"I will save you!" called the Indian maiden.
"Oh, if I only had a bow and arrow I would shoot the bear and rescue the two piggie boys! I know what I"ll do. I"ll make a bow and find an arrow."
So she took a bent branch of a tree for the bow and for the string she used some strands of her long braids. But the needed an arrow, and all the while the bear was carrying Curly and Flop off to his den.
"I know!" cried the Indian maiden. "A hat pin! My very longest and sharpest hat pin! That will do for an arrow!"
She ran to where she had left her hat in the bushes when she was looking for the jelly, and quickly got a hat pin. This she shot at the bear from her bow.
"Whizz!" it went through the air, hitting the bear on the end of his soft and tender nose.
"Oh, wow!" he cried. "Oh, woe is me!" and his nose pained him so that he dropped Curly and Flop and back to the bungalow ran the piggie boys as fast as they could. And the bear went off to put some cooling mud on his nose, where the hat pin had hit him.
So that"s how the Indian maiden saved the piggie boys from the bear, and they gave her more jelly and thanked her, and then, using a long thorn instead of a hat pin, which the bear carried off in his nose, Pocohontas went off looking for more jelly, and Curly and Flop went to asleep.
And next, in case the horse radish doesn"t jump over the oysters and scare them so they fall into the clam chowder, I"ll tell you about Flop and the marshmallows.
STORY XXII
FLOP AND THE MARSHMALLOWS
"Boys," said Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, to Curly and Flop, the piggie chaps, one morning. "Boys, do you think you can get along by yourselves this afternoon?"
"Why, I guess so," answered Curly, as he looked off across the beach at Racc.o.o.n Island in Lake Hopatcong. "But where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?"
"Oh, Pop Goes the Weasel wanted me to come down to his store and have a game of Scotch checkers after dinner," said the old gentleman rabbit. "He says he is lonesome since all the summer folk went away."
"Of course, we can get along all right," spoke Flop. "We"ll have our lunch and, we"ll do the dishes, so you can go and play Scotch checkers with Pop Goes the Weasel."
"But what are Scotch checkers?" asked Curly.
"Oh, when you play that game," said Uncle Wiggily, "you have a nice Scotchman standing near you all the while to cook Scotch scones over a hot fire. And scones are good to eat; something like pancakes, with maple syrup on, only different. It is fun to play Scotch checkers."
"I should think so," said Flop. "And could you bring us a few scones, Uncle Wiggily!"
"I"ll try," said the old gentleman rabbit, "though Pop Goes the Weasel and I are very fond of eating them when we play checkers."
So in the afternoon Uncle Wiggily went to visit his friend at the store on Racc.o.o.n Island, and the two piggie boys stayed home to keep house. And, when they had washed the dishes, Curly said:
"Now, Flop suppose we go looking for adventures. I"ll go one way and you can go the other, and we"ll see who can find an adventure first."
"All right," said the other little piggie boy. So they started away from the bungalow. But as Curly fell asleep before he had gone much farther than the Sylvan Way (which is a nice little rustic bench on the island) no adventure happened to him. But wait until I tell you what happened to Flop.
Off he started, and he had not gone very far before he heard some one crying out:
"Oh, what shall I do with them? Oh, so many as there are! I never can eat them all!"
"My!" exclaimed Flop, "I wonder if that is a bad bear who has caught a whole lot of piggie or rabbit children? Who ever it is can"t eat them all, so it must be something extra good. I wonder what it is?"
So he hid behind a stump, and after a bit he peeked out and there he saw his old friend, little Cora Janet, of Montclair, walking around in the woods with a big box in her arms. And on the box was a sign which read:
CANDY
"My gracious sakes alive and some lollypops!" exclaimed Flop. "She has so much candy she doesn"t know what to do with it! I wonder if I can help her?"
So Flop jumped out from behind a bush, made a low bow, and said, most politely:
"Can I help you, Cora Janet?"
"Oh, yes, you can!" she exclaimed. "You see I came up here looking for the Indian Maiden who likes jelly so much. I thought I would give her some of my marshmallows, as I have a whole box full-many more than I can eat. But I can"t find the Indian Maiden--Pocohontas --and now I shall have to eat all the marshmallows myself."
"Why?" asked Flop, curious like.
"Because," answered Cora Janet, "because there is a big bear chasing after me. He smells the sweet candy and he is so hungry that he will want to eat the marshmallows and me, too. But if I could only get rid of the candies he might let me alone. Oh, what shall I do? I"ve toasted them, and roasted them and eaten them just as they are out of the box, and put them in a cake and everything, but still the bear chases after me!"
"Of course I do!" suddenly growled a voice in the bushes and just then out popped the bear. The hat pin which the Indian maiden had shot in his nose was out now, and that bear was as angry as anything. He wanted to grab Cora Janet and take her off to his den I guess. Anyhow he growled as angry as could be!
"Oh, what shall I do!" called the little girl. "How can I get rid of all these marshmallows, for if the bear takes them it will only make him the more hungry and then he will want to eat me, and you too, Flop."
"That must never be!" exclaimed the little piggie boy. "Ha! I have it!" he cried. "We will throw the marshmallows at the bear, and make him so stuck up that he won"t want ever to eat anything again except pepper-hash!"
"Good!" cried Cora Janet. So she and Flop opened the box of marshmallows. Just then the bear made a rush for them, intending to grab them both in his big, long claws and carry them off to his den.
But Flop threw a sticky marshmallow candy, and it landed in one of the bear"s eyes and stayed there.
"Oh, wow!" cried the s.h.a.ggy creature, and he could only see out of one eye. Then Cora Janet threw another marshmallow and it closed up the bear"s other eye. Then he couldn"t see at all.
"Oh, wow again! Double wow!" cried the bear. Then, as fast as they could throw them, Flop and Cora Janet tossed the sticky marshmallow candies. They stuck up the bear"s nose so he couldn"t hear, and got in his ears so he couldn"t smell. Oh! just listen to me, would you!
I"m so excited that I got that part wrong. But, anyhow, the bear couldn"t see, nor smell, nor hear. And then more marshmallows got in his mouth, and they were like sponges, and he couldn"t even bite any one, for they stuck on his teeth like gum. Then Flop said:
"We are safe now, Cora Janet, and we have enough marshmallows left to roast at the camp fire tonight."
And so they had. And that bear was so stuck up with the soft marshmallow candies--in his eyes and nose and mouth and ears and paws and tail and fur--that he had to go to sleep in the lake for a week and a day to get them washed off.
So he didn"t bother Cora Janet nor Flop any more, and pretty soon Curly awakened and came back to the bungalow to hear about his brother"s adventure. And Uncle Wiggily came back from playing Scotch checkers with Pop Goes The Weasel, and everybody was happy, even Cora Janet, and they had roast marshmallows for supper.
And on the next page, in case the little boy across the street doesn"t slide down the front steps and scare the milkman"s horse so that it drinks up all the ice cream, I"ll tell you about the piggie boys and the big fish, and it will be a Hallowe"en story.
STORY XXIII
THE PIGGIES AND THE FISH