Chapter 8

"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."