Uncle Wiggily Had a Good Time Roasting Marshmallow Candies. The Fuzzy Fox Did Not Have Quite So Much Fun. Oh, Dear!

“Dear me! What’s all this?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears one day, as he sat in his hollow stump bungalow reading the paper. Into his sitting room came Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbits; Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels; Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the ducks; Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, and Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goats. “What’s the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Will you please come to the woods and help us roast marshmallow candies?” asked Sammie. “I will,” said Uncle.

Off to the woods went the bunny rabbit gentleman and his animal friends. They built a little fire and then opened the boxes of marshmallow candies. Uncle Wiggily made some long, sharp-pointed sticks for the children and then they began to roast the sweet chunks of sticky candy. All of a sudden Susie Littletail held her marshmallow too close to the blaze, and it caught fire. “Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Susie. “What shall I do? My candy is on fire!” Uncle Wiggily twinkled his pink nose and said: “Be calm, my child!”

“Fire! Fire!” cried Billie Wagtail, the goat boy. “Call out the fire engines! I’ll be the chief!” Billie took some bark from a white birch tree and made himself a trumpet, so he could shout at the other animal boys. Uncle Wiggily ran quickly to a spring near by, and, scooping up a lot of water in his tall silk hat, he poured it on Susie’s blazing, smoking marshmallow. “Now the fire is out!” said the bunny. Some of the animal girls almost fainted, but the boys found empty tin cans and brought them full of water.

The water from Uncle Wiggily’s tall silk hat soon put out the fire in Susie’s marshmallow, and everything was nice again. Uncle Wiggily and the other animal boys and girls were just going to roast more candies when, all of a sudden, Nannie Wagtail, the goat girl, sat down in a pile of sticky marshmallows which Billie Bushytail left on top of a flat stump. “Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily!” bleated Nannie. “I’m stuck fast! Oh, has a bear got me?” The bunny laughed. “You are only stuck on the sticky candies,” he said. “I’ll pull you loose!”

“Now, all together! Pull!” cried Uncle Wiggily, when they had taken hold of Nannie, the goat girl. “Pull hard, everybody!” said the bunny rabbit gentleman, “and we’ll soon have Nannie loose from the sticky marshmallows. You shouldn’t have left them there, Billie.” The squirrel boy said he was sorry. Then, with laughter and shouts, they all pulled, one, two, three! Nannie slowly came loose from where she was stuck on the stump. Over in the woods, the bad old fox tramp heard the noise. “I must see what that is,” he said.

All of a sudden, just as Uncle Wiggily and the animal boys and girls were going to start roasting marshmallows again, right through the bushes jumped the bad old fuzzy tramp fox. Susie’s candy-fire had been put out, Nannie had been pulled loose from the stump, and here was new trouble. “How dare you roast marshmallows in my woods?” growled the fox. “We didn’t know these were your woods,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, politely. “Well, they are!” grumbled the fox. “And, just for that, I’m going to bite a lot of souse off your ears.”

Uncle Wiggily was brave. As soon as the fox jumped through the bushes the bunny rabbit began to think of a way to save himself and the animal boys and girls. Uncle Wiggily whispered to Billie Wagtail and Jackie Bow Wow to put a lot of the sticky marshmallow candies on a flat stump behind the fox. Then the bunny rabbit said to the fuzzy chap: “Wouldn’t you like to roast a marshmallow before you bite my souse?” The fox growled and said: “Well, I s’pose I might as well! Candy goes well with souse. I’ll roast one.” The fox began to do this.

When Uncle Wiggily saw that the pile of sticky candies was in readiness on the flat stump behind the fuzzy fox, the bunny rabbit made a low and polite bow with his tall silk hat and said: “Won’t you please be seated, Mr. Fox, while you are roasting your candy? It may take some little time, and perhaps you will get tired. Sit down, I pray you.” The fox growled and said: “Well, I s’pose I might!” So he got ready to sit down. Billie and Jackie laughed so hard, but in whispers, they could hardly stand up. “Wait till he sits down,” said Billie.

“Oh, wow! Double wow and some feather pillows!” howled the fox, as he felt himself caught by the sticky candies. “What has happened?” Uncle Wiggily, first having told the animal children to run along toward their homes, blew a kiss to the fuzzy fox, who was caught fast. “Lots has happened,” said the bunny rabbit. “You thought you would catch me, but you are caught yourself! It will be a good while before you can pull yourself loose, Mr. Fox!” The fox growled and grumbled, but he could not get away. So Uncle Wiggily was saved.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

Page	Changed from	Changed to
[Chapter Heading]	[omitted]	Uncle Wiggily’s Fishing Trip Or The Good Luck He Had With the Clothes Hook

Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling.
Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.