with his brother, Flop.

Well, as Curly was going through the woods, all of a sudden, under a
tree, something fell and hit him on the nose. He jumped to one side
and exclaimed:

"Who is throwing stones at me?"

But no one answered, and Curly went on. Soon something else fell
down, and hit him on the ear.

"I say!" he cried. "Would you please stop that? Is that the
skillery-scalery alligator, or the fuzzy fox?"

But no one answered him, and Curly hurried on, thinking that perhaps
bad fairies might be trying to have fun with him, or maybe turn him
into a ham, or a piece of bacon, or something like that.

Well, he had not gone on much farther when, all at once, another
something pattered down from a high tree, and struck him on the nose
again.

"Oh, I say!" cried Curly, "please stop!" for this time it had been
something sharp that hit him. "That isn't fair!" went on the little
piggie boy. "Who is throwing things at me?"

He looked down on the ground, and there he saw something like a
rubber ball, only it was a sort of greenish brown color, and had
stickers all over on it. And then it burst open, and out rolled
three little brown things.