Lit2Go

One night, in the piggie house where Mr. and Mrs. Twistytail lived with their three children, there was a crying noise.

“Hey! What’s that?” asked Curly, one of the piggie boys, as he threw some of the straw from his bed over on the one where his brother Floppy slept.

“Oh, I don’t know. Cats howling, I guess,” answered Flop. “Go to sleep and don’t mind ‘em.”

So he and Curly tried hard to go to sleep again, but you know how it is, sometimes, the more you try to close your eyes, and dream, the wider awake you get. It was this way with the two piggie boys, though you can hardly blame them for not sleeping, as the crying noise sounded louder and louder.

“That isn’t cats,” said Curly, after a while.

“No,” agreed Flop. “I guess it isn’t. Sounds more like Baby Pinky crying. I wonder what’s the matter?”

“Let’s get up and look,” suggested Curly who always liked to be doing something, even at night. So the two piggie boys crawled softly from their beds and looked out of the door. They saw in the next room their papa scooting around in his bare feet, carrying a kettle of hot water, and then they heard their mamma saying:

“There, there now, little one. Your pain will soon be better. Don’t cry and wake up the boys.”

“Oh, we are awake!” exclaimed Curly through the open door of his room.

“What’s the matter?” asked his brother. “Is somebody sick?”

“Baby Pinky is,” answered Mrs. Twistytail. “But go to sleep. We’ll call you if we want you.” The two piggie boys saw their papa getting more hot water, and other things, from the kitchen, and they heard their mamma walking around with their baby sister, and they tried to go to sleep, but they didn’t rest much, for they were too anxious.

During the night they managed to doze off, but still they heard noises through the house, and when it was almost morning, but when the stars were still twinkling, they heard their papa go softly out of the front door. And they heard their mamma say: “Tell the doctor to come as soon as he can, Archibald.” You see, Mr. Twistytail’s first name was Archibald. And he answered:

“Yes, I’ll get him soon,” and then the two boys heard their papa sort of blowing his nose hard and coughing, as if he had a bad cold. You see, papa pigs feel as badly when their little children get sick as real papas do, every bit.

Now in the morning, when the sun was up, there was a busy time at the pig-house. First came Grandfather Squealer, the oldest pig of them all, and he was a very nice gentleman.

“You boys must be very good and quiet,” he said to Curly and Flop. “For your little sister is very sick, and may have to go to the hospital.”

“What’s a hospital?” asked Curly.

“It’s a place where they make sick folks get well,” answered Grandfather Squealer. “Now, you boys get ready for school. The doctor is still here, and may be for some time.”

And so Dr. Possum was—up in the room looking after poor sick Pinky. There was something the matter inside her—I didn’t know what it was, but anyhow she had to go to the hospital to have it fixed, just as when the clock doesn’t go, the jeweler has to put new wheels in it, or fix the old ones.

“But I don’t want to go to the hospital,” squealed Pinky, when they told her she would have to. “I want to stay home,” and she made such a fuss that Dr. Possum said:

“This isn’t good for her. We must get her to be more quiet, or she will be very ill.”

“Oh, please let us try to get her quiet,” begged Curly, who, with his brother, heard what was said. “We’ll do some funny tricks, and stand on our tails, and sing a little song, and then Pinky will want to go to the hospital.”

“Very well,” spoke Dr. Possum, so the two piggie boys did all the tricks they could think of, from whirling around on the ends of their tails to rolling themselves down a hill, like a hoop, with an apple in their mouths. As Pinky watched them, she felt a little better, and when the big ambulance automobile came to take her to the hospital she was almost laughing.

And even when she got in the nice big hospital, so clean and neat, she wasn’t frightened, for the little squirrel nurses were so kind to her and they looked so pretty in their caps and blue dresses that Pinky felt sure she was going to like it there. And then the doctor said to her.

“Now, Pinky, little girl, I will have to hurt you the least bit, but no more than I can help, and after it is over you will be all better and you will have no pain and you will be well. Are you going to be a brave little piggie and stand for it?”

“Ye—yes,” faltered Pinky, but when the time came for them to really make her better, and when it hurt, she cried out:

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” and she wiggled so hard that the nurses and doctors could hardly hold her, just as when some children get vaccinated.

“This will never do,” said Dr. Possum. “If she doesn’t keep quiet we cannot make her get well.”

“I can’t!” cried Pinky. “I can’t! I can’t!”

Well, no one knew what to do, until just then Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, came along, and he saw at once what was the matter.

“I’ll fix it!” he exclaimed. “If Curly and Flop will stand outside the hospital and sing funny songs while the doctor is fixing Pinky, she will not mind it in the least.”

“We’ll try it,” said Dr. Possum. So the two piggie boys began to sing funny songs under Pinky’s window. They sang about the mousie who had a rubber nose, and every time he blew it he bounced on his tiptoes. Then there was another one about a doggie, who could not wag his tail, because he’d fastened on it the monkey’s drinking pail. And when Pinky heard these songs she felt much better, and she let the doctor do whatever he had to do to her.

And when he hurt her quite badly (though, of course, he did not mean to, for it was to make her better), and when Pinky cried, Curly and Flop danced harder than ever and sang about the kitty who had a penny hat, and when the ribbons all fell off she gave it to a rat.

Pinky laughed at that, and when her two brothers chased after Sammie Littletail, the rabbit, and made him jump over a telegraph pole just for fun, she felt so jolly that Dr. Possum could finish making her all better, and she never cried once again.

So this shows you that even little animal children can go to the hospital and not mind it at all, though I hope none of you boys and girls ever get ill enough to have to go. And in a short time Pinky was all better, and she was glad she had let the doctor do what he had to.

So on the next page, in case the baking powder doesn’t shoot the sponge cake in the bathtub and make the towel ring the bell, I’ll tell you about Curly and the big apple.