Twistytail made pie the turtle was always in the kitchen to keep the door open, and drive out any bad dogs in case they happened to get in.

And so no more now, if you please, as I am sleepy, and I know you must be, too. But in case the little girl in Montclair doesn't drop her doll on the sidewalk, and spill the sawdust all over the stick of mola.s.ses candy I'll tell you next about Curly and the chestnuts.

STORY XI

CURLY AND THE CHESTNUTS

"Why, Curly," exclaimed the nice old lady owl school teacher one day, when the cla.s.s in drawing was doing its lesson. "Why, Curly Twistytail! I'm certainly surprised at you!"

Of course, all the animal children looked over at the little piggie boy, and at his brother Flop, also; but Flop had done nothing. And what do you suppose it was that Curly had done?

Why, instead of drawing a picture of a pail of sour milk, as the teacher had told him to do, he had made a picture of a monkey-doodle sitting on top of a Jack o'Lantern pumpkin. Wasn't that just awful!

Well, I guess yes, and some tooth brushes besides.

"Oh, Curly, how could you?" asked the owl teacher, in a sorrowful voice.

"I--I didn't mean to," spoke the little piggie boy. "I--I guess it just--happened."

You see, during the drawing lesson, when the animal children were supposed to make different pictures on their papers, the teacher would fly around the room softly and come up from behind the desks.

Thus, she could look over the animal children's shoulders and see what they were doing, when they didn't know it. It was then that she had seen what Curly, the pig, drew.

"Well, Curly," went on the owl teacher, sadly, "of course, it was wrong of you to make that kind of a picture, and, though I do not like to do it, I shall have to punish you. You will have to stay in after school."

And so that's how it was that Curly did not go out with the other animal children when school was dismissed. He had to stay in and clean off the blackboards, but he didn't mind that much, and really he was sorry for being a little bit bad.

"You may go now," said the owl school teacher, after a while, and Curly hurried home, feeling a little sad, and wondering what his mamma would say to him. He also wanted to hurry and have some fun with his brother, Flop.

Well, as Curly was going through the woods, all of a sudden, under a tree, something fell and hit him on the nose. He jumped to one side and exclaimed:

"Who is throwing stones at me?"

But no one answered, and Curly went on. Soon something else fell down, and hit him on the ear.

"I say!" he cried. "Would you please stop that? Is that the skillery-scalery alligator, or the fuzzy fox?"

But no one answered him, and Curly hurried on, thinking that perhaps bad fairies might be trying to have fun with him, or maybe turn him into a ham, or a piece of bacon, or something like that.

Well, he had not gone on much farther when, all at once, another something pattered down from a high tree, and struck him on the nose again.

"Oh, I say!" cried Curly, "please stop!" for this time it had been something sharp that hit him. "That isn't fair!" went on the little piggie boy. "Who is throwing things at me?"

He looked down on the ground, and there he saw something like a rubber ball, only it was a sort of greenish brown color, and had stickers all over on it. And then it burst open, and out rolled three little brown things.

"My word!" cried Curly, just like an English piggie boy. "My word!

What is this?"

"Ha! Ha!" laughed a voice behind him, and turning quickly around Curly saw Jacko Kinkytail, a hand organ monkey, hanging by his tail from a tree branch. "Ha! Ha!" laughed the monkey again. "Don't you know what those brown things on the ground are?"

"No indeed," replied the piggie boy. "What are they?"

"Chestnuts," said Jacko the hand organ monkey. "They are chestnuts, and they fell off the trees and hit you. No one was throwing stones at you, though the p.r.i.c.kly burrs inside of which the chestnuts are, seem as large as stones."

"Chestnuts, eh?" spoke Curly. "What good are they?"

"To eat," answered the monkey. "We will build a fire and roast some, and you will like them very much."

"Goodie-oodie!" squealed Curly, and, as he and the monkey began to gather up the chestnuts, the piggie boy was rather glad, after all, that he had been kept in, though of course he was sorry that he had made the wrong picture in drawing cla.s.s.

So while Curly gathered up the chestnuts, rooting them out from under the leaves with his nose, that was like a piece of rubber, and stamping them out of the p.r.i.c.kly burrs with his sharp feet--while he was doing this, I say, the monkey was making a fire to roast the nuts.

Soon Curly had quite a pile of them by an old stump, and the monkey had built a hot fire.

"Now, we will roast the chestnuts," spoke Jacko, and he put several pawsful on the hot coals.

"And when will they be roasted?" asked Curly.

"Soon," answered the monkey. "We will have a game of tag while we are waiting."

And, all of a sudden, as they were playing tag, out from under a big flat stone, came the bad skillery-scalery alligator, with a tin horn on his back. Oh! but he was a bad fellow!

"Ah, ha!" he cried. "Now I have you! Now I will have a piggie boy to eat and a monkey boy to wait on the table. Come along, both of you!"

and the bad alligator made a grab for the two friends and was about to carry them off to his den.

"Oh, please let me go!" begged Curly.

"Yes do!" asked the monkey. "Let us go."

"No! No!" snapped the alligator. And just then there sounded this noise:

"Bang! Bang! Snap! Crack! Bang! Boom!"

"Oh I what is that?" cried the 'gator. "Oh! the hunters with their guns are after me. I must run! This is no place for me!"

Then, dropping Curly and the monkey, the bad alligator ran away as fast as he could, and didn't hurt either of them, and the "bang- bang!" noises kept getting louder and louder.

"Oh, what are they?" asked Curly, who was almost as much frightened as the alligator had been at the strange sounds.

"Nothing but the roasting chestnuts," answered Jacko the monkey.

"They are bursting and making noises like guns because the fire is so hot, and because I forgot to make holes in the nuts to let the steam out. But it is a good thing I did, for they burst and scared the alligator."

"Indeed, they did," agreed Curly.

"And we'll roast some more chestnuts in place of the burst ones,"

said the monkey, and he did, and Curly had as many as he wanted, and some to take home. Soon he arrived at the piggie-house, and every one was glad to see him and the chestnuts, and that's all to this story.