“Here, you bad dog, let my friend Curly alone!  Run away, now, or I’ll nip you on your toes and nose!  Skip!  Hiss!  Scoot!”

And that dog was so frightened that he didn’t think a single thing more about eggs, but he just tucked his tail between his legs, where it wouldn’t get in his way, and off he ran.

“Oh, saved at last!” gasped Curly, as he sat down on the curbstone to rest, “and I still have eight eggs left for mamma’s cake.”  Then he looked up to see who had rescued him, and it was old Grandfather Goosey Gander, the father of all the geese.  The brave creature had hissed at the bad egg dog and frightened him away.

“Oh, how thankful I am to you,” said Curly, politely, “and when the cake is baked you shall have a piece, Grandpa Goosey.”

So he went on home with the rest of the eggs and—­well, I do declare!  I have forgotten all about the elephant!  I know he was to be in this story, somewhere, but there’s no room now, so I’ll have to put him in the next one, which will be about Flop and the bag of meal—­that is, if the clothes-basket doesn’t fall on the gas stove and make the rice pudding go down the cellar to hide away from the rag doll.

STORY VI

FLOP AND THE BAG OF MEAL

Now, let me see, I promised to put in this story, something about the elephant; didn’t I?  That’s because I left it out of the story on the page before this, where Curly had such a dreadful time with the bad egg dog.

Well, now, if I leave the elephant out of this story I promise that I’ll give each one of you an ice cream cone with a raisin in it.  All you’ll have to do—­in case I forget to tell about the elephant and how he helped Flop—­all you have to do, I say, is to come up to my house and say “Magoozilum!” at me, just like that, and turn two somersaults on the parlor rug, and the ice cream cone is yours for the asking.

But now let’s get right at the story.  You see it happened this way.  Once upon a time, when Curly and his brother Flop were out in the yard of the piggy-house, playing “ring around the apple tree,” their mother called to them: 

“Oh, boys! come in here!” she said, and when they got to the kitchen where she was working, she asked them:  “Do you know what I’m making?”

“Pies,” said Curly.

“Pudding,” suggested Flop, as he tried to make his slimpsy ear stand up straight, but he couldn’t.

“Neither one,” said their mother.  “But if one of you will go to the store for me I’ll make a Johnny cake for supper.”

“A Johnny cake?” asked Curly.  “Is it called that because a boy has to be named Johnny to eat it?”

“No,” answered his mother with a laugh, “but lots of boys named Johnny do eat it.  However, just at the last minute I find that I have no corn meal.  Now who wants to go to the store for a bag full, so I can make the Johnny cake?”