CONTENTS
PART II.
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I. | Uncle Wiggily and the Queen | [9] |
| II. | Uncle Wiggily and Ding-Dong Pussy | [15] |
| III. | Uncle Wiggily and the Shoe Lady | [22] |
| IV. | Uncle Wiggily and Jack-Be-Nimble | [29] |
| V. | Uncle Wiggily and Tommy Tinker’s Dog | [35] |
| VI. | Uncle Wiggily and Mary’s Lamb | [41] |
| VII. | Uncle Wiggily and Peter Piper | [47] |
| VIII. | Uncle Wiggily and the Moon-Man | [53] |
| IX. | Uncle Wiggily and Humpty Dumpty | [59] |
| X. | Uncle Wiggily and Old King Cole | [65] |
| XI. | Uncle Wiggily and Peter-Peter | [72] |
| XII. | Uncle Wiggily and the Butcher | [78] |
| XIII. | Uncle Wiggily and the Baker | [84] |
| XIV. | Uncle Wiggily and the Candlestick Maker | [91] |
| XV. | Uncle Wiggily and Tom-Tom | [97] |
| XVI. | Uncle Wiggily and the Crooked Man | [103] |
| XVII. | Uncle Wiggily and the Barber | [110] |
| XVIII. | Uncle Wiggily and the Blackbirds | [116] |
| XIX. | Uncle Wiggily and the Fat Man | [123] |
| XX. | Uncle Wiggily and the Tarts | [129] |
| XXI. | Uncle Wiggily and the Jumping Cow | [136] |
| XXII. | Uncle Wiggily and the Pussies | [143] |
| XXIII. | Uncle Wiggily and the Leaves | [150] |
| XXIV. | Uncle Wiggily and the Wise Man | [156] |
| XXV. | Uncle Wiggily and the Tailors | [163] |
| XXVI. | Uncle Wiggily and the Bat | [169] |
Uncle Wiggily and Mother Goose
CHAPTER I
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE QUEEN
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was hopping along through the woods one day, limping a little on his red, white and blue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, for he had some pain, and he was wondering if any adventures would happen to him when, all of a sudden, there came a big puff of wind, and blew off his tall silk hat.
“My goodness me sakes alive, and some rice pudding!” cried the bunny uncle, giving a hop, skip and a jump after his hat. “I had forgotten that this is the first of March, when the wind begins to blow Winter away and blow Spring in its place. No wonder my hat went off!”
He raced after his hat, which was bounding along through the woods, rolling over and over like a boy’s hoop on the sidewalk. At last Uncle Wiggily caught his hat, but, as he was putting it down hard over his ears, along came another puff of wind, and this time blew away his red, white and blue-striped crutch.
“Oh, dear!” cried the bunny uncle. “What a lot of trouble I’m having to-day! I don’t believe any one has as much trouble as I.”
Uncle Wiggily hopped after his crutch, and caught it just as it was about ready to be blown into a bramble briar bush.
“It’s a good thing it didn’t go in there,” he said, “or I’d have been all scratched up getting it out. Oh, dear! I wonder if I am going to have any more trouble! No one has as much as I.”
“Oh, yes they have,” said a little voice in the bramble briar bush. “Yes, they have! I’m in trouble right now.”
“Who are you and what is the trouble?” asked the bunny uncle.
“I am the bee lady who keeps the honey and perfume store,” was the answer. “I was on my way to take some perfume to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, and when I tried to fly through this bramble briar bush my wings were caught, and I can’t get out. Isn’t that trouble enough?”
“It certainly is,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “I am sorry you are in trouble, for I know what it means. But I will help you out.”
So he did, very gently loosening the stickery thorns of the bramble briar bushes from the bee lady’s wings.
“Oh, thank you,” she said. “Now, I can fly on with the perfume for Mrs. Wibblewobble. If ever I can help you, or any friends of yours, I shall, Uncle Wiggily.”
“Thank you,” answered the rabbit gentleman. Then, having given the bunny uncle a smell from the little bottle of perfume she carried, the bee lady flew on.
With his tall silk hat and crutch the rabbit gentleman now again went on through the woods, until once more he came to the gold and silver palace-house, with diamond windows, and a chimney made of a red ruby stone.
“Ha! That’s where the king lives, who was in the kitchen, counting out his money,” thought Mr. Longears. “I helped him, and I wonder if there is any one else in the palace who is in need of my help?”
Just then, from one of the open parlor diamond windows, there came a voice saying sadly:
“Oh, dear! It’s all gone! There isn’t a bit left, and what I’m going to do, I don’t know. Oh, dear!”
“That sounds like trouble,” said the bunny uncle. “I’ll see what it is.”
He went closer to the window, and there, in the parlor, he saw a beautiful lady, all dressed in silk and satin and cloth-of-gold, with a diamond crown on her head. In one hand she had a plate, and in the other a knife and fork.
“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily, politely. “What is gone—the cook? And do you have to do the dishes yourself?”
“No, thank you, the cook hasn’t gone,” said the lady. “I am the queen, as you can see, and I ought to be in the parlor, eating bread and honey. I’m in the parlor right enough, as you can tell by the piano being here. And I have the bread, but there is no honey! There isn’t a bit of honey in the palace for me to eat, so I don’t see how I can make things come out right, as they do in the Mother Goose book. Oh, dear!”
“Don’t worry,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “Perhaps I can mend matters for you.”
“I don’t see how you can,” said the queen. “You haven’t any honey in your pocket; have you?” she asked.
“No,” answered the bunny uncle. “I guess I would be all stuck up, like a piece of fly paper, if I carried honey in my pocket.”
“Then if you have no honey you can’t help me,” said the queen, sadly. “You see the king is in the kitchen, counting out his money. I am in here, and I ought to be eating honey. And the maid is in the garden, hanging out the clothes——”
“I know all about that, and all about her nose,” said Uncle Wiggily, with a smile. “I helped the king get back his money, I helped the maid get back her nose, and now I am going to help you get your honey.”
“Oh, how good of you!” cried the queen, who felt like hugging Uncle Wiggily, only queens do not do such things, you know. “And I really need the honey, for I am hungry. But how can you get it?” the queen asked.
“I’ll show you,” answered the rabbit gentleman. Then, going to the open window, he made a noise like a flower, and called:
“Mrs. Bee! Mrs. Bee! Will you do me a favor now? You promised you would, and now is your chance. Will you do me a favor?”
“Yes, I will,” answered a buzzing voice, and along flew the bee lady, whom Uncle Wiggily had helped out of the briar bush. “What is it you wish?” she buzzed.
“Some honey for the queen to eat in the parlor,” spoke the bunny uncle. “She hasn’t any, and she must have some to be like the story in the Mother Goose book, or things will not come out right. The queen needs honey.”
“She shall have some at once,” buzzed Mrs. Bee. Away she flew and pretty soon she came back with a lot of honey.
“Oh, thank you, and you, too, Uncle Wiggily,” cried the queen, as she sat in the parlor and ate the sweet stuff. “Now everything is all right.”
And so it was, Uncle Wiggily having made it so. And if the clothes line doesn’t twist itself in and out among the pickets of the fence like a carpenter’s shaving and try to play hop-scotch with the rose bush, I’ll tell you next about the bunny gentleman and the ding-dong-bell pussy.
CHAPTER II
UNCLE WIGGILY AND DING-DONG PUSSY
Mother Goose, the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe and Old Mother Hubbard hurried one day across the field and through the woods, to the hollow-stump bungalow of Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman. Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, looking out of the hollow-stump window, saw them.
“My goodness, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Nurse Jane. “Oh! Look who’s coming this way. Company! Oh, my! And my shoes not buttoned! Oh, dear!”
The bunny uncle stepped to the window beside the muskrat lady.
“They’re coming here,” said Mr. Longears. “Mother Goose, Mrs. Hubbard and the Shoe Lady. You aren’t giving a surprise party, are you, Nurse Jane, that they are coming to?”
“No, indeed,” answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. “Though to see the three of them coming this way is a surprise to me. Something must be the matter. See how worried they look.”
“Trouble, I suppose,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Well, if they are in trouble it will give me pleasure to help them out. Open the door, Nurse Jane.”
“Why, they can’t get in here,” said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. “Our little hollow-stump bungalow is too small for Mother Hubbard, Mother Goose and the Shoe Lady, or even one of them.”
“So it is,” agreed Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll have to go outside to talk to them,” and he did, politely hopping through the hollow-stump window.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Old Mother Hubbard. “Oh, dear!”
“Such trouble!” exclaimed the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, but who I shall call the Shoe Lady, for short, “Oh, such trouble!”
“It’s Pussy!” said Mother Goose. “She’s gone!”
“Gone?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Gone? Who is Pussy?”
“Why, you know,” said Mother Goose. “Pussy is a cousin to Fuzzo, Wuzzo and Muzzo, the three little kittens, who lost their mittens.”
“Oh, yes, to be sure,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I remember! So Pussy has gone; has she? What happened to her?”
“That’s what we don’t know, and what we came to you to have you find out,” said Mother Goose. “You see, Pussy—that’s her first name, her last one is Mew—Pussy Mew came on a little visit to Mrs. Purr, who is her aunt, and the mother of the three little kittens who lost their mittens.”
“Oh, yes, I remember!” said Uncle Wiggily.
“Well, Pussy is lost,” spoke the Shoe Lady. “She went out to the store for Mrs. Purr while Fuzzo, Wuzzo and Muzzo were taking their tail-chasing lesson, and Pussy did not come back.”
“What did she go to the store after?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.
“A yeast cake,” answered Mother Hubbard. “But the yeast cake didn’t come back, either.”
“Not having any legs, I don’t see how it could,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But what is it you want me to do, ladies?” he asked, making a polite bow.
“Find Pussy Mew,” said Mother Goose. “You were so clever at helping the king and queen and the maid in the garden hanging out the clothes, when along came a blackbird that nipped off her nose, that I’m sure you can find Pussy for us. We’re really worried about her. Please find her.”
“I’ll try,” promised Uncle Wiggily. So in a little while off he started, limping along on his red, white and blue tall silk hat, with his barber-pole rheumatism crutch on his head. Oh, no! excuse me, if you please—I mean he had his crutch under his paw and his hat on his head.
Over the fields and through the woods went Uncle Wiggily until, pretty soon, he came to the hollow-stump school where the lady mouse taught the animal children their lessons. The bell was ringing, for it was time for the children to run out to play at recess.
“Ha! I wonder if Pussy Mew could have gone to school, forgetting to come home with the yeast cake,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll inquire.”
He asked the lady mouse teacher, but she said that Pussy was not in school, so Uncle Wiggily hurried on, looking all through the woods and over the fields. But no Pussy did he find until, all at once, as he came near a well, he felt thirsty for a drink of water.
“Oh, how I wish I had a drink!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I wonder if I could get one.”
He went to the edge of the well, but it was an old one, and there was no rope or bucket by which water could be pulled up. Then the old rabbit gentleman saw something shining brightly down at the bottom of the well, and he called out:
“Is any one down there who could give me a drink of water?”
“Yes, I am down here,” was the answer, “but I cannot give you a drink of water for I cannot get up myself.”
“Who are you?” asked Uncle Wiggily, surprised like.
Just then the school bell rang again, and a voice said:
“Ding-dong bell, Pussy’s in the well.
Who put her in? Little Johnnie Green.
Who pulled her out? Big Johnnie Stout.
“Only that last part isn’t right,” the voice went on, “for Big Johnnie Stout hasn’t come to pull me out. But I’m in the well, as you can tell by the ding-dong bell. Oh, dear! I don’t know what to do. I want so much to get out.”
“I’ll help you out, Pussy,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “I have been looking all over for you. But if you are in the well how is it that you did not sink to the bottom?”
“Because I have with me a yeast cake that I went to the store to get,” was the answer. “The yeast cake makes bread light, so it will rise, and it made me light, so I could rise to the top of the water.”
“Good!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “It was the shiny tinfoil of the yeast cake I saw at the bottom of the well. I’ll soon have you out now, Pussy.”
He gave a jump over to a wild grape vine, gnawed off a piece with his strong teeth, and then, using the grape vine as a rope, he lowered it down into the well. Pussy took hold of it with her claws and paws, putting the yeast cake in one ear, and Uncle Wiggily easily pulled her out. She was wet, but not hurt at all.
“Oh, thank you, Uncle Wiggily,” Pussy Mew said. “So it was you, and not Johnnie Stout, who pulled me out?”
“Of that there is no doubt,” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “But did Johnnie Green push you in?”
“No, I stumbled and fell in,” answered Pussy. “Everything about me in the Mother Goose story is wrong except the part like ‘ding-dong bell, Pussy’s in the well.’ I really was in.”
Then Pussy hurried on to her aunt’s house with the yeast cake, and all was well. And Mother Goose was very thankful to Uncle Wiggily for having helped the little cat, who, ever after that was called the “ding-dong-bell pussy.”
So in the next chapter, if the piano music doesn’t go to sleep in the bread box, where the phonograph can’t find it to play with, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the Shoe Lady.
CHAPTER III
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SHOE LADY
“Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept house for Mr. Longears, the rabbit gentleman. “Where are you going this fine day?”
“To the store,” answered the bunny uncle.
“To the store? Why, I don’t want anything,” spoke Nurse Jane. “You are always so kind, going to the store whenever I need anything, but nothing is needed for the hollow-stump bungalow to-day.”
“I am going to the store for myself,” Uncle Wiggily said. “I am going to buy a new pair of shoes.”
So off he hopped, leaning on his red, white and blue-striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, over the fields and through the woods until he came to the shoe store.
“A pair of shoes? Certainly,” said the monkey-doodle gentleman who kept the store. “Will you have high shoes or low shoes?”
“Well, as it is near Spring I’ll get low shoes,” Uncle Wiggily said. “They will be cooler if I should happen to go down to the Asbury Park ocean board walk.”
“Ties, we call them, instead of low shoes, but it is all the same,” went on the monkey-doodle. “Here you are.”
He brought out a pair of low shoes, or ties, but, when Uncle Wiggily tried to get them on, his feet would not go into them.
“I see—too tight,” said the monkey-doodle. “I will put a little talcum powder in the shoes and your foot will then easily slip in.”
But, even with the talcum powder, Uncle Wiggily’s paws would not slip in.
“I must use a shoe-horn,” said the monkey.
“Is a shoe-horn something to play on?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“No, it is something to make a shoe slip on easily,” said the monkey-doodle. He brought out a smooth, shiny piece of tin, like a big tablespoon without a handle. Holding this against his heel, Uncle Wiggily could easily slip his foot into his new shoe. Soon he had them both on, and they fitted him well.
“Are they too tight?” asked the monkey-doodle, as the bunny gentleman stepped around the store, practicing.
“No, they’re just right,” said Uncle Wiggily. “They go on a bit hard, but once I have put them on with the shoe-where the shoe-horn they are very nice. I’ll take them.”
“And you may have some talcum powder and the shoe-horn to take with you, to put your shoes on easily whenever you wish,” said the monkey. For you know Uncle Wiggily pulled the shoe-horn out of his shoe, once he had his foot in. They couldn’t both be there at the same time, you see.
Away hopped the rabbit gentleman in his new shoes and with the shoe-horn and the slippery-sliding talcum powder in his pocket.
“Well, now I have my new shoes I wonder if I will meet with an adventure to-day?” thought Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped on. And he did. I’ll tell you about it.
Pretty soon he came to a great, big shoe, standing in the middle of the woods. The shoe had a roof over it, with a chimney sticking out of the top. There was a door to the shoe, and windows. In fact, it was a house, made out of a great, big shoe which a giant used to wear.
“Ha! This is where the Old Woman lives,” said Uncle Wiggily. “The Shoe Lady. I wonder if she is at home?”
He was going to knock on the door and ask how all the children were, when, from inside the shoe there came the sound of crying; children crying; many of them.
“Ha! I wonder if that means trouble?” asked Uncle Wiggily of himself. “I had better see if I can do anything to help.”
He knocked on the door, and the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, or Shoe Lady, as I call her for short, opened it.
“Is anything the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “I heard crying.”
“Of course,” spoke the Shoe Lady, “the children always cry when I whip them. Don’t you know how it is in the Mother Goose book:
“‘There was an old woman
Who lived in a shoe,
She had so many children
She didn’t know what to do.
She gave them some broth,
Without any bread;
She whipped them all soundly
And sent them to bed.’
“That’s what happened,” said the Shoe Lady.
“Well, er—excuse me—but, that is, do you think it just right to whip them ALL?” asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “Might not at least one of them have been good?”
“Oh, bless your tall hat!” exclaimed the Shoe Lady, with a laugh. “I don’t really whip them, you know. That part of the verse is wrong. I only make believe to whip them—pretend, you know, so as to make it as near like the book as I can.”
“But I heard crying,” said Uncle Wiggily.
“Yes, but it was only make-believe crying, just like the pretended whipping,” laughed the Shoe Lady. “I wouldn’t for the world hurt one of the children, even though I have so many I don’t know what to do.”
Uncle Wiggily was glad to hear that, and he was just hopping on, when up came running a little boy.
“Oh, take me in! Take me in!” he cried. “I want my make-believe whipping. I want to make-believe cry, have my broth, without any bread, and go to bed.”
“Why, Toodles!” exclaimed the Shoe Lady, looking at him in surprise. “I did not know you were out. You stayed too late at your play. There are so many children here now I don’t believe there is room to get you in. After the children eat their supper they swell up, and the shoe house is hardly large enough for them,” she said to Uncle Wiggily.
“Oh, I must get in,” cried Toodles. “I must!”
“Well, I’ll try,” said the Shoe Lady. She and Uncle Wiggily tried, but the shoe was so full of children that not another one could get in. They pushed and pulled and shoved and hauled, but poor Toodles could not get in.
“Oh, dear! I don’t know what to do,” said the lady, who lived in a shoe. “I guess Toodles will have to sleep out in the woods to-night.”
“No! Wait! I have it!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “When my foot would not go in my new tight shoe the monkey put talcum powder in it and used a shoe-horn. I’ll do that to Toodles.” And so he did. And when the little boy was sprinkled with sweet smelling talcum powder, and when the shiny, slippery shoe-horn was slipped into the top of the crowded shoe, in on that slid Toodles as nicely as you please, and everything was all right. There’s always room for one more, even in a shoe, you know.
“Thank you, Uncle Wiggily,” said the Shoe Lady, and then she gave Toodles his make-believe whipping, he made believe cry, he ate his real broth and went to his real bed. And that’s where you must go if it’s time.
But if the butter doesn’t slide off the slice of bread, and go coasting down the cake plate hill with a bun that ought to be sitting beside the custard, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Jack-be-Nimble.
CHAPTER IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND JACK-BE-NIMBLE
“Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily!” called Sammie Littletail, the little rabbit boy, one Saturday morning, as he hopped up to the hollow-stump bungalow, where the nice, old bunny uncle lived. “Come on out and play, Uncle Wiggily. Please do!”
“Oh, hop away, Sammie!” called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, looking out of the kitchen window. “Here, take this cabbage jam tart and run away. Uncle Wiggily can’t bother to play with you to-day.”
“I haven’t any one else to play with,” said Sammie. “Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, are taking their nut-gnawing lesson, and Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the puppies, are taking their bone-gnawing lessons.”
“Haven’t you any lessons?” asked Nurse Jane.
“No. I’ve done mine. I had to practice jumping a little. But there’s no school, as it’s Saturday, and I do want some one to play with. My sister Susie has gone off with Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the ducks, and anyhow I don’t want to play with girl animals. Won’t Uncle Wiggily come out?”
“No, Sammie. Here, take this carrot cookie and hop along,” said Nurse Jane.
“Wait a minute,” spoke another voice, and Uncle Wiggily himself went out on the back stoop. “What is it you want, Sammie?”
“He wants you to come out and play with him!” cried Nurse Jane. “The idea!”
“Oh, I’ll come,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “I haven’t much to do, and perhaps we may have an adventure together. Come on, Sammie, we’ll go off in the woods, and we’ll play.”
So the old gentleman rabbit and his little bunny nephew hopped off in the woods together, and soon were having a fine time, scurrying in among the dried leaves, and hiding behind old logs and stumps.
“I wonder if there is any new cabbage growing around here?” said Sammie, after a bit. “I’m hungry.”
“It is too soon for cabbage yet,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “It will not be Spring for several weeks. Nor are there any new carrots to be had. But pretty soon we’ll pass a lollypop store, and you may have a lettuce flavored one.”
“That will be nice—thank you,” said Sammie.
“Did you do your jumping lesson to-day?” asked the old gentleman rabbit, after a bit.
“Yes,” said Sammie. “I practiced half an hour.”
“Let me see how well you can jump,” spoke the bunny uncle. “I used to be a pretty good jumper when I was young.”
So Sammie jumped from one stump, far over a log, to another.
“Fine!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “That’s better than I can do, but I’ll try.”
He did try, and, though he could not leap as far as Sammie had done, Mr. Longears did very well. If it had not been for his rheumatism he could have done better.
He and Sammie jumped about for some time, and all at once they were surprised to hear a voice saying:
“Oh, dear! I wish I could jump as far as that. But I don’t believe I shall ever be able to. Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
“Ha! That sounds like trouble,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Who are you and where are you?”
“I’m Jack, and I’m behind this big stone,” was the answer, and out stepped a boy.
“Ha! I thought at first it might be Jackie Bow Wow,” spoke Uncle Wiggily.
“No; I am another Jack,” said the boy. “I’m one of Mother Goose’s friends.”
“Are you Jack Sprat?” Sammie wanted to know, “who could eat no fat?”
But still the boy did not look like that Jack.
“I’ll tell you who I am,” the boy said. “I’m Jack-be-Nimble, Jack-be-Quick, Jack jump over the candlestick.”
“Oh, now I remember,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “How do you do, Jack-be-Nimble?”
“But the trouble is I can’t do it,” went on Jack.
“Can’t do what?” asked Sammie Littletail.
“I can’t be nimble and jump over the candlestick,” was the answer. “I’ve tried and tried. But it seems of no use. Every time I jump I either hit the candle, and put it out, or I come down ker-flunk! in it, and get my shoes all grease. Mother Goose says I ought to be ashamed of myself. If I can’t jump over the candlestick, I can’t be in her book, she says, and Oh, dear! I don’t want to be put out of the nice book.”
“That’s too bad,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Now, Jack, I’ll tell you what to do. You watch Sammie and me jump, and perhaps that will teach you how. Watch us. Come on, Sammie, we must jump some more to teach Jack.”
So the old rabbit gentleman and the little rabbit boy jumped about on the soft, dried leaves in the wood. Jack watched them, and then he tried. Of course, having only two legs, he could not leap as far as could the rabbits, with four. But still Jack did very well.
“Now, come here every day to the woods,” said Uncle Wiggily, “and we will give you a jumping lesson. Don’t say anything to Mother Goose about it, and you will soon give her a nice surprise by jumping over the candlestick easily some day. I once took dancing lessons from a waltzing mouse lady without saying anything to Nurse Jane about it, and my! how surprised she was when I did the fox trot.”
“I’ll come,” promised Jack-be-Nimble. And he did. Every day for a week, he took jumping lessons secretly in the woods, of Uncle Wiggily and Sammie, until finally Jack was a very good jumper, indeed. Then one day Old Mother Goose said:
“Well, Jack, I fear it is of no use. You can’t jump over the candlestick, as you ought to do to be in my book, so you’ll have to go out. I’ll get the cow, who leaped over the moon, to jump for me.”
“Oh, please give me one more chance!” begged Jack. “Please!”
Mother Goose kindly did so, and lo! and behold! when next he tried, Jack-be-Nimble jumped over the candlestick as easily as anything. Away over it he jumped and came down on the other side.
“Why, Jack! Where did you learn to jump so well?” asked Mother Goose, in great surprise.
“Uncle Wiggily and Sammie taught me,” he answered. And ever after that nimble Jack had no trouble.
And if the apple pie doesn’t go out skating with the jam tart, and forget to come in to supper, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Tommie Tinker’s dog.
CHAPTER V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND TOMMIE TINKER’S DOG
“Uncle Wiggily, here’s a letter for you,” called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, to the rabbit gentleman, one morning, as he sat in the easy chair in his hollow-stump bungalow. “The postman bird just left it as he flew past.”
“A letter for me!” exclaimed the bunny uncle, as he opened and read it. “That’s nice. It’s from Grandfather Goosey Gander. He wants me to come over and play checkers with him. He’s so lonesome.”
“But you can’t go!” cried Nurse Jane, tying her tail up in a knot, for she was going to sweep and dust, and she did not want to step on herself. “You can’t go, because you said your rheumatism hurt you so.”
“Oh, I guess I can manage to get over to see Grandpa by limping on the nice red, white and blue-striped rheumatism crutch, which you so kindly gnawed for me out of a corn-stalk,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll try, anyhow, for I haven’t seen Grandpa Goosey in nearly a week. I dare say I can get over there all right. It’s a nice day.”
“Well, I wish you wouldn’t go,” said Nurse Jane, slowly, making her whiskers dance up and down. “I’m sure something will happen.”
“Oh, nonsensicalness!” laughed Uncle Wiggily, as he went out of the bungalow. Over the fields and through the woods he roamed, and he had to rest several times on his crutch, for the rheumatism hurt him more than he thought it would.
“But I’ll get there all right,” he said. No sooner had he spoken, however, than all at once his crutch slid on a piece of slippery-elm bark, and Uncle Wiggily fell down. He did not hurt himself much, for he sat down on a pile of soft, dried leaves. But when the bunny uncle arose, and tried to walk on his crutch, he could not, as it was cracked and splintered.
“If I lean my weight on it the crutch will break,” said Uncle Wiggily, sadly, “and I can’t walk without leaning on it. Oh, dear! What shall I do?”
Then, as he stood there in the woods, he heard a voice calling:
“Umbrellas to mend! Umbrellas to mend,
If you’ve pans with holes in, for me you must send.
I’ll fix them up, quick as a wink—or a winker;
For I am a pot, pan and umbrella tinker.”
Uncle Wiggily looked off among the trees, and, surely enough, along came a traveling tinker, with a box over his shoulder and a little fire in a tin pot in his hand. Beside him walked a little boy who had a little dog.
“Oh, daddy! Look at the rabbit gentleman!” cried the little boy.
“I see him,” said the tinker. “He is Uncle Wiggily Longears, if I am not mistaken. Are you not?” he asked, politely.
“I am,” answered the bunny uncle. “And I am in great trouble. I have splintered and cracked my crutch and I can’t limp along on it to get to Grandpa Goosey’s house.”
“Oh, I can easily fix that for you,” said the kind tinker, and he did, fastening a strong piece of tin around the broken part of Uncle Wiggily’s crutch so it was as good as ever.
Then the rabbit gentleman thanked the nice tinker man and hopped on, and the tinker and his little boy, whose name was Tommie, and the little boy’s dog, whose name was Bow-Wow-Wow, went on their way, the tinker singing his funny song.
Uncle Wiggily reached Grandpa Goosey’s house all right, and he and the goose gentleman had fun playing checkers. And when it was time for Uncle Wiggily to hop back to his hollow-stump bungalow Grandpa Goosey gave him a fine, large bone, with nice meat on it.
“Give that to Mrs. Bow Wow for her little puppy dog boys, Jackie and Peetie,” said the goose gentleman.
“I will, thank you,” said Uncle Wiggily.
The rabbit gentleman was hopping along through the woods on his way home when, all at once, he heard some one crying.
“Ha! That sounds like trouble,” he said. “I was in trouble a little while ago about my crutch and the tinker helped me. Now, I must try to help some one in my turn. That’s only fair.”
Uncle Wiggily looked around the corner of a stump and saw the tinker’s little boy, Tommie, sitting on a log and crying very hard.
“Why, Tommie! What’s the matter?” asked the bunny uncle.
“Oh, dear! Boo hoo!” cried Tommie. “My nice dog is lost, and I can’t find him. And I must have him, you know, or else I can’t be in Mother Goose’s book. My dog and I belong there, you see.”
“I see,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “But how did your dog get lost?”
“Oh, I was helping my father mend some umbrellas for Old King Cole,” said Tommie, “and, when we weren’t looking, my dog ran off in the woods. I guess he must be lost there, for he hasn’t come back. My father, Mr. Tinker, went to look for him, and so did I, but I hurt my toe and I can’t look any more; and—Oh, dear! Oh, dear!”
“There, there! Don’t cry any more,” said the nice bunny uncle. “I’ll go look for your pet dog for you. Just you wait here. Your father was kind to me, so I want to be kind to you.”
Uncle Wiggily went off through the woods, looking here, there and everywhere and pretty soon he heard behind a tree some one saying:
“Bow! Wow! Wow!”
“Ha! Whose dog art thou?” asked Uncle Wiggily, quickly.
“Little Tommie Tinker’s dog, Bow! Wow! Wow!” came the answer, and out from under a berry bush ran the lost dog, wagging his tail.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” he begged. “Can you take me to Tommie? I’ve been looking everywhere for him, and just now I smelled the nice meat bone you carry and I ran out of the bush to see who had it. Oh, I’m so glad I found you!”
“And I’m glad, too,” said the bunny uncle. “And Tommie will be glad when he sees you. Come alone, doggie, I’ll take you to him. It’s a good thing I had this bone, which you smelled, or I might never have found you.”
Then Uncle Wiggily gave Little Tommie Tinker’s dog some meat from Grandpa Goosey Gander’s bone, and took the little dog to Tommie and Mr. Tinker, who had come back without having found Bow-Wow-Wow. You can just imagine how glad every one was that everything had come out all right, so Tommie could stay in the Mother Goose book, and the little dog was glad also.
Then Uncle Wiggily hopped along home, Tommie Tinker went on his way, and in the next chapter, if our automobile doesn’t run off the sidewalk into a candy store, chasing after a lollypop, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and Mary’s little lamb.
CHAPTER VI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND MARY’S LAMB
One day Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, was looking around the hollow-stump bungalow, behind pictures, under the piano, in corners and everywhere.
“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, “have you lost something, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy?”
“No,” Nurse Jane answered. “I was just looking to see how much house-cleaning I must do. It will soon be Spring, and the bungalow must be made nice and clean, ready for Summer. There is quite a lot of dust behind the pictures and under the piano.”
“Bungalow-cleaning!” said Uncle Wiggily, sort of sad and solemn like. “I know what that means. No meals on time. No place to sit down, no place to hang your hat—nothing at all. I suppose I had better be out of the way when you turn my bungalow upside down to clean it.”
“I suppose you had,” agreed Nurse Jane. “Still, there is no hurry. I won’t start cleaning until to-morrow, or next day. But if you are going out now you might bring me something from the store.”
“What?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“A scrubbing brush and a cake of soap,” answered the muskrat lady. “I’ll need them to clean the floors.”
“You shall have them,” promised Uncle Wiggily. Then off he started with his tall silk hat and his red, white and blue-striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a corn-stalk, and which Tommie Tinker’s father had mended for him, as I told you in the story before this one.
“I wonder if I shall have any adventures to-day?” thought the bunny uncle, as he hopped and skipped along through the woods. “I haven’t had one since I found Tommie Tinker’s dog.”
But Mr. Longears reached the store without anything having happened to him, and, buying the cake of soap and the scrubbing brush, back he started for his hollow-stump bungalow.
“Nurse Jane said there was no hurry,” spoke the rabbit gentleman to himself, “but I want to get the house-cleaning over with as soon as I can. So I’ll hurry back with the soap and brush.”
All of a sudden, and just as Mr. Longears was wondering if he would have time to call on Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goat children, he heard a rustling in the bushes, and a voice said:
“Oh, dear! However did it happen? Oh, how too bad it is! You’re nothing at all like Mother Goose’s book says you should be. Oh, whatever am I to do?”
Uncle Wiggily looked around the corner of a tree, and there he saw a little girl, and beside her stood a little lamb, as black as a coal, or a barrel of tar. I don’t know which is blacker.
“Ha! This looks like trouble,” whispered Uncle Wiggily. Then: “That surely is Mary,” he said, out loud.
“Yes, I’m Mary,” spoke the little girl, “and I know you. Jack Horner told me about you, and how you helped him pull his thumb out of his plum pie. I wish you could help me.”
“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll help you if I can.”
“It’s him,” said Mary, pointing to the little baby sheep. “You know how it goes in the book:
“‘Mary had a little lamb,
Its fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went,
The lamb was sure to go.’”
“Yes, I know that,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But this can’t be your lamb. Instead of being white as snow, he’s black—as black as any crow.”
“That’s just the trouble!” said Mary, with tears in her eyes. “Oh, Lambie! How did you get your nice white coat so black?” she asked. “You can’t follow me to school that way; you know you can’t.”
“Ba-aa! No, I suppose I can’t,” spoke the lamb, sort of sad and lonesome like. “I didn’t mean to do it, but I went past a place where some men were cleaning out a chimney and the black soot blew from it all over me. I’m as sorry about it as you are.”
“It is too bad,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But nothing is so bad that it might not be worse.”
“This will be worse before it is better,” said Mary. “I suppose the only thing to do now is to take my lamb to the barber’s, who shaves a pig, and makes a wig. The barber can cut off the top part of the lamb’s fleecy wool and get down to the nice, white part. But if I do that I’ll be late for school. And the lamb must follow me there, you see, or it won’t be like the book. Oh, Lambkin! why did you do it?”
“I—I’m sorry,” said Mary’s little lamb. “But, please, don’t have my wool cut off. It’s too cold this weather. I’d shiver.”
“I must,” said Mary. “To make you white as snow, you know. I’ll have to have your wool cut.”
“No! you won’t have to do that!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I know something better than that. Soot is only black dirt. It will wash off with soap and water. And, see here! I have some soap for Nurse Jane’s bungalow-cleaning and a scrubbing brush. Come on, Mary. We’ll find some water and give the lamb’s coat a good scrubbing with soap suds. We’ll see what that will do.”
“Oh, I’m afraid we’ll never get him clean,” sadly said Mary; “but it is very good of you to think of it, Uncle Wiggily.”
They found a nice little brook, and leading the lamb to it, Uncle Wiggily rolled up his sleeves and with the soap and scrubbing brush began to wash the black soot out of the fleecy wool of Mary’s little lamb.
Away and away scrubbed the bunny uncle, making a great suddsy lather. He rubbed it well into the fluffy wool. Then, when the soap suds were washed out, why, Mary’s lamb’s fleece was as white as snow! just as it ought to be.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Mary. “How good you are! Now my little lamb can follow me to school, no matter if it is against the rule. Thank you!”
Then away she ran, and the lamb followed after her, and Uncle Wiggily, pleased that he had done a kindness, took the rest of the soap and the scrubbing brush to Nurse Jane.
And if the man painting our house doesn’t put red, green and purple stripes around it to make it look like a moving picture going to the circus, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Peter Piper.
CHAPTER VII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND PETER PIPER
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was hopping along across a green field. The field was not very green, but was just beginning to show a little green grass and clover, for, as yet, Spring had not fully arrived.
“But still I may find a few green things growing that I can eat or take to Sammie and Susie Littletail, the bunny children,” thought Mr. Longears. So on and on he hopped. The sun was shining, it was not very cold, and Uncle Wiggily felt happy because his rheumatism did not pain him.
“And when Summer comes it will not hurt me at all,” he said.
The rabbit gentleman was wondering whether or not he would have an adventure that day, when, all at once, he saw, climbing over the fence, a boy dressed in a green suit, wearing a red cap and with blue shoes on his feet.
“Ha! He is a funny looking chap!” thought the bunny uncle. “I think he must be one of Mother Goose’s friends. I’ll ask him.” And he did.
“Oh, how do you do, Uncle Wiggily?” asked the queer boy. “Yes, indeed, I’m one of the many children of Mother Goose, to whom you have been so kind. I’m Peter Piper.”
“Are you any relation to Tom-Tom, the Piper’s son?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“Yes, I’m his cousin. But I had nothing to do with taking the pig. Tom-Tom did that himself. But, if you please, I have a riddle for you to guess.”
“A riddle? Come, that’s good! I like riddles. Tell it to me.”
Then the queer boy stood up straight and recited this:
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers,
Where is the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?”
“Oh, my!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “That’s a hard one. Let me see now. ‘If Peter Pepper pipped a pick of peckled Pipers——!’”
“Oh, no! You have it wrong,” said Peter, smiling. “Try once more. Say it after me: ‘Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.’”
Uncle Wiggily tried again:
“Pickled Peter pipped a pep of Piperd pikers——”
“Oh, dear, no! Wrong again!” laughed Peter. “Now, once more. Say the last part first and perhaps it will come easier to you.”
So Uncle Wiggily said:
“Where is the pop of pickered Peters picker Piper pepped?”
“I—I’m afraid you can’t say it,” said Peter, gently.
“I’m afraid so myself,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I shan’t try again. It makes my tongue all twisted and hurts my funny bone. I give up. What’s the answer? Where are the peppers?”
“Here they are!” exclaimed Peter, and from behind his back he held out a peck of pickled peppers. “That’s the only kind you can pick this time of year,” he went on. “I’m taking them to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady. She mixes them with corn-meal and fries them.”
“I’ll go with you,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “I haven’t seen Alice and Lulu and Jimmie Wibblewobble in some time.”
So the bunny uncle and Peter Piper picked their way across the field toward the duck lady’s house. More than once Uncle Wiggily tried to say the riddle, but his tongue grew more and more twisted until he was walking sideways instead of frontwards. So he gave it up.
He and Peter Piper had not gone very far before Peter’s shoe lace came loose and he stooped down behind a big stone to tie it—tie the lace, I mean, not the stone. And while he was doing this along came the bad old fox, who had not bothered Uncle Wiggily in some time.
“Ah, ha!” cried the fox, showing his teeth. “This is the time I have you, Mr. Longears! I was just wondering what I would eat for dinner, but now I know. It shall be you!”
“Me?” asked Uncle Wiggily, curious like and wondering.
“Yes, you. Get ready for dinner! My dinner!” snarled the fox.
Uncle Wiggily thought quickly. He did not want to be a dinner for the fox, so he said:
“Before you eat would you not like to guess a riddle?”
“Yes,” said the fox, “I would. What is it?”
“And do you promise not to eat me until you guess it?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“I do,” said the fox. “But that will not save you, for I can guess any riddle that ever was,” and he fluffed up his tail, proud like and saucy.
“Then guess this,” said Uncle Wiggily, and now he had no trouble saying Peter Piper picked the peck of pickled peppers. “Where is the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?” suddenly asked Uncle Wiggily of the fox. The bad animal thought for a second and then he said:
“If Peter pickled pecked a pick of pipered pickles. A pick of Petered Pipers——”
“Oh, no!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “You’re a bit twisted. Try again.” The fox did so.
“If Papper Peter pecked a pit of piddled poppers——”
“Worse than ever,” said the bunny uncle. “I think you will not find it as easy as you thought. Once more, please, and try it a bit slower.”
The fox growled, and said:
“A pick of peppered Peters did peckle pickle—— Oh, I can’t guess your old riddle!” snarled the fox. “I’m going to eat you anyhow! What do I care about the peckled pickers?” and he made a jump for Uncle Wiggily to grab the bunny uncle.
“Eat him? You going to eat Uncle Wiggily? Oh, no! No, you’re not!” cried Peter Piper, jumping out from behind the rock. “Mother Goose doesn’t want Uncle Wiggily hurt. Be off with you!”
And with that Peter threw a pickled pepper at the fox. It struck him on the nose, and made him sneeze and turn a somersault, and before he could get straightened out Uncle Wiggily and Peter Piper had run away to the duck house.
So Mrs. Wibblewobble got the pickled peppers; that is, all but the one Peter threw at the fox, and Uncle Wiggily at last learned how to say the hard riddle-verse without tying himself in a knot. And if you can recite it, fast, without wrinkling your nose, you are doing well.
And if the candlestick doesn’t try to beat the carpet, and get dust in the eyes of the potatoes when they dance in the frying pan, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the moon-man.
CHAPTER VIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MOON-MAN
“Did you hear the news, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she sat down one evening in the dining-room of the hollow-stump bungalow, where the rabbit gentleman was eating his supper of lettuce salad, with carrot sauce sprinkled on.
“News! What news?” asked the bunny uncle, reaching for a slice of carrot bread. “Is some one going to have a surprise party and invite us to dance?”
“That’s partly it,” Nurse Jane answered. “Nannie Wagtail, the little goat girl, was going to have a party, but she is ill, and the party will not be given.”
“Nannie ill? That’s too bad,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “I’ll go over to see her after I have my supper. She may need cheering up a bit. Yes, I’ll go see her.”
So after he had finished eating Uncle Wiggily put on his tall silk hat that was like a piece of the stovepipe and away he went, over the fields and through the woods, to the house where the little goat girl lived with her brother Billie and her Uncle Butter, who posted circus pictures on barns and fences.
It was getting dark, but Uncle Wiggily was not afraid, for he knew the moon would soon rise above the tree tops and make a good light.
And on his way to Nannie’s the bunny uncle passed a candy store.
“I’ll just stop in and buy Nannie an ice cream cone,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Winter is nearly over and ice cream cones are in season again. I’ll take two or three, for Billie might like one.”
The bunny uncle bought a bag full of the ice cream cones, and he was walking on again, hoping that Nannie would not be ill long, when, all at once, there was a crash in the bushes beside the rabbit gentleman as if some one had fallen down.
“My goodness me sakes alive and some apple dumplings!” cried Uncle Wiggily, jumping to one side. “Who it is?” He hoped it would not prove to be the bad old fox. “Who is it?” he asked, for it was too dark to see.
“It is I—the moon-man,” was the answer. “I hope I did not scare you?”
“Well, you did, a little,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But what are you doing down on the earth? You ought to be up in the sky.”
“I know I ought,” said the other, “but you know how Mother Goose has it:
“‘The man in the moon came tumbling down,
To inquire the way to Norwich.
He went to the South,
And burned his mouth,
Eating some cold bean porridge.’
“That’s how it was,” said the moon-man. “I had to come tumbling down, you see, for that’s the way it is in the book. But, oh, dear! I am so sorry I burned my mouth! How it hurts!”
“Did you really burn your mouth, in the South, eating cold bean porridge?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“I did,” said the moon-man. “Only it was hot when I ate it. It’s cold enough now, though. Oh, how I burn! I wish you could help me.”
“I can!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “See, I have here some cold ice cream cones. Eat one of them, and your mouth will stop burning.”
“Oh, thank you!” cried the moon-man, and, surely enough, when he had eaten the ice cream cone, his mouth was as cool as a refrigerator, and he had no more pain.
“You are very kind,” said the moon-man to Uncle Wiggily. “If ever I can do you a favor I will. But now I must jump back to my place in the moon.”
The rabbit gentleman did not see how the moon-man was going to do any one any favors, if he had to jump away up in the moon, high above the earth. But still Uncle Wiggily was too polite to say so.
“Here I go! Good-by!” cried the man, and, giving a big hop, up to the moon he jumped. If you look closely you can see his face there on moonlight nights. He is smiling.
“Good-by!” called Uncle Wiggily, and on he went to the Wagtail goats’ house to see Nannie. She was very glad to have her bunny uncle call, and more pleased still when he gave her an ice cream cone, and also one to her brother Billie.
Uncle Wiggily stayed for quite some time, talking to the goats, and Uncle Butter told a funny story about a circus picture of a dog, which was so natural that a cat ran away when she saw it.
“Well, I’ll be getting back to my bungalow,” said Uncle Wiggily, after a bit. “Nurse Jane will be worrying about me if I stay too late.”
“Oh, how dark it is!” said Billie, looking out the door. “Aren’t you afraid, Uncle Wiggily?”
“Oh, no,” answered the rabbit uncle. But, when the door of the goats’ house was shut, and the pleasant lamplight no longer streamed out, it was very black and dark indeed. “I wish it were time for the lightning bugs,” thought Mr. Longears. “With them brightly flashing I could easily see my way.”
Uncle Wiggily went on as best he could, but pretty soon he bumped into a tree, and hurt his pink, twinkling nose. Next he stumbled against a big rock, and hurt his paw.
“Oh, dear!” he cried. “This is no fun! I wish it were light so I could see where I am going.”
Then he tripped over a log and came down ker-plunk! hurting his rheumatism, and he felt very badly, indeed.
“Oh, I wish some one would help me find my way to my bungalow!” he cried.
“I’ll help you,” said a kind voice, and then the woods were suddenly made almost as bright as day, for the moon rose over the trees, and shone down, so Uncle Wiggily could see the path, and stumbled no more.
“How is that?” asked the moon-man, beaming down on Uncle Wiggily. “Do I make it light enough for you?”
“Yes, indeed! Fine,” said the bunny uncle. “I can see all right now. Thank you.”
So the moon-man, whose mouth no longer burned, thanks to the ice cream cone, shone brightly until Uncle Wiggily safely reached his bungalow.
And, if the trolley car doesn’t go roller-skating with the apple pie and upset the goldfish, so they spill into the canary’s cage, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Humpty Dumpty.
CHAPTER IX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND HUMPTY DUMPTY
“Uncle Wiggily, would you mind bringing me some glue when you come home from your walk this afternoon?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit gentleman leaving his hollow-stump bungalow one day.
“Glue?” asked Uncle Wiggily, curious like. “I hope you are not going to put it in my chair, so when I sit down I will stick fast, and not be able to get up again.”
“Oh, no!” laughed Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, “though if you keep on going out so often, the way you do, I’ll need a bit of sticky fly paper, or something like that, to keep you at home.”
“Oh! I have to go off to have adventures now and then,” said the bunny uncle, smiling so that his nose twinkled like a moonbeam shining in the water. “But I’ll bring you the glue all right, Nurse Jane. What is it you want to stick together?”
“A broken teacup,” answered the muskrat lady. “I knocked a breakfast teacup off the table, and it broke. But I can stick the pieces together with glue, and it will be almost as good as new.”
“Good!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “That’s the way to do it!” Then he set off over the fields and through the woods to get the glue.
He found some in the doll doctor’s toy shop, where the monkey-doodle toy-mender used it to fasten together all the playthings the animal boys and girls broke.
“That’s just the glue for Nurse Jane’s cup,” said the doll doctor. “It will mend anything.”
“That’s what we want,” said Uncle Wiggily.
Well, the old gentleman rabbit was going along, hoping he would meet with an adventure before he reached his hollow-stump bungalow, when, all at once, he heard a sort of crowing noise and a clucking, and then a sad voice said:
“Oh, dear, I might have known it would happen! I should never have let you sit on top of the wall, Humpty. Now look what you’ve done! Oh, what will my mother say?”
“Ha! That sounds like Charlie Chick, the little rooster chap,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I wonder what has happened to him, and who Humpty can be? I guess I’ll look and see.”
The bunny uncle went on a little farther and, coming to a stone wall, he saw, on one side of it, Charlie Chick; and the little rooster chap’s tail feathers were all squeezed sideways and crooked, as though he were in great trouble, indeed.
“Why, Charlie!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What’s the matter? Is Arabella, your sister, lost?”
“Oh, no, Uncle Wiggily!” answered Charlie. “But I had Humpty Dumpty with me, and he sat up on the wall, just as he did when he was out with Mother Goose. But he fell off and now he’s broken, and oh, dear! I fear he never will be himself again.”
“My! My! What’s all this?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “I never heard of Humpty Dumpty, or his fall from the wall. And why can’t he be himself again? If it’s anything that is broken I can mend it, for I have some glue to mend Nurse Jane’s broken cup, and I can mend Humpty Dumpty.”
“Oh, it’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” said Charlie, politely, “but it can’t be done. You see Humpty Dumpty is an egg. My mother, Mrs. Cluck-Cluck, sent me to take him to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady. But on the way I stopped here to rest and I let Humpty sit upon the wall.”
“Well, what happened then?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as Charlie stopped, to give a little crow, and flap his wings.
“It happened just as it tells about in the Mother Goose book,” went on Charlie. “This is the way it was:
“‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Cannot put Humpty together again.’”
“Why can’t they put him together again?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Where is Humpty? Let me have a look at him. If his shell is only cracked I can mend it with glue. Where is he?”
“On the other side of the stone wall,” answered Charlie. “He fell over or rolled backward, and he must be all broken up by now.”
“Let us hope for the best,” said the rabbit gentleman. “He may be only cracked, Humpty Dumpty may be, and if the glue I have for Nurse Jane will mend a cracked cup, it will mend a cracked egg. I must have a look.”
Up on top of the wall jumped the rabbit gentleman. Then he hopped down on the other side. He looked around for Humpty Dumpty.
Uncle Wiggily saw some broken egg shells. Then he looked some more and rubbed his eyes.
“This is queer,” he said. “If the egg broke, the white and yellow inside ought to have run out on the ground. But I don’t see any. That must have been a hollow egg.”
Just then the rabbit gentleman heard:
“Peep! Peep! Peepity-peep-cheep-cheep!”
“My goodness me sakes alive and some corn-meal pudding!” cried the bunny uncle. “Who is that?”
“It is I, Humpty Dumpty,” was the answer, and out from under a bush ran a cute, little, fluffy, downy chicken.
“Are you Humpty Dumpty?” cried Uncle Wiggily.
“Of course,” peeped the little chicken. “I was inside the eggshell all the while, just waiting to come out. And when Charlie set me on the wall I rolled off, cracked my shell and here I am. I popped out!
“Of course, it isn’t just like in the book,” said the baby chick, “but it’s better. For though I sat on the wall and had a great fall, I don’t need all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put Humpty together again.”
“No, and you don’t need any of my glue,” said Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh. “There is no use mending a broken eggshell out of which has come a chicken. Oh, I say, Charlie!” cried the bunny uncle. “Fly over the wall. It’s all right. Humpty is here, only he is different from what you thought you would find him. Here he is; a new, little chicken brother for you.”
And wasn’t Charlie surprised? Well, I guess yes! But he loved Humpty Dumpty very much and Humpty loved him. So this time, once more, everything came out all right, just as Mother Goose would have it.
And if the collar button doesn’t go to a necktie party all by itself and leave the comb to play tag with the brush, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Old King Cole.
CHAPTER X
UNCLE WIGGILY AND OLD KING COLE
“Well, Uncle Wiggily Longears, you are getting very stylish, indeed, it seems,” spoke Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, after the postman bird had paid a visit to the hollow-stump bungalow one day, and had left a letter. “Very stylish. Look here!”
“Why, what’s the matter?” asked the bunny uncle. “Do you call it stylish just to get a letter? You often get them, and so do I. This is, very likely, from Grandpa Goosey Gander, asking me to come over and play checkers with him.”
“Indeed, it is nothing of the sort!” exclaimed the muskrat lady. “That is, if you will excuse me for saying so. This is a very stylish letter, indeed. It comes from the king’s palace, as you can see, by the royal stamp on it in gold and red and blue and green. I wonder what it can be?”
“I’ll open it and find out; then I’ll tell you,” said Uncle Wiggily, politely. “I guess it’s from the gold and silver palace of the king, who was in the kitchen counting out his money, while the queen was in the parlor eating bread and honey. The maid was in the garden hanging out the clothes, when along came a blackbird and nipped off her nose.
“I helped the king and queen and the maid, you know, and perhaps they are in more trouble, and need more help.”
But when the bunny uncle opened the letter he found it was not from that king, but another—this letter was from Old King Cole.
“Read me the letter,” said Nurse Jane.
So Uncle Wiggily read:
“Old King Cole is a merry old soul,
A merry old soul is he.
He called for his pipe, he called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.
“Every fiddler had a fine fiddle,
A very fine fiddle had he,
And Uncle Wiggily is asked to come
To list to the music with me.”
At the bottom of the letter was Old King Cole’s name, in big letters.
“Well, well!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “I don’t understand. What’s it all about, I wonder?”
“Don’t you see!” cried Nurse Jane. “This is a royal invitation from Old King Cole for you to come to his palace, and listen to his fiddlers three making music on their fine fiddles. You must get ready to go. Put on your best suit and look nice.”
“Must I really go?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “I had much rather stay here with you. I don’t know Old King Cole at all well. Must I go?”
“Of course you must go!” Nurse Jane said. “Whenever a king invites you, why, you have to go, even if you must stand on your head. I’ll help you get ready.”
“Very well,” Uncle Wiggily said. “But I had much rather stay home with my slippers on, eating carrot sandwiches. I know it will be too fine and grand for me up at the king’s palace. I’ll be sure to get my napkin on backward, or tickle some one with the wrong fork. But if I must go, I must. I wonder how he came to invite me?”
“Oh, I guess he heard how kind you were to the king who was in the kitchen, counting out his money, and how you dug it up for him when it rolled under the floor,” said Nurse Jane.
So she helped Uncle Wiggily get ready, shaving the back of his neck for him, where he couldn’t himself reach with his razor. And she tied his tie for him, and saw that he was all scrumptious like, and proper.
Finally the rabbit gentleman set off for the palace of the king. He was about halfway there when he heard some little squeaking voices down beside the woodland path, and there he saw Jollie and Jillie Longtail, the mouse children, and their cousin, Squeaky-Eeky.
“Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Jollie, the boy mouse.
“To Old King Cole’s to hear some fiddle music,” answered Uncle Wiggily.
“Oh, do please take us with you!” begged Jillie. “We just love fiddle music and we can’t ever go to hear any.”
“Why?” asked the bunny uncle.
“Because,” explained Squeaky-Eeky, the little cousin mouse. “You know what it says in Mother Goose.
“‘Hi-Diddle-Diddle. The cat’s in the fiddle.’ Now we couldn’t go to hear music when a cat was in the fiddle, could we?”
“Of course not,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “I never thought of that. Cats and mice don’t go well together. But how can I take you to King Cole? He may not like mice.”
“Put us in your pockets,” said Jillie. “We are not very big, and we can easily hide when you go in the palace. No one will see us in your pockets.”
Well, Uncle Wiggily put them in—Jollie, Jillie and Squeaky-Eeky Longtail. But the rabbit gentleman was afraid lest the king might not like it. However, let us see what happened, as they say in story books.
“Glad to see you, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Old King Cole, as the bunny uncle came in the grand palace. “Make yourself right at home!” and the king clapped his hands. Then some one sang:
“Old King Cole is a merry old soul,
A merry old soul is he.
He called for his pipe,
He called for his bowl,
And he called for his fiddlers three.”
In came the fiddlers, playing tweedle-dweele-dee, making nice music, until, all at once:
“Snap! Snap! Snap!” went something. “Snap!”
“My goodness me sakes alive and some orange lemonade!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What was that?”
“Our fiddle strings have broken!” cried one of the fiddlers. “Now we can make no more music until we have new strings.”
“Oh, dear!” cried King Cole. “That’s too bad. I must have music from my fiddlers three, or from some one, or Mother Goose won’t like it. How can I get squeaky fiddle music for Uncle Wiggily? How can I?”
Just then Jollie Longtail popped his head out from Uncle Wiggily’s pocket.
“If you please, Old King Cole,” he said, “Jillie, Squeaky-Eeky and I, with our squeaky voices, will make music for you if you like.”
“I do like,” said the king. “Make some music, if you please!”
So the mice, who have very squeaky voices, sang nice music, almost like the fiddles, and Old King Cole was a more merry soul than ever.
“I’m glad you came, Uncle Wiggily,” he said. “And I’m glad you brought the nice Longtail mice children with you. Give them all some cheese!” And he laughed most jolly-jilly like.
So the mice sang for the king until the fiddlers’ fiddle strings were fixed, and every one had a good time and plenty to eat.
And if the jam tart doesn’t get inside the huckleberry pie, where the egg beater can’t find it to dance with, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Peter-Peter.
CHAPTER XI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND PETER-PETER
“Uncle Wiggily, don’t you think you’d better take an umbrella with you?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as the rabbit gentleman, Mr. Longears, started out from his hollow-stump bungalow one morning.
“An umbrella, Nurse Jane? Why should I take one with me? I have my red, white and blue-striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, that you gnawed for me out of a corn-stalk.”
“That wouldn’t be much good in a rain-storm,” said the muskrat lady, with a laugh. “It wouldn’t keep off many of the drops.”
“No, I s’pose not,” said the bunny uncle, sort of rubbing his pink, twinkling nose, thoughtful like, with the brim of his tall silk hat. “So you think it is going to rain, do you?”
“Or snow,” said the muskrat lady, looking to see if the hair ribbon had come off the end of her tail, but it had not, I’m glad to say.
“Well, I guess I’ll be back before it storms,” went on Uncle Wiggily. “I’m only going over to Grandfather Goosey Gander’s pen house to see if he wants to play checkers with grains of corn. I won’t be very long,” and with that Uncle Wiggily hopped away.
Over the fields and through the woods hopped the bunny uncle to the house, or pen, of the old gentleman goose. Uncle Wiggily was thinking what a nice visit he would have when, all of a sudden, he heard from behind a scratchy briar bush a sad voice saying:
“Oh, dear! They’re all spilled! I’ll never be able to pick them up; never! There are too many of them! Oh, dear!”
“Ha! That is funny talk. It sounds as though some one were in trouble,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself. “I wonder if I can help them? I’ll just take a peek first, for it might be the skillery-scalery alligator, with humps on his tail, or the bad fox or wolf, and they would help themselves to catch me rather than have me help them. I’ll take a peek first.”
So Uncle Wiggily peeked out and there, on the other side of the bush he saw a little man, bending down and picking something up off the ground.
Now, as a rule, the bunny uncle didn’t like men, for most of them were hunters, with dogs and bang-bang guns, who came after the animal people. But this man was so little, and so kind-looking and, withal, Uncle Wiggily could see he had no gun, so Mr. Longears knew it would be all right.
“Excuse me,” said Uncle Wiggily, speaking a language that animals and little men can understand. “But can I help you?”
“Oh, hello, Uncle Wiggily,” exclaimed the small chap. “Why, maybe you can help me. You see, I am Peter-Peter, and——”
“What, not Peter-Peter, the Pumpkin-Eater?” asked the rabbit gentleman, surprised like.
“The very same,” was the answer. “I’m that Peter-Peter.”
“Then you must be a friend of Mother Goose,” said the bunny uncle, smiling down one side of his pink twinkling nose.
“I am,” answered Peter-Peter.
“Then I am more than ever anxious to help you,” spoke Mr. Longears. “I always help the friends of Mother Goose. What is the trouble?”
“I have spilled all my pumpkin seeds,” was the answer of Peter-Peter. “You see I was scooping out my pumpkin shell, making it hollow to keep my wife in, as it says in the Mother Goose book. When I had the seeds all scooped out my wife said it would be a good thing to take them over to Mrs. Bushytail, the squirrel lady, as she and her two boys, Johnnie and Billie, could eat them.”
“I guess they would be glad to get them,” said Uncle Wiggily. “In fact, I like roasted pumpkin seeds myself.”
“But the trouble is,” said Peter-Peter, “that when I had put the seeds in a bag, and was on my way to the Bushytail home with them, I came through these woods. The prickly briar bush caught my bag, tore holes in it, and out fell the pumpkin seeds. They are scattered all over the ground here, and, oh, dear! I’ll never be able to pick them up.”
“Oh, yes, you will,” said Uncle Wiggily, with a jolly laugh. “I’ll help you, and I’ll get my friends, Dickie and Nellie Chip-Chip, the sparrows, to help. They are great at picking up seeds.”
So Uncle Wiggily whistled for Dickie and Nellie Chip-Chip, and when the sparrow boy and girl came, with their sharp bills, they soon picked up most of the pumpkin seeds; Uncle Wiggily and Peter-Peter helping, of course.
And when they were all picked up Uncle Wiggily pasted some postage stamps over the holes in Peter-Peter’s bag, so it was as good as ever. Then the little man started off with it over his shoulder to the Bushytail squirrel house.
“Thank you, very much, Uncle Wiggily,” said Peter-Peter. “And you, too, Dickie and Nellie. If ever I can do you a favor I will.”
So he went on, and, when Dickie and Nellie had flown home, Uncle Wiggily hopped along to Grandpa Goosey Gander’s house. There the old rabbit gentleman had a nice time playing checkers with grains of corn, but on his way home, when he was in the middle of the woods, all of a sudden it began to rain very hard.
“Oh, dear!” cried the bunny uncle. “Nurse Jane was right. It is raining, and I have no umbrella! I will get all wet, and my rheumatism will be worse than ever. Oh, dear! I wish I had some place to go in!”
And just then Uncle Wiggily heard a voice singing.
“Peter-Peter, Pumpkin-Eater,
Had a wife and could not keep her.
He put her in a pumpkin shell,
And there he kept her very well.”
Uncle Wiggily looked through the bushes, and there he saw a cute little house, made from a pumpkin, with a hollowed-out corn-cob for a chimney. And in the door of the house stood the little man, Peter-Peter himself.
“Hello, Uncle Wiggily!” called Peter-Peter. “Come in out of the rain.”
“Is there room in there with you and your wife?” asked the bunny uncle.
“Plenty of room,” answered Peter-Peter. “This is an extra big Thanksgiving pumpkin. Come in!”
In went Uncle Wiggily out of the rain, and he stayed in Peter-Peter’s pumpkin-shell house until the storm was over, and he could go home without getting wet. So you see it was a good thing Uncle Wiggily helped Peter-Peter pick up the pumpkin seeds.
And if the rain-drop doesn’t fall down-stairs and splash all over the pancake turner when it goes out to shovel the snow, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the butcher.
CHAPTER XII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BUTCHER
It was raining in animal land, where Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, lived. It had been raining for several days; in fact, ever since the bunny uncle had helped Peter-Peter pick up the pumpkin seeds.
Uncle Wiggily had been caught out in the rain then, and had gone in the pumpkin shell, where Peter-Peter kept his wife very well. That rain was only a shower, which was soon over, but the storm began again and had lasted ever since. It was very wet in animal land.
“My!” exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. “If it doesn’t stop soon I’ll never get the clothes dry.”
“Worse than that,” said Uncle Wiggily. “If it doesn’t stop soon there will be a flood, and our hollow-stump bungalow will be full of water. In fact, I think there is a little water in it now.”
Well, it kept on raining, and there was a flood, so much so that Uncle Wiggily’s cellar was full of water, almost up to the floor, and all about, outside the hollow-stump bungalow, there were little lakes and puddles and rivers of rain water in the woods.
“Will it ever stop raining?” asked Nurse Jane, as she stood at the window, looking out. “If it doesn’t, I don’t know what we shall do. I need some things from the store.”
“I’ll get them for you,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
“But how can you, in all this rain?”
“Oh, very easily,” answered the bunny uncle, twinkling his pink nose to make himself bright and cheerful like. “I’ll put on my rubber boots, my raincoat, take an umbrella and go to the store.”
“Well, I’m sure it’s very brave of you to go out in this storm,” said Nurse Jane, “and I hope your rheumatism doesn’t catch cold. But we need some bread, sugar, salt and other things.”
“I’ll get them,” said Uncle Wiggily, and off he started through the storm, well wrapped up so he would get no wetter than could be helped.
The rabbit uncle finally got to the store, and the monkey-doodle gentleman who kept it put in a basket the things Nurse Jane wanted.
He wrapped them in heavy paper, putting some over the top of the basket so in case Uncle Wiggily’s umbrella blew wrong side out the groceries would not get wet.
“Well, I guess everything is going to be all right,” thought Uncle Wiggily to himself, as he hopped along through the rain on his way back to the hollow-stump bungalow. “I don’t believe I’m even going to have an adventure (except now and then splashing into a puddle) for all my coming out in the storm. And I haven’t had an adventure in some time. I really wish something would happen!”
Uncle Wiggily had no sooner thought this than, all of a sudden, something did happen. He slipped into a big puddle with his rubber boots. The water came nearly to the top of them, but that did not so much matter as did something else. For when the bunny uncle tried to pull his feet up out of the puddle he couldn’t do it. No, sir, he could no more pull his feet up than you could get loose from sticky fly paper in case you happened to sit down in it, which, I hope, you never do; though our cat did once. And such a time!
“My! This is quite too bad!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I wonder what could have happened? My feet are caught fast!” He squirmed about a bit with his feet in the rubber boots. Then he said:
“I know what has happened. My feet are held tight in the crooked, twisted old root of a tree that is down under the puddle. I’m caught as badly as if I were in a trap. Oh, dear! This is an adventure, all right, but not the kind I like. I wonder how I can get loose?”
And well might the bunny uncle wonder. His feet were caught fast in the root, away down under water and he could not reach down with his paws to loosen them, for he had his umbrella in one paw and the basket of groceries on the other, for there was water all around him.
“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I s’pose I could pull my feet out of the rubber boots and just leave them caught in the puddle, but if I did that I’d have to go home bare-pawed, and I’d catch my rheumatism worse than ever. Oh, dear! What shall I do?”
Just then, through the woods Uncle Wiggily heard the sound of a drum. “Dub-dub! Dubbity-dubbity-dub!”
“Ha! I wonder if that can be Sammie Littletail, the bunny boy, coming along with his Christmas drum? If it is he can help me,” said Mr. Longears.
Uncle Wiggily, still caught fast, looked through the trees, and he saw some one sailing along in a washtub. And it was the butcher man, in his white apron and cap, with a big knife in his hand, who was drumming, with the knife handle, on the sides of the tub. And the butcher sang this song:
“Rub-a-dub-dub! Three men in a tub;
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker;
They all jumped over a hard baked potato.”
“Why, that’s in Mother Goose!” cried Uncle Wiggily, joyful like. “This butcher must be a friend of hers. I wonder if he could help me.”
Just then the butcher saw Uncle Wiggily caught fast in the puddle, and, stopping his washtub ship, he asked:
“Are you in trouble?”
“Trouble? I should say I was!” cried the bunny uncle. “My feet are caught fast in a tree root down under the water, and I can’t get loose. Can you help me?”
“I can and will,” replied the butcher. Then, with his long, sharp knife, he reached down under the puddle and cut the tree root that was holding Uncle Wiggily’s feet fast, taking care not to cut the bunny uncle’s rubber boots.
“There you are!” cried the butcher. “Now you’re loose.”
“Oh, thank you so much,” said Uncle Wiggily, hopping out of the puddle. “But, excuse me, I thought there were three of you rub-a-dub-dub men in a tub. You are only one.”
“Well, there were three of us,” said the butcher. “But since Mother Goose wrote that verse about us, after we jumped out of the baked potato, we grew so large that three of us had hard work to fit in one tub. So now we each have a tub to ourselves. Now I must sail on. The baker and candlestick maker and I are having a tub-boat-race. I hope I win. Good-by!”
And on he sailed in his tub, while Uncle Wiggily, his feet no longer caught fast, went safely on to his hollow-stump bungalow through the rain with the groceries.
So the bunny uncle was saved by the butcher, you see, and, if the gas lamp doesn’t go down cellar in the dark and stumble over the fire shovel when it’s playing in the ashes, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the baker.
CHAPTER XIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BAKER
It was still raining in Woodland, where the animal folk lived. All around the hollow-stump bungalow, where Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, kept house for Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, there were puddles of water; little lakes and rivers, too.
“I think it is getting colder,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he came in from having been up to the Orange Mountain, to get a dozen of lemons so Nurse Jane could bake a cherry pie.
“If it gets colder, perhaps it will stop raining,” Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy remarked, “and goodness knows we have had enough of water.”
“Yes, a little snow for a change would seem nice,” spoke the bunny uncle, looking out of the window at the rain-drops still splashing down.
“Was it raining on the Orange Mountain?” Nurse Jane wanted to know.
“Yes, just as hard as it is down here in the valley. But the water runs off the sides of the mountain, so there are not so many puddles to step in, as I stepped in one the other day, and got my foot caught in a tree root, when the butcher, in his rub-a-dub-dub tub, cut me loose.”
“That was quite an adventure,” said Nurse Jane. “You haven’t seen the other friends of Mother Goose—the baker and the candlestick maker—have you?”
“No,” Uncle Wiggily answered. “But I understand that the butcher’s two friends, the baker and the candlestick maker, are having a race with him, each one in a tub. They may sail along any day now. I guess I’ll go out and look for them.”
“What! In all this rain?” cried Nurse Jane, in surprise. “You’ll catch cold in your rheumatism, I’m sure.”
“Oh, no, I’ll wrap up well in my rubber coat, and put on my rubber boots as I did before,” said the bunny uncle, making his nose twinkle like a gold tooth in the wax doll.
Off started the old rabbit gentleman, carrying a big umbrella so that too many rain-drops would not get on his tall silk hat. He walked along through the woods, down from the trees of which the rain-drops dripped. There were many puddles, but Uncle Wiggily kept as much out of them as he could.
“It is getting quite some colder,” he said to himself, as he put one paw in his pocket to warm it—warm his paw, I mean, not his pocket, for that was warm already. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see it snow.”
And, in a little while, a few flakes of snow did begin to fall, dodging their way in between the rain-drops, and sort of playing tag with one another.
“How pretty the flakes look,” said Uncle Wiggily, coming to a stop to watch them. “I think I’ll sit down a minute and look at them.” He found a fallen log, which, being under a Christmas tree, was not as wet as it might otherwise have been, and down Uncle Wiggily sat on that.
More snowflakes fell, and they looked so pretty that Uncle Wiggily stayed longer than he meant to, sitting on the log. It kept on getting colder and colder, and finally the bunny uncle said:
“Well, I mustn’t sit here any longer. I’ll get up and go back to my nice, warm, cozy hollow-stump bungalow. Yes, I’ll get up and——”
But Uncle Wiggily did not get up. He couldn’t! He had frozen fast to the log, which had some water on it. The cold air had made the water freeze, and Uncle Wiggily was held as fast there as if he had sat down in sticky fly paper—even more tightly, I believe.
“Oh, dear!” he cried. “This is quite too bad! In fact, it is terrible. What shall I do!”
He tried to get up, but he could not, and he did not want to take off his rubber coat, and so free himself, for fear he might catch cold without his coat.
“Oh, dear! I don’t know what to do!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Help! Help! Will no one help me to get loose?”
Then, through the woods he suddenly heard a rub-a-dub-dub drumming sound.
“Ha! I wonder if that can be my friend, the butcher?” thought the bunny uncle. But when he looked he saw a baker coming along, dressed in a spotless white apron and cap. The baker had a loaf of bread in his hand, and with a large spoon he was pushing himself along in his tub through the puddles of water, which had not yet solidly frozen over, though there were chunks of ice in them. And the baker was singing:
“Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub;
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker;
But I am the one with the hot baked potato.”
Then the baker, seeing Uncle Wiggily sitting on the log, called to the bunny uncle as he stopped his tub boat:
“Would you like to buy a loaf of bread?” asked the baker.
“Well, yes, I might, for I heard Nurse Jane say we needed some,” answered the bunny uncle.
“Then please come and get it,” said the baker. “For I am riding a boat-tub race with the butcher and the candlestick maker, and I don’t want to stop. They might get in ahead of me. You see, we are doing a little different from what it says in the Mother Goose book,” went on the baker, shaking some rain-drops off his white cap. “We each have a tub to ourselves.”
“I see,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I heard about it. In fact, I met the butcher sailing along in his tub the other day.”
“Oh, did you? Then I must hurry,” cried the baker, “or he will win the race. Come and get your loaf of bread and I’ll paddle along.”
“I can’t come and get it,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I am sorry, but I really can’t.”
“Why not?” asked the baker.
“Because I am frozen fast to this log,” said the bunny uncle, “and I really can’t get up, much as I would like to. I was calling for help, and, when you came along, I hoped——”
“Ha! Say no more!” cried the baker, in a jolly voice. “Of course I’ll help you. Never mind about the race. I’ll get you loose!”
“How?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“I’ll show you!” cried the baker. He stopped his tub, which had started off by itself, put on his rubbers, and stepped out into a little puddle. In his hands he carried the hot loaf of bread, and the hot baked potato. Putting these down on the log, one on each side of Uncle Wiggily, the heat of them soon melted the ice, and the rabbit gentleman was unfrozen, and could get up and go on his way as well as ever.
“Oh, thank you!” he called to the baker. “Thank you!”
“You are welcome,” was the answer, “and take the hot bread and potato with you,” and with that the baker jumped back in his tub and went on sailing, hoping to catch up to the butcher.
So Uncle Wiggily went to his hollow-stump bungalow, not being frozen any more, and all was well. And if the soft boiled egg doesn’t go sliding on the ice and fall down so it breaks all to pieces and has to be put in a pudding, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the candlestick maker.
CHAPTER XIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CANDLESTICK MAKER
After supper, one night, Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, put on his tall silk hat, his fur-lined overcoat, and, taking his red, white and blue-striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch down off the piano, he started for the door.
“What! You are not going out to-night, are you?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, in surprise.
“Why, yes, for a little while,” answered the bunny uncle. “It has stopped raining, you know, and the ground has dried up. It is cold, but I have my fur coat, so I shall be nice and warm.”
“Where are you going?” asked Nurse Jane.
“To call on Mr. Longtail, the mouse gentleman. He likes night visits better than day ones, so that’s why I go in the evening. He’s like an owl that way.”
“Well, don’t stay too late,” said Nurse Jane, and Uncle Wiggily promised that he would not. Out into the night he went, but it was not very dark, for there was a moon shining. And as the rabbit uncle was hopping along through the woods he suddenly stepped upon something round, which rolled from under his paw and almost threw him down.
“Ha! I wonder what that can be?” Uncle Wiggily said. He looked and saw a brass candlestick on the ground. “This is queer,” went on the bunny uncle. “I did not know that candlesticks grew in the woods. Some one must have dropped it. I’ll take it with me, and perhaps Mr. Longtail will know whose it is.”
With the candlestick in one paw and his rheumatism crutch in the other, Uncle Wiggily once more hopped on. Pretty soon he saw a little light flickering through the trees.
“Why, that looks just like a lightning bug,” said the bunny uncle, “only they are not out this time of the year. I wonder what that can be?”
Then he heard a tummity-tum-tum, drumming sound, and a voice sang:
“Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub;
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker,
And the baker has taken the hot baked potato.”
“Why, that must be the last of the three, queer Mother Goose men, who went sailing a race in washtubs, when the weather was rainy,” said Uncle Wiggily. “And this one must be the candlestick maker, for I have met the other two.
“But if this is the candlestick maker I don’t see how he can be sailing in his tub when the rain has stopped, and there are no little rivers, lakes or even puddles in the woods,” went on the rabbit gentleman. “Everything is frozen over. I don’t see how he can.”
Then the singing voice stopped, and Uncle Wiggily heard some one crying:
“Oh, dear! Ouch, how it burns! Oh, where can it be? Where can it be?”
The flickering light came nearer, and Uncle Wiggily, looking through the trees, saw that it was not a lightning bug, or firefly, but a little man, with a leather apron on, and a hammer and other tools hanging from his belt. The tools jingled and rattled. Behind the man, who was pulling it along as if it were a sled, with a rope through one the handles, was the washtub. In one hand the man carried a lighted candle, and, all the while, he kept on saying:
“Oh, dear! Ouch! How it burns me! Oh, my!”
“Excuse me,” said Uncle Wiggily, politely, “but you seem to be in trouble. Perhaps I can help you. What burns you?”
“This candle,” answered the man. “I ought to have a candlestick to hold it, but I dropped my nice brass candlestick as I ran through the woods, and now I have to hold the candle in my bare fingers. And it is so short that it burns me. Ouch!”
“Ha! Then this is what you want,” Uncle Wiggily said, and he handed over the candlestick he had picked up.
“The very thing!” cried the little man, in delight. “Thank you so much. Now my fingers won’t burn any more.”
He stuck the end of the lighted candle in the stick and spoke again.
“I’m the candlestick maker, as you can see; I make candlesticks, but just now I am not making any, as I am on a race with the butcher and baker to see who first will get to Mother Goose’s house. We started out in a dreadful rain-storm, when we could float in our tubs like boats, but the butcher and baker seem to have gotten ahead of me.”
“They have,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I met them two days ago.”
“Then there isn’t much use in my keeping on,” said the candlestick maker. “But it has gotten colder. It may snow, and if I come to a hill I can coast down it in my tub, which I made into a sled when I found the ground frozen and all the water gone. If I can slide down hill in my tub-sled I may yet get ahead of the butcher and baker and win the prize of a hot baked potato.”
“Perhaps you may,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he told how the baker had kindly thawed him off the frozen log with the hot baked potato and a hot loaf of bread.
“Well, I’ll be getting on,” said the candlestick maker, after a bit. “Thank you for being kind to me. If ever I can do you a favor I will. My fingers no longer burn.” Then he hurried off through the woods, dragging his tub-sled after him.
Uncle Wiggily had a nice visit with Mr. Longtail, the mouse gentleman, but when the bunny uncle started home the moon had gone down and it was very dark. Soon Uncle Wiggily was lost in the woods. He could not tell which way to go, and he hopped around, stubbing his paws and bunking into trees, until he was all sore and lame.
“Oh, I wish I had a light!” he cried. And, no sooner had he spoken than he heard a drumming sound, and along came the candlestick maker with the lighted candle.
“Here you are! Here’s your light, Uncle Wiggily!” the candlestick maker cried. “I’ll light you all the way to your hollow-stump bungalow.”
“Good!” cried the bunny uncle. “But I don’t want to take your time and delay you. I thought you were racing.”
“I gave it up. The baker won and got there first. I just met Old Mother Hubbard and she told me. So I’m going to take you home.” And he did, making the woods light with his candle, all the way to the bunny uncle’s hollow-stump bungalow.
So the rabbit gentleman was all right again, you see, and if the piece of cheese doesn’t run away from the slice of apple pie, and get lost in the rice pudding, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Tom-Tom.
CHAPTER XV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND TOM-TOM
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, was going along through the woods one day, wondering what sort of an adventure he would have, when he met Mother Goose, who, as I have told you before, had come, with her large family of funny folk, to live in the forest near the hollow-stump bungalow of the bunny uncle.
“How do you do, Mother Goose?” asked Mr. Longears, as he made a polite bow, taking off his tall silk hat.
“I am very well, thank you,” she said. “You look well yourself. I wonder if you have seen him anywhere, as you have been walking along?”
“Seen whom?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “If you mean the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker, I have. I met them the other day——”
“No, thank you, I don’t mean them,” said Mother Goose. “They have come safely home again with their rub-a-dub-dub-tubs, and they are happily living together once more. No, it’s another of my friends who is lost. You may have seen him. He is——”
But just then Old Mother Hubbard came to the door of her house, after having given her dog a bone, and she called across the woodland path:
“Oh, Mother Goose! Little Tommie Tucker is crying for his supper. What shall I give him, white bread and butter?”
“Wait a minute. I’ll be right there,” answered Mother Goose. “I want to put a little molasses on Tommie’s bread. You walk on,” she said to Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll come back to you in a minute and tell you who is lost.”
But Mother Goose must have had to give Tommie Tucker a bigger supper than usual, or else some of her other friends wanted something, for Uncle Wiggily hopped on and on, and the nice old goose lady did not come to speak to him.
“It’s funny,” said the bunny uncle, “but I wonder who it is that is lost? I can’t very well look for him—or her—until I know. It may be Little Bo Peep, or Jack Horner. Well, I’ll keep on, and I may meet with the lost one, whoever he or she is; or I may have an adventure. Who knows?”
Well, the bunny uncle had not gone on much farther before, all at once, he heard some one running through the bushes, and the sound of loud squeals.
“Ha! Something is happening,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Perhaps this is the adventure I am expecting.”
Then, all of a sudden, through the bushes came running a boy with a squealing pig under his arm.
“Squee! Squee! Squee!” cried the pig.
“Hold on! Stop! Wait a minute!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Who are you?”
“I am Tom-Tom, the piper’s son,” was the answer.
“Oh, you’re from Mother Goose, aren’t you?”
“Yes, but I’m running away from her now,” answered Tom-Tom. “You know how it goes in the book:
“‘Tom-Tom, the piper’s son,
Took a pig and away he run.
The pig was eat, and Tom was beat,
And he went roaring down the street.’
“That’s how it is in the book,” went on Tom-Tom. “Only it isn’t exactly right. I didn’t do any roaring, though I may when I get the beating. It’s the pig who is doing the roaring.”
“It sounds more like squealing,” said Uncle Wiggily.
“Yes, you could call it that,” said Tom-Tom, as he looked at the pig under his arm, which cried louder than before. I mean the pig squealed, not Tom-Tom’s arm.
“But look here,” said Uncle Wiggily. “You should not have taken this pig. That’s quite wrong you know, Tom-Tom. Besides, Mother Goose is after you. I just met her, and she started to tell me about some of her friends being lost. She asked me to help look for him—or her—but before she could tell me who it was, she was called away. It must have been you she meant.”
“It was,” said Tom-Tom. “I had to run after I took the pig, but the funny part of it is I can’t find any street to run down, as the book says I did. It’s all woods around here; no streets at all. I’d run with the pig down the street, fast enough, if I could find one.”
“No, no! You mustn’t do that,” said Uncle Wiggily. “You only go down the street after the pig was eat, or eaten, to be more correct. Besides, you ought not to take the pig at all.”
“What shall I do?” asked Tom-Tom. “I have the pig now, you see. What must I do with it?”
“I’ll take him with me,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I can lead him back home, and then you must go tell Mother Goose you’re sorry, and I don’t believe she’ll whip you or beat you.”
“All right,” said Tom-Tom, the piper’s son. “I’ll do as you say.”
He gave Uncle Wiggily the pig, which was a baby one, and the bunny gentleman led it along by a string, while Tom-Tom hurried off to tell Mother Goose he was sorry that he had been a little bad. And Mother Goose forgave him, and did not whip him, so Tom-Tom did not have to go roaring down the street after all.
“Well, what have you there, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane, when she saw the bunny gentleman coming along leading a pig.
“This is the pig Tom-Tom had,” said Mr. Longears, and then, all at once, before he could say anything more, the pig began to squeal with all his might and so loudly that Nurse Jane could not hear the bunny uncle’s voice.
“Mercy,” cried the muskrat lady. “What a noise!” and she put her paws over her ears. “Take him away, Wiggy, do. That’s a dear! Take him away!”
“Squee! Squee! Squee!” yelled the baby pig. And then along came Mother Hubbard’s dog.
“Ha! So here’s where you are, eh?” asked the dog. “Well, you come right back to your pen!”
“I will, and right gladly,” squealed the pig, “and don’t let Tom-Tom take me again. Thank you, Uncle Wiggily, for bringing me this far.”
Then the dog led the pig home by the ear, piggie squealing all the way, but he stopped when Mother Goose gave him something to eat. And Tom-Tom never took the pig again, so the little boy did not have to run roaring down the street, I’m glad to say.
And, if the sugar spoon doesn’t whisper to the butter knife and have to stay on the table after the rest of the dishes go to the sink to be washed, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the crooked man.
CHAPTER XVI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CROOKED MAN
“Heigh-ho! Away I go!” sang Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one day, as he looked in the glass to see if his whiskers were on straight, and his nose twinkling just right.
“What? Away again?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper of the hollow-stump bungalow, as she finished drying the dinner dishes. “You seem to me to go out a great deal, Mr. Longears.
“Far be it from me,” she went on, “to say anything about it, but I should think you would get tired of going around so much.”
“Oh, no,” Uncle Wiggily laughed. “I like it. I have a new adventure nearly every day, and I think it is good for my rheumatism. So, heigh-ho! Away I go!”
Off through the woods went Uncle Wiggily. It would soon be Spring now, and already the pussy willows were just beginning to learn how to mew a little bit, like baby cats.
As the rabbit gentleman went along he saw, lying on the path in front of him, a piece of money. But it was a very queer bit of money, indeed. It was all bent and twisted and crooked, as though a trolley car had stepped on it by mistake, and on one side was a figure six.
“Well, maybe this will bring me good luck,” said Uncle Wiggily. “It doesn’t seem to be good for much else—such crooked money. A six-cent piece, I guess it was once. I’ll just put it in my pocket.”
So he did, and he walked along a little farther, until, coming to a place where a great, big tree had fallen to the ground, Uncle Wiggily heard some one sitting on it saying:
“Oh, dear! I’ve lost it! I can’t find it anywhere, and without it I don’t see how I can do what it says in the Mother Goose book I must do. It’s lost—gone!”
Uncle Wiggily looked and saw, sitting on the fallen tree, a very funny, but nice, old man. And the man was very crooked. He was bent and twisted until there was not a straight place on him, not even his nose, which was wobbled and bent over to one side, and his ears were folded together like pieces of paper.
“Well, well,” said Uncle Wiggily, feeling sorry for so crooked a man, “this is too bad. I wonder what happened to him to make him so bent, and I wonder what he has lost?” for the crooked, twisted man was turning his pockets inside out, and even his pockets were curled around like a corkscrew.
“Oh, such trouble as I am in!” cried the man. “Oh, dear!”
“Ha, trouble! That means here is a chance for me to help,” said the bunny uncle. “Excuse me,” he said, “but who are you, and can I do anything to help you?”
“Ha! Uncle Wiggily Longears! I know you by your pictures!” said the man. “Don’t you know me? I’m in the book that Mother Goose wrote. It says about me that once
“‘There was a crooked man,
Who walked a crooked mile,
And found a crooked sixpence
Against a crooked stile.
He bought a crooked cat,
Which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together
In a little crooked house.’
“That’s who I am,” said the man. “But now I’ll never be able to buy the crooked cat to catch the crooked mouse, and live with me forever in my little crooked house.”
“Why not?” asked Uncle Wiggily, sort of wondering like.
“Because I lost the crooked sixpence,” said the crooked man. “I found it against the crooked stile all right, after I’d walked the crooked mile. The road did twist and turn like a carpenter’s shaving, so it was crooked all right. And when I came to the stile, which is a pair of steps to get over a fence—a pair on each side—they were so crooked I could hardly get over them. And there was the crooked sixpence. But I must have lost it out of my pocket, for I haven’t it now.”
“Is this it?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as he took the crooked piece of money out of his ear, which he sometimes used as a pocket.
“Oh, that’s just it!” cried the crooked man, in delight. “How ever did you find it?”
“It was lying on the path in the woods,” said the bunny uncle, “and I picked it up. You may have it back.”
“Oh, now I am all right!” laughed the crooked man. “I can buy the crooked cat, and it will catch a crooked mouse, and then we’ll walk along and find our little, crooked house.”
“But please don’t let your crooked cat catch my little mice friends, Jollie or Jillie Longtail, or Squeaky-Eeky, the cousin mouse?” begged Uncle Wiggily.
“Oh, indeed not!” promised the crooked man. “My crooked cat will only catch a crooked candy mouse. Perhaps you would like to come with me and see me buy the crooked cat.”
“I would,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll come.”
The crooked man started off, twisting this way and that as he walked along the crooked mile, and Uncle Wiggily, who was sort of curious and inquisitive, asked:
“What made you get all twisted up this way?”
“Rheumatism,” was the crooked man’s answer. “But I don’t mind now, for I have no pain. In fact, I think it’s quite jolly to be crooked and live in a crooked house. It’s so different from other people.”
“Yes,” said Uncle Wiggily, “it is certainly different. But it is nice that you are so happy about it. Some folks would be sad. I’m glad you are jolly.”
Pretty soon the two friends came to where crooked cats were sold for crooked money. By this time Uncle Wiggily was so tired, from having to jump back and forth to follow the crooked man walking a crooked mile, that the bunny uncle thought he would go back to his hollow-stump bungalow and rest.
But the crooked man, after he had bought the crooked cat, still went along with Uncle Wiggily, and it was a good thing he did. For, when Uncle Wiggily was about halfway home, out from behind a stump a bad old fox jumped at him. Zip!
“Ah, ha!” cried the fox. “Now I have you!” And then he saw the crooked man and crooked cat, the fox did, and he rubbed his eyes with his paws, once or twice, and cried out:
“Oh! What does this mean? I must be asleep and dreaming, for never can there really be such strange, crooked things in this world as that crooked man and cat. I must be dreaming, and pretty soon I’ll wake up in my den. I’ll just lie quietly and not move, or I might have a worse dream.”
And, thinking it was all a dream, the fox lay down in the woods to sleep, and so he didn’t get Uncle Wiggily after all, thanks to the crooked man and cat. The bunny uncle hurried away from the sleeping fox, and the twisted chap, with the doubled-up pussy, soon reached their own crooked house, where they lived happily for many crooked years, catching crooked candy mousies that cried crooked candy tears.
So no more at present, if you please. But in the next chapter, if the olive oil and the vinegar speak nicely to each other when they meet at the party in the lettuce salad, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the barber.
CHAPTER XVII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BARBER
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old rabbit gentleman, walked across the sitting-room of his hollow-stump bungalow, to where a looking-glass hung on the wall. He looked in the glass, and rubbed his paw, thoughtful like, up and down his chin.
“What is the matter?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. “Did something bite you?”
“No,” answered Uncle Wiggily, “but I think I need to shave off some of my whiskers. They are getting too long. Also I need a hair cut.”
“Gracious goodness me sakes alive, and some corn-meal muffin lollypops!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “What for? A shave! A hair cut!”
“Well, you see,” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, “Spring is nearly here now, and, though I let my hair and whiskers grow long in the cold weather, to keep me warm, I don’t need them so long now, as it is getting warmer. So I shall go to the barber’s.”
“Why don’t you shave yourself?” asked Nurse Jane.
“I could do that,” the bunny uncle said. “Only I can’t very well cut my own hair. So I might as well have both done by the barber.”
The old gentleman rabbit, taking his red, white and blue-striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch down off the bathtub, started out through the woods and across the fields for the barber’s.
Mr. Longears had not gone very far before he came to the house where Mother Goose lived. She was up bright and early, shaking out her feather beds; and, seeing the old rabbit gentleman, she asked:
“Where are you going?”
“To the monkey-doodle barber’s to get shaved,” replied Uncle Wiggily.
“Oh, would you just as soon go to my barber’s?” asked Mother Goose.
“Your barber’s? I didn’t know you had one,” said Uncle Wiggily, sort of laughing. “I didn’t know you ladies had your hair cut.”
“We don’t,” spoke Mother Goose. “But this barber is one of the friends in my story book, you know, and I’d like to give him something to do. You must have heard of him.
“‘Barber, barber, shave a pig.
How many hairs will make a wig?
Four-and-twenty, that’s enough.
Give the barber a pinch of snuff.’”
“Oh, I’ve often heard of him!” said Uncle Wiggily. “But I haven’t a pinch of snuff to give him, and besides I don’t need a wig.”
“Oh, well, you don’t have to take a wig,” said Mother Goose. “As for the snuff, tell him I’ll send little Tommie Tucker down with it later.”
“Another thing,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “If that barber of yours is shaving a pig I don’t believe he’ll have time to shave me.”
“Oh, that will be all right,” said Mother Goose, laughing. “He doesn’t really shave a pig. I just put ‘pig’ in to make it rhyme with ‘wig.’ Hop along now, and get shaved. The barber lives down the lane, with the little boy who was given the bag of wool from Baa-Baa, the black sheep.”
“Very good,” answered Uncle Wiggily, politely. So along he hopped, to the barber shop, which he soon reached. Out in front was a red, white and blue-striped pole, like the rabbit gentleman’s rheumatism crutch, and inside the shop was the barber man, a little chap, not much larger than the bunny uncle himself.
“Shave? Hair cut? Shampoo? Massage? Manicure?” asked the barber, clicking his scissors.
“Just a shave and hair cut,” answered Uncle Wiggily, getting in the chair, while the barber tucked an apron under the bunny’s chin.
“Fine weather we’re having,” said the barber, as he began to cut Uncle Wiggily’s hairy fur.
“Very,” said Uncle Wiggily. “To-morrow is the first day of Spring, and that’s why I’m getting a hair cut, to be ready for warmer weather.”
“Good!” said the barber. Then, when he had Uncle Wiggily’s hair half cut, the barber stopped and began to mix up some soap suds lather in a cup.
“What are you doing?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Why don’t you finish cutting my hair before you shave me?”
“Because my scissors are too dull. They would pull. I’ll send them to the scissors-to-grind man to be sharpened, and, while I’m waiting for them to come back I’ll shave you.”
So he began to shave the bunny uncle’s whiskers, talking all the while about the weather and what a hard Winter it had been, and how much carrots cost and all of that.
Then, all of a sudden, when Uncle Wiggily was half shaved, there was a whistling sound out in front of the barber shop, and a voice sang:
“Barber, barber, shave a pig,
How many hairs will make a wig?
Four-and-twenty, that’s enough.
Give the barber a pinch of snuff!”
Into the shop came little Tommie Tucker. He had a paper package in his hand, and he tossed it across the room to the barber, saying:
“Here’s your pinch of snuff. Mother Goose sent me with it. How is Uncle Wiggily’s shave and hair cut coming off?”
“It is coming off all—aker-choo! Kersnitzio! Aker-ker-foozilum-goozilum—choo-chee!” sneezed the barber, wiping some tears out his eyes.
“Oh, my!” laughed Tommie Tucker. “What kind of a shave and hair cut is a ker-choo! Oh-er—Snitzio! Whoo-ee-whoop-gizzium!” and Tommie himself was sneezing, too.
“What’s all this?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Why don’t you finish my—ker-choo! Goo-zoo! Gizzium! Whush! Oh-ker-skee-zicks!” And he sneezed so hard that he sneezed himself right out of the barber’s chair into the middle of the room. Then they were all sneezing, the barber, Uncle Wiggily and Tommie Tucker. For you see when Tommie tossed the barber the paper of snuff Mother Goose had sent the paper burst open and the snuff scattered all about the place. All over the shop floated the sneezy stuff.
“Ker-choo!” sneezed the barber.
“A-ker-choo-choo!” sneezed Tommie.
“A-ker-choo-choo-choo! Toot-toot! All aboard!” and Uncle Wiggily sneezed like a railroad train going through a tunnel.
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Tommie Tucker. “I should not have been so careless.” But soon all the snuff blew out of the window, the sneezes stopped, and the barber finished shaving and hair cutting Uncle Wiggily, and that’s the end of this story.
But if the man beating our carpets doesn’t stop to play marbles with the moth balls, and make the roller-skates feel lonesome for a lollypop, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the blackbirds.
CHAPTER XVIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BLACKBIRDS
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, came out of his hollow-stump bungalow to take a walk in the woods one day.
“I hope I may meet with an adventure,” he said to himself, as he limped along on his red, white and blue crutch, that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, had gnawed for him out of a corn-stalk.
An adventure, you know, as I have told you before, is something that happens to you. If you find a stick of lollypop candy, that’s a nice adventure. But, if you lose your penny down a crack in the board walk, that’s an unpleasant adventure; though it may turn out all right in the end.
“Yes,” went on Uncle Wiggily, sort of twinkling his pink nose, thoughtful like, “I hope I have a nice adventure, or, perhaps, even a funny one, like sneezing, as, when Tommie Tucker gave the barber the pinch of snuff.”
That’s the story I told you last night, if you will kindly remember.
So Uncle Wiggily hopped along, over the fields and through the woods, and pretty soon he came to where Mother Goose lived, not far from his own hollow-stump bungalow. Mother Goose was looking up at the sky.
“Good morning! What are you looking for?” asked the bunny uncle. “Are you looking for signs of rain, or snow in the clouds?”
“No, indeed,” laughed Mother Goose. “But you know this is the first day of Spring, and the little birds should begin to sing. I am looking to see if the blackbirds are flying up from down South, where they went to spend the Winter. They always come back in the Spring, you know.”
“Yes,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But I do not see any blackbirds coming,” and he, too, looked up at the sky. It was blue—very blue and pretty—like babies’ eyes. And there were little white clouds in the sky, floating along like fairy ships. But there were no blackbirds to be seen.
“I hope nothing has happened to them,” said Mother Goose, sort of anxious like. “They should be here now.”
“I, too, hope they are all right,” Uncle Wiggily said. “I am going for a walk, and if I see the blackbirds, I will tell them to hurry, as you are looking for them.”
“I’ll be very glad if you do that,” spoke Mother Goose, and then she had to go next door to see if Little Bo Peep had found her lost sheep.
Once more Uncle Wiggily hopped along. He looked on all sides of him, and up in the air, hoping he might see the blackbirds, for then, surely, it would be Spring, and Winter had lasted all too long for the animal folk.
But no birds could the bunny uncle see. On and on he went, until, after a while, he came to the palace where lived Old King Cole, the jolly old soul. And, as Mr. Longears was wondering whether or not to go in, and pay King Cole a visit, he heard some one humming a verse that went like this:
“Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four-and-twenty blackbirds,
Baked within a pie.
When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing.
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To set before the King?”
Uncle Wiggily stood still. He thought for a moment.
“I wonder,” he said. “I wonder—four-and-twenty—blackbirds? Mother Goose didn’t say how many she was expecting, and these may be the very same ones. I guess I’ll go in and see about this.”
Into the palace of Old King Cole went the bunny uncle. He knew his way about very well, for he had been there before. From the kitchen came all sorts of the most delicious smells, just like a pie baking.
“Why, hello, Uncle Wiggily!” cried jolly Old King Cole, as he saw the bunny uncle hopping along. “Come in and sit down! How are you?”
“Fine!” cried the bunny uncle. “Very fine, indeed. And yourself?” he asked, politely.
“I never felt better in my life. I am just going to have a bit of lunch. Won’t you sit down and help me enjoy it?” asked Old King Cole, also politely. “You may have some carrots with lettuce sauce on, or a bit of boiled lollypops with ice cream cones sprinkled on the top. Anything you wish!”
“That is very good of you,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But don’t go to any trouble on my account. I’ll have whatever you are going to have.”
“Then it will be pie!” cried Old King Cole. “I told the cook to have pie to-day, and I think it is ready. I’ll ring the bell for it.”
“Ding-dong!” rang the bell. In came the cook with a big pie on a dish. And the cook began to hum:
“Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye.
Four-and-twenty blackbirds,
Baked within a pie.”
“What’s that?” cried Old King Cole. “Twenty-four blackbirds baked in my pie! Why, how did that happen?”
“It was this way,” said the cook. “You told me to give you pie to-day. Well, I made all ready for it, but, at the last minute, I had nothing to put in the pie—no apples, no cherries, no peaches—nothing at all. I did not know what to do, but, all of a sudden, I looked out of the window, and I saw two dozen blackbirds flying along. ‘The very thing!’ said I to myself. ‘They’ll do for Old King Cole’s pie!’ I asked them if they would mind getting in between the upper and lower pie crusts, and they said no.”
“And did they?” asked the king, putting his crown on sideways.
“They did,” answered the cook. “Look!” and he sang:
“When the pie was opened,
The birds began to sing.
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
To set before the king?”
Then, taking care not to hurt the feathered singers, the cook cut open the pie. Surely enough, out flew the blackbirds, singing as sweetly as one could wish. Around and around the palace they flew, singing, and Uncle Wiggily cried:
“Why, these must be the blackbirds Mother Goose is looking for! Did you come up from the South to tell us that Spring has come?” he asked them.
“Yes,” answered the birds, “we did. But first we wanted to snuggle up in the pie for the king.”
“Ha! Well, you did it all right!” laughed Old King Cole. “But, now, I don’t need you in my pie any longer, so fly away to Mother Goose. Uncle Wiggily and I will eat cake, instead of pie, to-day, since there is nothing between the crusts to chew on.”
So they ate cake, and the blackbirds, which had only been put in the pie just after it came from the oven, flew all about animal land, singing: “Spring is here! Spring is here!”
So the bunny gentleman had his adventure after all, you see, and if the cake of soap doesn’t slide over the bathroom floor, and bunk into the wash rag, when it is cleaning its teeth, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the fat man.
CHAPTER XIX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE FAT MAN
“A letter for you, Uncle Wiggily,” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she went to the door of the hollow-stump bungalow, when the bird postman gave a whistle, and a tap of his bill, to let them know that he had some mail.
“A letter for me! Thats’s nice!” said the bunny uncle. “Why, it’s an invitation to a party—for you and me,” he went on to Nurse Jane. “It’s from Jollie and Jillie Longtail, the mice children. They want us to come to their house,” and he read the invitation.
“Shall you go?” asked Nurse Jane.
“I shall,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “And before I go I must practice that new ice cream cone dance, where you stand on one ear and eat a lollypop. You’ll go, of course, Nurse Jane.”
“Well, I don’t know. I need a new dress, and——”
“Say no more about it!” cried Uncle Wiggily, with a jolly laugh. “Here is some money. Go down to the five and ten cent store and buy the finest gold and diamond silk dress you can find. I want you to look nice.”
So Nurse Jane bought the new dress, which had rows and rows of double plaited insertion with fried egg tassels down the side, and Uncle Wiggily practiced dancing for the party the Longtail mice children were to have.
At last the evening for the party came. Off started Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane, talking of the good times they were going to have, when, all at once, the bunny gentleman cried:
“Oh, dear! I’ve forgotten my dancing shoes! I’ll run back to the bungalow after them. You keep on, Nurse Jane, and I’ll soon catch up to you.”
Uncle Wiggily turned back, taking a shortcut to the hollow-stump bungalow, where he lived, and he was almost there when, all at once, he heard some one crying sadly:
“Oh, dear! It’s gone! Oh, what shall I do? I’d go after him if I could, but I can’t. Oh, what trouble I’m in!”
“Ha! Trouble!” cried the bunny uncle. “Some one is in trouble! That’s what I like to hear! I mean I like to hear it because I like to help people out of trouble. I must see who this is.”
He looked through the bushes and there, sitting on a stump, in the moonlight, Uncle Wiggily saw a very big man, with a turban—a white cloth, like a twisted towel—around his head. The man was sort of chocolate-colored.
“Well, what is your trouble?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Perhaps I can help you. Who are you?”
“Surely you must have heard of me,” said the big man, puffing out his chest. “I am in Mother Goose’s book.”
“I don’t seem to remember you,” said Uncle Wiggily, sort of thoughtful like, scratching his pink, twinkling nose with his ear. “If you would kindly tell me——”
Then the troubled one sang:
“I am the fat man from Bombay,
I was smoking my pipe one fine day.
When a bird, called a snipe,
Flew away with my pipe.
Which vexed the fat man of Bombay.”
“Oh, now I remember you,” said Uncle Wiggily.
“I’m glad you do,” spoke the fat man. “So you see how it is. I’m really quite vexed, which means just a little angry, and I’m in trouble, for the snipe bird did fly away with my pipe, and I can’t smoke, and I must do that, or it won’t be the way it is in the Mother Goose book. Do you think you can help me?”
“Well, I’ll try,” said Uncle Wiggily. “You just wait here until I run to my hollow-stump bungalow for my dancing slippers, and, when I come back I’ll see what I can do.”
Uncle Wiggily hurried on through the woods, found his dancing shoes, and was hurrying back, when, all of a sudden, he slipped and fell head over heels with his slippers, and a big sliver was stuck in his paw.
“Oh, dear!” cried the bunny uncle. “That sliver hurts very much! What shall I do? Now I am in trouble, for I can’t dance and I can’t help the fat man of Bombay. Oh, dear, what can I do?”
Uncle Wiggily couldn’t hop on with that sliver in his paw, and he couldn’t pull it out, try as he did.
“Help! Help!” he called, as loudly as he could. “Will no one help me, and the fat man of Bombay?”
“Ha! Who is that calling?” asked a voice. “And who knows about the fat man of Bombay?”
“I do,” answered the bunny uncle. “I am calling, and I know the Bombay fat man. He is in trouble, too.”
Then through the bushes came flying a bird called a snipe, and in his bill he carried a pipe.
“Oh, you have it!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Why don’t you give it back to him so he won’t be sad and vexed any more? Why don’t you give back the pipe to the fat man of Bombay?”
“I would, if I could find him,” answered the snipe. “You see, I only took his pipe in fun. He looked so funny sitting there smoking, that I thought I’d play a trick on him. So I flew away with his pipe, that’s because I’m a snipe. But I’ll give it back to him now. Is there something the matter with you?”
“Yes,” answered Uncle Wiggily, sadly, “I have run a big wooden splinter in my paw, and I can’t get it out, and I want to go to the Longtail dance and I can’t——”
“Of course you can!” cried the snipe bird, in a jolly voice. “With my sharp bill I can easily pull the splinter out of your paw. Let me get hold of it.”
Laying down the fat man’s pipe, the snipe soon pulled the splinter out of Uncle Wiggily’s paw.
“Now I can go to the dance!” cried the bunny uncle.
“And if you will show me where the fat man of Bombay is, I’ll take him back his pipe,” said the snipe.
“This way!” cried Uncle Wiggily. He showed the bird where the sad, fat man was sitting, and the snipe gave back the pipe.
“Oh, how good you are!” cried the fat man, striking a match, but only in fun, of course. “Now my troubles are over.”
“And so are mine—the sliver-trouble!” said the bunny uncle. Then the fat man of Bombay, which is in India, smoked his pipe, the snipe flew away and Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane went on to the dance and had a fine time.
And if the top of the stairs doesn’t go sit at the bottom, so the wax doll can’t get up to sleep in the cat’s cradle, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the tarts.
CHAPTER XX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE TARTS
“Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, as she saw the rabbit gentleman starting out of the hollow-stump bungalow one morning.
“Oh, just for a walk, over the fields and through the woods,” he answered. “This is the Spring of the year, now, you know, since the four-and-twenty blackbirds jumped out of Old King Cole’s pie, and I want to see if the grass and flowers have begun to spring up.”
“I think it is a little early for them,” spoke Nurse Jane.
“Well, I’ll go for a walk, anyhow,” said Uncle Wiggily.
So the bunny uncle hopped on and on, sometimes leaning on his red, white and blue-striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a corn-stalk, and again he would carry it under his paw.
Pretty soon Uncle Wiggily came to the palace where Old King Cole lived. He was thinking of going inside, and perhaps playing a game of checkers, as he used to do with Grandfather Goosey Gander, when, all at once, the bunny uncle saw a lady looking at him from the kitchen window.
The lady had on a silk dress, all spangled over with red hearts, like a valentine. And on her head was a cap, and that had blue hearts on, so she looked very pretty indeed.
“How do you do?” asked the lady of Uncle Wiggily.
“Very well,” he answered. “And how are you?”
“Oh, not well at all,” was the answer, and the lady sighed sadly. “Oh, there is so much trouble here!”
“Trouble? Trouble?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Why, then I came to just the right place.”
“How is that?” asked the lady, sort of surprised like.
“Because I always try to help trouble, or those who are in it. Let me see now, I don’t believe I have the pleasure of knowing you,” and Uncle Wiggily sort of made his nose twinkle inquisitive like.
“Oh, you must have heard about me,” said the lady, with a smile. “I’m in Mother Goose’s book, you know. Listen to this:
“‘The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
All on a summer’s day.
The Jack of Hearts, he took those tarts,
And with them ran away.’
“I am the Queen of Hearts,” said the lady, bowing politely.
“Pleased to meet you,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, also with a low bow. “So that is the trouble, eh? The Jack of Hearts has taken the tarts away?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” answered the Heart Queen. “You see, I haven’t yet made the tarts. But, when I do, I suppose the Jack will take them, and then there’ll be trouble, for Old King Cole specially wants them.”
“Why haven’t you yet made them?” asked the bunny uncle. “If it says in the Mother Goose book that you must make the tarts, why don’t you make them?”
“Because, in the first place,” answered the Queen of Hearts, sort of shivering like, “this isn’t a Summer day. And, in the second place, I don’t know how to make the tarts—that’s the trouble.”
“Well, that is easily mended,” spoke the bunny uncle. “I can’t make a Summer day out of a Spring one, but I can show you how to make tarts.”
“Oh, can you—and will you?” asked the Queen of Hearts, clapping her hands in delight.
“I can and will,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “I have often watched Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady bungalow-keeper, make them, so I ought to know how.”
“Tell me,” said the Queen, “and we’ll do it.”
“You take flour and water and milk and sugar and a yeast cake and spices and make a pie crust,” said the bunny uncle. “Then you bake it in the oven after you have cut it out in little round pieces, some with three holes in, and some just plain.”
“Oh, how lovely that sounds!” cried the Queen, clapping her hands again. “I have all the things you need. Let’s make the tarts.”
“And when the crust is baked in the oven,” went on Mr. Longears, “you take out two pieces of tarts, put jam in between them, press them together, and—there you are.”
“Lovelier and more lovely!” cried the Queen. “Oh, I am so glad you happened to come along. Now we’ll begin.”
So she and Uncle Wiggily mixed up the sugar and spice, and other things nice, making the pie crust, out of which they cut round, flat pieces, some with three holes in, and some plain.
“Oh, what lovely tarts they’ll be!” laughed the Queen. “Isn’t it a shame that the Jack of Hearts must take them away?”
“Well, if it’s that way in the Mother Goose book, it can’t be helped,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But when he takes these tarts we’ll make some more.”
So the tarts were made and set aside to cool.
“Now we’ll hide behind the kitchen door,” said the Queen of Hearts, “and watch the Jack as he comes in to get them. I hope he doesn’t take them all.”
“Maybe he won’t,” said Uncle Wiggily.
Pretty soon, as the bunny gentleman and the Queen of Hearts were hiding, into the kitchen came the Jack of Hearts. He was a funny chap, with little candy hearts all over his clothes and cap.
“Ah, ha!” said the Jack, smacking his lips. “This is tart day. Here is where I have a fine feast! I’ll get the tarts of the Queen of Hearts.”
Laughing to himself, the Jack went up to the shelf where the tarts were cooling. He lifted one down, and took a big bite from it, saying:
“I’ll taste them before I take them away.”
But, no sooner had he tasted it than the Jack of Hearts he dropped that tart and, all excited like, he cried:
“Oh me! Oh my! Oh ice water and lemonade! Oh, how my mouth burns! I don’t want any of those tarts! Oh, no,” and away he ran, not taking one.
“Why, that’s queer,” said the queen. “He should have taken those hearts. That’s the way it is in the book.”
The bunny uncle looked at the tarts he and the Queen had made. He took a little taste of one, and then Uncle Wiggily said:
“No wonder the Jack didn’t want them. By mistake we have put red pepper in the tarts instead of red raspberry jam! They’re as hot as a stove. Oh dear!”
“Never mind,” said the Queen, sweetly. “We’ll make some more tarts, and this time we’ll do it right and put in the jam. Anyhow I’m glad, for now the Jack won’t want to take the new tarts I make.” And the Jack did not. He had had enough.
So the tarts were made over again by Uncle Wiggily and the Queen—right, this time, with real jam—and King Cole ate them and said they were fine. And if the paper boy doesn’t turn into a bottle of ink, and make the fountain pen go swimming with the goldfish, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the jumping cow.
CHAPTER XXI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE JUMPING COW
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice, old gentleman rabbit, started out from his hollow-stump bungalow one day, to take a walk. He hopped over the fields and through the woods, wondering whether or not he might meet with an adventure, when, after a little while, he came to the House that Jack Built.
And there, nicely wrapped up in a bag, the bunny uncle saw the malt that lay in the House that Jack Built. Malt, you know, is a sort of flour, out of which they make buckwheat cakes.
“My goodness!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he scratched his pink, twinkling nose, “I did not think I had come this far.”
He stood in front of the House that Jack Built, wondering whether or not he ought not go in and say “howdy do,” when he saw coming out of the house the rat that ate the malt, and the cat that caught the rat, and the dog that worried the cat that caught the rat that ate the malt that lay in the House that Jack Built.
“Well, this is very strange,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself. “They all seem to be running away!” And indeed they were. For the cat was chasing the rat and the dog was chasing the cat and the rat was chasing after its own shadow, so as to get away from the cat, and then, all of a sudden, out came Mother Goose herself.
“Oh, have you seen her, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Mother Goose. “I am so worried about her!”
“Seen whom? About whom are you worried?” asked the rabbit gentleman, politely.
“The jumping cow,” answered Mother Goose. “She’s gone!”
“I guess you mean the cow with the crumpled horn, don’t you?” asked the bunny uncle. “She’s the one, you know, that tossed the dog that worried the cat that caught the rat that ate the malt that lay in the House that Jack Built.”
“No, I don’t mean that cow,” answered Mother Goose. “I mean the jumping cow. She’s the worst cow for jumping you ever saw. She jumps over all the fences and stone walls and when we want her to give some milk for Little Tommie Tucker’s supper she isn’t to be found. I’ve looked everywhere for her, but I can’t find her. Oh, dear! Such trouble! I thought she might be here, in the House that Jack Built, with the Crumpled-Horn Cow. But she isn’t.”
“Ha! Just you leave it to me, if you please,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “I’ll find the jumping cow for you. I can start off in my automobile, with the bologna sausage tires, that go faster when you sprinkle pepper on them or in my clothes-basket airship, with toy circus balloons on the handles.”
“You had better take your airship,” said Mother Goose. “A jumping cow would be found up in the air, I think.”
“I think so myself,” said Uncle Wiggily. So he hurried back to the hollow-stump bungalow and got out his airship. In that he sailed over the woods and fields, looking for the jumping cow.
“Do, please, ask her to hurry back,” said Mother Goose. “For she has all the milk for supper, and Tommie Tucker and the Children of the Old Woman who Lives in a Shoe, are so hungry they don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll get her,” promised Uncle Wiggily.
On and on he sailed in his airship. But he could not see the jumping cow. Up high he sailed and down low, and finally, when he came close to the ground, near the place where Sammie Littletail, the boy rabbit, lived with his sister Susie and his father and mother, Uncle Wiggily heard Jollie Longtail, the mouse boy, singing a song that went like this:
“Hi-diddle-diddle!
The cat’s in the fiddle!
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed
To see so much sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.”
“Hello, what’s that!” cried Uncle Wiggily, bringing his airship to a sudden stop and sailing down to earth. “What cow is that Jollie, that jumped over the moon?”
“Oh, Mother Goose’s cow,” answered the little mouse boy. “You see, Joie Kat, the little kitten boy, crawled inside the fiddle, having a game of tag with Tommie, his brother. And when Jack Sprat tried to play music on the fiddle it made such a funny noise that the cow, who was waiting for Little Boy Blue to blow his horn, gave a big jump, and away up over the moon she went. That’s the way it was,” said Jollie Longtail.
“I see,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “Well, in that case, I suppose I must go sailing up to the moon to find the jumping cow. She is needed to bring home the milk for Little Tommie Tucker’s supper.”
Just then along came Mother Goose once more.
“Oh, look!” she cried, pointing her broom up to the sky. “There’s my nice jumping cow now. She’s falling down from her jump over the moon. Oh, she’ll break her horns, surely. Oh, dear! What shall I do?”
“Do? Do nothing,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “I will do it myself. See, I have my airship. I’ll sail up and catch the jumping cow before she has time to fall. Then everything will be all right.”
“Oh, please do!” begged Mother Goose.
Up in his clothes-basket airship went Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman.
up.
and
up
and
up
The cow was falling
down
and
down
and
down.
“Oh, dear!” cried Mother Goose, on the earth below. “That cow should have known better than to jump over the moon!”
“I think so myself,” said the Man in the Moon. “I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t.”
“Never mind,” said Uncle Wiggily. “It will be all right, I’m sure.”
Then he steered his airship right under the falling cow, who was no longer jumping. Instead, she was sailing toward the earth, with a piece of green cheese on one horn. She really had jumped over the moon, but she slipped, and that’s how the green cheese got on the tip of her horn.
“Here you are!” cried Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice, just like a trolley car conductor. “Plenty of room up in front.”
Then the jumping cow landed gently in the rabbit gentleman’s airship, and he brought her down to earth as lightly as a feather, and the cow was just in time with the milk for Little Tommie Tucker’s supper.
So this teaches you that Uncle Wiggily can do many things besides eating carrots and having the rheumatism, and if the egg beater doesn’t skip out to whip the rag doll’s carpets, to earn five cents for the moving pictures, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the pussies.
CHAPTER XXII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PUSSIES
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the kind old rabbit gentleman, was hopping along in the woods in front of his hollow-stump bungalow one morning, and, every now and then, he would stoop over and look at the ground.
“What are you doing, Wiggy, if I may ask?” inquired Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept the bungalow nice and neat for the bunny uncle.
“You may ask, and I will tell you,” politely answered Mr. Longears. “I am looking to see if any flowers are growing in the woods.”
“What! Flowers growing this time of year?” cried Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. “It is much too early!”
“Why, it was the first of Spring, the other day!” said Uncle Wiggily. “I should think the flowers would be waking up now, and putting their heads out from beneath the brown earth-blankets, under which they slept all winter.”
“Oh, no!” laughed Nurse Jane. “First we must have some April showers to bring May flowers.”
“Well, I am going to keep on looking,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I may find a flower in the woods, or, if I do not, I’ll have an adventure. Either one would be nice.”
So away hopped the bunny uncle, leaning on his red, white and blue barber-pole striped rheumatism crutch, which Nurse Jane had nicely speckled with pink candy for him on account of Spring coming.
And, all of a sudden, as Mr. Longears went along, he slipped in a little puddle of water, and—presto-chango! Off flew his glasses and they were broken all to pieces.
“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily, picking up the bits. “That’s too bad. Now I can hardly see to get along. I must take these glasses to the blacksmith shop to have them mended. I hope I don’t lose my way, for, without my glasses, I am almost as blind as a bat or an owl in daylight. But I will do the best I can.”
With the pieces of his broken glasses in his pocket, Uncle Wiggily went along through the woods. He peered this way and that, for the sun hurt his eyes when he had no glasses, but still he could see a little bit. Then, all at once, Uncle Wiggily, looking through the trees, said:
“Why, here comes Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, I do declare!”
Uncle Wiggily made his necktie tidy and smooth, and pulled down his vest, for he wanted to look nice. Then he made a low bow and said:
“How do you do, Mrs. Wibblewobble? I am glad to meet you in the woods.”
But there was no answer, and Uncle Wiggily said:
“Why, I wonder if she heard me? I hope Mrs. Wibblewobble isn’t getting deaf! I must speak louder.”
He looked again where he thought he had seen the duck lady, going a little nearer, and, lo! it was only a stump that looked like Mrs. Wibblewobble.
“Well, well!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I can’t see at all well without my glasses. What a mistake to make!”
He laughed and walked on, and, pretty soon he thought he saw Mrs. Stubtail, the lady bear, mother to Neddie and Beckie Stubtail.
“Why, how do you——” began Uncle Wiggily, and then he saw it was only a big black stone on the woodland path.
“Ha! Another mistake!” cried the bunny uncle, with a laugh. “I am making lots of them to-day. It comes of having such poor eye-sight!”
So he went on toward the blacksmith shop to have his glasses mended. A little later he thought a fallen log was Grandfather Goosey Gander, and, not long after that, he saw a pile of dried leaves and thought they were Uncle Butter, the goat gentleman. He was just going to shake paws with the leaves, when he came closer he saw that he had made another mistake.
“Well, well!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “It certainly is too bad not to have your glasses once you start wearing them.”
On he went, a little farther, and he came soon to a place where some bushes were growing. Up in the bushes a little way from the ground, Uncle Wiggily saw some soft, furry, fuzzy things perched on the branches.
“Oh, the dear little pussies!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “Some dog must have come along here and chased them up in the bushes. I’ll get them down. Don’t be afraid, little ones,” he said. “I won’t let anybody harm you. Come to your Uncle Wiggily!”
The bunny uncle hopped up and held out his paw to the fuzzy things. They did not speak to him.
“But that’s all right,” he said. “They are too frightened even to mew. I’ll take them to Mother Goose and she will give them some warm milk. Come along, Pussies!” said the rabbit gentleman.
But, though he went close to the bush, and called very gently, the pussies did not jump into his paws.
“I guess they are too frightened,” said the bunny uncle. “I’ll just break off the branch with the pussies on,” thought Mr. Longears, “and carry them home that way. Poor little pussies! Did a bad bow-wow dog scare you? Well, just come with your Uncle Wiggily, and it will be all right!”
So the bunny gentleman broke off the branch with the soft, fuzzy pussies on it, and away he walked through the woods.
“I’ll take them to Mother Goose,” he said, “and then I’ll go to the blacksmith shop and have my glasses mended.”
Uncle Wiggily soon was at the house of the lady who swept cobwebs out of the sky.
“Mother Goose! Mother Goose!” he cried. “I’ve brought you some little pussies on the branch of a bush. A dog chased and scared them up there, and they were afraid to come down. Please get them some warm milk with carrot sauce in.”
Mother Goose came running to the door. She looked at the fuzzy things Uncle Wiggily held out. Then she laughed.
“What’s the matter?” asked the bunny uncle. “Why don’t you take care of the poor pussies?”
“Pussies? Pussies?” laughed dear old Mother Goose, harder than before. “Those are pussy willows.”
“Pussy willows” said Uncle Wiggily, surprised like.
“Yes, they are the soft, fuzzy blossoms of the willow bush. They are plants and not an animal at all.”
“Well, well!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “That shows what it is to be without glasses. I certainly thought they were real pussies. I must hurry to the blacksmith’s to have my glasses fixed.”
So he did, and his glasses were soon mended; while Mother Goose put the pussy willows in water where they would blossom out into big cat-posies.
And if the stepladder doesn’t walk off with the cake of soap and have a birthday party for the broom and dust pan on the back stoop, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the leaves.
CHAPTER XXIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LEAVES
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, stood out in front of his hollow-stump bungalow in the woods, one day, and looked carefully around. Then he glanced up at the blue sky.
“What is the matter?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady bungalow-keeper. “Are you looking for some one?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” replied the bunny uncle, slowly. “I was just thinking that perhaps I had better begin to do some Spring cleaning around my bungalow.”
“Spring cleaning! Do you mean inside or outside?” asked the muskrat lady, as she carefully wiped a bit of flour off the end of her nose with her tail, for she had been baking a cake.
“Oh, I mean outside, of course,” replied Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll leave you to look after the bungalow, inside, while I clean up outside. You see there are so many last year’s dried leaves about, here in the woods, that if they were to catch fire our bungalow might burn.”
“Mercy!” cried Nurse Jane. “I wouldn’t want that to happen. Oh, my!”
“No, indeed,” Uncle Wiggily said. “Once was enough. The last time we had a fire you and I had to board around with our friends. Still, it was not so bad as it might have been, for I met Mother Goose, and did some favors for her and her friends.”
“What were you thinking of doing to the leaves?” asked Nurse Jane, curious like and inquisitive.
“Why, I thought I’d rake them up in a pile and make a soft place, so if Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, came along on their way home from school, they could jump on the leaves as they sometimes do in the hay.”
“Very good,” Nurse Jane said. “You rake up the leaves and I’ll wash the dishes.”
So Uncle Wiggily began. For a rake he used the dried branch from a tree. It had many little ends to it, almost like the teeth of a rake, that branch had.
“I wonder if a rake ever gets the toothache?” thought Uncle Wiggily, as he pulled and poked the leaves into piles. “If it does, it must hurt very much because there are so many teeth.”
But the bunny uncle did not have a real rake, only a tree branch, which he used as one, and that had no teeth to ache, I’m glad to say.
“It will be good to get the layers of dead, dried leaves off the ground,” said Uncle Wiggily, “for soon the April showers will bring the May flowers, and they find it easier to spring up if there is no blanket of leaves over them to hold them down.”
The bunny uncle soon had many piles of soft, dried leaves, and in a little while along came Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, and into the leaves they jumped, off a stump, bouncing up and down like rubber balls.
Pretty soon Uncle Wiggily heard a voice saying:
“Oh, dear, isn’t it too bad? Yes, it’s even three, four, five, six, seven bad! That’s what it is!”
“Ha! Some one in trouble!” said Uncle Wiggily, dropping his tree-branch rake and running back to the pile of leaves. “I suppose either Sammie or Susie has fallen down, and bumped one of their noses. I must help them up!”
But when Uncle Wiggily got there the cupboard was bare—oh, no, excuse me, if you please. That’s in another story. I mean when the bunny uncle reached the pile of leaves where Sammie and Susie had been playing neither one of the rabbit children was in sight.
“Oh, my!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “They must be all covered up with the leaves! I’ll have to dig them out! No wonder it’s two, six, seven bad! Poor rabbits under the leaves.”
With his paws he began digging at the piles of leaves, scattering them all over, after his hard work of raking them up. But as he went deeper and deeper he could see no signs of the bunny children. And then, from somewhere behind him, Uncle Wiggily heard the sad voice again saying:
“Oh, dear! It’s too bad! Yes, it’s two, three and even sixteen-eleven bad. Oh, dear!”
Turning quickly, Uncle Wiggily saw Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck, with an empty bag over his wing shoulder.
“Why, Jimmie! Is that you?” asked the bunny uncle, in surprise. “I thought it was Sammie and Susie Littletail. They were playing in these dried leaves a while ago, but now I can’t find them, and I fear they may be covered up so far down that I can never get them out.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Uncle Wiggily,” said Jimmie, the boy duck. “Sammie and Susie are all right. I met them running down a woodland path a little while ago, as I came along, and they were talking of what fun they had had in the leaves. They got tired and ran away when you weren’t looking. That’s why you can’t find them under the leaves. But, oh, dear! Two, sixteen-eleven bad!”
“Why, what’s the matter with you?” asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “Are you in trouble, Jimmie?”
“I am, Uncle Wiggily.”
“What kind of trouble, Jimmie, my duck boy?”
“Feather-trouble,” answered the Wibblewobble chap.
“Feather-trouble?” repeated Uncle Wiggily, sort of surprised like and astonished. “Feather-trouble?”
“Yes. You see my mother sent me with a bag of our best duck feathers for Mother Goose to make a feather bed from. Well, all at once, some strong March wind came dancing by, turned the bag inside out and blew away every feather! And, what to do I don’t know, for there are no more feathers at our coop. And if Mother Goose doesn’t have feathers for her bed she will feel badly. Oh, dear! Such trouble!”
Uncle Wiggily thought for a moment. Then he said:
“Ho, Jimmie! I see a way out of your trouble. Fill your bag with some of these soft, dried leaves. They will be nearly as good as feathers for Mother Goose, and, at the same time, you will be doing me a favor by taking away the leaves, so the flowers can grow.”
“Oh, fine!” cried Jimmie. So he took a big bag of the leaves, which Mother Goose said were as good to sleep on as feathers, and thus everything came out just right, you see, and Sammie and Susie weren’t lost under the leaves after all, for which Uncle Wiggily was very glad.
And if the fried egg doesn’t try to hide in the apple dumpling and make the peach stone jump over the shortcake, when we have company for supper, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the wise man.
CHAPTER XXIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE WISE MAN
“Rat-a-tat-tat!” came a knock on the door of the hollow-stump bungalow, where Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, lived.
“I’ll see who it is,” he called to Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy and the muskrat lady housekeeper was glad of that, for her paws were in the dishwater up to her elbows, and you know how it is yourself; you don’t like to answer the bell with your hands all soap bubbles, like a pipe.
So Uncle Wiggily went to the door, and, standing there, he saw Nannie Wagtail, the little goat girl. And there were tears in Nannie’s eyes, and she was trying to wipe them away with the tips of her horns. But when she did this she only tickled herself and she had to laugh.
But she didn’t want to laugh; she wanted to cry, for she was sad. And you know how it is yourself—you can’t laugh and cry at the same time; can you?
“Why, Nannie! What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “Come in and tell me all your troubles!”
“Oh, dear! Boo hoo! Hoo boo! I have lots of troubles!” said the little goat girl. “My best doll, Priscilla Spicecake Orangejuice, is gone.”
“Gone!” cried Uncle Wiggily.
“Taken!” exclaimed Nannie. “I was out in front of our house a while ago playing dolls with Beckie Stubtail, the little girl bear. Beckie had her doll, Esmeralda Pancake Eggturner, with her, and we were having a lovely time.
“But I laid my doll down to go in the house to get some cookies, and when I came out my doll was gone, and Beckie was crying.”
“Why, what happened?” asked Uncle Wiggily, surprised like.
“Beckie said a man came running along, grabbed up my doll, and before she could stop him he hurried off into the woods with my dear Priscilla Spicecake Orangejuice!”
“Oh, that’s too bad!” said the bunny uncle. “Now don’t you cry any more. You just tell me what sort of a man he was who took your doll and I’ll go after him and make him give it back, even if I have to get the circus elephant to squirt water on him from the lemonade barrel. Tell me what sort of a man he was.”
“He was a man who wore glasses,” said Nannie.
“Say no more!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I think I know exactly who he is! I’ll go after him at once.”
So the bunny uncle, telling Nurse Jane not to wait lunch for him, started off over the fields and through the woods to look for Nannie’s doll. On the way he met Mother Goose, and he asked that old lady:
“Are any of your friends the kind of a man who wears glasses, and would take a little goat girl’s doll?”
“Well, yes,” said Mother Goose, slowly, “the Wise Man might. You see he spoiled his eyes, reading so much to make him wise, that he has to wear glasses. But he is really very kind. I think he only took Nannie’s doll for a joke, or perhaps he wants to get her another just like it and took that along for a sample.”
“Perhaps,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But, anyhow, I’ll find him and ask him about it.”
So he walked and hopped on and on through the woods to where the Wise Man used to live, and pretty soon, from behind a big bush, the bunny uncle heard some one singing this song:
“There was a man in our town,
And he was wondrous wise.
He jumped into a berry bush,
And scratched out both his eyes.
But when he saw his eyes were out,
With all his might and main,
He jumped into another bush
And scratched them in again.”
“Ha!” said Uncle Wiggily softly. “I thought so! The wise man! I have found him! Now to see if he has Nannie’s doll!”
Uncle Wiggily peeked through the bush, which was a blackberry one, only there were no berries on it now. On the other side, sitting on the ground, was the Wise Man, wearing glasses, and he had Nannie’s doll in his hands. He was talking to the doll, something like this:
“Now, little doll, don’t be afraid. I won’t hurt you. I’m just going to toss you into the berry bush, and scratch out both your eyes. But that won’t hurt, for as soon as I see your eyes are out, with all my might and main, I’ll toss you in another bush and scratch them in again. There you go!”
Before Uncle Wiggily could stop him, the Wise Man had tossed Nannie’s doll, Priscilla Spicecake Orangejuice, into the berry bush. Then the man cried:
“Yes, your eyes are scratched out, all right, dollie! Now to scratch them in again!” And, before Uncle Wiggily could hop any closer to stop him, the Wise Man tossed again into the bush, the poor doll. And when she fell down the Wise Man carefully picked her up, and, looking at her, said:
“Alas! Alack a-day! Woe is me! The eyes aren’t scratched in again at all! Oh, dear, what shall I do? I’ll have to get the little goat girl another doll.”
Uncle Wiggily jumped out from behind the berry bush.
“What do you mean?” asked the bunny uncle. “Why do you treat a poor doll so? Look, her hair has come off, and her eyes have fallen out! Oh, my!” and from the ground he picked up the doll’s hair-wig and eyes, which were of glass, fastened together with wire.
“I’m sorry,” said the Wise Man. “I’m very sorry this has happened. But I read about the Wise Man in the Mother Goose book, who jumped into a berry bush and got a new pair of eyes. I thought I could do the same as he, for I’m tired of glasses.
“But I thought I’d try it on a doll first, to see if it were true. So, not having any doll of my own I took Nannie’s, meaning no harm. But see what I have done!” he said, sadly. “I have scratched out her eyes and her wig is off, and I can’t put the eyes back again, nor yet the wig. It’s a good thing I didn’t jump into the scratchy bush myself. It is better to wear glasses than have no eyes at all.”
“Yes, indeed,” said Uncle Wiggily, and he felt sorry for the poor Wise Man. “But never mind,” went on the bunny uncle. “I know a monkey-doodle gentleman, who mends broken dolls. I’ll take Priscilla Spicecake Orangejuice to him, and he can fasten her eyes in again and glue on her wig.”
“Will you? Then please do!” said the Wise Man. “I’ll pay the monkey-doodle, and here is five cents extra for little Nannie. Tell her I’m sorry I borrowed her doll and I’ll never do it again.”
“All right,” cheerfully said Uncle Wiggily, “and don’t you try to scratch your eyes out, and in again.”
“I won’t,” promised the Wise Man. “Glasses are good enough for me.”
The monkey-doodle gentleman soon fixed Nannie’s doll as good as ever, so the eyes opened and shut, and the little goat girl was happy once more, when Uncle Wiggily brought back Priscilla Spicecake Orangejuice. Thus, you see, everything came out all right, as I generally try to make it.
And if the crazy quilt doesn’t jump into the rag bag and get lost so the pillow case has no place to sleep, when it comes home from the moving pictures, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the tailors.
CHAPTER XXV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE TAILORS
“Well, where are you going this morning, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, of the rabbit gentleman, as he lifted his red, white and blue-striped rheumatism crutch down off the hat rack, and opened the front door.
“Oh, I’m just going out for a hop through the woods,” replied the bunny uncle. “Mother Goose said that Grandfather Goosey Gander was coming to pay her a visit to-day, and, as I haven’t seen him in some time, I thought I’d go over myself and have a little talk.”
“Very well,” went on Nurse Jane, “and on your way back I wish you would bring me a spool of thread.”
“A spool of thread? Why, certainly,” promised Uncle Wiggily, and off he hopped through the woods until he came to where Mother Goose lived. Her house was next door to the shoe, in which lived the Old Woman Who Had So Many Children She Didn’t Know What To Do.
“Good morning, Mother Goose,” said Uncle Wiggily, politely. “I hope I see you well. Has Grandpa Goosey Gander come yet?”
“Not yet. I am expecting him every minute. Sit down and make yourself at home,” and Mother Goose dusted a chair.
Uncle Wiggily sat down, and he and Mother Goose were talking about the best way to give the most bread and jam to animal children, when along came Grandpa Goosey.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” he said, all sort of flustered like, “but I lost a button off my coat. I stopped in a tailor’s to have it sewed on, but, would you believe me? There isn’t a tailor to be found in Woodland—not one in this whole forest!”
“Nonsense!” cried Mother Goose. “Why, there are four-and-twenty tailors here—just as many as there were blackbirds baked in the pie that was set before the king. No tailors to be found out of all those four-and-twenty? Nonsense! There must be!” and she swept cobwebs down out of the sky just for fun.
“Not a tailor!” said Grandpa Goosey. “I looked all over for one. Their shops were open, but the tailors were gone, and so I had to come without a button on my coat.”
“Never mind,” said Mother Goose. “I’ll sew it on for you,” and she did.
“That reminds me,” said Uncle Wiggily, after they had talked a bit. “Speaking of tailors, I’m to bring Nurse Jane a spool of thread. I think I’ll be hopping along. If I can’t find any tailor in his shop, where I can buy the thread, I’ll have to go to the five and ten cent store.”
So he said good-by to Mother Goose and Grandpa Gander, and away hopped the bunny uncle gentleman over the fields and through the woods.
“I wonder if I could find those four-and-twenty tailors?” thought Uncle Wiggily. “Four-and-twenty—that’s just two dozen—quite a number. I wonder why they all left their shops? I wonder——?”
And just then from behind some bushes he heard some voices saying:
“You go up and jab her!”
“No, you do it!”
“I’m afraid!”
“Well, so am I. Hi there, who has a yardstick? Let whoever has a yardstick go up and jab her!”
“And let some one tickle her with a needle.”
“You do it!”
“No, you. I’m afraid.”
“Well, so am I! Boo!”
“Goodness me gracious sakes alive and some hooks and eyes!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What does all this mean? Who’s afraid?” He peeked through the bushes and there he saw, on the woodland path, a lot of men with needles, pins, spools of thread, tape measures, yardsticks, thimbles, scissors, linings, pockets, buttonholes and all things like that.
“Who are you?” asked Uncle Wiggily, in surprise.
“I’ll tell you who we are,” answered one of the twenty-four, (for there were just two dozen of them) as the rabbit gentleman could count. Then some one sang this song:
“We four-and-twenty tailors went to catch a snail,
The best man among us dared not touch her tail;
She put out her horns like a little Kylow cow,
So run, tailors! Run! Or she’ll bite us all just now!”
And as the tailor said that he turned and ran through the woods as fast as ever he could run, all the other twenty-three running after him.
“Oh, my! Oh, me! Oh, dear! This is too funny!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Four-and-twenty tailors afraid of a snail, even if she did put out her horns like a Kylow cow. I say, tailors! Come back! Come back!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Mother Goose is worried about you. Come back!”
“We’re afraid of the snail!” said one, who had sung the song.
“Nonsense!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “She wouldn’t hurt a lightning bug! Come here, I’ll show you how to make her pull in her horns!”
Slowly and carefully the four-and-twenty tailors came back on their tippy-tiptoes.
“What did you want to catch a snail for, anyhow?” asked the bunny uncle.
“Make her put in her horns so she won’t look so much like a cow and scare us, and we’ll tell you,” said the singing tailor.
Uncle Wiggily laughed and suddenly cried:
“Snail, snail, pull in your horn,
Here’s Jimmie, the duck boy,
Looking for corn!”
Then the snail quickly pulled in her horns and crawled away and she didn’t hurt the tailors any, and they didn’t tickle her with a needle, thimble or even a spool of hooks and eyes.
“We just wanted to see if we could catch a snail,” said the singing tailor. “We didn’t mean to hurt her, but it says in Mother Goose’s book that four-and-twenty tailors went out to catch a snail, and, as we were not very busy this morning, we went out. But, oh! how fierce she did look with her horns! I’m not going snail-hunting any more.”
“Nor I,” cried the other twenty-three tailors in a chorus. Then they thanked Uncle Wiggily for having driven the snail away, as he did, by making believe Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck boy, was coming after her (since ducks like snails very much). And the tailors each gave Uncle Wiggily a spool of thread, so Nurse Jane had all she wanted, and Grandpa Goosey’s button was sewed on.
And if the basket of soap bubbles doesn’t fall down-stairs and spill ink on the white table cloth just as it is going to the dance, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the bat.
CHAPTER XXVI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BAT
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice little boy bear—Oh, please be so kind as to excuse me, as the telephone girl says when she rings the dinner bell at supper time. I mean Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old rabbit gentleman, put on his red, white and blue-striped rheumatism tall silk hat and——
Eh? What’s that? Something else wrong? Oh, yes; to be sure. I meant to say he took his red, white and blue-striped rheumatism crutch, and put his tall silk hat on over his ears, and then he started out of his hollow-stump bungalow for a walk.
I don’t know what’s the matter with me in this story—making so many mistakes—unless it was that I danced the fox-trot backward the other night, and it turned out to be a goose-walk. Anyhow, I’ll try to be more careful after this.
Out stepped Uncle Wiggily, starting off toward the woods, but he had not gone very far before Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, called to him.
“Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily? Don’t you know that it is after supper, and will soon be dark? Then why do you go to the woods?”
“I want an adventure,” answered the bunny uncle. “I haven’t had one to-day. And, as for the dark, the moon will soon be up, and give me good light. Have no fear, Nurse Jane, I will soon be back safely.”
So Nurse Jane had no fear and Uncle Wiggily hopped on and on, over the fields and through the woods. All of a sudden he passed the house where Susie Littletail, the little rabbit girl, lived.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily,” called Mrs. Littletail, the bunny mother. “If you see Susie, will you please tell her to come home at once? Her supper is quite cold, though I will warm up the carrot gravy for her.”
“I’ll tell her,” promised the bunny uncle. “Where is she?”
“She went over to play with Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the two duck girls,” was the answer, “and she must be having a fine time, for she’s been there ever so long.”
“I wonder what sort of an adventure I shall have this evening,” thought the bunny uncle. “Yesterday I drove away the snail that was scaring the four-and-twenty tailors, but no tailors would be out now, after dark. However, the moon will soon be up, and then I will have light enough to see an adventure if one happens along.”
Going a little farther, Uncle Wiggily came to where Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girls, lived in a nice pen, with their father and mother and their brother Jimmie.
“Is Susie Littletail in there?” asked Uncle Wiggily, looking over the fence. “Her mother said she came over here to play, but hasn’t come home yet. Is she there?”
“No, Uncle Wiggily,” answered Lulu, wagging her tail wobbily like. “Susie left here some time ago. She said she was going to run home to supper.”
“It’s queer I didn’t meet her,” said the bunny uncle. “But, perhaps, she might have gone home by another path. I daresay she is all right. I’ll walk along a little farther, and then if I don’t see her I’ll go back.”
Well, Uncle Wiggily was going on and on, when, all at once from behind an old stump, he heard a sad little voice crying, and saying:
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! I’m afraid to go home, and I’m afraid to stay here. I don’t know what to do!”
“My! That sounds like trouble of the very worst kind!” spoke Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice. “I must see who it is, and if I can help them.”
Uncle Wiggily started for the stump, and then he happened to think:
“Ah, perhaps that might be the skillery-scalery alligator with the humps on his tail, making believe to be in trouble just to get me near enough so he can catch me. I had better be careful.”
So Uncle Wiggily carefully peeked around the corner before going any closer to the stump, and there, sitting down on a stone behind it in the moonlight, was Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl, herself.
“Why, Susie!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What are you doing here? Your mother is looking for you, and so am I. Why don’t you go home?”
“’Cause I’m afraid, Uncle Wiggily,” and Susie cried a few tears.
“What are you afraid of?” asked the bunny uncle. “Surely not the dark. That can’t hurt you, and besides it will soon be moonlight.”
“No, I’m not afraid of the dark, Uncle Wiggily,” said Susie, “but I’m afraid of the bat.”
“The bat?” cried the bunny uncle, astonished like.
“Yes; he’s a big bird with wings, but he has ears and looks like a rat. I’m afraid he’ll get tangled in my fur, or else that he’ll bite me. Oh, there he is now!” and Susie pointed to something black, like a bird, flying to and fro in the darkness.
“Yes, that is a bat,” said Uncle Wiggily, “but it will not hurt you. It is only flying around to catch mosquitoes and other bugs that come out mostly at night. A bat, like an owl, can see in the dark. He won’t hurt you.”
“Oh, but I’m afraid,” said Susie. “I started from the Wibblewobble house a long time ago, to go home, but I saw the bat flying around and I hid. I dassen’t go home.”
“Nonsense!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll fix it for you. I’ll play a little joke on the bat and get him out of the way until I can lead you home.”
So Uncle Wiggily recited this little verse from Mother Goose:
“Bat, bat! Come under my hat,
And I’ll give you a slice of bacon.
And when I bake,
I’ll give you a cake.
If I am not mistaken.”
Uncle Wiggily put his tall silk hat on the ground, and, surely enough, the bat crawled under it to see if there were any bacon there. And, before he could come out Uncle Wiggily hurried home with Susie, who wasn’t afraid any more, not with the bunny uncle to hold her paw.
Then Uncle Wiggily, not being mistaken, got a cake from Nurse Jane and took it back to the bat, also getting his tall silk hat. And the bat was very much obliged, for the cake, and he said he never would have tangled himself in Susie’s fur anyhow, so she need not have been afraid.
“But I’m glad she’s safely home,” said the bat.
“So am I,” said Uncle Wiggily.
And I guess Susie was also.
But if the button-hook doesn’t get tangled up in the dog’s tail, and ride out to where the shoe-horn is playing tunes for the rubber heels to dance the lame duck, I’ll tell you next——
Oh, but hold on, if you please. I’m not going to tell you any more stories in this book, for it is already quite well filled, as you can see for yourself. So if I write any more tales they will have to go in another big volume like this.
That’s what I’ll do, if you like, and the next book will be called, “Uncle Wiggily and His Friends,” and will tell of the different things that happened to the bunny uncle when he went calling on all the animal folk that live in Woodland. So, while I am getting that book ready, I will say good-bye.
THE END
CHILDREN’S BOOKS
By HOWARD R. GARIS
BEDTIME STORIES
Cloth, finely decorated cover, eight colored illustrations
Price, per volume 75 cents, postpaid
Each book contains a story for every day in the month
SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL
31 Rabbit Stories
JOHNNIE AND BILLIE BUSHYTAIL
31 Squirrel Stories
LULU, ALICE AND JIMMIE WIBBLEWOBBLE
31 Duck Stories
UNCLE WIGGILY’S ADVENTURES
31 Old Gentleman Rabbit Stories
JACKIE AND PEETIE BOW WOW
31 Doggie Stories
UNCLE WIGGILY’S TRAVELS
31 more Old Gentleman Rabbit Stories
BUDDY AND BRIGHTEYES PIGG
31 Guinea Pig Stories
UNCLE WIGGILY’S FORTUNE
31 queer Old Gentleman Rabbit Stories
JOIE, TOMMIE AND KITTIE KAT
31 Kitten Stories
CHARLIE AND ARABELLA CHICK
31 Chicken Stories
UNCLE WIGGILY’S AUTOMOBILE
31 surprising Old Gentleman Rabbit Stories
NEDDIE AND BECKIE STUBTAIL
31 Nice Bear Stories
BULLY AND BAWLY NO-TAIL
31 Frog Stories
UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE
31 different Old Gentleman Rabbit Stories
NANNIE AND BILLIE WAGTAIL
31 Goat Stories
SOMETHING NEW
THE DADDY SERIES
Colored cover and frontispiece, and three drawings in black and white
Price 40 cents per volume, postpaid
Fun, adventure, amusement, with some nature and
out-door instruction for Little Folk.
DADDY TAKES US CAMPING
DADDY TAKES US FISHING
DADDY TAKES US TO THE CIRCUS
DADDY TAKES US SKATING
DADDY TAKES US COASTING
(Other books in preparation)
All about a little boy and a little girl and their dear Daddy.
JACKIE AND PEETIE BOW WOW
“Come on, Jackie!” called Peetie Bow Wow, the boy doggie, one morning. “Come on!”
“Where are you going?” asked Jackie of Peetie.
“Let’s run off and join the circus,” suggested Peetie, as he tried to stand up on the end of his tail and turn a somersault. “We can earn a lot of money.”
“How?” asked Jackie, scratching his nose with his ear.
“Why, we can make money by doing tricks in the circus,” went on Peetie. “We can jump over the backs of elephants, climb up to the top of the tent, and do lots of things like that. A circus is fun!”
You have read how Daddy Blake took Hal and Mab to the circus, and you will like to read about Jackie and Peetie. They are in a book called “Bedtime Stories: Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow,” by Howard R. Garis, who also wrote the Daddy books.
Send to R. F. Fenno & Company, 18 East 17th Street, New York City, and they will mail the book on receipt of price, if you can not get it in your book store. The book has colored pictures.
UNCLE WIGGILY’S FORTUNE
“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as he got to the top of a big hill and looked down. “Oh, dear!”
“Why, what has happened?” asked Sammie Littletail, the boy rabbit, hopping up.
“Why, I have traveled all over, just as Dr. Possum told me to,” replied Uncle Wiggily, “and I have not yet found my fortune. It is very sad!”
“Sad!” cried Sammie. “Not a bit of it! I know where your fortune is. You are the richest rabbit in the whole world!”
“My goodness me, sakes alive, and some ice cream radishes!” Uncle Wiggily exclaimed.
And then Sammie showed the rabbit gentleman his fortune. You may read all about how he found it in the book entitled “Bedtime Stories: Uncle Wiggily’s Fortune.” And you should see the colored pictures Mr. Wisa made for it!
Howard R. Garis, who wrote the Daddy books, wrote this one about Uncle Wiggily. R. F. Fenno & Company, of 18 East 17th Street, New York City, publish it. They will send it to you if your own store does not have it. Write and ask them.
DADDY TAKES US TO THE CIRCUS
“Oh, Mab!” cried Hal Blake, as he came running into the house one morning. “Daddy is going to take us to the circus!”
“Are you, Daddy?” asked the little girl.
“Yes,” said Mr. Blake. “Here are the tickets.”
“Oh, what fun we’ll have!” shouted Hal.
“Won’t we!” added his sister.
How Daddy Blake took the children to the show in the big tent, and how Hal and Mab went to sleep in one of the red wagons, and were carried off—all that you may read in the book called “Daddy Takes Us to the Circus.” It is written by Howard R. Garis, who also wrote the Bedtime book you have just read. It contains fine pictures, and has a decorated cover. You read, and liked, the Bedtimes, so surely you will like the Daddy books.
If your dealer does not keep them, please send to the publishers, R. F. Fenno & Company, 18 East 17th Street, New York City, who will forward any volume on receipt of price.
Daddy Blake, on his trips with Hal and Mab, told them things about nature and out-door life.
- Transcriber’s Notes:
- Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected.
- Typographical errors were silently corrected.
- Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book.