"Very good," said Curly, and he wondered why all little animal children had to be vaccinated, and have the mumps and the measles-pox and epizootic, and all things like that, but he couldn't guess, and so he didn't try.
He was rolling down his sleeve, and Dr. Possum was putting away the toothpick with which he had vaccinated the little piggie boy, when, all of a sudden, into the room jumped a big fuzzy fox, crying out:
"Oh, Joy! Oh, good luck! Oh, hungriness! Here I have a pig dinner and an opossum dinner all at once! Oh, happiness!"
Then he made a jump, and was just going to grab Dr. Possum and Curly too, when the little piggie boy cried out:
"Vaccinate him! Vaccinate him, Dr. Possum. That will make him so itchy that he can't bite us."
"The very thing!" cried Dr. Possum, and before the big fuzzy fox could get out of the way Dr. Possum vaccinated him on the end of his nose with the toothpick all covered with the funny yellow salve, and the fox was so kerslostrated that he jumped over his tail seven times, and then leaped out of the window, leaving Curly and Dr. Possum in peace. And in about a week—oh, how that fox's nose did itch! Wow! And some sandpaper besides!
As for Curly, he was vaccinated very nicely, indeed, and he could go to school when his arm got well. And what happened next I'll tell you in the story after this, and it will be about Curly and the spinning top—that is, it will if the pink parasol coming up the street doesn't slip on the horse chestnut and make the pony cart fall down the coal hole.
STORY IX
CURLY AND THE SPINNING TOP
"Oh dear!" cried Curly one morning, before his papa, Mr. Twistytail, the pig gentleman, had started for work. "Oh dear, how dreadful I feel!"