It happened, once upon a time, after the circus had gone away from the
place where Bully and Bawly No-Tail, the frogs, lived that a Wild West
show came along.
And my goodness! There were cowboys and cowgirls, and buffaloes and
steers and men with lassos, and Mexicans and Cossacks, and Indians! Real
Indians, mind you, that used to be wild, and scalp people, which was
very impolite to do, but they didn't know any better; the Indians didn't
I mean. Then they got tame and didn't scalp people any more. Yes, sir,
they were real Indians, and they had real feathers on them!
Of course the feathers didn't belong to the Indians, the same as a
chicken's feathers, or a turkey's feathers belong to them. That is, the
feathers didn't grow on the Indians, even if they did seem to. No, the
Indians put them on for ornaments, just as ladies put plumes on their
hats with long hatpins.
Well, of course, Bully and Bawly and the other boys all went to the Wild
West show, and when they got home about all they did for several days
was to play cowboys or Indians. Indians mostly, for they liked them the
best. And the boys gave regular warwhoop cries.
"We'll have a new game," said Bully to Bawly one day. "We'll dress up
like the Indians did, and we'll go off in the woods, and we'll see if we
can capture white people."
"Real?" asked Bawly.
"No, only make-believe ones. And we'll build a camp fire, and take our
lunch, and sleep in the woods."
"After dark?" asked Bawly.
"Sure. Why not? Don't Indians sleep in the woods after dark?"
"Oh, but they have real guns and knives to kill the bears with,"
objected Bawly, "and our guns and knives will only be wooden."
"Well, maybe it will be better to only pretend it's night in the woods,"
agreed Bully. "We can go in a dark place under the trees, and make
believe it's night, and that will do just as well."
So they agreed to do that way, and for the next few days the frog boys
were busy making themselves up to look like Indians. Their mother let
them take some old blankets, and they got some red and green chalk to
put on their faces for war paint, and they found a lot of feathers over
at the homes of Charlie and Arabella Chick, and the three Wibblewobble
duck children. These feathers they put around their heads, and down
their backs, as the Indians in the Wild West show did.
"Now I guess we're ready to start off and hunt make-believe white
people," said Bawly one Saturday morning when there wasn't any school.
"Have you the lunch? We mustn't forget that," spoke Bully.
"Yes, I have it," his brother replied. "Take your bow and arrow, and
I'll carry the wooden gun."
Off they started as brave as an elephant when he has a bag of peanuts in
his trunk. They hurried to the woods, so none of their friends would see
them, for Bully and Bawly wanted to have it all a surprise. And pretty
soon they were under the trees where it was quite dark. Bawly gave a big
hop, and landed up front beside his brother.
"You mustn't walk here," said Bully. "Indians always go in single file,
one behind the other. Get behind me."
"I--I'm afraid," said Bawly.
"Of what?" asked his brother. "Indians are never afraid."
"I--I'm afraid I might scare somebody," said Bawly. "I--I look so fierce
you know. I just saw myself reflected back there in a pond of water that
was like a looking-glass and I'm enough to scare anybody."
"So much the better," said his brother. "You can scare the make-believe
white people whom we are going to capture and scalp. Get in behind me."
"Wouldn't it be just as well if I pretended to walk behind you, and
still stayed up front here, beside you?" asked Bawly, looking behind
him.
"Oh, I guess so," answered his brother. So the two frog boys, who looked
just like Indians, went on side by side though the woods. They looked
all around them for something to capture, but all that they saw was an
old lady hoptoad, going home from market.
"Shall we capture her?" asked Bawly, getting his bow and arrow ready.
"No," replied his brother. "She might tell mamma, and, anyhow, we
wouldn't want to hurt any of mamma's friends. We'll capture some of the
fellows." But Bully and Bawly couldn't seem to find any one, not even a
make-believe white person, and they were just going to sit down and eat
their lunch, anyhow, when they heard some one shouting:
"Help! Help! Oh, some one please help me!" called a voice.
"Some one's in trouble!" cried Bully. "Let's help them!"
So he and his brother bravely hurried on through the woods, and soon
they came to a place where they could hear the voice more plainly. Then
they looked between the bushes, and what should they see but poor
Arabella Chick, and a big hand-organ monkey had hold of her, and the
monkey was slowly pulling all the feathers from Arabella's tail.
"Oh, don't, please!" begged the little chicken girl. "Leave my feathers
alone."
"No, I shan't!" answered the monkey. "I want the feathers to make a
feather duster, to dust off my master's hand-organ," and with that he
yanked out another handful.
"Oh, will no one help me?" cried poor Arabella, trying to get away.
"I'll lose all my feathers!"
"We must help her," said Bawly to Bully.
"We surely must," agreed Bully. "Get all ready, and we'll shoot our
arrows at that monkey, and then we'll go out with our make-believe guns,
and shoot bang-bang-pretend-bullets at him, and then we'll holler like
the wild Indians, and the monkey will be so frightened that he'll run
away."
Well, they did that. Zip-whizz! went two make-believe arrows at the
monkey. One hit him on the nose, and one on the leg, and the pain was
real, not make-believe. Then out from the bushes jumped Bully and Bawly,
firing their make-believe guns as fast as they could.
Then they yelled like real Indians and when the monkey saw the red and
green and yellow and purple and pink and red feathers on the frog
Indians and saw their colored-chalk faces he was so frightened that he
wiggled his tail, blinked his eyes, clattered his teeth together, and,
dropping Arabella Chick, off he scrambled up a tree after a make-believe
cocoanut.
"Now, you're safe!" cried Bully to the chicken girl.
"Yes," said Bawly, "being Indians was some good after all, even if we
didn't capture any make-believe white people to scalp."
So they sat down under the trees, and Arabella very kindly helped them
to eat the lunch, and she said she thought Indians were just fine, and
as brave as soldiers.
So now we've reached the end of this story, and as you're sleepy you'd
better go to bed, and in case the piano key doesn't open the front door,
and go out to play hop-scotch on the sidewalk, I'll tell you next about
the Frogs' farewell hop.