“Oh, I am so glad!” cried Sammie, when it was all over. “I didn’t know Uncle Wiggily was a dentist, too.”
Then his toothache stopped and he rode back home with the rabbit gentleman in the airship, and everybody was happy. Mrs. Littletail, especially, for Sammie had been very troublesome, though he did not mean to be. So this teaches us that an airship is good for pulling teeth, as well as for sailing up in the clouds.
And on the next page, if the pussy cat doesn’t fall out of the cherry tree and scratch the covers off the pansy bed, where the puppy dog sleeps, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the grocery cat.
STORY IX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE GROCERY CAT
Uncle Wiggily, the nice old gentleman rabbit, was working away out in the yard fixing his airship. He had been riding around in it a great deal of late, sailing up among the clouds, taking it out in rain storms, and once he even sailed in it across the duck pond, coming right down into the water with it.
And in doing all these things one of the handles of the clothes basket, which was part of the airship, had become bent and twisted. And some of the toy circus balloons needed to be blown up with fresh air, and there was a hole in the Japanese umbrella, which formed the top part of the airship, to keep the sun off Uncle Wiggily.
“Yes, I must fix up my airship,” said the rabbit gentleman as he worked away, whistling and twinkling his nose at the same time, like a star on a frosty night.
And that is very hard to do—to whistle and twinkle your nose at the same time. If you do not believe me just try it yourself and see.
“Have you any more sofa cushions I could take for my airship, Nurse Jane?” asked Uncle Wiggily, going into the house where the muskrat lady housekeeper was boiling some carrots to make a lemon pie.