down again right away.

"My! What can have happened?" thought little Pinky, and she looked
around, and there she saw a great big fuzzy fox, standing behind
her. And the fox cried out, as he rubbed his nose:

"Did you hit me with that rubber ball?"

"Yes--yes--perhaps I did," said poor Baby Pinky, trembling so that
she nearly shook the curl out of her tail. "I tossed my ball up in
the air, but I'm sure I didn't mean to hit you with it. Please
forgive me."

"No, indeed, I will not!" exclaimed the fox. "Your rubber ball hit
me right on the nose when it came down, and I caught it. And, just
for that, I am going to carry you away with me and make a pork pie
of you!"

"Oh, please don't!" begged Pinky, shaking more than ever, and she
squealed as loudly as she could, but her mamma did not hear her, for
she was beating up some eggs to make a cake, and the egg beater made
so much noise that she couldn't hear her own little girl. And Curly
and Floppy were shooting off their make-believe guns, and making so
much noise in the woods that they couldn't hear, and there was the
fox about to carry off the poor little piggie girl to his den. Oh,
wasn't it terrible?

"Here we go!" cried the fox, and with that he grabbed up poor Pinky,
tossing her rubber ball on the ground. Up it bounced, and, hardly
knowing what she did, the little pig girl caught it in her foot,