Howard R. Garis Curly and Floppy Twistytail the Funny Piggie Boys, Chapter 12: Baby Pinky and the Doctor Lyrics

STORY XII

BABY PINKY AND THE DOCTOR

One night, in the piggie house where Mr. and Mrs. Twisty tail 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 kittie 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.