But in the next story, if the door knob doesn’t turn a somersault over the pepper caster and slide off the table, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the popgun.
STORY XV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE POPGUN
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was out in the yard back of his house, blowing hot air in the toy circus balloons of his airship. The balloons would then lift the airship up in the air, and Uncle Wiggily could sail around near the clouds, like a bird.
“Aren’t you afraid the airship will some day go up without you in it?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept house for the rabbit gentleman.
“Oh, no, for I always tie my airship fast to the fence, or a tree, or something like that, until I am ready to get in it!” he answered.
This time Uncle Wiggily tied his airship, with a clothesline, to the grape arbor, and he went on getting the red, green, blue and yellow balloons more and more full of hot air. The rabbit gentleman blew the hot air in with a putty blower.
Soon the airship was tugging and tugging away at the clothesline, wanting to sail up in the air, and take the old gentleman rabbit with it for a sail in the clothes basket, which was filled with soft cushions. These were taken along so, in case Uncle Wiggily fell, he would not be bounced too hard.
But the airship could not go up until the rabbit gentleman loosed the rope that held it fast.
“And that I’ll do as soon as I go in and wash my paws and get a carrot sandwich,” the rabbit gentleman said, when he had finished fixing the balloons. “Then I’ll go off and see if I can find an adventure.”
An adventure, you know, is something that happens to you, like being late for school, and getting kept in. But I hope you have no such unpleasant adventure as that. I’d rather you had a nice one, like finding an ice cream cone rolling up hill.