Curly always liked to wring out the pillow-cases this way, and he had lots of fun. Soon he had a big basket of clothes ready to hang on the line. Wasn"t he the smart little piggie boy, though?
Out into the yard he carried the basket of clothes. It was hard work, but he managed it. And how the wind did blow! It was all Curly could do to hold the big sheets from blowing away, but somehow he did, and he didn"t want to call Flop or Pinky to help, for he wanted to surprise them, too, as well as his mamma.
Well, he had hung up quite a lot of clothes to dry, and then came a large pillow-case. The wind was blowing harder than ever, and as Curly tried to hang the case on the line a big, strong breeze just took hold of it, puffed it out like a balloon, and then--and then, my goodness me, sakes alive! the wind took the pillow-case right up in the air, and as Curly was hanging tightly to it, he went up also!
Right up into the air he went, sailing and sailing, just like an aeroplane, and he cried out:
"Mamma! Papa! Flop Ear! Pinky! Save me!" But none of them heard him, and he went higher and higher until the pillow-case, full of air like a balloon, caught in a tree, and there was the little piggie boy held where he couldn"t get down. Oh, dear me, wasn"t that terrible?
Curly didn"t know what to do. The tree was too big for him to jump down and he couldn"t climb very well. He thought he would have to stay up there forever, maybe. But he didn"t. Pretty soon Sammie Littletail"s stomach ache was all better and Mrs. Twistytail came home. The first things she saw were the clothes hanging out on the line--that is, all but the pillow-case that had taken Curly up in the tall tree.
"My goodness me! sakes alive and a corn cob," exclaimed Mrs.
Twistytail. "The children must have done this to help me. My, but I am surprised. But I wonder where they are?" Then she saw Flop and Pinky playing tag, but she couldn"t see Curly.
"Oh, Curly, Curly, where are you?" she called, and her little boy answered:
"I"m up in the tree with the pillow-case!" Then his mamma saw him and she nearly fainted. But she didn"t quite faint, and then she telephoned for a fireman with a long ladder, who came and got Curly safely down.
So that"s how he helped his mamma, and he surprised her more than he meant to, but it all came out right in the end. And soon the washing was all done, and the firemen gave each of the pig children a penny.
So that"s all now, but in the next story, in case the oil can doesn"t slide down the clothes pole and break the handle off the pump, so the angle worm can"t get his ice cream cone, I"ll tell you about Curly and the elephant.
STORY V
CURLY AND THE ELEPHANT
When Curly Twistytail, the little pig boy, was digging away with his nose in the front yard, one day, hunting for lollypops, or maybe ice cream cones, under the gra.s.s, for all that I know; one day, I say, as he was rooting away, he heard his mamma calling:
"Oh, Curly; Oh, Flop Ear! I want some one to go to the store for me."
"That means I"ve got to go," thought Curly, as he looked around to see if his tail was still kinked into a little twist.
"I"ll have to go because Flop is off playing ball with Bully the frog. Well, there"s no use getting cross about it," so, giving a cheerful grunt or two, just to show that he didn"t at all mind, Curly ran around to the back door and said:
"What is it, mamma? I"ll go to the store for you?"
"Oh, there you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Twistytail. "Well, I want a dozen eggs, and be sure to get fresh ones, and don"t smash them on the way home."
"I won"t," said the little piggie boy, and with that he ran down the street squealing a tune about a little monkey who hung down by his tail, and when he went to sleep he sat inside the water pail.
Well, Curly got the eggs all right, and he was on his way home with them, when, all at once, as he came to the corner of the woods, where an old stump stood, out from behind it jumped a bad dog.
"Ha, what have you in that bag, little piggie boy?" asked the bad dog, catching hold of Curly by his ear so that he could not run away.
"Eggs," answered Curly. "There are eggs in this bag for a cake my mamma is going to bake."
"No, you are mistaken," said the dog, gritting his teeth. "Those eggs are for me, I want to eat them," and he reached out his paw for the paper bag.
Now, though Curly did not know it, this was a bad egg dog--that is, he liked to eat eggs raw, without ever boiling or frying them, and that kind of a dog is the worst there is. No one likes him, not even the old rooster who crows in the morning.
"I"ll just take those eggs," said the bad dog, "and, though I don"t know how to make a cake, still I can manage to eat them," and with that he took an egg out of the bag, chipped a little hole in the sh.e.l.l, and drank up the yellow and white part just as you would drink an ice cream soda. And, mind you, that dog never even winked an eye! What do you think of that?
"Number one!" the dog exclaimed, as he reached for another egg. "Now for number two!"
And oh! how badly Curly felt when he saw his mamma"s eggs going that way. It was almost as bad as if he had dropped the bag on the sidewalk and smashed them, only, of course, it was not his fault.
Then the little piggie boy decided to be brave and bold. The bad dog was eating the second egg, and he had his nose tipped up in the air, so the white and yellow of the egg would run out of the sh.e.l.l down his throat, when, all of a sudden, Curly pulled himself loose from the dog"s paw and grabbed up the bag with the ten eggs in it and ran away as fast as he could.
"Here! Come back!" cried the bad egg dog, as he threw the empty sh.e.l.l at Curly. "Come back here with the rest of my eggs!"
"Your eggs! No indeed!" cried Curly, and he didn"t in the least mind when the egg sh.e.l.l hit him on the end of his nose, for, being empty, you understand, the sh.e.l.l didn"t hurt any more than a piece of paper would have done.
"Ha! If you won"t come back I"ll chase after you!" barked the bad egg dog, and with that he began chasing after Curly.
Faster and faster ran Curly, and faster and faster came the dog after him, until he had nearly caught the little piggie boy. Then Curly thought to himself:
"Well, maybe if I roll one more egg to him he"ll stop to eat that and let me alone. Anyhow, nine eggs will be enough for a cake, and I can tell mamma how it happened that the others were lost."
So the piggie boy stopped running long enough to take an egg out of the bag and roll it along the sidewalk toward the dog.
"Ah, ha!" growled the dog. "Egg Number Three!" and he stopped to eat the yellow and white part of it. Of course, Curly ran on, and he got some distance ahead, but you see the more eggs the dog ate the faster he could run, so on he came, and he had almost caught up to Curly when the little piggie boy thought again:
"Well, here goes for another egg!"
So he rolled a second one toward that bad dog, who ate it, hardly stopping at all, and on he came again.
"Now, I have you!" the dog cried, as he threw the empty sh.e.l.l at Curly, striking him on the nose once more. "Now, I"ll get all the eggs, and besides, I"ll bite your tail off for running away!"
"Oh, how dreadful!" thought Curly, and he wondered how it would feel to have no tail. He was running as fast as he could, and he was wishing a policeman or fireman would save him from the bad dog, when, all at once, out from a yard with a high fence around it sprang something big and white, with yellow legs, and there came a hissing sound, just as if water were being squirted out of a hose.
Then a voice said:
"Here, you bad dog, let my friend Curly alone! Run away, now, or I"ll nip you on your toes and nose! Skip! Hiss! Scoot!"
And that dog was so frightened that he didn"t think a single thing more about eggs, but he just tucked his tail between his legs, where it wouldn"t get in his way, and off he ran.
"Oh, saved at last!" gasped Curly, as he sat down on the curbstone to rest, "and I still have eight eggs left for mamma"s cake." Then he looked up to see who had rescued him, and it was old Grandfather Goosey Gander, the father of all the geese. The brave creature had hissed at the bad egg dog and frightened him away.
"Oh, how thankful I am to you," said Curly, politely, "and when the cake is baked you shall have a piece, Grandpa Goosey."
So he went on home with the rest of the eggs and--well, I do declare! I have forgotten all about the elephant! I know he was to be in this story, somewhere, but there"s no room now, so I"ll have to put him in the next one, which will be about Flop and the bag of meal--that is, if the clothes-basket doesn"t fall on the gas stove and make the rice pudding go down the cellar to hide away from the rag doll.