steam engine, and Curly wants
a toy automobile."

"Oh, my!" exclaimed Santa Claus, and his voice seemed rather sad.

"Why, what is the matter?" asked Curly.

"Alas," said Santa Claus. "This year I have only one toy engine, and
a poor little lame boy has asked for that in a letter he sent to me
up the chimney the other night. And I have only one toy auto, and a
little boy who has no papa or mamma, and who is very poor, has asked
for that. I was going to give the toys to them, but since you have
met me in the woods I must grant your request, since whoever meets
Santa Claus face to face, can have just what they ask of him.

"But I know the little lame boy and the other poor little boy will
be much disappointed. Still it can't be helped. I will grant your
wishes, Floppy and Curly, but--"

"Stop!" suddenly cried Flop Ear.

"Hold on!" exclaimed Curly Tail.

Then, somehow, into their hearts there came a feeling of sadness,
and yet not so much sadness as gladness and happiness.

"I--I guess I don't want a toy steam engine," said Flop Ear. "Give
it to the lame boy."

"Good," cried Santa Claus.

"And I don't need the toy auto very much," went on Curly Tail. "Give
it to the poor little boy."

"Good!" cried Santa Claus again, and then his face seemed to shine
like the sun, and there seemed to be wreaths of holly and bunches of
mistletoe sticking all over him, and he sprang into his sleigh, the
reindeer shook their horns, making the bells jingle like anything,
and then, off on top of the snowflakes rode Santa Claus, calling
back:

"All right, piggie boys, I won't forget you, or any of the earth
children. It will soon be Christmas, and if you don't get autos or
steam engines you'll get something else," and then he vanished from
sight, and Flop Ear and Curly Tail went home, wondering very much at
what had happened.

And in the next story, in case the telephone man doesn't crawl
through the water pipe and scare the window shutter so that it goes
bang-bang all day, I'll tell you about Flop Ear and the stockings.




STORY XXX

FLOPPY AND THE STOCKINGS


"Flop Ear," said Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, to her son one
afternoon, "I think you will have to go to the store for me now."

"All right, I'm ready to go," said Flop Ear, "only I thought Curly
Tail just went, and that I could stay home and read my picture
book."

"He did go," said the pig lady, "but after I sent him for the
cocoanut to make the Christmas cake, I happened to remember that I
needed some chocolate to make a chocolate cake, so I think you will
have to go for that. I could send Baby Pinky, only she is over at
Jennie Chipmunk's, playing with her dolls."

"Oh, I'll go!" said Flop Ear, and he laid aside his book, and got
ready to go to the store. It was getting nearer and nearer to
Christmas every day, and, though the piggie boys hadn't seen Santa
Claus himself since that one time in the woods, they had seen a lot
of people dressed up like him.

You know jolly old St. Nicholas lets folks do that so he won't be
bothered so much when he is so busy. He has so much to do, arranging
about the presents that are to go in the stockings and down the
chimneys, that if he was interfered with, or talked to too much,
he'd never get done.

So he allows a lot of make-believe Santa Clauses to go around the
streets and in stores, making the children as happy as they can. But
they are not the real ones, only make-believes, though some of them
are very nice. Then the real Santa Claus has his time to himself.

And Floppy and Curly were not a bit sad that they had given up their
two chief toys, as I told you in the story last night, to the poor
boy and the lame boy.

Well, in a little while, not so very long, Flop Ear got to the
store, and he bought the cake of chocolate for his mother.

"And here is something for yourself," said the store man to the
piggie boy, and he gave him a cookie, with caraway seeds and little
candies on the top.

Then Flop Ear was glad he had gone to the store, and he was walking
along, nibbling on the cookie, and saving a bit for his brother and
Baby Pinky, his sister, when, all at once he heard a voice say:

"Here, little piggie boy, I want you!"

He looked all around, thinking it might be the fuzzy wolf or the bad
skillery-scalery alligator, but all he saw was good kind Nurse Jane
Fuzzy Wuzzy.

"Oh, I beg your pardon for thinking you were some one else," said
Flop Ear. "I took you for a wolf. What can I do for you?"

"I have dropped my ball of yarn, from which I was knitting a pair of
mittens for Sammie Littletail," said the kind muskrat. "The ball
dropped in the dirt and I can't find it. I wonder if you could?"

So Flop Ear hurried over to the rabbit house, where Nurse Jane
lived; she was the only one at home that day. And, by rooting around
in the dirt with his rubbery-ubbery nose, Flop Ear soon found the
ball of yarn.

"Oh, how smart you are!" exclaimed Nurse Jane. "And, as a little
present to you I am going to give you a pair of stockings that I
knitted myself. You can hang them up for Santa Claus on Christmas."

"Oh, thank you!" cried Flop Ear, as he took the stockings, which
were very big. Far too big they were for him, but he was too polite
to say so. And he thought, in case he couldn't wear them, that it
was all the better to have them big for Christmas, since Santa Claus
could put so much more in them.

Then Flop Ear, with the stockings, and the cake of chocolate, having
helped Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, started for home. And on the way he
passed a place where there were a lot of dried leaves, and he
thought to himself:

"I'll fill one of the stockings with dried leaves and take them
home. They will make a good bed for Baby Pinky's doll," and so he
did fill one of the big stockings with leaves.

Then he went on a little further, carrying the one empty stocking
and the one filled with leaves, which was almost as large as Flop
Ear himself.

All of a sudden, as the piggie boy was going along, he came to a
hole in the ground, and while he was wondering who lived there, all
at once out popped a big fox, with a tail as large as a dusting
brush.

"This is where I get you!" cried the fox, and he made a spring for
the piggie boy. But Flop Ear was too quick for him, and away he
sprang, with the big-tailed creature after him.

"Stop! Stop! Wait for me!" cried the fox.

"I can't--I haven't time," answered Flop, and on he went, faster
than before. But a fox is a good racer, and soon he was almost up to
the piggie. Just then Flop Ear dashed behind a big log, and there he
found a little mouse sitting.

"Why are you in such a hurry?" asked the mouse.

"Because the fox is after me," replied Flop Ear, "and he is right
behind me, ready to grab me."

"Squeak!" cried the mouse. "The only way to get clear from a fox is
to fool him. Now what have you there besides the cake of chocolate?"
asked the mouse, for he could see that plainly enough.

"A stocking full of leaves," answered Flop, "and one empty. Also
part of a cookie."

"Very well," spoke the mouse. "Give me the cookie, and I will tell
you how to fool the fox."

Well, Flop Ear did not want to give away his cookie, but he thought
it was better to do that than to be eaten himself, so he gave the
sweet little cake to the mouse, who said:

"Now, when the fox comes up here, just toss out over the log the
stocking filled with leaves. The fox will think it is you, and he
will carry it off to his den before he finds out his mistake. By
that time you can run off home."

"But I will lose the Christmas stocking," said the piggie boy.

"It is better to lose one stocking than your life," said the mouse.
"Besides, one of those stockings is big enough for any piggie boy
for Christmas."

Then Flop Ear did as he was told. Just as the fox came running
along, over the log the piggie boy tossed the stocking filled with
leaves. The fuzzy creature grabbed it, crying out:

"Ah, this is the time I have Floppy!" and he imagined the pig was in
the stocking. Without stopping to look, off to his den ran the fox
with the stocking filled with leaves, and when he found out his
mistake--oh wow! Wasn't he disappointed though!

But Floppy got safely home with the other stocking and the cake of
chocolate and nothing else happened that night, except that Mrs.
Twistytail sent the kind mouse a souvenir postal inviting him to
come to the Christmas dinner.

And on the next page, provided the pussy cat draws a pail of pink
lemonade from the white inkwell, and gives the rubber doll a drink,
I'll tell you about the Twistytails' Christmas.




STORY XXXI

THE TWISTYTAILS' CHRISTMAS


"'Twas the night before Christmas, and all through the house, not a
creature was stirring, not even--an automobile," read Curly Tail,
the little piggie boy as he sat by the open fireplace in his house.

"Hold on!" cried his brother Flop Ear, "that isn't right, Curly. It
should be not a mouse stirring--I know that poem."

"You're right, Floppy dear," admitted Curly Tail, "I read it wrong,
but anyhow tomorrow is Christmas, and I was thinking so much about
the toy automobile I want, that I guess I put one in the verse by
mistake."

"All right, then I'll forgive you," said Floppy, who was sitting by
the fireplace, stringing red, white and blue popcorn for Baby
Pinky's rag doll's Christmas tree. "And I'm thinking of the toy
steam engine I want," went on Flop Ear. "Oh! why doesn't Christmas
hurry up and come?"

"That's what I want to know," put in Pinky, as she dressed her doll
in her best dress, all ready for the holiday that was soon to be
there.

Oh such goings on as there were in the Twistytail house! The holly
with its red berries, and its prickly leaves, had been put in the
windows and on the gas chandeliers had been hung the magical
mystical mistletoe, with its white berries, and whoever stood under
it would have to love everybody else.

And such good smells as there were coming from the kitchen! Pumpkin
pies, and sour milk pudding, and apple cake, to say nothing of
cornmeal lollypops with chocolate in the middle.

Mrs. Twistytail was as busy as anything, and as for Papa Twistytail,
he had stayed home from the office on purpose to help decorate the
house. Flop Ear and Curly Tail and Baby Pinky had written letters to
Santa Claus the night before, and put them near the chimney. And, in
the morning, would you believe it? those letters were gone! Yes,
siree! not a trace of them left!

"Oh, goody!" cried Baby Pinky, "Santa Claus came in his reindeer
sleigh and took them. Now we'll get just what we want."

Busier and busier became everything in the Twistytail house, and for
that matter, there were busy times in the homes of Sammie and Susie
Littletail, and Johnnie and Billy Bushytail, and the Wibblewobble
duck children, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs. And as
for Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old rabbit gentleman, who was quite
rich since he found his fortune, he was so busy that he wore out two
rheumatism crutches and Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy had to gnaw him
another from a broom stick, instead of a corn stalk.

Then it began to snow. Oh, how the white flakes did swirl down out
of the sky, blowing here and there like feathers. They piled up in
drifts, and the animal children raced through them, kicking their
feet about, tossing the white flakes up in the air, falling down in
the drifts and making snowballs. And the wind came down the chimney
like a fairy blowing a blast on a trumpet. Oh, it was the most jolly
time of all the year! Uncle Wiggily said to himself, and he ought to
know, if anybody does.

"You must go to bed early this night, children," said Mrs.
Twistytail after supper. "The sooner you are asleep the sooner will
it be Christmas."

"We will," said Curly Tail and Flop Ear and Baby Pinky, and off they
trotted, after kissing their papa and mamma good-night, their little
kinky tails flopping up and down like a lady's earrings when she
runs after a trolley car.

Darker and darker it grew, and still the snowflakes kept coming down
until all the ground was white and the roofs of houses, too, and the
gate posts and the pump in the yard and everything--all white,
ready for Christmas.

"Santa Claus' reindeer can easily pull the sleigh tonight," said
Baby Pinky, as she looked from the window.

"Come, get back into bed!" called Curly Tail, "or Santa Claus won't
come."

It was close to midnight, and still the snow came down. Outside the
Twistytail house, just as outside of every other house where the
children believe in Santa Claus, there was heard the ringing of
bells. Then some one called:

"Whoa, there, reindeer!"

Then there was a noise in the chimney. Maybe it was the wind, or
maybe it was a little bird crawling in to get warm. I don't know.
Anyway, there was a noise, but the piggie children never woke up.

And then--and then--and then--in a little while it was Christmas
morning. Somewhere a horn blew. Curly Tail heard it first, and,
though it was scarcely daylight, he hopped out of bed.

"Wake up!" he cried, "Wake up everybody! It's Christmas! Merry
Christmas!"

"Merry Christmas!" cried Flop Ear.

"Merry Christmas!" echoed Baby Pinky, and they all rushed
downstairs.

"Mercy me!" exclaimed Mrs. Twistytail, rubbing her eyes. "Christmas
so soon?"

"Yes, indeed!" shouted the children. "Oh, come and see what we
have!"

Well, if I were to tell you all that happened at the Twistytail
house that day, and about all the presents the children got, I'm
sure I would be so long finishing that you would get hungry. But oh!
everything was lovely!

"I've got my toy steam engine!" cried Flop Ear.

"And I have my toy auto!" said his brother.

"Oh, I see my new doll carriage--and a new doll in it--and look at
her little Christmas tree!" cried Baby Pinky! "Oh, how lovely
everything is!"

"Merry Christmas!" cried a voice at the door, and there stood Uncle
Wiggily Longears, with a lot of bundles under his paws. "Santa Claus
left these at my house by mistake," he said. "They belong here!" and
there was a sled, and skates and a football, and a rocking horse,
and a jumping jack, and I don't know what all.

"Merry Christmas!" cried another voice, and there stood Grandpa
Squealer, the oldest pig of them all, and in his paws he had a lot
of packages, and an extra one tied to his tail.

"Santa Claus left these at my house by mistake," he said, "they
belong here."

And there was a blackboard and some building blocks, and a toy top,
and toy horns, and a printing press and a phonograph, and oh! I
don't know what all else besides.

"Look at my auto!" cried Curly Tail. "It goes like everything!" and
he wound it up, and whizz! it went right at Uncle Wiggily.

"Hold on! Stop it! Don't let it bite me!" cried the old gentleman
rabbit, and he tried to get out of the way, but he slipped on his
broomstick crutch and fell down, and a piece of prickly holly fell
on him and tickled him so that he sneezed.

"Look at my steam engine!" cried Flop Ear. And he started it going,
and all of a sudden it darted right for Grandpa Squealer.

"Stop it! Hold it! Don't let it get me!" cried the old gentleman
pig. But the engine went right at him and ran over his toe, but it
didn't hurt much, because it was so little--I mean the engine was,
not Grandpa Squealer's toe. But he slipped, too, and fell, and some
mistletoe got tangled in his paws, but that only made everybody the
more happy.

"Merry Christmas!" cried Uncle Wiggily.

"Merry Christmas!" grunted Grandpa Squealer, and Mr. and Mrs.
Twistytail and the children. And from the outside the house all
their animal friends shouted the happy words, and the horns blew,
and the bells rang, and it was Christmas at last.

And so to one and all of you, children and big folks, I wish you a
Merry Christmas, ten thousand million of them, and one more for good
luck, and may you all be happy! And Uncle Wiggily says the same
thing.

So now, as there are as many stories in this book as it can hold,
even with pinching and squeezing, if I tell you any more they will
have to be printed in another book. And the name of that will be:
"Bedtime Stories; Toodle and Noodle Flat-tail."

The stories will be about some funny little beaver boys, and the
queer things they did. Uncle Wiggily will be in that book, too, and
so will many more of your animal friends, not forgetting Grandpa
Whacker, the oldest beaver of them all.

So, until those stories are ready, which will be next season, I'll
bid you all good-bye!

THE END









End of Project Gutenberg's Curly and Floppy Twistytail, by Howard R. Garis

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