Buddy and Brighteyes Pigg Part 2

"To be sure," answered Sammie. "See, the turnip hangs right over a loop of wire, and inside the wire loop there is a piece of wood. Now to reach up and get the turnip you must step on the piece of wood, and as soon as you do so that tree branch, to which the wire is fast, will spring up, the wire will slip around your neck, you will be yanked up into the air, and that will be the last of you."

"The last of me?" asked Buddy, who, being a little boy, had not seen as much of the world as had Sammie.

"The very last of you," answered the rabbit. "You would be choked to death by the wire. Yes, the turnip was put there to catch some one, but they won't catch us, Buddy. We'll fool them!"

"Oh, I say! This is too bad!" exclaimed Buddy. "I was just counting on this turnip. Isn't there any way we can get it?"

"I don't believe so," replied Sammie, wrinkling up his nose, just as Buddy was doing. They smelled that turnip, and it had a most delicious odor, better to them, even, than strawberries are to you.

"Maybe we can throw some stones up and knock it down," suggested Buddy.

So they threw up stones, and, though they hit the turnip, and made it swing back and forth, like the pendulum of the clock, it didn't fall down, and by this time Buddy and Sammie were getting very hungry.

"Let's try throwing sticks," proposed Sammie. "We'll toss them at the cord, and maybe we can break it."

So they threw sticks, and, though Buddy did manage to hit the cord, the turnip didn't come down, and they were more hungry than ever.

"Let's take a long pole and poke the turnip down," said Sammie after a while, and they did so, but Buddy accidentally came within half a dozen steps of going too near the trap, and was almost caught.

"Oh, I guess we'll have to give it up," spoke Sammie, but Buddy didn't want to, because he was very determined, and did not like to stop until he had done what he set out to do.

So he tried every way he could think of, until he was all tired out, but nothing seemed to do any good. Then he and Sammie sat down and looked up at that turnip, swinging over their heads, and they were so hungry that their tongues stuck out like a dog's on a hot day. Then, all at once, before you could sharpen a lead pencil with a dull knife, if out from the bushes didn't pop Billie Bushytail, the squirrel.

"What's up?" he asked, just like that, honestly he did.

"The turnip is," said Buddy; "it's up high and we can't get it down."

"Ha! That's a mere trifle--a mere trifle!" cried Billie. "I will climb up the tree, run out on the limb and gnaw through the string. Then the turnip will fall down to you."

Which he did in two frisks of his tail, without any danger from the trap at all, for that was on the ground, while Billie was above it in the tree. So Buddy and Sammie had the turnip after all. And they divided it evenly, Sammie gnawing it through with his teeth, and each one took his half home. Billie didn't like turnip, you see for he would rather have chestnuts.

Now, I think I'll tell you next about Buddy Pigg playing ball--that is, if our tea kettle sings a nice song for supper and makes the rag doll go to sleep.

STORY IV

BUDDY PIGG PLAYS BALL

"h.e.l.lo, Buddy!" called Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, to Buddy Pigg one fine day, "come on out, and we'll have a game of ball," and Sammie tossed his ball high up in the air and caught it in his catching glove, as easily as you can eat two ice cream cones, a vanilla and a chocolate one, on a hot day.

"Why, we two can't play ball alone," objected Buddy. "It needs three, anyhow."

"Oh, well, we'll find Billie and Johnie Bushytail somewhere in the woods," went on Sammie, "and maybe Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck, will come along, too. Then there is Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, who have come back from the country. Oh, we can get up a regular team."

"All right, I'll come," agreed Buddy. "Wait until I bring in some wood for mother. She is going to bake some turnip pies to-day--out of the turnip you and I and Billie Bushytail got yesterday--and she needs a hot fire. I just love turnip pies; don't you, Sammie?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Indeed I do, but I don't believe we are going to have any. Mother stewed my half of the turnip."

"Never mind," advised Buddy Pigg, "I'll give you some of our pies when they are baked," so he brought in two big armfuls of wood for the fire, and then he and Sammie went off to play ball, leaving Brighteyes Pigg home to help her mamma bake the pies, which the little guinea pig girl loved to do.

Well, Buddy and Sammie hadn't gone very far before they met Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, the boy squirrels, and they agreed to play ball.

Then, as the four of them went along a little farther, they met Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, out walking with Percival, the old circus dog. So Peetie and Jackie said they would play ball, and that made six.

"Now, if we had two more we would have four on a side," suggested Buddy, and, no sooner had he spoken than there was a noise in the bushes, and out came Jimmie Wibblewobble, and Bully, the frog.

They were very glad to play ball, and soon there were two sides selected. Buddy Pigg was captain of one side, and for players he had Peetie Bow Wow, Billie Bushytail, and Bully, while Sammie Littletail was the other captain, and he had Jackie Bow Wow, Johnnie Bushytail and Jimmie Wibblewobble.

"Now we're all ready, let's play," suggested Buddy.

"No, wait a moment," begged Bully.

"Why?" they all wanted to know.

"Because," replied the little frog boy, "my brother, Bawly, has just made up a new song, and I know he'll give us no peace until he sings it.

He's coming along now. Let him sing the song, and then we'll play ball."

So they agreed to that, and in a minute Bawly came hopping along.

"Do you want to hear my new song?" he asked.

"Yes--hurry up," they all cried. So Bawly sang this:

Oh, wiggily, waggily, wheelery, I wish that I was rich.

I'd buy an automobilery, And ride it in our ditch.

I wouldn't hop at all again.

I'd ride the whole day long.

But I haven't got an auto, And so I sing this song.

"I don't call that much of a song," said the old circus dog, Percival.

"You ought to do a dance after it. That's what the clowns always do."

"Thank you, I'm not a clown," answered Bawly. "But could you make up a song like that, and sing it yourself? That's what I want to know," he asked.

"I don't s'pose I could," answered Percival. "But if we're going to the ball game, let's go." So they hurried on, and pretty soon they met Uncle Wiggily Longears.

"Oh, will you umpire for us?" asked Sammie.

"Ha! Hum!" exclaimed the old gentleman rabbit, as he leaned on his crutch. "I ought to go on to the office, but--ah!--er--well, as long as you have no one else to umpire for you, I suppose I will have to do it, but I really ought to go to the office. Who is going to play?" he asked, and he seemed real anxious to know.

So they told him, and pretty soon they got to the baseball field, and began the game. Buddy Pigg and his players were last at the bat, and Sammie and his players came up first.

Well, it was a great game. Sammie struck out, but Jackie Bow Wow made a nice home run, and Jimmie Wibblewobble almost did, only he got put out at the home plate, and then Johnnie Bushytail, he got put out, trying to steal to second base, which means getting there on the sly, you know; and then it came the turn of Buddy and his friends to bat the ball all over if they could.

Well, Johnnie Bushytail was the pitcher, and he threw in such fine curves, and so many of them, that it was hard for Buddy and his friends to strike the ball.