"Why, Curly," exclaimed the nice old lady owl¹ school teacher one day, when the class in drawing was doing its lesson. "Why, Curly Twistytail! I'm certainly surprised at you!"

 

Of course, all the animal children looked over at the little piggie boy, and at his brother Flop², also; but Flop had done nothing. And what do you suppose it was that Curly had done?

 

Why, instead of drawing a picture of a pail of sour milk, as the teacher had told him to do, he had made a picture of a monkey-doodle sitting on top of a Jack³ o'Lantern pumpkin⁴. Wasn't that just awful! Well, I guess yes, and some tooth brushes besides.

 

"Oh, Curly, how could you?" asked the owl teacher, in a sorrowful voice.

 

"I—I didn't mean to," spoke⁵ the little piggie boy. "I—I guess it just—happened."

 

You see, during the drawing lesson, when the animal children were supposed to make different pictures on their papers, the teacher would fly around the room softly and come up from behind the desks. Thus, she could look over the animal children's shoulders and see what they were doing, when they didn't know it. It was then that she had seen what Curly, the pig, drew.

 

"Well, Curly," went on the owl teacher, sadly, "of course, it was wrong of you to make that kind of a picture, and, though I do not like to do it, I shall have to punish you. You will have to stay in after school."

 

And so that's how it was that Curly did not go out with the other animal children when school was dismissed. He had to stay in and clean off the blackboards, but he didn't mind that much, and really he was sorry for being a little bit bad.

 

"You may go now," said the owl school teacher, after a while, and Curly hurried home, feeling a little sad, and wondering what his mamma would say to him. He also wanted to hurry and have some fun with his brother, Flop.

 

Well, as Curly was going through the woods, all of a sudden, under a tree, something fell and hit him on the nose. He jumped to one side and exclaimed:

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