Now, do you think you’d like to hear, in the next story, about a queer adventure which Brighteyes had?  Well, I’ll tell it to you if the water sprinkler man gives us a nice big piece of ice to bake in the oven for a pudding.

[Illustration]

STORY XX

BRIGHTEYES HAS AN ADVENTURE

It was a very hot day.  It was as hot, in fact, as some of the days we have had around here lately, and when Brighteyes, the little guinea pig girl, saw the yellow sun beaming down as she looked out of the pen in the morning, she said to her papa: 

“Now, be very careful not to get overheated to-day, daddy, dear.”

“I will,” replied Dr. Pigg.  “It is so very warm that I shall walk on the shady side of the street, and keep a handkerchief, wet in ice water, on my head.”

“I was cool enough the other night,” remarked Buddy Pigg.  “In fact, I shivered when I saw the burglar fox trying to get in,” and he actually shivered again when he thought of it, and of how he had scared the bad fox away, as I told you in the story just before this one.

But, after a bit, it got so warm that even the thought of the fox could not make Buddy shiver.  Neither could his mother nor Brighteyes shiver, and when you can’t shiver, you know, it’s a sure sign that it’s going to be very hot.

At last Brighteyes said: 

“Oh, I think I’ll go for a walk in the woods.  Don’t you want to come along, Buddy?” and she looked at her brother, who was whittling a stick with his new knife.

But Buddy decided it was too hot even to go off in the woods, so Brighteyes said she would go alone.  She put on her coolest dress.  I think it was a white swiss or a blue organdie, or a challis, or a bombazine, I can’t just exactly remember.  Anyway, it was nice and cool, and freshly washed and ironed and starched, and Brighteyes looked just as pretty in it as a picture in a gold frame.

Well, she walked along for some time, and, pretty soon, oh, I guess in about three squeaks, or, maybe, four, she came to the woods.  It was nice and cool and shady in there, with a little breeze blowing through the trees, and, frisking about in the branches, were several chipmunks, who were cousins of Jennie Chipmunk, and a number of squirrels, besides, most of them relations of Johnnie and Billie Bushytail.

So Brighteyes sat down on a mossy log, and thought how nice and cool it was, and pretty soon, she heard water running and splashing over the stones.  That made her cooler than ever and she was feeling very happy, and wishing Buddy was with her, when she began to feel thirsty.

And the more she heard the water running the more thirsty she became, until she said, right out loud:  “I’m going to get a drink!”

You’ve no idea how funny it sounded to hear Brighteyes speak out loud that way, for it was so still and quiet in the woods, that it was just as if she had spoken out loud in church, after the minister has stopped praying.  Then Brighteyes got up from the mossy log, and went toward the running water.  And what do you s’pose is going to happen?  Why, she’s going to have an adventure in about a minute, or, maybe, less time.