"Oh, isn"t he terrible!" said Bawly, softly.
"Hush!" cautioned their papa. "Please keep quiet and maybe he won"t see us."
So they kept as quiet as they could, hoping the giant would pa.s.s by, but instead he came right over to the stump, and the first any one knew he had sat down on the top of it. I tell you it"s a good thing Bully and Bawly and their papa had hopped off or they would have been crushed flat. But they weren"t, I"m glad to say, for they were hiding down behind the stump, and they didn"t dare hop away for fear the giant would see, or hear them.
The big man sat on the stump, and he looked all about, and he saw some bread and watercress crumbs where Bully and Bawly and their papa had been eating their lunch.
"My!" exclaimed the giant. "Some one has been having dinner here. Oh, how hungry I am! I wish I had some dinner. I believe I could eat the hind legs of a dozen frogs if I had them!"
Well, you should have seen poor Bully and Bawly tremble when they heard that.
"This must be a terrible giant," said Mr. No-Tail. "Now I tell you what I am going to do. Bully, I will hide you and Bawly in this hollow stump, and then I"ll hop out where the giant can see me. He"ll chase after me, but I"ll hop away as fast as I can, and perhaps I can get to some water and hide before he catches me. Then he"ll be so far away from the stump that it will be safe for you boys to come out."
Well, Bully and Bawly didn"t want their papa to do that, fearing he would be hurt, but he said it was best, so they hid inside the stump, and out Mr. No-Tail hopped to where the giant could see him. Papa No-Tail expected the big man would chase after him, but instead the giant never moved and only looked at the frog and then he laughed and said:
"h.e.l.lo, Mr. Frog! Let"s see you hop!" And then, what do you think that giant did? Why he took off his head, which wasn"t real, being hollow and made of paper, like a false face, so that his own head went inside of it. And there he was only a nice, ordinary man after all.
"What! Aren"t you a giant?" cried Papa No-Tail, who was so surprised that he hadn"t hopped a single hop.
"No," said the man; "I am only a clown giant in a circus, but I ran away to-day so I could see the flowers in the woods. I was tired of being in the circus so much and doing funny tricks."
"But-but-what makes you so tall?" asked Mr. No-Tail.
"Oh, those are wooden stilts on my legs," said the giant. "They make me as tall as a clothes post, these stilts do."
And, surely enough, they did, being like wooden legs, and the man wasn"t a real giant at all, but very nice, like Mr. No-Tail, only different: and he left off his big hollow paper head, and Bully and Bawly came out of the stump, and the circus clown-giant, just like those you have seen, told the frog boys lots of funny stories. Then they gave him some of their lunch and showed him where flowers grew. Afterward the make-believe giant went back to the circus, much happier than he had been at first.
So that"s all now, if you please, but if the rose bush in our back yard doesn"t come into the house and scratch the frosting off the chocolate cake I"ll tell you next about Bawly and the church steeple.
STORY XIV
BAWLY AND THE CHURCH STEEPLE
After Bully and Bawly No-Tail, the frogs, and their papa, reached home from the woods, where they met the make-believe giant, as I told you in the story before this one, they talked about it for ever so long, and agreed that it was quite an adventure.
"I wish I"d have another adventure to-morrow," said Bawly, as he went to bed that night.
"Perhaps you may," said his papa. "Only I can"t be with you to-morrow, as I have to go to work in my wallpaper factory. We made the Pelican bird give back the ink, so the printing presses can run again."
Well, the next day the frog boys" mamma said to them:
"Bully and Bawly, I wish you would go to the store for me. I want a dozen lemons and some sugar, for I am going to make lemonade, in case company comes to-night."
"All right, we"ll go," said Bully very politely. "I"ll get the sugar and Bawly can get the lemons."
So they went to the store and got the things, and when they were hopping out, the storekeeper, who was a very kind elephant gentleman, gave them each a handful of peanuts, which they put in the pockets of their clothes, that water couldn"t hurt.
Well, when Bully and Bawly were almost home, they came to a place where there were two paths. One went through the woods and the other across the pond.
"I"ll tell you what let"s do," suggested Bully. "You go by the woodland path, Bawly, and I"ll go by way of the pond and we"ll see who will get home first."
"All right," said Bawly, so on he hopped through the woods, going as fast as he could, for he wanted to beat. And Bully swam as fast as he could in the water, carrying the sugar, for it was in a rubber bag, so it wouldn"t get wet. But now I"m going to tell you what happened to Bawly.
He was hopping along, carrying the lemons, when all at once he heard some one calling to him:
"h.e.l.lo, little frog, are you a good jumper?"
Bawly looked all around, and there right by a great, big stone he saw a savage, ugly fox. At first Bawly was going to throw a lemon at the bad animal, to scare him away, and then he happened to think that the lemons were soft and wouldn"t hurt the fox very much.
"Don"t be afraid," said the fox, "I won"t bite you. I wouldn"t hurt you for the world, little frog," and then the fox came slowly from behind the stone, and Bawly saw that both the sly creature"s front feet were lame from the rheumatism, like Uncle Wiggily"s, so the fox couldn"t run at all. Bawly knew he could easily hop away from him, as the sly animal couldn"t go any faster than a snail.
"Oh, I guess the reason you won"t hurt me, is because you can"t catch me," said Bawly, slow and careful-like.
"Oh, I wouldn"t hurt you, anyhow," went on the fox, trying not to show how hungry he was, for really, you know, he wanted to eat Bawly, but he knew he couldn"t catch him, with his sore feet, so he was trying to think of another way to get hold of him. "I just love frogs," said the fox.
"I guess you do," thought Bawly. "You like them too much. I"ll keep well away from you."
"But what I want to know," continued the fox, "is whether you are a good jumper, Bawly."
"Yes, I am-pretty good," said the frog boy.
"Could you jump over this stone?" asked the fox, slyly, pointing to a little one.
"Easily," said Bawly, and he did it, lemons and all.
"Could you jump over that stump?" asked the fox, pointing to a big one.
"Easily," answered Bawly, and he did it, lemons and all.
"Ha! Here is a hard one," said the fox. "Could you jump over my head?"
"Easily," replied Bawly, and he did it, lemons and all.
"Well, you certainly are a good jumper," spoke the fox, wagging his bushy tail with a puzzled air. "I know something you can"t do, though."
"What is it?" inquired Bawly.
"You can"t jump over the church steeple."
"I believe I can!" exclaimed Bawly, before he thought. You see he didn"t like the fox to think he couldn"t do it, for Bawly was proud, and that"s not exactly right, and it got him into trouble, as you shall soon see.
You know that fox was very sly, and the reason he wanted Bawly to try to jump over the church steeple was so the frog boy would fall down from a great height and be hurt, and then the fox could eat him without any trouble, sore feet or none. I tell you it"s best to look out when a fox asks you to do anything.
"Yes, I can jump over the church steeple," declared Bawly, and he hopped ahead until he came to the church, the fox limping slowly along, and thinking what a fine meal he"d have when poor Bawly fell, for the fox knew what a terrible jump it was, and how anyone who made it would be hurt, but the frog boy didn"t.