“Perhaps I can help you,” spoke an elephant gentleman coming along just then. “I used to be a cowboy in a Wild West show, and perhaps I can throw my rope lasso up high enough to get it around the airship and pull it down.”
So he threw his rope lasso with his trunk, but the airship was still too high for him to reach.
“You will have to get an eagle bird to fly up and bring it down,” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.
“Ha! No! I have a better plan than that!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Run over to Sammie Littletail’s house and get his popgun,” said the rabbit gentleman to the monkey boy. “I will put some beans in the popgun, shoot them at the balloons, burst holes in them to let out the hot air, and down my airship will come of itself.”
And that’s exactly what Uncle Wiggily did. With Sammie’s popgun he shot the balloons full of holes, knowing he could easily mend them again, and when there was no hot air in them to hold them up, down came the airship, fluttering slowly to the earth.
“Thank goodness!” cried Nurse Jane. “You have your airship again, Uncle Wiggily. Don’t you ever do that again, Jocko Kinkytail.”
“I guess he won’t,” spoke Uncle Wiggily kindly, as he began to mend the burst balloons. And Jocko never did.
And if the rubber plant in our yard doesn’t stretch over the fence and pick a rose off the gooseberry bush, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the butterfly.
STORY XVI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BUTTERFLY
“Are you going out in your airship this morning?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy of Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as he left the breakfast table one day.