"Let"s hide!" exclaimed Flop, and they were looking for a place to hide when they happened to see a poor little girl mouse near a shock of corn, and her tail was held fast by a stone that had fallen on it.
"Was that you crying?" asked Flop.
"It was," said the mousie girl. "Oh my poor tail! How can I ever get loose?"
"We"ll help you," spoke Curly. "We"ll root up the stone with our strong noses, and then you"ll be all right."
"Of course we will," agreed Flop. "Oh, how glad we are that you aren"t a wolf," he added, and then he and Curly, with their noses which were made stretchy like a rubber ball, soon had the stone off the mousie girl"s tail, and she was all right, except that her tail was sore. But when her mamma could put some salve on it that would be all better, too.
"Oh! I can"t tell you how thankful I am to you," said the mousie girl to the piggie boys. "Some day I will help you."
"Ha! Ha!" laughed Flop. "How can a little mousie girl like you help us two big boys?"
"Hush!" exclaimed Curly. "It isn"t polite to laugh when any one offers to do you a favor, even if they are little. Besides, maybe she MIGHT be able to help us some day."
"Of course," spoke the mousie, and she felt rather badly because Flop Ear had laughed.
"Oh, excuse me!" exclaimed Flop. "I didn"t mean to. I"m sure I hope you can help us, little mousie."
So the two piggie boys went on through the corn field, hoping they wouldn"t meet the cross old alligator man, who owned it, and who didn"t like animal boys. And the mousie went on her way.
"I think we"ll soon catch up to the others," said Flop after a bit.
"I guess so," agreed Curly. "And when we do---"
"Hark!" suddenly exclaimed Floppy. "Some one is coming!" Curly heard it, too, and he stopped talking. He looked around the corner of a stone and whispered:
"It"s the old alligator man himself. What shall we do?"
"Run!" exclaimed Flop. "Run as fast as we can."
So he and Curly started to run but my goodness me sakes alive and a postage stamp! No sooner had they gone ten steps than the cross old alligator man saw them, and after them he came as fast as he could crawl on his four legs, wiggling his humpy tail. "Oh, he"ll get us, sure!" wailed Floppy.
"Run faster!" urged Curly.
Well, they both ran as fast as they could, squealing with fright, and the alligator man was coming right after them, and he had almost caught them when, all of a sudden, a little squeaky voice called out:
"In here, boys! Crawl right in here, under this shock of corn, and he can"t see you!"
They looked, and there, in front of a sort of cave, that was made in one of the upright piles of corn, stood the little mousie girl who had been pinched by the stone on her tail.
"In here!" she cried. "Quick, before he comes, and he won"t know where you have gone!"
"But he"ll know we"re hiding in the corn," said Flop.
"Quick! Get inside and talk afterward!" said the mousie girl.
"Besides there are so many piles of corn that the alligator man won"t know which one you"re hiding in, and it will take him all night to peek into them all. And after dark I"ll show you the way home."
So into the shock of corn crawled Curly and Flop pulling a lot of stalks behind them to close the hole, and they were only just in time, for, an instant later, up rushed the alligator man. Of course he could not see the piggy boys, and he was much surprised.
"But I know they"re hiding somewhere!" he growled. And it all happened just as the mousie girl said. The alligator man peeked in nearly all the corn shocks, but he didn"t happen to look in the one where Curly and Flop were hiding. And pretty soon it was dark, and then the piggies came out and the mousie girl showed them the way home, and the alligator man did not get them. So, you see, the mousie helped the piggie boys after all.
And next, in case the salt cellar doesn"t hide in the pepper caster and make believe it"s a mustard plaster I"ll tell you about Flop having a tumble.
STORY XVI
FLOP HAS A TUMBLE
"Come boys!" called Mamma Twistytail, the pig lady, one morning, to her two little boys, Curly and Flop. "Come, hurry, or you"ll be late for school!"
"Oh, I guess we have time enough," spoke Flop, as he looked around for the football he and his brother had been playing with. "It"s early yet."
"No, it isn"t," answered his mamma. "Our clock is slow by your papa"s watch. Hurry now, I think I hear the bell ringing!"
"All right," answered Curly. "Come along, Flop." You see, he sometimes called his brother Flop, for short. So they kissed their little sister, Baby Pinky, good-by, and went on to school.
As they hurried along, they met Jackie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boy, and Curly said:
"Oh, Jackie, where is my pencil you borrowed?"
"Here it is!" cried Jackie, turning a somersault, as he used to do in the circus, and he handed the pencil to Curly on the end of his nose--Jackie"s nose I mean.
"We chased after you last night, when we got out of school,"
explained Curly, "and we had a dreadful adventure in the corn field with the alligator man," and he told his doggie chum all about it, just as I wrote it for you in the story before this one.
So Jackie, and Curly and Flop hurried along together toward the school, when, all at once, they came to a nice, big, slanting cellar door, just right for sliding down, and on it was a sign which read:
"NO ONE MUST SLIDE DOWN THIS CELLAR DOOR!"
"Now isn"t that queer," said Jackie Bow Wow.
"It certainly is," agreed Curly.
"I wonder why no one is allowed to slide down," spoke Flop. "It"s a dandy door for sliding. I"ve a good notion to try it."
"No, you mustn"t!" said his brother. "We are almost late for school now."
"Oh, but I would just love to slide down it," went on Flop, sort of hanging back, while his brother and Jackie went on ahead. "I wonder if a giant lives under that door, or a fairy?"
"Maybe that"s the reason no one must slide down it," went on the little piggie boy. But no one answered him and, though he looked all around the cellar door, he could see no reason why he should not slide down it.
"Maybe it"s got slivers in, and they"d stick in me," went on Flop, as he came closer to the door, but it was as nice and smooth as heart could wish.
"Well, this is certainly queer," said Flop. "Here is the nicest sliding cellar door in all the world and no one is allowed to slide down it. I wonder who lives in the house," and he looked up at the house to which the cellar door belonged, but it was all closed up, and shutters were over the windows.