one nice warm day, right after he had eaten a breakfast of watercress oatmeal, with sweet-flag-root-sugar and milk on it, grandpa croaker, the nice old gentleman frog, started out for a hop around the woods near the pond. and he took with him his cane with the crook on the handle, hanging it over his paw.
“where are you going, grandpa?” asked bully no-tail, as he and his brother bawly started for school.
“oh, i hardly know,” said the old frog gentleman in his hoarsest, deepest, thundering, croaking voice. “perhaps i may meet with a fairy or a big giant, or even the alligator bird.”
“the alligator isn’t a bird, grandpa,” spoke bawly.
“oh no, to be sure,” agreed the old gentleman rabbit—i mean frog—“no more it is. i was thinking of the pelican. well, anyhow i am going out for a walk, and if you didn’t have to go to school you could come with me. but i’ll take you next time, and we may go to the wild west show together.”
“oh fine!” cried bully, as he hopped away with his school books under his front leg.
“oh fine and dandy!” exclaimed bawly, as he looked in his spelling book to see how to spell “cow.”
well, the frog boys hopped on to school, and grandpa croaker hopped off to the woods. he went on and on, and he was wondering what sort of an adventure he would have, when he heard a little noise up in the trees. he looked up through his glasses, and he saw jennie chipmunk there.
she was a little late for school, but she was hurrying all she could. she called “good morning” to grandpa croaker, and he tossed her up a sugar cookie that he happened to have in his pocket. wasn’t he the nice old grandpa, though? well, i just guess he was!
so he went on a little farther, and pretty soon he came to the place where buddy and brighteyes pigg lived. only buddy wasn’t at home, being at school. but brighteyes, the little guinea pig girl, was there in the house, and she was suffering from the toothache, i’m sorry to say.
oh! the poor little guinea pig girl was in great pain, and that’s why she couldn’t go to school. her face was all tied up in a towel with a bag of hot salt on it, but even that didn’t seem to do any good.
“oh, i’m so sorry for you, brighteyes!” exclaimed grandpa. “have you had dr. possum? where is your mamma?”
“mamma has gone to the doctor’s now to get me something to stop the pain,” answered brighteyes, “and to-morrow i am going to have the tooth pulled. we tried mustard and cloves and all things like that but nothing would stop the pain.”
“perhaps if i tell you a little story it will make you forget it until mamma comes with the doctor’s medicine,” suggested grandpa, and then and there he told brighteyes a funny story about a little white rabbit that lived in a garden and had carrots to eat, and it ate so many that its white hair turned red and it looked too cute for anything, and then it went to the circus.
well, the story made brighteyes forget the pain for a time, but the story couldn’t last forever, and soon the pain came back. then grandpa thought of something else.
“why are all the ladders, and boards, and cans, and brushes piled outside your house?” he asked brighteyes, for he had noticed them as he came in.
“oh! we are having the house painted,” said brighteyes.
“but where is the painter monkey?” asked grandpa. “i didn’t see him.”
“oh! he forgot to bring some red paint to make the blinds green or blue or some color like that,” answered the little guinea pig girl, “so he went home to get it. he’ll be back soon.”
“suppose you come outside and show me how he paints the house,” suggested grandpa, thinking perhaps that might make brighteyes forget her pain.
“of course i will, grandpa croaker,” said the little creature. “i know just how he paints, for i watched him just before you came, and when i saw him put on the bright colors it made me forget my toothache. come, i’ll show you how he does it.”
so brighteyes took grandpa’s paw, and led him outside where there were ladders and scaffolds and pots of paint and lumps of putty, and spots of bright colors all over, and lots of brushes, little and big, and more putty and paint, and oh! i don’t know what all.
“now this is how the painter monkey does it,” said brighteyes. “he takes a brush, and he dips it in the paint pot, and then he lets some of the loose paint fall off, and then he wiggles the brush up and down and sideways and across the middle on the boards of the house, and—it’s painted.”
“i see,” said grandpa, and then, before he could stop her, brighteyes took one of the painter monkey’s brushes, and dipped it into a pot of the pink paint. and she leaned over too far, and the first thing you know she fell right into that pink paint pot, clothes, toothache and all! what do you think of that?
“oh! oh! oh!” she cried, as soon as she could get her breath. “this is awful—terrible!”
“it certainly is!” said grandpa croaker. “but never mind, brighteyes. i’ll help you out. don’t cry.” so he fished her out with his cane, and he took some rags, and some turpentine, and he cleaned off the pink paint as best he could, and then he took brighteyes into the house, and the little guinea pig girl put on clean clothes, and then she looked as good as ever, except that there were some spots of pink paint on her nose.
“never mind,” said grandpa, as he gave her a sugar cookie, and just then mrs. pigg came back with the doctor’s medicine.
“why—why!” exclaimed brighteyes as she kissed her mother, “my toothache has all stopped!” and, surely enough it had. i guess it got scared because of the pink paint and went away.
anyhow the tooth didn’t ache any more, and the next day brighteyes went to the dentist’s and had it pulled. and the painter monkey didn’t mind about the paint that was spilled, and mrs. pigg didn’t mind about brighteyes’s dress being spoiled, and they all thought grandpa croaker was as kind as he could be, and he didn’t mind because his cane was colored pink, where he fished out the little guinea pig girl with it. so everybody was happy.
now in case our cat doesn’t fall into the red paint pot and then go to sleep on my typewriter paper and make it look blue, i’ll tell you next about papa no-tail and nannie goat.
