STORY IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S BALLOON
“Is she here?” whispered Uncle Wiggily to his muskrat lady housekeeper, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as he hopped into his hollow stump bungalow one day.
“Do you mean Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, who was just here calling on me?” asked Nurse Jane. “If you mean her, she has gone.”
“No, I mean Baby Bunty. Is she here?” asked Uncle Wiggily, still whispering and looking all around the bungalow, while he twinkled his pink nose expectant like.
“Baby Bunty isn’t here,” said Nurse Jane. “I gave her a penny a while ago and she said she was going down to the one-cent store and buy a toy balloon.”
“Ah! Then I can come in and have a rest,” said the rabbit gentleman. “Baby Bunty is good to keep an old rabbit man’s joints from getting stiff,” he said, as he stretched out in his easy chair, “but too much of it is quite enough. I’ll be glad of a little rest.”
Baby Bunty, you know, was a cute little rabbit girl, whose father and mother had been taken away by a fox. Uncle Wiggily found Baby Bunty in the woods in a hollow stump, and brought her home with him.
“She’s so lively she’ll keep you from getting old and stiff,” said Nurse Jane. And Baby Bunty was very lively like and always doing something.
“But now, since she has gone down the woodland path to buy a toy balloon, I’ll sit here and rest,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll take a nap until it’s time to eat dinner.”
Uncle Wiggily stretched out in his easy chair. Soon his pink, twinkly nose was still and quiet. Mr. Longears was asleep.