Chapter 3

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.