"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-gla.s.s 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.
STORY x.x.xI
THE FROGS" FAREWELL HOP
One night Papa No-Tail, the frog gentleman, came home from his work in the wallpaper factory with a bundle of something under his left front leg.
"What have you there, papa?" asked Bawly, as he scratched his nose on a rough stone; "is it ice cream cones for us?"
"No," said Mr. No-Tail, "it is not anything like that; but, anyhow, the weather is almost warm enough for ice cream."
"Is it some new kind of wallpaper that you hopped on to-day after you dipped your feet in red and green ink?" asked Bully.
"No," replied his papa. "I have here some wire to tack over the windows, to keep out the flies and mosquitoes, for it is getting to be summer now, and those insects will soon be flying and buzzing around."
So after supper Mr. No-Tail, and his two boys, Bully and Bawly, tacked the wire mosquito netting on the windows, and when they were all done Mr. No-Tail went down to the corner drug store and he bought a quart of ice cream, the kind all striped like a sofa cushion, and he and his wife and Bully and Bawly sat out on the porch eating it with spoons out of a dish, just as real as anything.
"Oh dear me! There"s a mosquito buzzing around!" suddenly exclaimed Mamma No-Tail, as she ate the last of her cream. "They are on hand early this year. I"m going in the house."
"I"ll go get my bean shooter, and see if I can kill that mosquito!"
exclaimed Bawly, who once went hunting after the buzzers, and shot quite a number. But land sakes! it was so dark on the porch that he couldn"t see the buzzing mosquitoes though he blew a number of beans about, and one hit Uncle Wiggily Longears on the nose, just as the old gentleman rabbit was hopping over to play checkers with Grandpa Croaker. But Uncle Wiggily forgave Bawly, as it was an accident, and as there was a little ice cream left, the old gentleman rabbit and Grandpa Croaker ate it up.
Well, something happened that night when they had all gone to bed. Along about 12 o"clock, when it was all still and quiet, and when the little mice were just coming out to play hide and seek and look for some crackers and cheese, Bawly No-Tail felt some one pulling him out of bed.
"Here! Hold on! Don"t do that, Bully!" he cried.
"What"s the matter?" asked his brother. "Are you dreaming or talking in your sleep? I"m not doing anything."
"Aren"t you pulling me out of bed?" asked Bawly, and he had to grab hold of the bedpost to prevent himself falling to the floor.
"Why, no, I"m in my own bed," answered Bully. "Oh, dear me! Oh, suz dud!
Some one"s pulling me, too!" And he let out such a yell that Mamma No-Tail came running in with a light. And what do you think she saw?
Why two, great, big buzzing mosquitoes flew out of the window through a hole in the wire netting, and it was those mosquitoes who had been trying to pull Bully and Bawly out of bed, so they could fly away with them to eat them up.
"Oh, my! How bold those mosquitoes are this year!" exclaimed the mamma frog. "They actually bit a hole in the wire screen."
"They did, eh?" cried Papa No-Tail. "Well, I"ll fix that!" So he got a hammer and some more wire, and he mended the hole which the mosquitoes had made. Then Bully and Bawly went to sleep again. They were afraid the mosquitoes would come in once more, but though the savage insects buzzed around outside for quite a while, the screen was too strong for them this time, and they didn"t get in the house.
"If this keeps on," said Papa No-Tail, as he hopped off to work next morning, "we"ll have to go to a place where there are no mosquitoes."
Well, that night the same thing happened. Along about 1 o"clock Bully felt some one pulling him out of bed, and he cried, and his mamma came with a light, and there was another mosquito, twice as big as before, with a long sharp bill, and long, dingly-dangly legs, and buzzy-uzzy wings, just skeddadling out of the window.
"There! They"ve bitten another hole in the screen!" cried Mrs. No-Tail.
"Oh, this is getting terrible!"
"I"ll put double screens on to-morrow," said Papa No-Tail, and he did.
But would you believe it? Those mosquitoes still came. The big ones couldn"t make their way through the two nets, but lots of the little ones came in. One would manage to get his head through the wire, and then all his friends would push and pull on him until he was inside, then another would wiggle in, and that"s how they did it. Then they went and hid down cellar, until they grew big enough to bite.
And, though these mosquitoes couldn"t pull Bully and Bawly out of bed, for the pestiferous insects weren"t strong enough, they nipped the frog boys all over, until their legs and arms and faces and noses and ears smarted and burned terribly, and their mamma had to put witch hazel and talc.u.m powder on the bites.