STORY XI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BUSY BUG
Everywhere Uncle Wiggily and the black cricket went in the next few days, every one was glad to see them. For they were both so jolly, and laughed and joked so much along the road, that no one who heard them could be sad.
They came to one place where there was a boy sick with the toothache, and his mamma had done everything for him that she could think of, even to putting mustard on it, but still that boy's tooth ached.
Well, as soon as that boy saw the cricket and the old gentleman rabbit, and heard them laugh, why the boy smiled, and then the pain, somehow, seemed to be better, and he smiled some more, and then he laughed.
Then Uncle Wiggily told a funny story about a monkey who made faces at himself in a looking-glass, and got so excited about it that he jumped around behind the glass, thinking another monkey was there, and there wasn't, and the monkey fell into the freezer full of ice cream and caught cold because he ate so much of it.
Well, that boy opened his mouth real wide to laugh at the funny story and his mamma all of a sudden slipped a string around the aching tooth and she pulled it out in a moment, and it never ached again.
"Oh, how glad I am!" cried the little boy. "I wish you would always stay with me, Uncle Wiggily—you and the jolly cricket."
"I'd like to, but I can't," said the old gentleman rabbit. "I must keep on after my fortune."
"I'll stay with you for a little while," said the cricket, and he did, telling some funny stories to other boys who had the toothache, and right away after that they allowed their bad teeth to be pulled, and their pain was over.