STORY XVI

FLOP HAS A TUMBLE

"Come boys!" called Mamma Twistytail, the pig lady, one morning, to
her two little boys, Curly and Flop. "Come, hurry, or you'll be late
for school!"

"Oh, I guess we have time enough," spoke Flop, as he looked around
for the football he and his brother had been playing with. "It's
early yet."

"No, it isn't," answered his mamma. "Our clock is slow by your
papa's watch. Hurry now, I think I hear the bell ringing!"

"All right," answered Curly. "Come along, Flop." You see, he
sometimes called his brother Flop, for short. So they kissed their
little sister, Baby Pinky, good-by, and went on to school.

As they hurried along, they met Jackie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boy,
and Curly said:

"Oh, Jackie, where is my pencil you borrowed?"

"Here it is!" cried Jackie, turning a somersault, as he used to do
in the circus, and he handed the pencil to Curly on the end of his
nose--Jackie's nose I mean.

"We chased after you last night, when we got out of school,"
explained Curly, "and we had a dreadful adventure in the corn field
with the alligator man," and he told his doggie chum all about it,
just as I wrote it for you in the story before this one.

So Jackie, and Curly and Flop hurried along together toward the
school, when, all at once, they came to a nice, big, slanting cellar
door, just right for sliding down, and on it was a sign which read:

"NO ONE MUST SLIDE DOWN
THIS CELLAR DOOR!"

"Now isn't that queer," said Jackie Bow Wow.

"It certainly is," agreed Curly.

"I wonder why no one is allowed to slide down," spoke Flop. "It's a
dandy door for sliding. I've a good notion to try it."

"No, you mustn't!" said his brother. "We are almost late for school
now."

"Oh, but I would just love to slide down it," went on Flop, sort of
hanging back, while his brother and Jackie went on ahead. "I wonder
if a giant lives under that door, or a fairy?"

"Maybe that's the reason no one must slide down it," went on the
little piggie boy. But no one answered him and, though he looked all
around the cellar door, he could see no reason why he should not
slide down it.

"Maybe it's got slivers in, and they'd stick in me," went on Flop,
as he came closer to the door, but it was as nice and smooth as
heart could wish.

"Well, this is certainly queer," said Flop. "Here is the nicest
sliding cellar door in all the world and no one is allowed to slide
down it. I wonder who lives in the house," and he looked up at the
house to which the cellar door belonged, but it was all closed up,
and shutters were over the windows.

"I guess no one is at home," thought the little piggie boy.

"Say, aren't you coming to school?" called back Jackie Bow Wow, for
he and Curly were some distance down the street by this time.

"Yes, come on, or you'll surely be late," said Flop Ear's brother.

"I'm coming!" cried Flop, but he thought he would take just one more
look at the sliding door.

"I would like to have just one slide on it," he said. "I believe
I'll try it."

He looked ahead to where his brother and Jackie were and decided
that if he did take one slide he could run and catch up to them, and
not be late.

"Here goes;" said Flop, and he laid his books down on a clean stone.

Then he read the sign once more:

"NO ONE MUST SLIDE DOWN
THIS CELLAR DOOR!"

"I guess it's only a joke," decided Flop. "Now for one good slide
and then I'll go to school."

So he went around to the side of the door, where there was a stone,
and, by stepping on this, and giving a little jump, the piggie boy
got to the top part of the sliding door, ready for a coast down.

Of course he had no sled on which to slide, but his trousers were
good and thick, and he knew he could not wear a hole in the seat
just this once. So he gathered his legs together under him, gave
himself a little push and down the slanting door he went as nicely
as an icicle in the middle of the Fourth of July.

"Wow! This is great!" cried Flop. "I guess the other fellows will
wish they'd taken a slide. This is nifty!"

I don't know myself what "nifty" means, but Flop said it, so I have
to write it down.

Faster and faster he slid down the cellar door. It was a long one,
and now he was half way to the bottom.

"Oh, won't we have fun sliding after school!" the little piggie boy
cried. "I don't see why they looked rather sorrowfully after her
brothers and put up that sign not to slide. This is the best cellar
door I ever saw."

Faster and faster he slid, laughing and shouting in glee, and he was
almost at the bottom and he was wondering if he would have time for
just one more coast before school, when all of a sudden:

"Crack! Slam! Smash! Ker-bunk!"

Right down through the cellar door fell poor Flop, and down the
cellar steps into a tub of water. Into that he went ker-splash! For,
you see, the cellar door had broken with him and let him right
through, almost half way to China, it seemed.

Into the tub of water went Flop, getting wet all over. But he
managed to crawl out after a while, and as he stood there,
shivering, in the cellar, looking up at the broken door through
which he had fallen, a nice little old rat lady came out of the
house, and, looking at Flop, said:

"Dear me! What a terrible accident. Too bad! Did you hurt yourself,
little piggie?"

"N-no-not much," answered Flop. "But I--I'm all wet."

"So I see," said the rat lady. "But I thought there was a sign on
the door, telling no one to slide down."

"So there was," admitted Flop, "but I didn't see why it was there,
so I slid anyhow."

"I put the sign there because the door was so rotten that I knew the
first one who slid down it would fall through," said the rat lady.
"And to think, some one did fall!"

"Yes'm," said Flop, "I fell."

"Well, don't do it again," said the rat lady, "and tomorrow I'll
have a new cellar door made. Now let me dry you off."

So she kindly did, but Flop was late for school. And--well, I
suppose it couldn't be helped, even if he had to stay in. But on the
next page, in case the mousetrap doesn't catch the cheese by the
tail and make it squeal, I'll tell you about Mr. Twistytail's lost
hat.

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