When her piggie boys came home from school one afternoon Mrs.

Twistytail said to them:

"I wonder if you don't want to go to the store for me?"

 

"Of course we do mamma," spoke² Curly as quickly as ice cream melts on a hot day.

 

"Certainly," added Flop, and the funny part of it was that the two brothers had just planned to go off in the woods and play soldier and Indian after school.

 

But as soon as they heard that their mamma wanted them to go on an errand for her, they at once made up their minds that they would go to the store first and play afterward³.

 

"What do you want, mamma?" asked Curly. "Is it a cake of milk chocolate, because if it is—"

 

"We'll help eat it," finished Flop quickly with a laugh.

 

"No, all I need is some cornmeal to make pancakes with in the morning," spoke the pig lady. "Run along now, but you need not hurry back, and you may play on the way."

 

Curly and Flop whistled through their noses at hearing this, for they knew they could have some fun after all, and away they started for the store. The old gentleman duck who kept it, and who was a forty 'leventh cousin to Grandfather Goosey Gander, wrapped the cornmeal in two separate bags, so that Curly could carry one, and Flop the other.

 

"That will make it even," said the store duck, as he gave the piggie boys each a sweet cracker⁴.

 

Back home they started, playing tag, and hide the acorn⁵, and all such games like that, including one called "Please Don't Pull My Tail and I Won't Pull Yours." That's a very funny game.

 

Well, all of a sudden, as Curly and Flop were going along, they came past a field where a kind old rat gentleman was picking his apples off the trees. There were many of the apples, and they had to be put in barrels and brought into the cellar.

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