"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.
"My goodness me! sakes alive and a corn cob," exclaimed Mrs.
Twistytail. "The children must have done this to help me. My, but I
am surprised. But I wonder where they are?" Then she saw Flop and
Pinky playing tag, but she couldn't see Curly.
"Oh, Curly, Curly, where are you?" she called, and her little boy answered:
"I'm up in the tree with the pillow-case!" Then his mamma saw him and she nearly fainted. But she didn't quite faint, and then she telephoned for a fireman with a long ladder, who came and got Curly safely down.
So that's how he helped his mamma, and he surprised her more than he meant to, but it all came out right in the end. And soon the washing was all done, and the firemen gave each of the pig children a penny.
So that's all now, but in the next story, in case the oil can doesn't slide down the clothes pole and break the handle off the pump, so the angle worm can't get his ice cream cone, I'll tell you about Curly and the elephant.
STORY V
CURLY AND THE ELEPHANT
When Curly Twistytail, the little pig boy, was digging away with his nose in the front yard, one day, hunting for lollypops, or maybe ice cream cones, under the grass, for all that I know; one day, I say, as he was rooting away, he heard his mamma calling: