"I guess no one is at home," thought the little piggie boy.
"Say, aren"t you coming to school?" called back Jackie Bow Wow, for he and Curly were some distance down the street by this time.
"Yes, come on, or you"ll surely be late," said Flop Ear"s brother.
"I"m coming!" cried Flop, but he thought he would take just one more look at the sliding door.
"I would like to have just one slide on it," he said. "I believe I"ll try it."
He looked ahead to where his brother and Jackie were and decided that if he did take one slide he could run and catch up to them, and not be late.
"Here goes;" said Flop, and he laid his books down on a clean stone.
Then he read the sign once more:
"NO ONE MUST SLIDE DOWN THIS CELLAR DOOR!"
"I guess it"s only a joke," decided Flop. "Now for one good slide and then I"ll go to school."
So he went around to the side of the door, where there was a stone, and, by stepping on this, and giving a little jump, the piggie boy got to the top part of the sliding door, ready for a coast down.
Of course he had no sled on which to slide, but his trousers were good and thick, and he knew he could not wear a hole in the seat just this once. So he gathered his legs together under him, gave himself a little push and down the slanting door he went as nicely as an icicle in the middle of the Fourth of July.
"Wow! This is great!" cried Flop. "I guess the other fellows will wish they"d taken a slide. This is nifty!"
I don"t know myself what "nifty" means, but Flop said it, so I have to write it down.
Faster and faster he slid down the cellar door. It was a long one, and now he was half way to the bottom.
"Oh, won"t we have fun sliding after school!" the little piggie boy cried. "I don"t see why they looked rather sorrowfully after her brothers and put up that sign not to slide. This is the best cellar door I ever saw."
Faster and faster he slid, laughing and shouting in glee, and he was almost at the bottom and he was wondering if he would have time for just one more coast before school, when all of a sudden:
"Crack! Slam! Smash! Ker-bunk!"
Right down through the cellar door fell poor Flop, and down the cellar steps into a tub of water. Into that he went ker-splash! For, you see, the cellar door had broken with him and let him right through, almost half way to China, it seemed.
Into the tub of water went Flop, getting wet all over. But he managed to crawl out after a while, and as he stood there, shivering, in the cellar, looking up at the broken door through which he had fallen, a nice little old rat lady came out of the house, and, looking at Flop, said:
"Dear me! What a terrible accident. Too bad! Did you hurt yourself, little piggie?"
"N-no-not much," answered Flop. "But I--I"m all wet."
"So I see," said the rat lady. "But I thought there was a sign on the door, telling no one to slide down."
"So there was," admitted Flop, "but I didn"t see why it was there, so I slid anyhow."
"I put the sign there because the door was so rotten that I knew the first one who slid down it would fall through," said the rat lady.
"And to think, some one did fall!"
"Yes"m," said Flop, "I fell."
"Well, don"t do it again," said the rat lady, "and tomorrow I"ll have a new cellar door made. Now let me dry you off."
So she kindly did, but Flop was late for school. And--well, I suppose it couldn"t be helped, even if he had to stay in. But on the next page, in case the mousetrap doesn"t catch the cheese by the tail and make it squeal, I"ll tell you about Mr. Twistytail"s lost hat.
STORY XVII
MR. TWISTYTAIL"S LOST HAT
"Hey, Curly can you be out?" called Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs, as they stood in front of the piggie boys" house one morning when there was no school. I forget whether it was Sat.u.r.day or because the owl lady school teacher had to go and take her music lesson.
Anyhow, there was no school, and as Peetie and Jackie stood in front of the pig house and called:
"Hey, Curly! Hey, Flop! Come on out!"
"Of course we will!" cried Curly. "What are you going to do?" and he and his brother hurried with their breakfast and ran out in the yard.
"Let"s play football game," suggested Jackie, "like we did the other day."
"No, let"s go off in the woods and play camping out," suggested Curly.
"Yes, that will be more fun," added Flop, and then the two puppy dog boys thought the same thing, so off to the woods they started.
"I wish I could go," said Baby Pinky, as she their chums.
"Never mind, Pinky," said Mrs. Twistytail. "I"m going to bake pies, and I"ll make a specially little one just for you."
"Oh, goodie!" cried Pinky, and then she went out in the yard to play in her go-cart. Pretty soon along came Jennie Chipmunk and she played with Pinky, so the little pig girl didn"t mind so much, after all, that her brothers had gone away.
But now let us see what happened to Curly and Flop, to say nothing of Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow. On and on they went through the woods, and pretty soon Jackie found a nice juicy bone, and Peetie found a bit of meat, while Flop found an ear of corn and his brother picked up a big turnip.
"Oh, joyfulness!" exclaimed Flop. "Now we can have a lunch in the woods, just like real camping out!" And so they did. Under a tree, on the soft leaves that floated down from the branches above, with a flat stone for a table, and sticks for knives and forks, the piggie boys and their chums ate their lunch and had lots of fun. Then Curly said:
"Now let"s play soldier," and so they did, with sticks for guns, and when the boy animals called out: "Boom! Boom!" and "Bang! Bang!" it sounded as real as anything.
Well, they were running around in the woods, shouting and laughing and making believe they were soldiers at war, when all at once, just as Curly pa.s.sed in front of a hole that seemed to go away under ground, he saw something roll out. It was something round and black and hollow, and at first the little piggie boy thought it was a big black stone. But, when he looked a little closer, he saw that it was a hat--a man-pig"s hat--just the kind they always wear.
"Oh, Flop! Oh, fellows! Come here!" called Curly. "See what rolled out of the hole under this old tree."
Of course, they all came running up at that, and stopped playing soldier, and they gathered around the hat.
"Whose is it?" asked Jackie Bow Wow.