Uncle Wiggily's Automobile

by Howard Roger Garis

And there was Susie, as cute a little pussy cat as one would meet with in going from here to the moon and back. And as for Sammie, well, say, he was so much like a real Indian that when he looked in the glass he was frightened at himself; yes, really he was, and he had truly feathers on, too; not make-believe ones, either.

Uncle Wiggily was dressed up like an elephant, and he sat in the front of the auto to steer it. Only his stuffed-stocking trunk got in the way of the steering wheel, so Uncle Wiggily had to put it behind him, over his left shoulder and have Susie hold it. I mean she held his stuffed-stocking trunk, not the steering wheel, you know.

"Here we go!" suddenly cried Uncle Wiggily, and his voice sounded far away because it had to go down inside the stuffed-stocking elephant trunk and come out again around in back of him. Then he twisted the tinkerum-tankerum, and away they went in the automobile.

All at once, from around a corner, came a big clown with red, white and blue all over his face. He had a rattlety-bang-banger thing and he was making a terrible racket on it.

"Oh, I know who that is!" cried Susie. "You're Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck."

"That's right," said the clown, making more noise than ever. "Whoop-de-doodle-do! Isn't this fun!"

Along went the auto and by this time there were a whole lot of animal children prancing and dancing around it. Uncle Wiggily had to make the auto go real slowly so as not to hurt any of them, for they were all over the streets.

There was Buddy Pigg, dressed up like a camel, and there was Dickie Chip-Chip and his sister, and they were dressed up like sailors. Brighteyes Pigg had on a cow's false face and Billie Goat was dressed up like a Chinaman, while Nannie, his sister, was supposed to be a lady with a sealskin coat on. Oh, I couldn't tell you how all the different animal children were dressed, but I'll just say that Bully, the frog, with his tall hat, was dressed like a football player and Aunt Lettie, the nice old lady goat, made believe she was a fireman, and Munchie Trot was a pretend-policeman.

And such fun as they had! Uncle Wiggily steered the auto here and there, and squeaked and squawked his tooter-teeter so no one would get hurt. There were about forty-'leven tin horns being blown, and the wooden rattlety-bang-bangs were rattling all over and some one threw a whole lot of prettily colored paper in the air until it looked as if it were raining red, pink, green, purple, blue, yellow and skilligimink colored snow.

And then, all at once, out from the crowd, came a figure that looked like a bear. Oh, it was very real looking with long teeth, and shaggy fur, and that bear came right up to the auto that Uncle Wiggily was steering.