He was rolling down his sleeve, and Dr. Possum was putting away the toothpick with which he had vaccinated the little piggie boy, when, all of a sudden, into the room jumped a big fuzzy fox, crying out: 

“Oh, Joy!  Oh, good luck!  Oh, hungriness!  Here I have a pig dinner and an opossum dinner all at once!  Oh, happiness!”

Then he made a jump, and was just going to grab Dr. Possum and Curly too, when the little piggie boy cried out: 

“Vaccinate him!  Vaccinate him, Dr. Possum.  That will make him so itchy that he can’t bite us.”

“The very thing!” cried Dr. Possum, and before the big fuzzy fox could get out of the way Dr. Possum vaccinated him on the end of his nose with the toothpick all covered with the funny yellow salve, and the fox was so kerslostrated that he jumped over his tail seven times, and then leaped out of the window, leaving Curly and Dr. Possum in peace.  And in about a week—­oh, how that fox’s nose did itch!  Wow!  And some sandpaper besides!

As for Curly, he was vaccinated very nicely, indeed, and he could go to school when his arm got well.  And what happened next I’ll tell you in the story after this, and it will be about Curly and the spinning top—­that is, it will if the pink parasol coming up the street doesn’t slip on the horse chestnut and make the pony cart fall down the coal hole.

STORY IX

CURLY AND THE SPINNING TOP

“Oh dear!” cried Curly one morning, before his papa, Mr. Twistytail, the pig gentleman, had started for work.  “Oh dear, how dreadful I feel!”

“Why, what is the matter?” asked his papa, as he looked in the back of the shiny dishpan to see if his collar was on straight.

“Oh, my arm hurts so!” went on Curly.  “It all seems swelled up, and it has a lump under it and I don’t feel a bit good.  Oh dear!”

“It’s his vaccination,” said his mamma.  “It is beginning to ‘take’ now, and it pains him.”

“What is beginning to ‘take’, mamma?” asked Curly.  “It is beginning to take the pain away?  Because if it isn’t I wish it was.  Oh dear!”

“It will soon be better,” said Mrs. Twistytail.  “Would you like some nice yellow cornmeal ice cream, or some lollypops, flavored with sour milk?”

“Neither, mamma,” answered the piggie boy.  “But I would like something to amuse me.”

“All right,” answered the pig lady.  “Then I’ll send Flop Ear down to the store to get you a toy.  Come Floppy,” she called, “go and get something with which to amuse your brother,” for you see Flop hadn’t yet been vaccinated, and his arm was not sore.

“What would you like?” asked Flop of his brother.  “Shall I get you a mouth organ, or a kite, so you can fly away up to the clouds?”

“Neither one,” said Curly.  “I want a spinning top that I can make go around when I lie down in bed.  And I want it to make music and jump around on a plate and slide on a string and all things like that.”