Uncle Wiggily's Adventures

by Howard Roger Garis

"That would be just fine!" exclaimed Nannie, as she passed some apple sauce and oatmeal to Uncle Wiggily. "After breakfast I'll show you how to make a paper house."

Well, surely enough, as soon as breakfast was over, and before she and Billie had gone to school, Nannie showed the old gentleman rabbit how to make a paper house. You take some paper and some scissors, and you cut out the sides of the house and the roof, and you make windows and doors in these sides, and then you make a chimney, and you fasten them all together, with paste or glue, and, there you are. Isn't it easy?

And if you only make the paper house large enough, you can get inside of it and have a play party, and perhaps you can make paper dishes and knives and forks; but listen! If you make paper things to eat, like cake or cookies or anything like that, please only make-believe to eat them, for they are bad for the digestion if you really chew them.

"Well, I think I'll travel along now, and once more seek my fortune," said Uncle Wiggily, when Billie and Nannie were ready to go to school. So Mrs. Goat packed up for the rabbit a nice lunch in his valise, and Nannie gave him some waxed paper, that the rain wouldn't melt, and Billie gave his uncle a pair of scissors, and off Mr. Longears started.

Well, he traveled on and on, over the fields and through the woods, and across little brooks, and pretty soon it was coming on dark night, and the rabbit gentleman hadn't found his fortune.

"Now I wonder where I can stay to-night?" thought Uncle Wiggily, as he looked about him. He could see nothing but an old stump, which was not hollow, so he couldn't get inside of it, and the only other thing that happened to be there was a flat stone, and he couldn't get under that.

"I guess I must make me a paper house," said the old gentleman rabbit. "Then I can sleep in it in peace and quietness, and I'll travel on again in the morning."

So he got out the waxed paper, and he took the scissors, and, sitting down on the green grass, he cut out the sides and roof of the paper house. Then he made the chimney, and put it on the roof, and then he fastened the house together, and crawled inside, with his valise and his barber-pole crutch.

"I guess I won't make too many windows or doors," thought Uncle Wiggily, "for a savage bear or a burglar-fox might come along in the night, and try to get in."

So he only made one door, and one window in the house. But he made a little fireplace out of stones, and built a little fire in it, to cook his supper. But listen, you children must never, never make a fire, unless some big person is near to put it out in case it happens to run away, and chases after you, to catch you. Fires are dreadfully scary things for little folks, so please be careful.