Read Ebook: Buddy and Brighteyes Pigg: Bed Time Stories by Garis Howard Roger Wisa Louis Illustrator

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Ebook has 994 lines and 39317 words, and 20 pages

"Yes, it is," replied Mrs. Toad, "and I know you'll excuse me, my dear, for not stopping my jumping to sit and chat with you, but the truth of the matter is that I think the butter is beginning to come, and I daren't stop."

"Oh, don't stop on my account," begged Brighteyes, politely. "I can talk while you jump."

"Very good," replied the toad, "I think I will soon be finished, though on hot days the butter is longer in coming," and she began to hop up and down faster than ever.

Then, all at once, oh, about as soon as you can pull off a porous plaster when you're quick about it, if poor Mrs. Toad didn't give a cry, and stop jumping.

"What's the matter?" asked Brighteyes, "has the butter come?"

"No," was the answer, "but I stepped on a sharp stone, and hurt my foot, and now I can't jump up and down any more. Oh, dear! now the butter will be spoiled, for there is no one else at my home to finish churning it. Oh, dear me, and a pinch of salt on a cracker! Isn't that bad luck?" and she sat down beside a burdock plant.

Well, sure enough, she had cut her foot quite badly, and it was utterly out of the question for her to jump up and down any more.

"Will you kindly help me to get the churn off my back?" Mrs. Toad asked of Brighteyes, and the little guinea pig girl helped her.

"All that nice butter is spoiled," went on Mrs. Toad, as she looked in the churn. "Well, it can't be helped, I s'pose, and there's no use worrying over buttermilk that isn't quite made. I shall have to throw this away."

"No, don't," cried Brighteyes quickly.

"Why not?" asked the toad lady.

"Because I will finish churning it for you."

"Do you know how to churn?"

"Not exactly, but I have thought of a plan. See, we will tie the churn to this blackberry bush stem, and then I will take hold of one end of the stem, and wiggle it up and down, and the churn will go up and down, too, on the bush, just as it did when you jumped with it; and then maybe the butter will come."

"All right, my dear, you may try it," agreed Mrs. Toad. "I'm afraid, though, that it won't amount to anything, but it can do no harm. I am sure it is very kind of you to think of it."

So Brighteyes took the churn, and tied it to a low, overhanging branch of the blackberry bush. Then she took hold of the branch in her teeth, and stood up on her hind legs and began to wiggle it up and down. The churn went up and down with the branch, and the milk from the milk-weed sloshed and splashed around inside the churn, and land sakes flopsy-dub and some chewing gum, if in about two squeals there wasn't the nicest butter a guinea pig or a toad would ever want to eat!

"Oh, what a smart little girl you are!" cried Mrs. Toad. "I'm sure your mother must be proud of you! Now I can work the buttermilk out, and salt the butter, and I'm going to send your mamma home a nice pat," which she did, and very glad Mrs. Pigg was to get it.

Now, in case you don't drop your bread with the butter side down on the carpet, and spoil the kitchen oilcloth, I'll tell you in the next story about Buddy Pigg and Sammie Littletail.

BUDDY PIGG AND SAMMY LITTLETAIL

Getting up quite early one morning, Buddy Pigg washed himself very carefully, so that his black and white fur was fairly shining in the sunlight, and then the little guinea pig started off to take a stroll before breakfast.

"Who knows," he said, "perhaps I may meet with an adventure; or else find a cabbage, just as I did the other day. But if I do, I'm not going to get inside it and go to sleep. No, indeed, and a feather pillow besides!"

So Buddy Pigg walked on, leaving his sister and his mamma and Dr. Pigg slumbering in the pen. Oh, it was just fine, running along through the woods and over the fields that beautiful, summer morning.

The grass was all covered with dew, and Buddy had a second bath before he had gone very far, there was so much water on everything, but he didn't mind that. He looked at the flowers, on every side, and smelled them with his little twinkling nose, and he listened to the birds singing.

Well, in a short time he came to a place where a lot of little trees grew close together, making a sort of grove, not large enough for a Sunday-school picnic, perhaps, but large enough for guinea pigs.

"This is a fine place," said Buddy Pigg. "I think I'll rest here a bit, and perhaps an adventure may come along."

You see Buddy was very fond of adventures, which means having something happen to you. He was almost as much that way as Alice Wibblewobble, the little duck girl, was fond of romantic things--that is she liked fairies, and princes, and kings, and knights with golden swords, and all oddities like that. Well, Buddy Pigg went in the little grove of trees, and now you just wait and listen--an adventure is going to happen in less than five minutes by the clock.

All of a sudden, just as the little guinea pig got close to one of the trees, he smelled something good, and he looked up, and, bless him! if he didn't see the nicest turnip that ever grew.

"Oh, that certainly is fine!" he cried, and his eyes twinkled and his nose wiggled, both at the same time. "I must take that home for breakfast," he went on. But my goodness me and the mustard spoon! if, when he went to get it, he didn't discover that the turnip was hung up by a string on the branch of the tree!

"Hello!" exclaimed Buddy Pigg. "I never saw turnips growing that way before. This must be a special kind, but it will be all the better. It is a little high up, but I think I can reach it by standing on my hind legs, and stretching up my front paws."

So he moved a little nearer the curious hanging turnip, and was about to reach up for it when who should come bounding out of the bushes but Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy.

"Hello, Buddy Pigg!" he called. "What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to get this turnip down," answered Buddy. "It is a fine one; but it is hanging quite high. I'll give you some when I pull it down," for Buddy Pigg was very kind, you know.

Well, he stood up again, and was just about to step a little closer, so he could grab the turnip, when Sammie cried out:

"Here, Buddy! Come right away from that! Jump back as fast as you can! Quick! Quick! I say!"

"Why?" asked Buddy, "is it your turnip?"

"No, but don't you see? That turnip is nothing but a trap. It is hung up there on purpose. Come away. I can see the trap as plain as anything. Uncle Wiggily Longears taught me how to keep away from them, for I was caught in one, once upon a time."

"A trap?" asked Buddy. "Is this a trap?"

"To be sure," answered Sammie. "See, the turnip hangs right over a loop of wire, and inside the wire loop there is a piece of wood. Now to reach up and get the turnip you must step on the piece of wood, and as soon as you do so that tree branch, to which the wire is fast, will spring up, the wire will slip around your neck, you will be yanked up into the air, and that will be the last of you."

"The last of me?" asked Buddy, who, being a little boy, had not seen as much of the world as had Sammie.

"The very last of you," answered the rabbit. "You would be choked to death by the wire. Yes, the turnip was put there to catch some one, but they won't catch us, Buddy. We'll fool them!"

"Oh, I say! This is too bad!" exclaimed Buddy. "I was just counting on this turnip. Isn't there any way we can get it?"

"I don't believe so," replied Sammie, wrinkling up his nose, just as Buddy was doing. They smelled that turnip, and it had a most delicious odor, better to them, even, than strawberries are to you.

"Maybe we can throw some stones up and knock it down," suggested Buddy.

So they threw up stones, and, though they hit the turnip, and made it swing back and forth, like the pendulum of the clock, it didn't fall down, and by this time Buddy and Sammie were getting very hungry.

"Let's try throwing sticks," proposed Sammie. "We'll toss them at the cord, and maybe we can break it."

So they threw sticks, and, though Buddy did manage to hit the cord, the turnip didn't come down, and they were more hungry than ever.

"Let's take a long pole and poke the turnip down," said Sammie after a while, and they did so, but Buddy accidentally came within half a dozen steps of going too near the trap, and was almost caught.

"Oh, I guess we'll have to give it up," spoke Sammie, but Buddy didn't want to, because he was very determined, and did not like to stop until he had done what he set out to do.

So he tried every way he could think of, until he was all tired out, but nothing seemed to do any good. Then he and Sammie sat down and looked up at that turnip, swinging over their heads, and they were so hungry that their tongues stuck out like a dog's on a hot day. Then, all at once, before you could sharpen a lead pencil with a dull knife, if out from the bushes didn't pop Billie Bushytail, the squirrel.

"What's up?" he asked, just like that, honestly he did.

"The turnip is," said Buddy; "it's up high and we can't get it down."

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