STORY XI

CURLY AND THE CHESTNUTS

"Why, Curly," exclaimed the nice old lady owl school teacher one
day, when the class 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____ly 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 class.

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____ly 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.

But in case the pretty Red Cross nurse with the blue eyes and the
jolly laugh says that it's all right for the trolley car to jump
over the house and play tag with the chimney, I'll tell you next
about Baby Pinky and the doctor.

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