“Oh, merry-go-rounds!  Oh, pin wheels!  Oh, circus hoops!” For it made him dizzy to see the top spinning around, you see.  “Stop it!” he begged, but Curly would not, and at last the snail got so dizzy from watching the spinning top that he fell right over backward on it, and around and around he went, faster and faster, until, all of a sudden, just as when you get off a merry-go-round before it stops moving, that snail was tossed off from the top right out of the window into the mulberry bush, where he belonged, and so he didn’t stick Curly with his horns after all.  Wasn’t that good?

So that’s how Curly, with his spinning top, got the best of the snippery snail, and a few days later the little piggy boy could go to school whenever he wanted, for his vaccination was all better.  And as for that snail, well, the less said about him the better—­at least in this story.

And pretty soon, in case the man who is taking up the dried leaves in the street, doesn’t put the rag baby in his bag and take her off to gather chestnuts, I’ll tell you about Flop Ear and the frozen turtle.

STORY X

FLOP AND THE TURTLE

“Bur-r-r!  Whew!  Ice cream!” exclaimed Curly, the little piggie boy, one morning, as he hopped out of his bed in the clean straw and ran to the head of the stairs to see if breakfast was ready.  “It’s cold!  Terrible cold!”

“Of course it is,” agreed Flop, his brother.  “It will soon be winter and time for chestnuts and popcorn and sliding down hill and all that.  Of course it’s cold.”

“I hope there is some warm water to wash in,” went on Curly.

“Warm water!  What’s that!” cried his papa from the next room.  “Nonsensicalness!  Cold water is better for you.  It will make your skin nice and rosy.  Wash in cold water.”

So Curly, whether he wanted to or no, had to sozzle and splash himself all over in cold water, and really it did him good, for it made him feel nice and warm and made his ears and nose as red as a pink flannel blanket.

Then the two piggie boys were ready for breakfast, and they had hot corn meal cakes, with sour-milk and maple syrup sprinkled on them, and eggs, with the shells taken off, and warm milk and all things like that.

Then it was time for Curly to go to school, but as for Flop, he had not yet been vaccinated, and so he could not go to blackboard classes and learn how to add two and two together and make a mud pie of them, or how to write his name with red chalk that made blue marks.

“What are you going to do while I’m at school?” asked Curly of his little piggie brother, who was playing in the front yard.

“Oh, I think I’ll build myself a little house out of corncobs,” said Flop, “and then I’ll go over and tell Jennie Chipmunk that she can put her rag doll to sleep in it.”

“Fine!” cried Curly.  “And when I come home from school I’ll bring you each a lollypop.”