Bully and Bawly No-Tail | Page 6

you can jump up here to the roof with the rope and I can fasten it to the chimney again and slide down as I did before."
"I'll try," said Bawly, and he did; but bless you! He couldn't jump as high as the house, no matter how many times he tried it. And the dinner bell rang and Uncle Wiggily was very hungry and very anxious to get off the roof and eat something.
"Oh, I know how to do it!" cried Bawly at length, when he had jumped forty-sixteen times. "I'll tie a string to my baseball, and I'll throw the ball up to you. Then you catch it, untie the string, which I'll keep hold of on this end, and I'll tie the rope to the cord. Then you can haul up the rope, fasten it to the chimney, and slide down."
"Good!" cried Uncle Wiggily, clapping his front paws together in delight.
Well, if you'll believe me, Bawly did tie the string to his baseball and with one big throw he threw it right up to Uncle Wiggily, who caught it just as if he were on first base in a game. And then with the little cord, which reached down to the ground, he pulled up the big rope, knotted it around the chimney, and down he slid, just in time for dinner, and he took Bawly home with him and gave him a penny.
Now if it should happen that I don't lose my watch down the inkwell so I can see when it's time for my pussy cat to have his warm soup, I'll tell you in the story after this about Bully's and Bawly's big jump.

STORY IV
BULLY'S AND BAWLY'S BIG JUMP
One day Mrs. No-Tail, the frog lady, looked in the pantry to see what there was to eat for dinner and there wasn't a single thing. No, just like Mother Hubbard's cupboard, the pantry was bare, though there was a bone in it that was being saved for some time when Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the puppie-dog boys, might come on a visit.
"Oh, some one will have to go to the store to get something for supper," said Mrs. No-Tail. "Do you feel able to go, Grandpa Croaker?"
"Well, I could go," said the old frog gentleman, in his deepest bass voice, which sounded like the rumble of thunder over the hills and far away, "but I promised I would go over and play a game of checkers with Uncle Wiggily Longears. He has just finished the playhouse for Sammie and Susie, and he wants to show me that. So I don't see how I can go to the store very well."
"If Bully and Bawly were here they'd go," said their mamma. "I wish they'd come. Oh, here they are now," she went on, as she looked out of the window and saw the two frog boys coming home from school. "Hurry!" she called to them. "I want you to go to the store."
"All right," they both answered, and they were so polite about it that Mrs. No-Tail gave them each a penny, though, of course, they would have gone without that, for they always liked to help their mamma.
"I want some sugar, and molasses, and bread, and butter, and some corn meal, and bacon and watercress salad," said the mother frog, and Bully and Bawly each took a basket in which to carry the things. Then they hopped on toward the store.
"I'm going to buy marbles with my penny," said Bully.
"And I'm going to buy a whistle with mine," said Bawly.
Well, they got to the grocery, all right, and the cow lady who kept it gave them the things their mamma wanted. Then they went to the toy store and Bully got his marbles, and Bawly his whistle, which made a very loud noise.
Now I'm very sorry to be obliged to tell it, but something is going to happen to Bully and Bawly very soon. In fact, I think it is going to take place at once. Just excuse me a moment, will you, until I look out of the window and see if the alligator is coming. Yes, there he is. He just got off the trolley car. The conductor put him off because he had the wrong transfer.
So, all at once, as Bully and Bawly were hopping along through the woods, this alligator that I was telling you about jumped out at them from under a prickly briar bush. Right at them he jumped, and he was a very savage alligator, for he had gotten loose out of the circus, where he belonged, and he had been tramping around without anything to eat for a long time, so he was very hungry.
"Now, I see where I'm going to have a nice dinner," the alligator