“Wow!  This is great!” cried Flop.  “I guess the other fellows will wish they’d taken a slide.  This is nifty!”

I don’t know myself what “nifty” means, but Flop said it, so I have to write it down.

Faster and faster he slid down the cellar door.  It was a long one, and now he was half way to the bottom.

“Oh, won’t we have fun sliding after school!” the little piggie boy cried.  “I don’t see why they looked rather sorrowfully after her brothers and put up that sign not to slide.  This is the best cellar door I ever saw.”

Faster and faster he slid, laughing and shouting in glee, and he was almost at the bottom and he was wondering if he would have time for just one more coast before school, when all of a sudden: 

“Crack!  Slam!  Smash!  Ker-bunk!”

Right down through the cellar door fell poor Flop, and down the cellar steps into a tub of water.  Into that he went ker-splash!  For, you see, the cellar door had broken with him and let him right through, almost half way to China, it seemed.

Into the tub of water went Flop, getting wet all over.  But he managed to crawl out after a while, and as he stood there, shivering, in the cellar, looking up at the broken door through which he had fallen, a nice little old rat lady came out of the house, and, looking at Flop, said: 

“Dear me!  What a terrible accident.  Too bad!  Did you hurt yourself, little piggie?”

“N-no-not much,” answered Flop.  “But I—­I’m all wet.”

“So I see,” said the rat lady.  “But I thought there was a sign on the door, telling no one to slide down.”

“So there was,” admitted Flop, “but I didn’t see why it was there, so I slid anyhow.”

“I put the sign there because the door was so rotten that I knew the first one who slid down it would fall through,” said the rat lady.  “And to think, some one did fall!”

“Yes’m,” said Flop, “I fell.”

“Well, don’t do it again,” said the rat lady, “and tomorrow I’ll have a new cellar door made.  Now let me dry you off.”

So she kindly did, but Flop was late for school.  And—­well, I suppose it couldn’t be helped, even if he had to stay in.  But on the next page, in case the mousetrap doesn’t catch the cheese by the tail and make it squeal, I’ll tell you about Mr. Twistytail’s lost hat.

STORY XVII

MR. TWISTYTAIL’S LOST HAT

“Hey, Curly can you be out?” called Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs, as they stood in front of the piggie boys’ house one morning when there was no school.  I forget whether it was Saturday or because the owl lady school teacher had to go and take her music lesson.

Anyhow, there was no school, and as Peetie and Jackie stood in front of the pig house and called: 

“Hey, Curly!  Hey, Flop!  Come on out!”

“Of course we will!” cried Curly.  “What are you going to do?” and he and his brother hurried with their breakfast and ran out in the yard.