"Bless your dear little pink noses!" exclaimed the lady. "I'm not selling anything. I just came to ask your mamma if you could come to my party."

"A party?" cried Curly Tail. "Are you getting up a party for us?"

"For all the animal children," explained the lady, whose name was Sadie. "I want you all to come to my dinner party and have a good time. It's going to be away up in Montclair."

"Oh, I guess we can come," spoke Flop Ear. "Are you going to have ice cream?"

"Yes, ice cream," replied the Sadie lady, "and all sorts of good things. Uncle Wiggily will be there, and all your friends, so I wanted to ask your mamma if you could come."

"Of course we can!" cried Curly Tail. "We'll be there!"

"Very good," replied the lady whose name was Sadie. "Then I shall expect you," and off she hurried to invite some other animal children, her long earrings going dingle-dangle as she walked along, and the rose in her hair falling over sideways.

You see, Curly Tail and Flop Ear had come back from Racc.o.o.n Island at Lake Hopatcong, where they went to visit Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, while a new roof was being put on their school in place of the one that had blown off. The piggie boys had now been back for some little time, and in a few days school would open again.

"But, before it does, we'll go to the lady's dinner party," said Curly Tail, as he combed out the bristles on his back to make them look like a paint brush.

"Indeed we will!" exclaimed his brother, and then they heard their mamma stirring about in the house, so they knew she was awake.

"Let's go ask her!" suggested Curly Tail, and in they ran to tell about the Sadie lady asking them to the party.

Their mamma said they might go, and they felt so happy that they even let their little sister, Baby Pinky, play football with them.

And it would have been all right, except that when Flop Ear kicked the ball to Pinky, she couldn't get hold of it in time, and it flew up and broke Grandpa Squealer's window. But he said he didn't mind.

Well, in a few nights, it was time for the dinner party, and Curly Tail and Flop Ear dressed in their best, with their velvet hats on their heads, started for the high part of Montclair where the Sadie lady lived.

And Oh! How nice the house looked when they got there. It was all lighted up, and there were paper roses on the piano, for it was too late for real ones, and the table was all set with nice dishes and things to eat, and all of the piggie boys' friends were there, from Sammie and Susie Littletail, to Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman.

Then they began to eat, for this Sadie lady was one who loved animal children, and was always giving dinner parties, and affairs like that for them. Oh! Such good things as there were to eat, and when it was all over, and the candy and nuts were served, the Sadie lady read some poetry about a funny little lake, all made of sweet ice cream, and every time you fell in it you had a funny dream.

Then, after supper, they all sat about the fire on the hearth--Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey Gander and all the animal children, and the Sadie lady and Uncle Wiggily told ghost stories, and all sorts of other tales.

And, all of a sudden, just at the most scary part, where the big giant falls down stairs, jumps over the cot bed and scares Cora Janet's doll and Pocahontas and Ethel Rose--all of a sudden, I say, just as Uncle Wiggily got to that part, there was a noise out on the porch, and a voice cried:

"I want to come in! I must come in!"

"Oh, dear!" gasped Flop Ear.

"Who can that be?" asked Curly Tail, and he shivered so that you would have thought he was eating cold ice cream again, only he wasn't, for he was chewing on hot marshmallows.

"Let me in! Let me in!" cried the voice again.

"Oh, it's the bad skillery sealery alligator!" cried Flop Ear. "I know it is."

"Or else the fuzzy fox!" spoke Curly Tail, and just then there was a noise at the window, and they all looked up, and there stood a big black bear, tapping his paws on the gla.s.s.

"Oh, wow!" cried Uncle Wiggily.

"Sour milk and maple sugar pancakes!" yelled Grandpa Squealer, and everyone was so frightened that no one knew what to do. But the Sadie lady cried out:

"Ha! I'm not going to have a bad bear break up my dinner party in this way!" so she caught up a box of marshmallows, opened the window, and tossed the white sugar coated candies right in the bear's face.

All over him they flew, and he was so surprised that he thought it was snowing big white flakes.

"Oh, wow!" the bear cried. "Winter is here, and I must hurry back to my den before I get snowed in. I thought I was going to have a good supper, but I guess I was mistaken. Oh, woe is me! It's snowing!

It's snowing!"

Then he ran down off the porch as fast as he could, and the Sadie lady called up the policeman dog on the telephone, and she hollered like anything because she was so excited.

But there was no need for the police, for the bear was so kerslostrated by the marshmallows and the powdered sugar snow flying all over him that he went and hid in his den for a week and a day, and didn't bother anyone for sometime.

Then Ethel Rose, one of the real pretty girls at the party, and Pocahontas, the Indian maid, and Cora Janet's doll and everybody else had more ice cream, and then they went home; and so did Curly Tail and Flop Ear, and the Sadie lady's dinner party was over, but every one said it was just fine, and they wanted to know when she was going to have another.

So that is all now, if you please, but on the next page, in case the sewing machine doesn't pull all the threads out of my little dog's hair ribbon, I'll tell you about Floppy and the bon fire.

STORY XXVI

FLOPPY AND THE BONFIRE

One night, after an election in Woodland, where the Twistytail family of pigs lived, Curly, one of the piggie boys, asked his brother Floppy if they couldn't have some fun.

"I guess so," spoke the other little piggie. "I have a big pile of leaves, so why can't we make a bonfire?"

"The very thing!" cried Curly Tail. "There are always bonfires after election, and we'll have ours now."

"And we'll invite all the other animal boys to help us," suggested Curly Tail. "Sammie Littletail will want to come, I know, and so will the squirrel boys, and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck, and the Bow Wow puppy boys."

So, as it was after school, and they had done their home work lessons, the piggie boys could run out and play. In a vacant lot, not far from their house, Flop Ear had collected a big pile of leaves, ready for the fire, and he said to Curly Tail:

"Now, if you go get the other fellows, I'll find some more leaves, and some old boxes and barrels and we'll have a fine big fire."

"All right, I will," agreed Curly Tail. So off he ran over the fields and through the woods to call all his friends to the bonfire which Flop Ear was going to make.

"Now for a surprise!" exclaimed the little piggie boy who was left near the pile of leaves. "I'll look for some potatoes and I'll put them to roast in the bonfire and when it is all over we'll eat them, and sit about the blaze, telling stories about the election."

So he crawled through a fence into a field near by, where there were some late potatoes, and soon, with his strong, rubbery nose, he was rooting them up. The field belonged to Grandfather Goosey Gander, and Flop knew the old gentleman goose would not mind if the boy animals took a few potatoes.

"Now to make the fire and roast them," spoke the little piggie boy, and when he had shoved the leaves all up in a heap with his nose he lit them with a match.

"Won't Curly Tail and the others be surprised when they come up, and see the fire already going?" thought Flop Ear. "And they'll be more surprised when I pull out the roast potatoes for them. Oh! I almost forgot! I must get some salt to eat on them."

Into the house he ran, with his queer little kinky tail twisting around like a piece of strawberry shortcake, and Floppy got the salt. His mamma was busy getting supper, and she did not see him, and as his sister, Baby Pinky, was practising her piano lesson on the tin dishpan, she made so much noise Mrs. Twistytail did not hear the piggie boy, so no one stopped Flop Ear.

Maybe if mamma had known that he had a bonfire she would not have liked it, and I want you children--especially you little ones--to promise Uncle Wiggily that you will never, never make a fire unless some older person is there to watch you. Fires are very bad, you know--and burns--Bur-r-r-r! How burns do hurt!