Bully and Bawly No-Tail | Page 9

me get up," said the old gentleman frog. "I was depending on you to haul me up by the rope, and here you jump down, and pull the rope with you. It's as bad as when Uncle Wiggily was on the roof, only he was up and couldn't get down, and we're down and can't get up."
"Oh, I think I can jump to the top of the well and take the rope with me. If I can't take this rope I'll get another and pull you both up," said Bully. So he hopped and he hopped, but he couldn't hop to the top of the well. Every time he tried it, he fell back into the water, ker-slash!
"Let me try," said his brother. But it was just the same with Bawly. Back he sploshed-splashed into the well-water, getting all wet.
"Now we'll never get out of here," said Grandpa Croaker sadly. "I wish you boys would think a little more, and not do things so quickly."
"We will--next time," promised Bawly as he gave another big jump, but he came nowhere near the top of the well.
Then it began to look as if they would have to stay down there forever, for no one came to pull them out.
"Let's call for help," suggested Bully. So he and Bawly called as loud as they could, and so did Grandpa Croaker. But the well was so deep, and their voices sounded so loud and rumbling, coming out of the hole in the ground, that every one thought it was thunder. And the animal people feared it would rain, so they all ran home, and no one thought of grandpa and the two frog boys in the deep well.
But at last along came Alice Wibblewobble, and, being a duck, she didn't mind a thunder storm. So she didn't run away, and she heard Grandpa Croaker and Bully and Bawly calling for help at the bottom of the well. She asked what was the trouble, and Bully told her what had happened.
"Oh, you silly boys, to jump down a well!" exclaimed Alice. "But never fear, I'll help you up." So they never feared, and Alice got a rope and lowered it down to them, and then, with the help of her brother Jimmie and her sister Lulu, she pulled all three frogs up from the well, and they lived happy for ever after, and drank the water that had no fishes in it.
Now if the faucet in the kitchen sink doesn't turn upside down, and squirt the water on the ceiling and into the cat's eye, I'll tell you next about Papa No-Tail in trouble.

STORY VI
PAPA N
Papa No-tail, the frog gentleman, was working away in the wallpaper factory one day, when something quite strange happened to him, and if you all sit right nice and quiet, as my dear old grandmother used to say, I'll tell you all about it, from the beginning to the end, and I'll even tell you the middle part, which some people leave out, when they tell stories.
Papa No-Tail would dip his four feet, which were something like hands, in the different colored inks at the factory. There was red ink, and blue ink, and white ink, and black ink, and sky-purple-green ink, and also that newest shade, skilligimink color, which Sammie Littletail once dyed his Easter eggs. After he had his feet nicely covered with the ink, Papa No-Tail would hop all over pieces of white paper to make funny patterns on them. Then they would be ready to paper a room, and make it look pretty.
"I think that is very well done," said the old gentleman frog to himself as he looked at one roll of paper on which he had made a picture of a mouse chasing a big lion. "Now I think I will make a pattern of a doggie standing on his left ear." And he did so, and very fine it was, too.
"Now, while I'm waiting for the ink to dry," said Mr. No-Tail, "I'll lie down and take a nap." So he went fast, fast asleep on a long piece of the wall paper that was stretched out on the floor, and this was the beginning of his trouble.
For, all at once, a puff of wind--not a cream puff, you understand, but a wind puff--came in the window, and rolled up the wallpaper in a tight little roll, and the worst of it was that Papa No-Tail was asleep inside. Yes, fast, fast asleep, and he never knew that he was wrapped up, just like a stick of chewing gum; only you mustn't ever chew gum in school, you know.
Well, time went on, and the clock ticked, and Papa No-Tail still slept. Then a man looked in the window of the wallpaper factory and,