"As I was hopping along one day, Hi diddle um diddle I!

A gra.s.shopper sat in a greenwood tree, Tum-tum-tum tiddle di!

"Oh, where are you going?" the gra.s.shopper asked.

"Oh, not very far," I said.

"May I go along?" asked the funny bug.

And he stood right up on his head.

"Why yes," I told him, "come along,"

Tu ri lum diddle day.

"The weather is certainly fine just now,"

Fum lum dum skiddle fay.

But the gra.s.shopper fell in a deep, dark bog, And I pulled him out on a sunken log, And then came along a bad, savage dog, And we both ran away."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"Oh, ho! So that's the way it was, eh?" asked Buddy, who had never heard that song before.

"That's exactly how it was, and not a bit different, I give you my word for it," said Bawly, the frog. "But what have you there, Buddy?

Peppermint candy, as sure as I can sing! May I have a bit?"

"You could have it if it was candy," promised Buddy, real politely, "only it isn't," and he looked at the queer red thing from all sides, and he couldn't make out what it was, and neither could Bawly.

Well, I'll tell you what it was, so you can understand the story better.

It was a firecracker. Yes, sir, a big, red firecracker that, somehow or other, hadn't gone off on Fourth of July when it ought to have done so.

I presume some boy had lighted it, tossed it into the bushes and it had gone out and stayed out until Buddy found it. At any rate, he didn't know what it was, and he took it home. Neither did Mr. Pigg know what it was, but Buddy's mother and sister thought it was quite a pretty ornament, and Mrs. Pigg put it on the parlor mantle, where company could see it.

Well, one day, not long after this, Dr. Pigg was home all alone, for his wife and the children had gone to a moving-picture show. He was dozing away in his easy chair, with a newspaper over his face to keep away the flies, when, all of a sudden, there came a knock on the door.

"My goodness alive! Who's there?" cried Dr. Pigg.

"It's me," answered a voice.

"And who, pray tell, may you be?" asked Dr. Pigg.

"I'm a bad tramp fox," was the answer, "and I want you to give me something to eat. Quick! I'm in a hurry!"

Now that wasn't a nice way to speak, and Dr. Pigg knew it, and, what is more, that bad fox knew it, too. But, do you s'pose he cared? Not a bit of it. He was as impolite as he could be, and he took pride in it.

"I want something to eat in a hurry," he went on, in a coa.r.s.e, grumbly voice, and he was such a big fox, and Dr. Pigg was such a nice, gentle kind of a creature that he didn't dare refuse him.

"Very well," said Buddy's papa, "step into the parlor, Mr. Fox, and I'll see what I can do for you. There ought to be something in the pantry."

So he went to look in the pantry for a bone, or something like that, just as Mother Hubbard would have done, you know, and when the fox went in the parlor what do you suppose he saw? Why, that big, red firecracker on the mantle, of course. And when he saw it a wicked plan came into his head.

"I'll just light that," he thought to himself, "and it will blow this pen up, and Dr. Pigg with it. Then I can take anything I want. That's what I'll do. I'll blow the place up!"

Then he lighted the string of the firecracker, standing up on his hind legs to reach it, you see, and, as it was a long string, the fox knew it would burn some time before it would explode the firecracker. So the fox ran out into the kitchen, where Dr. Pigg was getting him something to eat, and he cried:

"Here, give me what you have ready, I can't wait."

"You must be in a hurry," replied Dr. Pigg, as he gave the fox some bread and meat and cold potatoes. And of course the fox was in a hurry, for he wanted to get out of the way before that firecracker went off and blew the house up.

Then the fox ran and hid in the bushes, waiting for the house and Dr.

Pigg to be blown up, so he could go in and take whatever he wanted. The string on the firecracker burned slowly, but surely. And the fox knew it would be a perfectly tremendous explosion, for the firecracker was as big as a hundred lead pencils made into one.

But now watch and see what happens. After Dr. Pigg had put away the bread and meat, left over after giving the fox some, who should come along but Percival, the old, circus dog. He came to pay a friendly call on Dr. Pigg, but, no sooner had he reached the front door than he cried out:

"Oh, I smell something burning," and, sure enough it was the firecracker string sizzling away.

"Maybe the house is afire," said Dr. Pigg. "Let's look!" So he and Percival went all through the pen, and the first object they saw was the long, rod thing burning on the mantlepiece. And Percival knew at once what it was, for he was a smart dog, let me tell you.

"Oh!" he cried, "that is a cannon firecracker, and if it goes off it will blow the place to pieces, and me and you, too!"

"Then, for mercy sakes, don't let it go off!" cried Dr. Pigg, and that brave dog Percival jumped up, grabbed the cannon cracker in his mouth, dashed out of the house, and leaped into a pond of water with it, which put out the burning string, and wet the firecracker so it wouldn't explode.

And when the fox saw Percival, he sneaked away with his tail hanging down, I can tell you. So that's the story of Dr. Pigg and the firecracker, and when his family came home he told them of of his narrow escape.

Now, in case I hear a June bug buzz like an electric fan blowing soap bubbles, I'll tell you in the next story about Buddy Pigg in a boat.

STORY XIII

BUDDY PIGG IN A BOAT

After Percival, the old circus dog, had been so kind to Dr. Pigg, in the matter of jumping into the pond with the big firecracker, which the bad fox had lighted, the old gentleman guinea pig said:

"I wish, Percival, you would spend a few days with us. I'm afraid that ugly tramp fox will come back."

"Of course I will," agreed the dog. "The Bow Wows are going down to Asbury Park for the summer, and I don't much care for the seash.o.r.e, so I'll stay home and spend a few days with you. And in case that fox does come back--"

Well, Percival didn't say what he would do, but land sakes, flopsy dub!

Oh me, and a potato pancake! You should have seen him show his teeth and growl.

Well, it was a few days after Percival had come to pay a little visit to the Pigg family that something happened to Buddy, and I'm going to tell you about it.

You see, it had been raining pretty hard for a week or more--yes, nearly two weeks, and it didn't seem as if it was ever going to stop.

There had been thunder showers and lightning showers and hail showers and just plain rain showers, and they were all more or less wet; and when it did finally stop raining there was a lot of water all over.

One day, the first day, in fact, after it stopped raining, Buddy was taking a walk, and glad enough he was to be out of the pen. He strolled along, letting the warm sun and the gentle wind dry his black and white fur, and he was thinking of, oh! ever so many things, when, all at once, he came to a little pond; only this time it was a great big pond, because it had so much water in it. And on the sh.o.r.e of the pond was a boat that some boys had been playing with.

"Oh, fine!" cried Buddy Pigg. "I'll get in and make believe I'm a sailor, just as Billie and Johnnie Bushytail and Jennie Chipmunk did once. I've always wanted a ride in a boat, and now's my chance!"

So he climbed into the boat, and he made believe he was sailing away off to China, where they make firecrackers and fans, and then, when he was half-way there (make believe, you know), why, he turned around and sailed for India, where it's very hot; but all this while the boat was partly on the bank and partly in the water, and Buddy only rocked it from side to side, pretending it was moving.

Well, after he reached India, what did he do but find it so hot there that he turned around at once and sailed for the North Pole, so he could be nice and cool.