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.
During the night they managed to doze off, but still they heard
noises through the house, and when it was almost morning, but when
the stars were still twinkling, they heard their papa go softly out
of the front door. And they heard their mamma say: "Tell the doctor
to come as soon as he can, Archibald." You see, Mr. Twistytail's
first name was Archibald. And he answered:
"Yes, I'll get him soon," and then the two boys heard their papa
sort of blowing his nose hard and coughing, as if he had a bad cold.
You see, papa pigs feel as badly when their little children get sick
as real papas do, every bit.
Now in the morning, when the sun was up, there was a busy time at
the pig-house. First came Grandfather Squealer, the oldest pig of
them all, and he was a very nice gentleman.
"You boys must be very good and quiet," he said to Curly and Flop.
"For your little sister is very sick, and may have to go to the
hospital."
"What's a hospital?" asked Curly.
"It's a place where they make sick folks get well," answered
Grandfather Squealer. "Now, you boys get ready for school. The
doctor is still here, and may be for some time."
And so Dr. Possum was--up in the room looking after poor sick Pinky.
There was something the matter inside her--I didn't know what it
was, but anyhow she had to go to the hospital to have it fixed, just
as when the clock doesn't go, the jeweler has to put new wheels in
it, or fix the old ones.
"But I don't want to go to the hospital," squealed Pinky, when they
told her she would have to. "I want to stay home," and she made such
a fuss that Dr. Possum said:
"This isn't good for her. We must get her to be more quiet, or she
will be very ill."
"Oh, please let us try to get her quiet," begged Curly, who, with
his brother, heard what was said. "We'll do some funny tricks, and
stand on our tails, and sing a little song, and then Pinky will want
to go to the hospital."
"Very well," spoke Dr. Possum, so the two piggie boys did all the
tricks they could think of, from whirling around on the ends of
their tails to rolling themselves down a hill, like a hoop, with an
apple in their mouths. As Pinky watched them, she felt a little
better, and when the big ambulance automobile came to take her to
the hospital she was almost laughing.
And even when she got in the nice big hospital, so clean and neat,
she wasn't frightened, for the little squirrel nurses were so kind
to her and they looked so pretty in their caps and blue dresses that
Pinky felt sure she was going to like it there. And then the doctor
said to her.
"Now, Pinky, little girl, I will have to hurt you the least bit, but
no more than I can help, and after it is over you will be all better
and you will have no pain and you will be well. Are you going to be
a brave little piggie and stand for it?"
"Ye--yes," faltered Pinky, but when the time came for them to really
make her better, and when it hurt, she cried out:
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" and she wiggled so hard that the
nurses and doctors could hardly hold her, just as when some children
get vaccinated.
"This will never do," said Dr. Possum. "If she doesn't keep quiet we
cannot make her get well."