Uncle Wiggily's Automobile

by Howard Roger Garis

"Then I'll just make you!" growled the wolf, and with that what did he do but bite a hole in one of the big rubber tires, letting out all the wind with a puff, so the auto couldn't go any more.

"Now see what you've done!" cried Johnnie. "Yes, and it was a nice, new auto, too," said Billie sorrowfully.

"Fiddlesticks!" cried the wolf. "Double fiddlesticks. Don't talk to me. I'm hungry. Get out of that auto, now, so I can bite you."

"Oh! what shall we do?" whispered Johnnie.

"Hush! Don't say a word. I'm going to play a trick on that wolf," said Uncle Wiggily. Then he spoke to the savage creature, saying: "If you are going to eat us up, I s'pose you will; but first would you mind taking one of these pumpkins down to the bottom of the hill and leaving it there for Mrs. Bushtail to make a pie of?"

"Oh, anything to oblige you, since I am going to eat you, anyhow," said the wolf. "Give me the pumpkin, but mind, don't try to run away, while I'm gone for I can catch you. I'll come back and eat you up in a minute."

"All right," said Uncle Wiggily, giving the wolf a little pumpkin, and pretending to cry, to show that he was afraid. But he was only making believe, you see. Well, the wolf began to run down to the foot of the hill.

"Now, quick, boys!" suddenly cried Uncle Wiggily. "We'll roll the biggest pumpkin down after him, and it will hit him and make him as flat as a pancake, and then he can't eat us! Lively, now!"

So, surely enough, they took the big pumpkin out of the auto and rolled it down after the wolf. He heard it coming and he tried to get out of the way, but he couldn't, because he was carrying another pumpkin, and he stumbled and fell down, and the big pumpkin rolled right over him, including his tail, and he was as flat as two pancakes, and part of another one, and he couldn't even eat a toothpick.

Then, Uncle Wiggily and the boys fixed the hole in the tire, pumped it full of wind, and hurried on, and they had plenty of pumpkin left for pies, and they were soon at the squirrel's house, safe and sound, so that's the end of the story.