STORY XI

BULLY AND THE WATER BOTTLE

Well, just as I expected, my little cat did go roller skating, and skated over a banana skin, and fell down and rubbed some of the fur off his ear. But anyhow I’ll tell you a story just the same, and it’s going to be about what happened to Bully No-Tail, the frog, when he had a water bottle.

Do you know what a water bottle is? Now don’t be too sure. You might think it was a bottle made out of water, but instead it’s a bottle that holds water. Any kind of a bottle will do, and you can even take a milk bottle and put water in it if the milkman lets you.

Well, one day, when Bully didn’t know what to do to have some fun, and when Bawly, his brother, had gone off to play ball, Bully thought about making a water bottle, as Johnnie Bushytail had told him how to do it.

Bully took a bottle that once had held ink, and he cleaned it all out. Then he got a cork, and, taking one of his mamma’s long hatpins, he made, with the sharp point, a number of holes through the cork, just as if it were a sieve, or a coffee strainer. Then Bully filled the bottle with water, put in the cork, and there he had a sprinkling-water-bottle, just as nice as you could buy in a store.

“Now I’ll have some fun!” exclaimed Bully, as he jiggled the bottle up and down quite fast, with the cork end held down. The water squirted out from it just like from the watering can, when your mamma waters the flowers.

“I guess I’ll go water the garden first,” thought Bully. So he hopped over to where there were some seeds planted and the little green sprouts were just peeping up from the ground. Bully sprinkled water on the dry earth and made it soft so the flowers could come through more easily.