Howard R. Garis Curly and Floppy Twistytail the Funny Piggie Boys, Chapter 8: Curly is Vaccinated Lyrics

STORY VIII

CURLY IS VACCINATED

About two days, or maybe three days and part of another one, after
Curly Twistytail and his brother, Flop, had run away to school and
had performed their funny tricks, as I told you in the story before
this one, something else happened. And this is the way it was:

Curly was out in the yard in front of the piggy house one morning,
raking up the leaves and thinking what fun he would have making a
fire and roasting some ears of corn, when he heard his mamma
calling:

"Oh, boys! Where are you?"

"Here I am," answered Curly as he jumped over a pile of leaves and
fell into the middle of them. But it did not hurt him, as they were
so nice and soft.

"And here I am, too!" exclaimed Flop, and the other little piggie
boy, who was up in a hammock, swinging with one of the Katy Dids,
jumped down and ran to the back kitchen door.

"What is it, mother?" called both the little piggie boys together.

"I want one of you to go to the store for me," she said, "I need
some chocolate to put on top of a cake."

"Oh, I'll go!" exclaimed Floppy and Curly together, quickly, and you
could not tell which one spoke first. But Mrs. Twistytail said:

"Well, I think I'll let Floppy go, and when he comes back I'll give
you each some of the cake."

So off Flop ran to the store, squealing as hard as anything because
he was so happy. At first Curly felt a little sad that he couldn't
go to the store, for the man who kept it always gave the piggie boys
a sweet cracker or something like that. But, of course, only one was
needed to carry the chocolate.

"Never mind," said Curly's mamma to him. "You may go next time."

So then he felt better, and he was thinking what fun it would be to
have a piece of chocolate cake, when all of a sudden he stopped to
think.

"I guess I'll go to school again!" he exclaimed. "That will be fun.
Yes, I'll go to school!"

So off he started, while his brother was getting the chocolate at
the store, and pretty soon Curly came to the place where the lady
bug school teacher had her classes of animal children in a hollow
stump.

Curly knocked at the door, and when the teacher came to open it he
made his best bow.

"Well, what is it, little piggie boy?" asked the teacher, kindly.

"If you please," said Curly, "I want to come to school."

"Very good," said the teacher. "I think you may. You and your
brother were so kind as to scare off the bear, so you may come to
our class. But, first, let me ask you--have you been vaccinated?"

"Vaccinated?" repeated Curly. "Is that like a lollypop?"

"No, that is having the doctor scratch your leg with a toothpick so
you won't get sick and have the epizootic," said the teacher. "Let
me see your paw."

So she looked at Curly's paw, which he held out, and she saw that he
had never been vaccinated, so she said he would have to have that
done to him before he could come to school every day.

"You go home," said the teacher to the little piggie boy, "and get
vaccinated. Then come back in about a week."

So, as Curly wanted to go to school very much, on his way home he
went past Dr. Possum's office. And going in, he said:

"I want to be vaccinated, doctor, so I can go to school."

"Very well," answered Dr. Possum. "We'll do it."

So Curly rolled up his sleeve, and the doctor scratched his paw with
a toothpick, and put some funny kind of yellow salve on it, and
wrapped it up in a little celluloid cap to keep the snowflakes from
it, and also that no mosquitos could bite it.

"Now, in about a week your arm will begin to itch," said the doctor,
"and it will tickle you, and then, after a bit, you will be
vaccinated, and you can go to school."

"Very good," said Curly, and he wondered why all little animal
children had to be vaccinated, and have the mumps and the measles-
pox and epizootic, and all things like that, but he couldn't guess,
and so he didn't try.

He was rolling down his sleeve, and Dr. Possum was putting away the
toothpick with which he had vaccinated the little piggie boy, when,
all of a sudden, into the room jumped a big fuzzy fox, crying out:

"Oh, Joy! Oh, good luck! Oh, hungriness! Here I have a pig dinner
and an opossum dinner all at once! Oh, happiness!"

Then he made a jump, and was just going to grab Dr. Possum and Curly
too, when the little piggie boy cried out:

"Vaccinate him! Vaccinate him, Dr. Possum. That will make him so
itchy that he can't bite us."

"The very thing!" cried Dr. Possum, and before the big fuzzy fox
could get out of the way Dr. Possum vaccinated him on the end of his
nose with the toothpick all covered with the funny yellow salve, and
the fox was so kerslostrated that he jumped over his tail seven
times, and then leaped out of the window, leaving Curly and Dr.
Possum in peace. And in about a week--oh, how that fox's nose did
itch! Wow! And some sandpaper besides!

As for Curly, he was vaccinated very nicely, indeed, and he could go
to school when his arm got well. And what happened next I'll tell
you in the story after this, and it will be about Curly and the
spinning top--that is, it will if the pink parasol coming up the
street doesn't slip on the horse chestnut and make the pony cart
fall down the coal hole.