Curly and Floppy Twistytail | Page 8

all now, but in the next story, in case the oil can doesn't slide
down the clothes pole and break the handle off the pump, so the angle
worm can't get his ice cream cone, I'll tell you about Curly and the
elephant.

STORY V
CURLY AND THE ELEPHANT
When Curly Twistytail, the little pig boy, was digging away with his
nose in the front yard, one day, hunting for lollypops, or maybe ice
cream cones, under the grass, for all that I know; one day, I say, as he
was rooting away, he heard his mamma calling:

"Oh, Curly; Oh, Flop Ear! I want some one to go to the store for me."
"That means I've got to go," thought Curly, as he looked around to see
if his tail was still kinked into a little twist.
"I'll have to go because Flop is off playing ball with Bully the frog.
Well, there's no use getting cross about it," so, giving a cheerful grunt
or two, just to show that he didn't at all mind, Curly ran around to the
back door and said:
"What is it, mamma? I'll go to the store for you?"
"Oh, there you are!" exclaimed Mrs. Twistytail. "Well, I want a dozen
eggs, and be sure to get fresh ones, and don't smash them on the way
home."
"I won't," said the little piggie boy, and with that he ran down the street
squealing a tune about a little monkey who hung down by his tail, and
when he went to sleep he sat inside the water pail.
Well, Curly got the eggs all right, and he was on his way home with
them, when, all at once, as he came to the corner of the woods, where
an old stump stood, out from behind it jumped a bad dog.
"Ha, what have you in that bag, little piggie boy?" asked the bad dog,
catching hold of Curly by his ear so that he could not run away.
"Eggs," answered Curly. "There are eggs in this bag for a cake my
mamma is going to bake."
"No, you are mistaken," said the dog, gritting his teeth. "Those eggs are
for me, I want to eat them," and he reached out his paw for the paper
bag.
Now, though Curly did not know it, this was a bad egg dog--that is, he
liked to eat eggs raw, without ever boiling or frying them, and that kind
of a dog is the worst there is. No one likes him, not even the old rooster
who crows in the morning.
"I'll just take those eggs," said the bad dog, and, though I don't know
how to make a cake, still I can manage to eat them," and with that he
took an egg out of the bag, chipped a little hole in the shell, and drank
up the yellow and white part just as you would drink an ice cream soda.
And, mind you, that dog never even winked an eye! What do you think
of that?
"Number one!" the dog exclaimed, as he reached for another egg. "Now
for number two!"
And oh! how badly Curly felt when he saw his mamma's eggs going

that way. It was almost as bad as if he had dropped the bag on the
sidewalk and smashed them, only, of course, it was not his fault.
Then the little piggie boy decided to be brave and bold. The bad dog
was eating the second egg, and he had his nose tipped up in the air, so
the white and yellow of the egg would run out of the shell down his
throat, when, all of a sudden, Curly pulled himself loose from the dog's
paw and grabbed up the bag with the ten eggs in it and ran away as fast
as he could.
"Here! Come back!" cried the bad egg dog, as he threw the empty shell
at Curly. "Come back here with the rest of my eggs!"
"Your eggs! No indeed!" cried Curly, and he didn't in the least mind
when the egg shell hit him on the end of his nose, for, being empty, you
understand, the shell didn't hurt any more than a piece of paper would
have done.
"Ha! If you won't come back I'll chase after you!" barked the bad egg
dog, and with that he began chasing after Curly.
Faster and faster ran Curly, and faster and faster came the dog after him,
until he had nearly caught the little piggie boy. Then Curly thought to
himself:
"Well, maybe if I roll one more egg to him he'll stop to eat that and let
me alone. Anyhow, nine eggs will be enough for a cake, and I can tell
mamma how it happened that