So Curly played with his spinning top, and his brother was down in the yard, having fun, when, all at once in at the window where Curly was in bed, jumped a great big snail. Now a snail is an animal that has horns, and he lives in a sh.e.l.l that grows on his back, and he goes very slowly. But sometimes, when he has eaten red pepper for his lunch, he can go as fast as anything. And this was what had happened to this snail. He had eaten red pepper, and he fairly jumped in at the window where Curly was lying in bed.
"Bur-r-r-r!" warbled the snail, "Here I am," and he made a grab for the little piggie boy, for he was a very large snail indeed, as big as a dog house.
"Look out for my vaccination!" cried Curly. "Don"t hit my arm, please."
"Oh, what do I care for vaccinations!" cried the snail. "If you don"t give it to me at once, so I can throw it away, I"ll stick you with my horns," and he wiggled them at Curly just as a mooley cow would have done.
"Give you my vaccination!" cried Curly. "Why, how can I, when it"s fast on my leg?"
"No matter!" snapped and snipped the snail. "Give it to me at once,"
and he reached over, and he was just going to squeeze Curly Tail"s vaccination, and maybe hurt him like anything for all I know, when, all of a sudden, the little piggie boy thought of his spinning top.
It was all wound up, ready to spin, so Curly just pushed the spring, and whizzic.u.m-whazzic.u.m, around and around went the top, on the board in bed, right in front of the snail. And when the queer creature, with his home on his back, saw it he cried out:
"Oh, merry-go-rounds! Oh, pin wheels! Oh, circus hoops!" For it made him dizzy to see the top spinning around, you see. "Stop it!" he begged, but Curly would not, and at last the snail got so dizzy from watching the spinning top that he fell right over backward on it, and around and around he went, faster and faster, until, all of a sudden, just as when you get off a merry-go-round before it stops moving, that snail was tossed off from the top right out of the window into the mulberry bush, where he belonged, and so he didn"t stick Curly with his horns after all. Wasn"t that good?
So that"s how Curly, with his spinning top, got the best of the snippery snail, and a few days later the little piggy boy could go to school whenever he wanted, for his vaccination was all better.
And as for that snail, well, the less said about him the better--at least in this story.
And pretty soon, in case the man who is taking up the dried leaves in the street, doesn"t put the rag baby in his bag and take her off to gather chestnuts, I"ll tell you about Flop Ear and the frozen turtle.
STORY X
FLOP AND THE TURTLE
"Bur-r-r! Whew! Ice cream!" exclaimed Curly, the little piggie boy, one morning, as he hopped out of his bed in the clean straw and ran to the head of the stairs to see if breakfast was ready. "It"s cold!
Terrible cold!"
"Of course it is," agreed Flop, his brother. "It will soon be winter and time for chestnuts and popcorn and sliding down hill and all that. Of course it"s cold."
"I hope there is some warm water to wash in," went on Curly.
"Warm water! What"s that!" cried his papa from the next room.
"Nonsensicalness! Cold water is better for you. It will make your skin nice and rosy. Wash in cold water."
So Curly, whether he wanted to or no, had to sozzle and splash himself all over in cold water, and really it did him good, for it made him feel nice and warm and made his ears and nose as red as a pink flannel blanket.
Then the two piggie boys were ready for breakfast, and they had hot corn meal cakes, with sour-milk and maple syrup sprinkled on them, and eggs, with the sh.e.l.ls taken off, and warm milk and all things like that.
Then it was time for Curly to go to school, but as for Flop, he had not yet been vaccinated, and so he could not go to blackboard cla.s.ses and learn how to add two and two together and make a mud pie of them, or how to write his name with red chalk that made blue marks.
"What are you going to do while I"m at school?" asked Curly of his little piggie brother, who was playing in the front yard.
"Oh, I think I"ll build myself a little house out of corncobs," said Flop, "and then I"ll go over and tell Jennie Chipmunk that she can put her rag doll to sleep in it."
"Fine!" cried Curly. "And when I come home from school I"ll bring you each a lollypop."
So Curly put on his warm checker-pattern coat and stuck his paws in little red mittens, for it was quite cold that morning, and off he went to school.
But his brother, who had to stay home because he was not vaccinated, looked out in the yard, and pretty soon he said:
"Oh, I guess I"ll go out and take a walk. Maybe I can find something or have an adventure."
So out Flop walked in the yard, and pretty soon, in a little while, not so very long, he came to a place where there was something that looked like a black stone with yellow marks on it.
"That"s just what I"m looking for," said Flop, as he saw the queer stone. "I heard my mamma saying the other day that she needed some weight to keep the kitchen door from blowing shut. This stone will be the very thing for her."
So over he ran to where he saw the thing that looked like a stone, and he picked it up, no matter if it was cold. For there was frost on the ground--white frost that made everything look as though a little shower of snow had fallen--and everything was cold and frozen.
Into the house ran Flop, the little piggie boy, carrying his black stone, all streaked with yellow.
"Oh, see what I have found for you, mamma!" he exclaimed. "It will keep the kitchen door from blowing shut."
"So it will," said his mamma. "What a kind boy you are." So she took the stone and placed it where it would keep the kitchen door from slamming, and going shut, and then she made a custard pie so that Curly could have some when he came home from school.
Pretty soon the pie was done, and Flop was almost asleep in the nice warm kitchen waiting for his piece. His mamma suddenly called to him:
"Flop, will you watch the pie for a minute while I run across the street and borrow a yeast cake from Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady?"
"Yes, of course I will," said Flop, rubbing his sleepy eyes. Then he looked all around the kitchen, and on the table where it was cooling he saw the nice pies his mamma had made, and he thought how good a piece would be, and then he also saw something else.
Into the kitchen came creeping a bad old egg dog--the same one who had tried to get the eggs from Curly a few days before.
"Pies!" cried the bad egg dog! "Custard pies! How I love "em! Yum- yum!" and with that he made a jump and he was just going to eat the lovely custard pie Mrs. Twistytail had made when Flop said:
"Here, you let that pie alone, if you please. It isn"t yours. It"s my mamma"s."
"No matter!" growled the bad egg dog. "I will eat it anyhow, and you can"t stop me!"
And with that he started to throw Flop out of the window, but the little piggie boy cried:
"Oh, what shall I do? Will no one help me?"
"Yes, of course. I will!" answered a voice, and then that queer object, which Flop had thought was a stone, began to move. Out of a sh.e.l.l came a long neck, and a head with a sharp mouth on the end, and out came four sharp claws, and instead of a stone there was a mud turtle as large as life. Really there was, I"m not fooling a bit!
"I"ll help you!" cried the brave turtle.
"Oh, you!" said Flop. "I thought you were a stone to keep the kitchen door from swinging shut."
"No, I am a turtle--a frozen turtle," said the voice. "At least I WAS frozen. The cold weather made me so slimpsy-slopsy that I couldn"t move, if you will kindly excuse me saying so. But as soon as I got warmed up in your nice kitchen I became as lively as ever.
I"ll soon fix that dog. Watch me!"
And all of a sudden the turtle bit that dog on the end of its tail, and the dog ran off howling, and so he didn"t get any of the nice pie, and he didn"t bother Flop, nor Curly and his vaccination, any more, and that night they gave the turtle some hot lemonade so he wouldn"t catch any more cold from having been almost frozen by the frosts. And as for that dog, why a dentist pulled one of his ears next day.
So you see what Flop thought was a stone turned out to be a frozen turtle who did him a great favor. And ever after that whenever Mrs.