Tu ri lum diddle day.
"The weather is certainly fine just now,"
Fum lum dum skiddle fay.
But the grasshopper fell in a deep, dark bog,
And I pulled him out on a sunken log,
And then came along a bad, savage dog,
And we both ran away."
[Illustration]
"Oh, ho! So that's the way it was, eh?" asked Buddy, who had never
heard that song before.
"That's exactly how it was, and not a bit different, I give you my word
for it," said Bawly, the frog. "But what have you there, Buddy?
Peppermint candy, as sure as I can sing! May I have a bit?"
"You could have it if it was candy," promised Buddy, real politely,
"only it isn't," and he looked at the queer red thing from all sides,
and he couldn't make out what it was, and neither could Bawly.
Well, I'll tell you what it was, so you can understand the story better.
It was a firecracker. Yes, sir, a big, red firecracker that, somehow or
other, hadn't gone off on Fourth of July when it ought to have done so.
I presume some boy had lighted it, tossed it into the bushes and it had
gone out and stayed out until Buddy found it. At any rate, he didn't
know what it was, and he took it home. Neither did Mr. Pigg know what it
was, but Buddy's mother and sister thought it was quite a pretty
ornament, and Mrs. Pigg put it on the parlor mantle, where company could
see it.
Well, one day, not long after this, Dr. Pigg was home all alone, for his
wife and the children had gone to a moving-picture show. He was dozing
away in his easy chair, with a newspaper over his face to keep away the
flies, when, all of a sudden, there came a knock on the door.
"My goodness alive! Who's there?" cried Dr. Pigg.
"It's me," answered a voice.
"And who, pray tell, may you be?" asked Dr. Pigg.
"I'm a bad tramp fox," was the answer, "and I want you to give me
something to eat. Quick! I'm in a hurry!"
Now that wasn't a nice way to speak, and Dr. Pigg knew it, and, what is
more, that bad fox knew it, too. But, do you s'pose he cared? Not a bit
of it. He was as impolite as he could be, and he took pride in it.
"I want something to eat in a hurry," he went on, in a coarse, grumbly
voice, and he was such a big fox, and Dr. Pigg was such a nice, gentle
kind of a creature that he didn't dare refuse him.
"Very well," said Buddy's papa, "step into the parlor, Mr. Fox, and I'll
see what I can do for you. There ought to be something in the pantry."
So he went to look in the pantry for a bone, or something like that,
just as Mother Hubbard would have done, you know, and when the fox went
in the parlor what do you suppose he saw? Why, that big, red firecracker
on the mantle, of course. And when he saw it a wicked plan came into
his head.
"I'll just light that," he thought to himself, "and it will blow this
pen up, and Dr. Pigg with it. Then I can take anything I want. That's
what I'll do. I'll blow the place up!"
Then he lighted the string of the firecracker, standing up on his hind
legs to reach it, you see, and, as it was a long string, the fox knew it
would burn some time before it would explode the firecracker. So the fox
ran out into the kitchen, where Dr. Pigg was getting him something to
eat, and he cried:
"Here, give me what you have ready, I can't wait."
"You must be in a hurry," replied Dr. Pigg, as he gave the fox some
bread and meat and cold potatoes. And of course the fox was in a hurry,
for he wanted to get out of the way before that firecracker went off and
blew the house up.
Then the fox ran and hid in the bushes, waiting for the house and Dr.
Pigg to be blown up, so he could go in and take whatever he wanted. The
string on the firecracker burned slowly, but surely. And the fox knew it
would be a perfectly tremendous explosion, for the firecracker was as
big as a hundred lead pencils made into one.
But now watch and see what happens. After Dr. Pigg had put away the
bread and meat, left over after giving the fox some, who should come
along but Percival, the old, circus dog. He came to pay a friendly call
on Dr. Pigg, but, no sooner had he reached the front door than he cried
out:
"Oh, I smell something burning," and, sure enough it was the firecracker
string sizzling away.
"Maybe the house is afire," said Dr. Pigg. "Let's look!" So he and
Percival went all through the pen, and the first object they saw was the
long, rod thing burning on the mantlepiece. And Percival knew at once
what it was, for he was a smart dog, let me tell you.
"Oh!" he cried, "that is a cannon firecracker, and if it goes off it
will blow the place to pieces, and me and you, too!"
"Then, for mercy sakes, don't let it go off!" cried Dr. Pigg, and that
brave dog Percival jumped up, grabbed the cannon cracker in his mouth,
dashed out of the house, and leaped into a pond of water with it, which
put out the burning string, and wet the firecracker so it wouldn't
explode.
And when the fox saw Percival, he sneaked away with his tail hanging
down, I can tell you. So that's the story of Dr. Pigg and the
firecracker, and when his family came home he told them of of his
narrow escape.
Now, in case I hear a June bug buzz like an electric fan blowing soap
bubbles, I'll tell you in the next story about Buddy Pigg in a boat.
STORY XIII
BUDDY PIGG IN A BOAT
After Percival, the old circus dog, had been so kind to Dr. Pigg, in the
matter of jumping into the pond with the big firecracker, which the bad
fox had lighted, the old gentleman guinea pig said:
"I wish, Percival, you would spend a few days with us. I'm afraid that
ugly tramp fox will come back."
"Of course I will," agreed the dog. "The Bow Wows are going down to
Asbury Park for the summer, and I don't much care for the seashore, so
I'll stay home and spend a few days with you. And in case that fox does
come back--"
Well, Percival didn't say what he would do, but land sakes, flopsy dub!
Oh me, and a potato pancake! You should have seen him show his teeth and
growl.
Well, it was a few days after Percival had come to pay a little visit to
the Pigg family that something happened to Buddy, and I'm going to tell
you about it.
You see, it had been raining pretty hard for a week or more--yes,
nearly two weeks, and it didn't seem as if it was ever going to stop.
There had been thunder showers and lightning showers and hail showers
and just plain rain showers, and they were all more or less wet; and
when it did finally stop raining there was a lot of water all over.
One day, the first day, in fact, after it stopped raining, Buddy was
taking a walk, and glad enough he was to be out of the pen. He strolled
along, letting the warm sun and the gentle wind dry his black and white
fur, and he was thinking of, oh! ever so many things, when, all at once,
he came to a little pond; only this time it was a great big pond,
because it had so much water in it. And on the shore of the pond was a
boat that some boys had been playing with.
"Oh, fine!" cried Buddy Pigg. "I'll get in and make believe I'm a
sailor, just as Billie and Johnnie Bushytail and Jennie Chipmunk did
once. I've always wanted a ride in a boat, and now's my chance!"
So he climbed into the boat, and he made believe he was sailing away off
to China, where they make firecrackers and fans, and then, when he was
half-way there (make believe, you know), why, he turned around and
sailed for India, where it's very hot; but all this while the boat was
partly on the bank and partly in the water, and Buddy only rocked it
from side to side, pretending it was moving.
Well, after he reached India, what did he do but find it so hot there
that he turned around at once and sailed for the North Pole, so he could
be nice and cool.
Then, all at once, as quickly as you can eat an ice cream cone on a hot
day, if something didn't happen. Buddy looked up, after reaching the
North Pole, and he found that the boat was adrift, floating off across
the big pond, with the wind blowing it faster, and faster, and faster.
At first Buddy thought it was fun; then, as he saw that he was getting
farther and farther from shore, he became frightened. He looked for
something with which to send the boat back to land, but there was no
sail in it, and no oars; and, if there had been, the little guinea pig
boy couldn't have used them, I don't suppose. Well, there he was, really
sailing off to some unknown country this time, in earnest, and not make
believe.
Then he began to cry, and he called out as loudly as he could:
"Help! Help! Help!" and who should come running down to the shore but
Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the two puppy dogs. They hadn't gone to
Asbury Park yet, you see, but they were going soon.
"What's the matter?" asked Peetie.
"The boat is taking me away off," answered Buddy.
"Jump out and swim to shore!" cried Peetie.
"I can't swim," called back Buddy.
"Oh, we'll show you how," went on Jackie, and then he and Peetie jumped
into the water and began to show Buddy how to swim, but he was too
frightened to learn, and, besides, the two puppy dogs were too far off
for him to see them plainly. Then they swam out, and they tried to pull
the boat back to shore, but they were not strong enough.
"Oh, I'll be drowned! I'll be drowned!" cried Buddy. "What shall I do?
Tell my mamma good-by for me," he said to Jackie.
"We'll tell her you're in trouble, and maybe she will know of a way to
save you," called Peetie and Jackie.
So they ran and told Mrs. Pigg, and she and Brighteyes came running down
to the shore of the pond.
"Oh, my poor little boy," cried Mamma Pigg, when she saw Buddy being
carried farther and farther away.
"Oh, how can we reach him?" wailed Brighteyes, wringing her paws. "We
must save him, somehow!"
Just then along came Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrels.
"Stick up your tail like a sail and the wind will blow you ashore!" they
cried to Buddy. "That's what we did."
"I haven't any tail," answered Buddy, real sorrowful-like.
"That's so," said the little squirrel boys, and it began to look pretty
bad for poor Buddy, let me tell you.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Mamma Pigg. "I'll never see my poor boy
again," for he was quite far off by this time.
Then, all of a sudden, down to the edge of the pond, came rushing
Percival, the old circus dog.
"I'll save Buddy!" he cried. "I'll carry a rope out to him, and he can
fasten it to the boat, and then we can pull him ashore."
Well, Percival took a rope in his mouth and started to swim out, but a
funny thing happened. The water got in his mouth and washed the rope
away, and he couldn't carry it, though he tried a number of times.
Then everybody felt sorry, and Jackie Bow Wow was just suggesting that
they build a raft and float out on it to Buddy, when who should come
along but Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck. They all told him what the
trouble was, and he said, "Quack! Quack! Quack!" three times, just like
that, and exclaimed:
"I have it! I can swim out with the rope in my bill, for my head will be
above the water."
He did it too, in about two quacks and a quarter. Then he helped Buddy
fasten the rope to the side of the boat, and those on land, including
Percival, the two Bow Wows and Mamma Pigg and Brighteyes, soon pulled
the boat and Buddy in it ashore.
Buddy said he was never going sailing again, and I guess he never did,
for he was very much frightened, but he soon got over it and played with
Jimmie and Jackie and Peetie, while Mamma Pigg had to go home to take
something for her nerves.
Now, if I have rhubarb pie for supper, and the ham sandwich doesn't
squeal when they put mustard on it, I'll tell you about Brighteyes and
the peanut candy in the next story.
STORY XIV
BRIGHTEYES AND THE PEANUT CANDY
It happened, once upon a time, that Brighteyes and Buddy Pigg were
walking through the woods together, not far from their home. They had
been over to see Sammie and Susie Littletail, and they had had a very
nice time. In fact, there had been a little party at the Littletail
home.
It was Sammie's or Susie's birthday, I forget just whose, and after
games had been played, there were good things to eat; nuts of various
kinds for the squirrels who came; candy, lemonade, ice cream flavored
with turnips and carrots, and oh! lots of cake, and I don't know what
else besides. There was so much that Buddy and Brighteyes couldn't eat
all their share, and they were bringing it home to their papa and mamma.
Well, as they were walking along, thinking what a good time they had
had, the two guinea pig children heard a rustling sound in the bushes,
and two big, round, staring eyes peered out at them, and there was a
noise like a dog growling.
"Oh, quick! Hurry up, Buddy!" cried Brighteyes. "Something will catch
us sure!" and she began to run as fast as fast could be, or even faster,
maybe.
"Oh, I don't think it's anything but old Percival, the circus dog," said
Buddy. "He won't hurt us."
And he was going to stand still and look in those bushes; yes, sir,
that's what Buddy was going to do, only he happened to see a big, bushy
tail sticking out, and then he knew it was a bad fox there, and not the
good, kind dog, so Buddy ran as fast as he could run, if not faster,
right after Brighteyes.
And the fox ran, too, only he had stepped on a piece of glass and cut
his foot and couldn't run very fast. He was the same fox who lighted the
firecracker in Dr. Pigg's house, and I'm glad to say that he didn't
catch Buddy or Brighteyes, for they ran faster than the fox did.
Well, they hurried on for quite a distance further, and all at once,
just as they were getting tired, and when they knew the fox had stopped
chasing them, they happened to look down on the path, and what should
they see but a white box; yes, indeed, a white box, tied with pink
string.
"Oh, I wonder what can be in there?" asked Brighteyes.
"I don't know, but I'll go see," said Buddy.
"Oh, no, don't go too close," begged his sister. "It might be a trap, or
perhaps the bad fox is hidden inside it."
"It's too small for a fox to get in," declared the boy guinea pig. "I'll
take a smell, anyhow."
So he crept slowly, slowly, slowly up to the white box, and sniffed, and
sniffed and sniffed.
"Oh! Ah! Um! La-la! Um! Um!" exclaimed Buddy Pigg, and he laid down the
packages of candy, nuts, cakes and other things he had carried home from
the Littletails' party, so that he might smell the better.
"What is it?" asked Brighteyes Pigg. "What's in the box?"
"I don't know," replied her brother, "but whatever it is, it smells the
nicest of anything I ever smelled. It's just like when mamma bakes a
ginger cake in the oven. I'm going to open it and see."
So, with his sharp teeth, Buddy loosened the pink string around the box,
and off came the cover. Then, what do you suppose was in the box? Why, a
whole lot of peanut candy, all nice and fresh, shining, golden brown,
with just enough peanuts in, and not a bit more, really and truly!
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" cried Brighteyes in delight, as she saw it. "Peanut
candy, Buddy! If there's anything I love it's peanut candy! Some good
fairy must have left this for us. Come on, we'll take it over here,
under a bush, where the bad fox won't see us, and we'll eat some of it,
and save some to take home. Oh, how lovely!"
"I don't think I care for peanut candy very much," said Buddy. "When I
smelled it I thought it was going to be chocolate caramels."
"Don't you want any?" asked Brighteyes.
"No," answered her brother, "but I'll help you carry it into the bushes.
I'll eat some of the things we brought from the party. I'm getting
hungry again."
So he and Brighteyes carried the box of peanut candy into the bushes,
and the little girl guinea pig began to eat the sweet stuff.
Well, she had eaten almost all of it up, before she thought, because it
tasted so good, when all of a sudden, who should come along the path in
the woods, but a little girl. Yes, a little girl in a red dress, and she
was crying as hard as she could cry, that little girl was.
"Oh, dear!" she sobbed, "I have lost my box of peanut candy, that I
bought in the store, and I can't find it, and I'm so miserable! Nobody
in the world is so miserable as I am. Oh, dear! Boo! Hoo!"
Well, you should have seen how sorry Brighteyes was for eating that
little girl's candy, but Brighteyes didn't know, of course, whose it
was. She and Buddy just hid down in the bushes, and didn't know what to
do, until Buddy whispered:
"Listen! I'll fill the box full of our candy, nuts and things that we
brought from the party, and maybe that will stop the little girl
crying."
So he did that, filling the box real full, and putting the pink string
around it again. Then, when the little girl wasn't looking, Buddy
slipped out of the bushes, put the box back on the path again and
slipped under a leaf to hide. Then, pretty soon, when the little girl
stopped crying, she saw her box, and she thought a fairy had brought it
back.
Then she opened it, and she saw the peanut candy had been turned into a
different kind, and that there were nuts with it and she surely thought
it was magical, but it wasn't, it was only Buddy Pigg, who did it.
So Buddy and Brighteyes went home happy, and so did the little girl,
with her white box which she had found again after she had lost it.
Now, in the next story I'm going to tell you about Buddy and the June
bug, that is if some one sends me some peanut candy with a lot of red
postage stamps on it.
STORY XV
BUDDY AND THE JUNE BUG
One night Dr. Pigg and Mrs. Pigg and Brighteyes went to a nice
moving-picture show that Percival, the old circus dog, had gotten up,
and they left Buddy at home alone. The reason for that was this: Buddy
wasn't feeling well. He had eaten too many ice cream cones, and too much
lemonade on a hot day, and he had to have some medicine that his papa
fixed for him.
It was bitter, sour medicine, too, and Buddy didn't like it, and he
didn't like to be ill, either, but one always is when one eats too many
ice cream cones and drinks too much lemonade on a hot day; yes, indeed,
and a bottle of paregoric besides.
Well, Buddy was sick, and couldn't go to the moving-picture show, but
his mamma and papa thought it would be all right to leave him home
alone, as he was getting better by that time.
"I'll tell you all about the show when we come back," promised
Brighteyes. "There is going to be a fairy play in it."
"Oh!" cried Buddy, "how I wish I could go! I love fairy plays!"
"You will be much better in bed," said Dr. Pigg, "and if you keep quiet
you won't have to take any more medicine."
There was no help for it, and Dr. Pigg and his wife and daughter started
off. They knew Buddy would be much more comfortable in bed than at the
show, or they would never have left him, and right next door lived a
family of chickens, who would come over in case anything happened.
Buddy felt a little lonesome when his folks had gone, but after awhile
he fell asleep. He dozed off for some time, and, all of a sudden, he was
awakened by hearing something going "thumpity-thump-bump-bump-bump!
Humpity-hump-bump-bump!" on the ceiling and walls of his room. Then it
went "bangity-bung-bung," and before Buddy knew what was happening, if
something didn't go slam-bang-crack into the lamp, and put it out,
leaving the poor little guinea pig boy in the dark.
Then how frightened he was! He shivered, and crept down with his head
beneath the bed clothes, but all the while he kept hearing that
"thumpity-thump-bump-hump-lump-dump!" against the ceiling. First he
thought it was the bad fox, who had gotten in to eat him up, and then
he knew the fox couldn't fly around the room that way, or, if it could,
it would make ever so much more noise. Then he thought it might be an
owl, with big, round, staring, yellow eyes, but when he peeped out from
under the clothes the least bit, he didn't see any eyes, so he knew it
couldn't be the owl.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried Buddy, when he was so frightened he couldn't
keep still any longer, "Oh, dear! I wish my papa and mamma would come
home; and Brighteyes, too!"
"What for?" asked a voice, away high up on the ceiling.
"Because I'm--I'm lonesome--and afraid--and--and--" but Buddy was almost
crying, so he couldn't finish what he had started to say.
"What are you afraid of?" asked the voice, and this time it was on the
side wall, close to Buddy.
"I'm afraid of you!" cried the little boy guinea pig, and he got farther
under the bed clothes.
"Nonsense! Afraid of me!" exclaimed the voice, and this time, bless me;
if it wasn't on the blanket, right over Buddy's nose. "Don't be afraid,
little boy," the voice went on. "I wouldn't hurt you for the world. Why,
I'm only a harmless, old June bug, you know. I blundered in here by
mistake, somehow, because I saw your light, but now it's dark, and I
can't see to get out. But land sakes, goodness me, and some buttermilk!
Don't be afraid of me! I wouldn't hurt you for the world and the moon
too."
"Well, I--I don't exactly know if I'm afraid of you or not," went on
Buddy. "First I thought you were a fox or an owl. I--I guess I'm a
little afraid of the dark, too."
"Nonsense! The dark can't hurt anyone," said the June bug. "The dark is
good for sleeping. But if you're afraid, how would you like me to tell
you a story? And that will pass the time until your papa and mamma come
home."
"Oh, fine!" cried Buddy, and he wasn't afraid any more, for he loved to
hear stories. So the June bug perched upon the bed clothes, where they
were nice and soft, and he told lots of stories to Buddy.
He told about the cow that went to school, and about the bear who was
bitten by a big, black bug, and about two good boys, and about three bad
boys, who lived in a cave, and about an elephant, and about a horse that
had four legs and, oh, I don't know how many stories.
Then the June bug sang this little verse, only, as I have a cold in my
head you'll have to get some one else to sing it for you. Anyhow this
is how it goes:
"I love to flip and flop and flap,
And buzz around the room,
I leap up to the ceiling high,
And hit it with a boom!
I turn a double somersault.
My wings they play a tune.
It's lots of fun to be a bug,
Especially in June."
And then, land sakes, and a feather pillow; if Buddy Pigg wasn't fast
asleep. Then the kind old June bug sang his song over again, softly, and
was about to fly away, when he saw a mosquito going to bite the little
guinea pig boy.
And what did that bug do but grab the mosquito and throw him out of the
window. And the June bug stayed until he heard Dr. Pigg and his wife
coming back, and then he flew away, for he had managed to find the place
where he had come in, and crawled out again.
Buddy woke up when his mamma came in his room to see how he was, and he
told her all about the June bug, and how kind it had been, and how it
had told stories.
"You must have had a lovely dream," said Mrs. Pigg, but Buddy knew it
had actually happened, and wasn't a dream at all. Now if my typewriter
doesn't fall down and sprain its hair ribbon we'll next have a story
soon about Brighteyes and a bad boy.
[Illustration]
STORY XVI
BRIGHTEYES AND THE BAD BOY
Brighteyes Pigg was coming home from the grocery store one day. She
didn't have much to carry because, you see, her mamma had sent her for
only a yeast cake, and, as that wasn't very large, Matilda put it in her
apron pocket.
She was walking along, thinking what a good time she would have when she
got home, for Jennie Chipmunk had promised to come over as soon as she
got her dishes washed and play house with the little guinea pig girl.
"We'll have a lovely time," thought Matilda, who was called Brighteyes
for short. "We'll dress up all our dolls and have a play-party, and
maybe mamma will give us real things to eat."
Well, Brighteyes was thinking so much about the party, and about Jennie
Chipmunk, whom she had not seen in some time, that she didn't pay much
attention to anything else. She was going along, hippity-hop, just as
Sister Sallie went to the barber shop, when all of a sudden something
whizzed right past the nose of Brighteyes and almost hit her.
"My goodness me, sakes alive and a tin dishpan! What's that?" she
exclaimed. "I wonder if it could have been that June bug who told Buddy
stories so nicely?"
Then she looked all around and she didn't see anything of a bug, and she
didn't hear his wings buzzing, so she thought it couldn't have been him.
Then, bless me! if something more didn't shoot right past Brighteyes
with a whizz and a whozz, making a funny noise, you know. And this time
she saw what it was. It was an arrow, the kind that are shot from bows,
you understand.
"Oh, the Indians are after me! The Indians are after me!" cried poor
Brighteyes in fright, for you see she had read in her school reader
about the Indians shooting arrows.
Then the little guinea pig girl started to run, but before she had taken
three steps and a half, if another arrow didn't come whizzing through
the bushes at her, and this time it was so close that it just touched
her left ear.