“Where are you going, mamma?” he called to her.  “Is the washing all done?  Can’t I wring any more clothes?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered.  “There are plenty more to wring out even yet, but they must wait.  Mrs. Littletail, who lives down the street, has just sent in to say that her little rabbit boy Sammie has the stomach ache and I am taking over some hot peppermint tea for him.  The washing can wait until I get back.”

On ran Mrs. Twistytail to make Sammie Littletail feel better, and just then her own little boy Curly had a great idea.

“I’ll just slip in and finish the washing for mamma,” he said to himself, as he saw that Flop and Pinky were still playing tag.  “Won’t she be s’prised when she comes in and sees the clothes all hung up to dry?”

So Curly hurried into the kitchen and there he saw a lot of water in a tub, and the pile of clothes in the basket ready to be rinsed and blued and hung out to dry.  Then Curly began to help his mamma to make her surprised.

Into the tub he plumped the clothes, and then, fastening on the wringer, he began to wring them out as dry as he could.  There were a lot of sheets and pillow-cases, and these last were like bags, full of wind and water when you put the open end in between the rubber rollers first.  And then, when they came toward the closed end.  My! how they would puff out and make a funny sissing noise.

Curly always liked to wring out the pillow-cases this way, and he had lots of fun.  Soon he had a big basket of clothes ready to hang on the line.  Wasn’t he the smart little piggie boy, though?

Out into the yard he carried the basket of clothes.  It was hard work, but he managed it.  And how the wind did blow!  It was all Curly could do to hold the big sheets from blowing away, but somehow he did, and he didn’t want to call Flop or Pinky to help, for he wanted to surprise them, too, as well as his mamma.

Well, he had hung up quite a lot of clothes to dry, and then came a large pillow-case.  The wind was blowing harder than ever, and as Curly tried to hang the case on the line a big, strong breeze just took hold of it, puffed it out like a balloon, and then—­and then, my goodness me, sakes alive! the wind took the pillow-case right up in the air, and as Curly was hanging tightly to it, he went up also!

Right up into the air he went, sailing and sailing, just like an aeroplane, and he cried out: 

“Mamma!  Papa!  Flop Ear!  Pinky!  Save me!” But none of them heard him, and he went higher and higher until the pillow-case, full of air like a balloon, caught in a tree, and there was the little piggie boy held where he couldn’t get down.  Oh, dear me, wasn’t that terrible?

Curly didn’t know what to do.  The tree was too big for him to jump down and he couldn’t climb very well.  He thought he would have to stay up there forever, maybe.  But he didn’t.  Pretty soon Sammie Littletail’s stomach ache was all better and Mrs. Twistytail came home.  The first things she saw were the clothes hanging out on the line—­that is, all but the pillow-case that had taken Curly up in the tall tree.