Uncle Wiggily's Airship

by Howard Roger Garis

“Here is the money,” went on Nurse Jane. “Be careful not to lose it.”

“I’ll try,” answered Uncle Wiggily with a laugh.

Off he started for the store, sailing above the tops of the trees in his airship, which was made from one of Nurse Jane’s old clothes baskets, some toy circus balloons to lift it in the air, a Japanese umbrella to keep off the rain, and an electric fan, that went around whizzie-izzie. The electric fan pushed the airship along through the air, you see.

Well, Uncle Wiggily had not gone very far before, all of a sudden, something happened to his airship. The electric fan became all twisted up in the balloons, and the sofa cushions, which were in the clothes basket, to make a soft place for Uncle Wiggily to fall out on, in case of accidents—these sofa cushions began turning somersaults, and the first thing the rabbit gentleman knew he himself, was falling down.

Down and down he went, faster and faster. The sofa cushions toppled out of the basket, by themselves, and Uncle Wiggily said:

“Well, I think I myself am to be bumped very hard this time!”

But he was not. Just then, down below on the ground, there came along a wagon with a lot of sheep’s fleeces in it. Sheep’s fleeces are wool, you know. Men cut the wool, or the long, fluffy hair, off the backs of sheep, and it is woven into cloth and made into clothes. It does not hurt the sheep to cut off the wool, any more than it hurts to cut your hair.

So Uncle Wiggily fell out of his airship on top of this load of wool, which was not yet woven into cloth, and he was not hurt a bit, for he bounced up and down (like the circus man in the net) on the fluffy wool.

“Ha! That was very kind of you to come along just when you did to catch me as I fell,” said Uncle Wiggily to the man who drove the wool wagon.

“Oh, do not thank me,” spoke the man. “Thank those sheep over there. The wool was sheared off their backs, and when the nicest sheep lady of them all saw you falling just now she told me to drive over here quickly as I could so that I might be ready for you to fall on.”