So off Flop ran to the store, squealing as hard as anything because he was so happy. At first Curly felt a little sad that he couldn"t go to the store, for the man who kept it always gave the piggie boys a sweet cracker or something like that. But, of course, only one was needed to carry the chocolate.
"Never mind," said Curly"s mamma to him. "You may go next time."
So then he felt better, and he was thinking what fun it would be to have a piece of chocolate cake, when all of a sudden he stopped to think.
"I guess I"ll go to school again!" he exclaimed. "That will be fun.
Yes, I"ll go to school!"
So off he started, while his brother was getting the chocolate at the store, and pretty soon Curly came to the place where the lady bug school teacher had her cla.s.ses of animal children in a hollow stump.
Curly knocked at the door, and when the teacher came to open it he made his best bow.
"Well, what is it, little piggie boy?" asked the teacher, kindly.
"If you please," said Curly, "I want to come to school."
"Very good," said the teacher. "I think you may. You and your brother were so kind as to scare off the bear, so you may come to our cla.s.s. But, first, let me ask you--have you been vaccinated?"
"Vaccinated?" repeated Curly. "Is that like a lollypop?"
"No, that is having the doctor scratch your leg with a toothpick so you won"t get sick and have the epizootic," said the teacher. "Let me see your paw."
So she looked at Curly"s paw, which he held out, and she saw that he had never been vaccinated, so she said he would have to have that done to him before he could come to school every day.
"You go home," said the teacher to the little piggie boy, "and get vaccinated. Then come back in about a week."
So, as Curly wanted to go to school very much, on his way home he went past Dr. Possum"s office. And going in, he said:
"I want to be vaccinated, doctor, so I can go to school."
"Very well," answered Dr. Possum. "We"ll do it."
So Curly rolled up his sleeve, and the doctor scratched his paw with 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 b.u.mped off on the last step with a bounce.