Chapter 2

"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."