STORY XVII

MR. TWISTYTAIL'S LOST HAT

"Hey, Curly can you be out?" called Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the
puppy dogs, as they stood in front of the piggie boys' house one
morning when there was no school. I forget whether it was Saturday
or because the owl lady school teacher had to go and take her music
lesson.

Anyhow, there was no school, and as Peetie and Jackie stood in front
of the pig house and called:

"Hey, Curly! Hey, Flop! Come on out!"

"Of course we will!" cried Curly. "What are you going to do?" and he
and his brother hurried with their breakfast and ran out in the
yard.

"Let's play football game," suggested Jackie, "like we did the other
day."

"No, let's go off in the woods and play camping out," suggested
Curly.

"Yes, that will be more fun," added Flop, and then the two puppy dog
boys thought the same thing, so off to the woods they started.

"I wish I could go," said Baby Pinky, as she their chums.

"Never mind, Pinky," said Mrs. Twistytail. "I'm going to bake pies,
and I'll make a specially little one just for you."

"Oh, goodie!" cried Pinky, and then she went out in the yard to play
in her go-cart. Pretty soon along came Jennie Chipmunk and she
played with Pinky, so the little pig girl didn't mind so much, after
all, that her brothers had gone away.

But now let us see what happened to Curly and Flop, to say nothing
of Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow. On and on they went through the woods,
and pretty soon Jackie found a nice juicy bone, and Peetie found a
bit of meat, while Flop found an ear of corn and his brother picked
up a big turnip.

"Oh, joyfulness!" exclaimed Flop. "Now we can have a lunch in the
woods, just like real camping out!" And so they did. Under a tree,
on the soft leaves that floated down from the branches above, with a
flat stone for a table, and sticks for knives and forks, the piggie
boys and their chums ate their lunch and had lots of fun. Then Curly
said:

"Now let's play soldier," and so they did, with sticks for guns, and
when the boy animals called out: "Boom! Boom!" and "Bang! Bang!" it
sounded as real as anything.

Well, they were running around in the woods, shouting and laughing
and making believe they were soldiers at war, when all at once, just
as Curly passed in front of a hole that seemed to go away under
ground, he saw something roll out. It was something round and black
and hollow, and at first the little piggie boy thought it was a big
black stone. But, when he looked a little closer, he saw that it was
a hat--a man-pig's hat--just the kind they always wear.

"Oh, Flop! Oh, fellows! Come here!" called Curly. "See what rolled
out of the hole under this old tree."

Of course, they all came running up at that, and stopped playing
soldier, and they gathered around the hat.

"Whose is it?" asked Jackie Bow Wow.

"Where did it come from?" inquired Peetie, making his tail go round
like a pin wheel.

"It's our papa's hat!" suddenly cried Flop. "I can tell because it's
got his initials inside," and, surely enough there were the letters
"A.T." inside the hat, standing for "Archibald Twistytail."

"Our papa's hat!" exclaimed Curly. "Is it possible?"

"Of course, it is," said Floppy, as he picked it up. "Papa has lost
his hat."

"But it rolled out of that hole," said Curly, "and it isn't lost,
for we have found it."

"Then if papa's hat came out of that hole, our papa must be in
there," said Flop.

"Why, of course," agreed Jackie Bow Wow.

"But what is he doing in there?" asked Curly, "and what sort of a
place is it? I can't see him," he added, as he stooped down and
tried to look into the hole.

"I don't know what he's doing in there," said Flop, "but I know what
sort of a place that hole is. It's a wolf's den, and the wolf has
our papa, Most likely he's eating him now, and he threw the hat out
because he couldn't chew it--the wolf, I mean."

"Oh!" cried Curly, jumping up and down, he felt so badly.

"Oh; oh!" barked Jackie Bow Wow.

"Oh! oh! Double Oh!" growled Peetie Bow Wow. "What shall we do?"

"We must get him out of there!" exclaimed Flop as quickly as a
rubber band can play the "Annie Laurie" song. "There are four of us
here, and we have our wooden guns. I guess we are a match for one
wolf. We must save our papa."

"Of course!" agreed Curly, bravely.

"But how?" asked Jackie Bow Wow.

"Listen," said Flop, just like a telephone girl.

"A wolf always have two doors to his den--a back one and a front
one. This is the front one--where our papa's hat rolled out. Now,
Jackie, you and Curly go to the back door, and make a noise like a
soup bone. The wolf will think some company has come to supper with
him, and he'll run to the back door. As soon as he gets there,
Jackie, you bark like anything, and, Curly, you fire off your wooden
gun."

"But what will you do?" asked Curly of his brother.

"Peetie and I will stay at the front door," said Flop. "As soon as
we hear you making the noise we'll rush in the den by the front door
and get papa and help him out. Then we'll all run away."

Well, every one thought that was a fine plan, and they did just as
Flop said. The wolf came rushing to his back door when he heard the
noise there, and maybe he wasn't surprised to see Curly and the
puppy dog! Then Flop and Peetie rushed in the front door, and there,
inside the den, they found poor Mr. Twistytail tied to the table
leg.

"Quick!" cried Flop. "Bite the ropes, Peetie." And the puppy dog
did, and Mr. Twistytail was free. "Now, come with us!" cried Flop,
and he and his papa and Peetie ran out of the wolf's den just in
time, for the bad creature, seeing he had been fooled at his back
door, rushed up to bite the pig gentleman.

But he was too late, that wolf was, for the piggie boys and their
papa and the puppy dog boys got safely away, and the wolf didn't
dare follow because he was afraid of the wooden guns. Then when they
were all safe home, including the hat, Mr. Twistytail told how the
wolf caught him as he was coming back from work, and how his hat
accidently rolled out of the den. And if it hadn't been for the hat
maybe Mr. Twistytail would not have been saved.

Anyway, he was not hurt a bit, and in the next story, in case the
bicycle doesn't roll over the egg basket and make an omelet out of
the pin cushion, I'll tell you about Mamma Twistytail's new bonnet.

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