Chapter 5

"Watch me!" cried Bawly, and this time he gave a most tremendous and extraordinary jump, and right up to the church steeple he went, but he didn't go over it, and it's a good thing, too, or he'd have been all broken to pieces when he landed on the ground again. But instead he hit right on top of the church steeple and stayed there, where there was a nice, round, golden ball to sit on.

"Jump down! Jump down!" cried the fox, for he wanted to eat Bawly.

"No, I'm going to stay here," answered the frog boy, for now he saw how far it was to the ground, and he knew he'd be killed if he leaped off the steeple.

Well, the fox tried to get him to jump down, but Bawly wouldn't. And then the frog boy began to wonder how he'd ever get home, for the steeple was very high.

Then what do you think Bawly did? Why, he took a lemon and threw it at the church bell, hoping to ring it so the janitor would come and help him down. But the lemon was too soft to ring the bell loudly enough for any to hear.

Then Bawly thought of his peanuts, and he threw a handful of them at the church bell in the steeple, making it ring like an alarm clock, and the janitor, who was sweeping out the church for Sunday, heard the bell, and he looked up and saw the frog on the steeple. Then the janitor, being a kind man, got a ladder and helped Bawly down, and the fox, very much disappointed, limped away, and didn't eat the frog boy after all.

"But you must never try to jump over a steeple again," said Bawly's mamma when he told her about it, after he got home with the lemons, and found Bully there ahead of him with the sugar.

So Bawly promised that he wouldn't, and he never did. And now, if the postman brings me a pink letter with a green stamp on from the playful elephant in the circus, I'll tell you next about Bully and the basket of chips.

STORY XV

BULLY AND THE BASKET OF CHIPS

One nice warm day, as Bully No-Tail, the frog boy, was hopping along through the woods, he felt so very happy that he whistled a little tune on a whistle he made from a willow stick. And the tune he whistled went like this, when you sing it:

"I am a little froggie boy, Without a bit of tail. In fact I'm like a guinea pig, Who eats out of a pail.

"I swim, I hop, I flip, I flop, I also sing a tune, And some day I am going to try To hop up to the moon.

"Because you see the man up there Must very lonesome be, Without a little froggie boy, Like Bawly or like me."

"Oh, ho! I wouldn't try that if I were you," suddenly exclaimed a voice.

"Try what?" asked Bully, before he thought.

"Try to jump up to the moon," went on the voice. "Don't you remember what happened to your brother Bawly when he tried to jump over the church steeple? Don't do it, I beg of you."

"Oh, I wasn't really going to jump to the moon," went on Bully. "I only put that in the song to make it sound nice. But who are you, if you please?" for the frog boy looked all around and he couldn't see any one.

"Here I am, over here," the voice said, and then out from behind a clump of tall, waving cat-tail plants, that grew in a pond of water, there stepped a long-legged bird, with a long, sharp bill like a pencil or a penholder.

"Oh ho! So it's you, is it?" asked Bully, making ready to hop away, for as soon as he saw that long-legged and sharp-billed bird, he knew right away that he was in danger. For the bird was a heron, which is something like a stork that lives on chimneys in a country called Holland. And the heron bird eats frogs and mice and little animals like that.

"Yes, it is I," said the heron. "Won't you please sing that song on your whistle again, Bully? I am very fond of music." And, as he said that, the heron slyly took another step nearer to the frog boy, intending to grab him up in his sharp beak.

"I--I don't believe I have time to sing another verse," answered Bully. "And anyhow, there aren't any more verses. So I'll be going," and he hopped along, and hid under a stone where the big, big savage bird couldn't get him.

Oh, my! how angry the heron was when he saw that he couldn't fool Bully. He stamped his long legs on the ground and said all sorts of mean things, just because Bully didn't want to be eaten up.

"Now I wonder how I'm going to get away from here without that bird biting me?" thought poor Bully, after a while.

Well, it did seem a hard thing to do, for the heron was there waiting for Bully to come out, when he would jab his bill right through the frog boy. Then Bully thought and thought, which you must always do when you are in trouble, or have hard examples at school, and finally Bully thought of a plan.

"I'll hop along and go from one stone to another," he said to himself, "and by hiding under the different rocks the heron can't get me."

So he tried that plan, hopping very quickly, and he got along all right, for every time the heron tried to stick the frog boy with his sharp bill, the bird would pick at a stone, under which Bully was hidden, and that would make him more angry than ever. I mean it would make the heron angry, not Bully.

Well, the frog boy was almost home, and he knew that pretty soon the heron would have to turn back and run away, for the bird wouldn't dare go right up to Bully's house. Then, all of a sudden, Bully saw a poor old mouse lady going along through the woods, with a basket of chips on her arm. She had picked them up where some men were cutting wood, and the mouse lady intended to put the chips in her kitchen stove, and boil the teakettle with them.

She walked along, when, all of a sudden, she stumbled on an acorn, and fell down, basket and all, and she hurt her paw on a thorn, so she couldn't carry the basket any more.

"Oh, that's too bad!" exclaimed Bully. "I must help the poor mouse lady." So, forgetting all about the savage, long-billed bird, waiting to grab him, out from under a stone hopped Bully, and he picked up the basket of chips for the poor mouse lady.

"Oh, thank you kindly, little frog boy," she said, and then the heron made a rush for Bully and the mouse lady and tried to stick them both with his sharp beak.

"Oh, quick! Quick! Hop in here with me!" exclaimed the mouse lady, as she pointed to a hole in a hollow stump, and into it she and Bully went, basket of chips and all, just in time to escape the bad heron bird.

"Oh, I'll get you yet! I'll get you yet!" screeched the bird, hopping along, first on one leg and then on the other, and dancing about in front of the stump. "I'll eat you both, that's what I will!" Then he tried to reach in with his bill and pull the frog boy and the mouse lady out of the hollow stump, but he couldn't, and then he stood on one leg and hid the other one up under his feathers to keep it warm.

"I'll wait here until you come out, if I have to wait all night," said the bird. "Then I'll get you."

"I guess he will, too," said Bully, peeping out of a crack. "We are safe here, but how am I going to get home, and how are you going to get home, Mrs. Mouse?"

"I will show you," she answered. "We'll play a trick on that heron. See, I have some green paint, that I was going to put on my kitchen cupboard. Now we'll take some of it, and we'll paint a few of the chips green, and they'll look something like a frog. Then we'll throw them out to the heron, one at a time, and he'll be so hungry that he'll grab them without looking at them. When he eats enough green chips he'll have indigestion, and be so heavy, like a stone, that he can't chase after us when we go out."

"Good!" cried Bully. So they painted some chips green, just the color of Bully, and they tossed one out of the stump toward the bird.

"Now I have you!" cried the heron, and, thinking it was the frog boy, he grabbed up that green chip as quick as anything. And, before he knew what it was, he had swallowed it, and then Mrs. Mouse and Bully threw out more green chips, and the bad bird didn't know they were only wood, but he thought they were a whole lot of green frogs hopping out, and he gobbled them up, one after another, as fast as he could.

And, in a little while, the sharp chips stuck out all over inside of him, like potatoes in a sack, and the heron had indigestion, and was so heavy that he couldn't run. Then Bully and Mrs. Mouse came out of the stump, and went away, leaving the bad bird there, unable to move, and as angry as a fox without a tail. Bully helped Mrs. Mouse carry the rest of the chips home, and then he hopped home himself.

Now that's the end of this story, but I know another, and if the little boy across the street doesn't throw his baseball at my pussy cat and make her tail so big I can't get her inside the house, I'll tell you about Bawly and his whistles.

STORY XVI

BAWLY AND HIS WHISTLES

Did you ever make a willow whistle--that is, out of a piece of wood off a willow tree?

No? Well, it's lots of fun, and when I was a boy I used to make lots of them. Big ones and little ones, and the kind that would almost make as much noise as some factory whistles. If you can't make one yourself, ask your big brother, or your papa, or some man, to make you one.

Maybe your big sister can, for some girls, like Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck, can use a knife almost as good as a boy.

Well, if I'm going to tell you about Bawly No-Tail, the frog, and his whistles I guess I'd better start, hadn't I? and not talk so much about big brothers and sisters.

One afternoon Bawly was hopping along in the woods. It was a nice, warm day, and the wind was blowing in the treetops, and the flowers were blooming down in the moss, and Bawly was very happy.

He came to a willow tree, and he said to himself:

"I guess I'll make a whistle." So he cut off a little branch, about eight inches long, and with his knife he cut one end slanting, just like the part of a whistle that goes in your mouth. Then he made a hole for the wind to come out of.

Then he pounded the bark on the stick gently with his knife handle, and pretty soon the bark slipped off, just as mamma takes off her gloves after she's been down to the five-and-ten-cent store. Then Bully cut away some of the white wood, slipped on the bark again, and he had a whistle.

"My! That's fine!" he cried, as he blew a loud blast on it. "I think I'll make another."

So he made a second one, and then he went on through the woods, blowing first one whistle and then the other, like the steam piano in the circus parade.

"Hello!" suddenly cried a voice in the woods, "who is making all that noise?"

"I am," answered Bawly. "Who are you?"

"I am Sammie Littletail," was the reply, and out popped the rabbit boy from under a bush. "Oh, what fine whistles!" he cried when he saw those Bawly had made. "I wish I had one."

"You may have, Sammie," answered Bawly kindly, and he gave his little rabbit friend the biggest and loudest whistle. Then the two boy animals went on through the woods, and pretty soon they came to a place where there was a pond of water.

"Excuse me for a minute," said Bawly. "I think I'll have a little swim. Will you join me, Sammie?" he asked, politely.

"No," answered the rabbit, "I'm not a good swimmer, but I'll wait here on the bank for you."

"Then you may hold my whistle as well as your own," said Bawly, "for I might lose it under water." Then into the pond Bawly hopped, and was soon swimming about like a fish.

But something is going to happen, just as I expected it would, and I'll tell you all about it, as I promised.

All of a sudden, as Bawly was swimming about, that bad old skillery, scalery alligator, who had escaped from a circus, reared his ugly head up from the pond, where he had been sleeping, and grabbed poor Bawly in his claws.

"Oh, let me go!" cried the boy frog. "Please let me go!"

"No, I'll not!" answered the alligator savagely. "I had you and your brother once before, and you got away, but you shan't get loose this time. I'm going to take you to my deep, dark, dismal den, and then we'll have supper together."

Well, Bawly begged and pleaded, but it was of no use. That alligator simply would not let him go, but held him tightly in his claws, and made ugly faces at him, just like the masks on Hallowe'en night.

All this while Sammie Littletail sat on the bank of the pond, too frightened, at the sight of the alligator, to hop away. He was afraid the savage creature might, at any moment, spring out and grab him also, and the rabbit boy just sat there, not knowing what to do.

"I wish I could save Bawly," thought Sammie, "but how can I? I can't fight a big alligator, and if I throw stones at him it will only make him more angry. Oh, if only there was a fireman or a policeman in the woods, I'd tell him, and he'd hit the alligator, and make him go away. But there isn't a policeman or a fireman here!"

Then the alligator started to swim away with poor Bawly, to take him off to his deep, dark, dismal den, when, all of a sudden, Sammie happened to think of the two willow whistles he had--his own and Bawly's.

"I wonder if I could scare the alligator with them, and make him let Bawly go?" Sammie thought. Then he made up a plan. He crept softly to one side, and he hid behind a stump. Then he took the two whistles and he put them into his mouth.

Next, the rabbit boy gathered up a whole lot of little stones in a pile. And the next thing he did was to build a little fire out of dry sticks. Then he hunted up an old tin can that had once held baked beans, but which now didn't have anything in it.

"Oh, I'll make that alligator wish he'd never caught Bawly!" exclaimed Sammie, working very quickly, for the savage reptile was fast swimming away with the frog boy.

Sammie put the stones in the tin can, together with some water, and he set the can on the fire to boil, and he knew the stones would get hot, too, as well as the water. And, surely enough, soon the water in the can was bubbling and the stones were very hot.

Then Sammie took a long breath and he blew on those whistles, both at the same time as hard as ever he could. Then he took some wet moss and wrapped it around the hot can, so it wouldn't burn his paws, and he tossed everything--hot water, hot stones, hot can and all--over into the pond, close to where the alligator was. Then Sammie blew on the whistles some more. "Toot! Toot! Toot! Toot!"

"Splash!" Into the water went the hot stones, hissing like snakes.

"Buzz! Bubble! Fizz!" went the hot water all over the alligator.

"Toot! Toot!" went the whistles which Sammie was blowing.

"Skizz! Skizz!" went the hot fire-ashes that also fell into the pond.

"Oh, it's a fire engine after me! It's a terrible fire engine after me! It's spouting hot water and sparks on me!" cried the alligator, real frightened like, and then he was so scared that he let go of Bawly, and sank away down to the bottom of the pond to get out of the way of the hot stones and the hot water and the hot sparks, and where he couldn't hear the screechy whistles which he thought came from fire engines. And Bawly swam safely to shore, and he thanked Sammie Littletail very kindly for saving his life, and they went on a little farther and had a nice game of tag together until supper time.

So that's how the whistles that Bawly made did him a good service, and next, if it stops raining long enough so the moon can come out without getting wet, and go to the moving pictures, I'll tell you about Grandpa Croaker and Uncle Wiggily Longears.

STORY XVII

GRANDPA CROAKER AND UNCLE WIGGILY

After the trick which Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, played on the alligator, making him believe a fire engine was after him, it was some time before Bully or Bawly No-Tail, the frogs, went near that pond again, where the savage creature with the long tail lived, after he had escaped from the circus.

"Because it isn't safe to go near that water," said Bawly.

"No, indeed," agreed his brother. "Some day we'll get a pump and pump all the water out of the pond, and that will make the alligator go away."

Well, it was about a week after this that Grandpa Croaker, the old gentleman frog, put on his best dress. Oh, dear me! Just listen to that, would you! I mean he put on his best suit and started out, taking his gold-headed cane with him.

"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. No-Tail.

"Oh! I think I'll go over and play a game of checkers with Uncle Wiggily Longears," replied the old gentleman frog. "The last game we played he won, but I think I can win this time."

"Well, whatever you do, Grandpa," spoke Bully, "please don't go past the pond where the bad alligator is."

"No, indeed, for he might bite you," said Bawly, and their Grandpa promised that he would be careful.

Well, he went along through the woods, Grandpa Croaker did, and pretty soon, after a while, not so very long, he came to where Uncle Wiggily lived, with Sammie and Susie Littletail, and their papa and mamma and Miss Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the muskrat nurse. But to-day only Uncle Wiggily was home alone, for every one else had gone to the circus.

So the old gentleman goat--I mean frog--and the old gentleman rabbit sat down and played a game of checkers. And after they had played one game they played another, and another still, for Uncle Wiggily won the first game, and Grandpa Croaker won the second, and they wanted to see who would win the third.

Well, they were playing away, moving the red and black round checkers back and forth on the red and black checker board, and they were talking about the weather, and whether there'd be any more rain, and all things like that, when, all of a sudden Uncle Wiggily heard a noise at the window.

"Hello! What's that?" he cried, looking up.

"It sounded like some one breaking the glass," answered Grandpa Croaker. "I hope it wasn't Bawly and Bully playing ball."

Then he looked up, and he saw the same thing that Uncle Wiggily saw, and the funny part of it was that Uncle Wiggily saw the same thing Grandpa Croaker saw. And what do you think this was?

Why it was that savage skillery, scalery alligator chap who had poked his ugly nose right in through the window, breaking the glass!

"Ha! What do you want here?" cried Uncle Wiggily, as he made his ears wave back and forth like palm leaf fans, and twinkled his nose like two stars on a frosty night.

"Yes, get right away from here, if you please!" said Grandpa Croaker in his deepest, hoarsest, rumbling, grumbling, thunder-voice. "Get away, we want to play checkers."

But he couldn't scare the alligator that way, and the first thing he and Uncle Wiggily knew, that savage creature poked his nose still farther into the room.

"Oh, ho!" the alligator cried. "Checkers; eh? Now, do you know I am very fond of checkers?" And with that, what did he do but put out his long tongue, and with one sweep he licked up the red checkers and the black checkers and the red and black squared checker board at one swallow, and down his throat it went, like a sled going down hill.

"Ah, ha!" exclaimed the alligator. "Those were very fine checkers. I think I won that game!" he said, smiling a very big smile.

"Yes, I guess you did," said Uncle Wiggily, sadly, as he looked for his cornstalk crutch. When he had it he was just going to hop away, and Grandpa Croaker was going with him, for they were afraid to stay there any more, when the alligator suddenly cried:

"Where are you going?"

"Away," said Uncle Wiggily.

"Far, far away," said Grandpa Croaker, for it made him sad to think of all the nice red and black checkers, and the board also, being eaten up.

"Oh, no! I think you are going to stay right here," snapped the alligator. "You'll stay here, and as soon as I feel hungry again I'll eat you."

And with that the savage creature with the double-jointed tail put out his claws, and in one claw he grabbed Uncle Wiggily and in the other he caught Grandpa Croaker, and there he had them both.

Now, it so happened that a little while before this, Bully and Bawly No-Tail, the frog boys, had started out for a walk in the woods.

"Dear me," said Bully, after a while, "do you know I am afraid that something has happened to Grandpa Croaker."

"What makes you think so?" asked his brother.

"Because I think he went past the pond where the alligator was, and that the bad creature got him."

"Oh, I hope not," replied Bawly. "But let's walk along and see." So they walked past the pond, and they saw that it was all calm and peaceful, and they knew the alligator wasn't in it.

So they kept on to Uncle Wiggily's house, thinking they would walk home with Grandpa Croaker, and when they came to where the old gentleman rabbit lived, they saw the alligator standing on his tail outside with his head in through the window.

"I knew it!" cried Bully. "I knew that alligator would be up to some tricks! Perhaps he has already eaten Grandpa Croaker and Uncle Wiggily."

Just then they heard both the old animal gentlemen squealing inside the house, for the alligator was squeezing them.

"They're alive! They're still alive!" cried Bawly. "We must save them!"

"How?" asked Bully.

"Let's build a fire under the alligator's tail," suggested Bawly. "He can't see us, for his head is inside the room."

So what did those two brave frog boys do but make a fire of leaves under the alligator's long tail. And he was so surprised at feeling the heat, that he turned suddenly around, dropped Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Croaker on the table cloth, and then, pulling his head out of the window, he turned it over toward the fire, and he cried great big alligator tears on the flames and put them out. Oh, what a lot of big tears he cried.

Then he tried to catch Bully and Bawly, but the frog boys hopped away, and the alligator ran after them. Just then the man from the circus came, with a long rope and caught the savage beast and put him back in the cage and made him go to sleep, after he put some vaseline on his burns.

So that's how Bully and Bawly saved Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Croaker, by building a fire under the alligator's long tail.

And in case some one sends me a nice ring for my finger, or thumb, with a big orange in it instead of a diamond, I'll tell you next about Mrs. No-Tail and Mrs. Longtail.

STORY XVIII

MRS. N

"Now, boys," said Mrs. No-Tail, the frog lady, to Bully and Bawly one day, as she put on her best bonnet and shawl and started out, "I hope you will be good while I am away."

"Where are you going, mamma?" asked Bully.

"I am going over to call on Mrs. Longtail, the mouse," replied Mrs. No-Tail. "She is the mother of the mice children, Jollie and Jillie Longtail, you know, and she has been ill with mouse-trap fever. So I am taking her some custard pie, and a bit of toasted cheese."

"Oh, of course we'll be good," promised Bawly. "But if you don't come home in time for supper, mamma, what shall we eat?"

"I have made up a cold supper for you and your papa and Grandpa Croaker," said Mrs. No-tail. "You will find it in the oven of the stove. You may eat at 5 o'clock, but I think I'll be back before then."

Poor Mrs. No-Tail didn't know what was going to happen to her, nor how near she was to never coming home at all again. But there, wait, if you please, I'll tell you all about it.

Away hopped Mrs. No-Tail through the woods, carrying the custard pie and the toasted cheese for Mrs. Longtail in a little basket. And when she got there, I mean to the mouse house, she found the mouse lady home all alone, for Jollie and Jillie and Squeaky-Eaky, the little cousin mouse, had gone to a surprise party, given by Nellie Chip-Chip, the sparrow girl.

"Oh, I'm so glad to see you," said Mrs. Longtail. "Come right in, if you please, Mrs. No-Tail. I'll make you a cup of tea."

"Oh, are you able to be about?" asked Bully's mamma.

"Yes," replied Jollie's mamma. "I am much better, thank you. I am so glad you brought me a custard pie. But now sit right down by the window, where you can smell the flowers in the garden, and I'll make tea."