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Title: Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard
Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the Mother Goose Characters
Author: Howard R. Garis
Release Date: October 27, 2007 [eBook #23213]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
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[Cover Illustration]
UNCLE WIGGILY AND OLD MOTHER HUBBARD
[Illustration]
UNCLE WIGGILY AND OLD MOTHER HUBBARD
Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the
Mother Goose Characters
by
HOWARD R. GARIS
Author of "Uncle Wiggily Bedtime Stories," "Uncle
Wiggily Animal Stories," "Uncle Wiggily's Story
Book," "The Daddy Series," Etc.
Illustrated by Edward Bloomfield & Lansing Campbell
A. L. Burt Company
Publishers
New York
CHILDREN'S BOOKS by Howard R. Garis
UNCLE WIGGILY BEDTIME STORIES
UNCLE WIGGILY'S ADVENTURES
UNCLE WIGGILY'S TRAVELS
UNCLE WIGGILY'S FORTUNE
UNCLE WIGGILY'S AUTOMOBILE
UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE
UNCLE WIGGILY'S AIRSHIP
UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE COUNTRY
UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS
UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FARM
UNCLE WIGGILY'S JOURNEY
UNCLE WIGGILY'S RHEUMATISM
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY
UNCLE WIGGILY IN WONDERLAND
UNCLE WIGGILY IN FAIRYLAND
UNCLE WIGGILY AND MOTHER HUBBARD
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BIRDS
UNCLE WIGGILY ANIMAL STORIES
SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL
JOHNNIE AND BILLIE BUSHYTAIL
LULU, ALICE AND JIMMIE WIBBLEWOBBLE
JACKIE AND PEETIE BOW-WOW
BUDDY AND BRIGHTEYES PIGG
JOIE, TOMMIE AND KITTIE KAT
CHARLIE AND ARABELLA CHICK
NEDDIE AND BECKIE STUBTAIL
BULLY AND BAWLY NO-TAIL
NANNIE AND BILLIE WAGTAIL
JOLLIE AND JILLIE LONGTAIL
JACKO AND JUMPO KINKYTAIL
CURLY AND FLOPPY TWISTYTAIL
TOODLE AND NOODLE FLATTAIL
DOTTIE AND WILLIE FLUFFTAIL
DICKIE ANP NELLIE FLIPTAIL
WOODIE AND WADDIE CHUCK
BOBBY AND BETTY RINGTAIL
SOMETHING NEW!
UNCLE WIGGILY'S STORY BOOK
and
UNCLE WIGGILY'S PICTURE BOOK
Copyright, 1922, by R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
UNCLE WIGGILY AND OLD MOTHER HUBBARD
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. Uncle Wiggily and Mother Goose
II. Uncle Wiggily and the First Pig
III. Uncle Wiggily and the Second Pig
IV. Uncle Wiggily and the Third Pig
V. Uncle Wiggily and Little Boy Blue
VI. Uncle Wiggily and Higgledee Piggledee
VII. Uncle Wiggily and Little Bo-Peep
VIII. Uncle Wiggily and Tommie Tucker
IX. Uncle Wiggily and Pussy Cat Mole
X. Uncle Wiggily and Jack and Jill
XI. Uncle Wiggily and Jack Horner
XII. Uncle Wiggily and Mr. Pop-Goes
XIII. Uncle Wiggily and Simple Simon
XIV. Uncle Wiggily and the Crumpled-Horn Cow
XV. Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard
XVI. Uncle Wiggily and Miss Muffet
XVII. Uncle Wiggily and the First Kitten
XVIII. Uncle Wiggily and the Second Kitten
XIX. Uncle Wiggily and the Third Kitten
XX. Uncle Wiggily and the Jack Horse
XXI. Uncle Wiggily and the Clock-Mouse
XXII. Uncle Wiggily and the Late Scholar
XXIII. Uncle Wiggily and Baa-Baa Black Sheep
XXIV. Uncle Wiggily and Polly Flinders
XXV. Uncle Wiggily and the Garden Maid
XXVI. Uncle Wiggily and the King
Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard
CHAPTER I
UNCLE WIGGILY AND MOTHER GOOSE
There once lived in the woods an old rabbit gentleman named Uncle
Wiggily Longears, and in the hollow-stump bungalow where he had his
home there also lived Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, a muskrat lady
housekeeper. Near Uncle Wiggily there were, in hollow trees, or in
nests or in burrows under the ground, many animal friends of
his--rabbits, squirrels, puppy dogs, pussy cats, frogs, ducks,
chickens and others, so that Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane were never
lonesome.
Often Sammie or Susie Littletail, a small boy and girl rabbit, would
hop over to the hollow-stump bungalow, and call:
"Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Can't you come out and play with us?"
Then the old rabbit gentleman, who was as fond of fun as a kitten,
would put on his tall silk hat, take his red, white and blue striped
barber-pole rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him
out of a corn-stalk, and he would go out to play with the rabbit
children, about whom I have told you in other books.
Or perhaps Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrel boys, might
ask Uncle Wiggily to go after hickory nuts with them, or maybe Lulu,
Alice or Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children, would want their
bunny uncle to see them go swimming.
So, altogether, Uncle Wiggily had a good time in his hollow-stump
bungalow which was built in the woods. When he had nothing else to
do Mr. Longears would go for a ride in his airship. This was made of
a clothes-basket, with toy circus balloons on it to make it rise up
above the trees. Or Uncle Wiggily might take a trip in his
automobile, which had big bologna sausages on the wheels for tires.
And whenever the rabbit gentleman wanted the automobile wheels to go
around faster he sprinkled pepper on the sausages.
One day Uncle Wiggily said to Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy:
"I think I will go for a ride in my airship. Is there anything I can
bring from the store for you?"
"Why, you might bring a loaf of bread and a pound of sugar,"
answered the muskrat lady.
"Very good," answered Uncle Wiggily, and then he took some soft
cushions out to put in the clothes-basket part of his airship, so,
in case the air popped out of the balloons, and he fell, he would
land easy like, and soft.
Soon the rabbit gentleman was sailing off through the air, over the
tree tops, his paws in nice, warm red mittens that Nurse Jane had
knitted for him. For it was winter, you see, and Uncle Wiggily's
paws would have been cold steering his airship, by the baby carriage
wheel which guided it, had it not been for the mittens.
It did not take the bunny uncle long to go to the store in his
airship, and soon, with the loaf of bread and pound of sugar under
the seat, away he started for his hollow-stump bungalow again.
And, as he sailed on and over the tree tops, Uncle Wiggily looked
far off, and he saw some black smoke rising in the air.
"Ha! That smoke seems to be near my hollow-stump bungalow," he said
to himself. "I guess Nurse Jane is starting a fire in the kitchen
stove to get dinner. I must hurry home."
Uncle Wiggily made his airship go faster, and then he saw, coming
toward him, a big bird, with large wings.
"Why, that looks just like my old friend, Grandfather Goosey
Gander," Uncle Wiggily thought to himself. "I wonder why he is
flying so high? He hardly ever goes up so near the clouds.
"And he seems to have some one on his back," spoke Uncle Wiggily out
loud this time, sort of talking to the loaf of bread and the pound
of sugar. "A lady, too," went on the bunny uncle. "A lady with a
tall hat on, something like mine, only hers comes to a point on top.
And she has a broom with her. I wonder who it can be?"
And when the big white bird came nearer to the airship Uncle Wiggily
saw that it was not Grandfather Goosey Gander at all, but another
big gander, almost like his friend, whom he often went to see. And
then the bunny uncle saw who it was on the bird's back.
"Why, it's Mother Goose!" cried Uncle Wiggily Longears. "It's Mother
Goose! She looks just like her pictures in the book, too."
"Yes, I am Mother Goose," said the lady who was riding on the back
of the big, white gander.
"I am glad to meet you, Mother Goose," spoke Mr. Longears. "I have
often heard about you. I can see, over the tree tops, that Nurse
Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper, is getting dinner
ready. I can tell by the smoke. Will you not ride home with me? I
will make my airship go slowly, so as not to get ahead of you and
your fine gander-goose."
"Alas, Uncle Wiggily," said Mother Goose, scratching her chin with
the end of the broom handle, "I cannot come home to dinner with you
much as I would like it. Alas! Alas!"
"Why not?" asked the bunny uncle.
"Because I have bad news for you," said Mother Goose. "That smoke,
which you saw over the tree tops, was not smoke from your chimney as
Nurse Jane was getting dinner."
"What was it then?" asked Uncle Wiggily, and a cold shiver sort of
ran up and down between his ears, even if he did have warm, red
mittens on his paws. "What was that smoke?"
"The smoke from your burning bungalow," went on Mother Goose. "It
caught fire, when Nurse Jane was getting dinner, and now----"
"Oh! Don't tell me Nurse Jane is burned!" cried Uncle Wiggily.
"Don't say that!"
"I was not going to," spoke Mother Goose, kindly. "But I must tell
you that your hollow-stump bungalow is burned to the ground. There
is nothing left but some ashes," and she made the gander, on whose
back she was riding, fly close alongside of Uncle Wiggily's airship.
"My nice bungalow burned!" exclaimed the rabbit gentleman. "Well, I
am very, very sorry for that. But still it might be worse. Nurse
Jane might have been hurt, and that would have been quite too bad. I
dare say I can get another bungalow."
"That is what I came to tell you about," said Mother Goose. "I was
riding past when I saw your Woodland hollow-stump house on fire, and
I went down to see if I could help. It was too late to save the
bungalow, but I said I would find a place for you and Nurse Jane to
stay to-night, or as long as you like, until you can build a new
home."
"That is very kind of you," said Uncle Wiggily. "I hardly know what
to do."
"I have many friends," went on Mother Goose. "You may have read
about them in the book which tells of me. Any of my friends would be
glad to have you come and live with them. There is the Old Woman Who
Lives in a Shoe, for instance."
"But hasn't she so many children she doesn't know what to do?" asked
Uncle Wiggily, as he remembered the story in the book.
"Yes," answered Mother Goose, "she has. I suppose you would not like
it there."
"Oh, I like children," said Uncle Wiggily. "But if there are so many
that the dear Old Lady doesn't know what to do, she wouldn't know
what to do with Nurse Jane and me."
"Well, you might go stay with my friend Old Mother Hubbard," said
Mother Goose.
"But if I went there, would not the cupboard be bare?" asked Uncle
Wiggily, "and what would Nurse Jane and I do for something to eat?"
"That's so," spoke Mother Goose, as she reached up quite high and
brushed a cobweb off the sky with her broom. "That will not do,
either. I must see about getting Mother Hubbard and her dog
something to eat. You can stay with her later. Oh, I have it!"
suddenly cried the lady who was riding on the back of the white
gander, "you can go stay with Old King Cole! He's a jolly old soul!"
Uncle Wiggily shook his head.
"Thank you very much, Mother Goose," he said, slowly. "But Old King
Cole might send for his fiddlers three, and I do not believe I would
like to listen to jolly music to-day when my nice bungalow has just
burned down."
"No, perhaps not," agreed Mother Goose. "Well, if you can find no
other place to stay to-night come with me. I have a big house, and
with me live Little Bo Peep, Little Boy Blue, who is getting to be
quite a big chap now, Little Tommie Tucker and Jack Sprat and his
wife. Oh, I have many other friends living with me, and surely we
can find room for you."
"Thank you," answered Uncle Wiggily. "I will think about it."
Then he flew down in his airship to the place where the hollow-stump
bungalow had been, but it was not there now. Mother Goose flew down
with her gander after Uncle Wiggily. They saw a pile of blackened
and smoking wood, and near it stood Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the
muskrat lady, and many other animals who lived in Woodland with
Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, I am so sorry!" cried Nurse Jane. "It is my fault. I was baking
a pudding in the oven, Uncle Wiggily. I left it a minute while I ran
over to the pen of Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, to ask her
about making a new kind of carrot sauce for the pudding, and when I
came home the pudding had burned, and the bungalow was on fire."
"Never mind," spoke Uncle Wiggily, kindly, "as long as you were not
burned yourself, Nurse Jane."
"But where will you sleep to-night?" asked the muskrat lady,
sorrowfully.
"Oh," began Uncle Wiggily, "I guess I can----"
"Come stay with us!" cried Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit
children.
"Or with us!" invited Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels.
"And why not with us?" asked Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goat
children.
"We'd ask you to come with us," said Jollie and Jillie Longtail, the
mouse children, "only our house is so small."
Many of Uncle Wiggily's friends, who had hurried up to see the
hollow-stump bungalow burn, while he was at the store, now, in turn,
invited him to stay with them.
"I, myself, have asked him to come with me," said Mother Goose, "or
with any of my friends. We all would be glad to have him."
"It is very kind of you," said the rabbit gentleman. "And this is
what I will do, until I can build me a new bungalow. I will take
turns staying at your different hollow-tree homes, your nests or
your burrows underground. And I will come and visit you also, Mother
Goose, and all of your friends; at least such of them as have room
for me.
"Yes, that is what I'll do. I'll visit around now that my
hollow-stump home is burned. I thank you all. Come, Nurse Jane, we
will pay our first visit to Sammie and Susie Littletail, the
rabbits."
And while the other animals hopped, skipped or flew away through the
woods, and as Mother Goose sailed off on the back of her gander, to
sweep more cobwebs out of the sky, Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane went
to the Littletail burrow, or underground house.
"Good-bye, Uncle Wiggily!" called Mother Goose. "I'll see you again,
soon, sometime. And if ever you meet with any of my friends, Little
Jack Horner, Bo Peep, or the three little pigs, about whom you may
have read in my book, be kind to them."
"I will," promised Uncle Wiggily.
And he did, as you may read in the next chapter, when, if the sugar
spoon doesn't tickle the carving knife and make it dance on the
bread board, the story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the first
little pig.
CHAPTER II
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE FIRST PIG
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, came out of
the underground burrow house of the Littletail family, where he was
visiting a while with the bunny children, Sammie and Susie, because
his own hollow-stump bungalow had burned down.
"Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Sammie Littletail, the
rabbit boy, as he strapped his cabbage leaf books together, ready to
go to school.
"Oh, I am just going for a little walk," answered Uncle Wiggily.
"Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, asked me to
get her some court plaster from the five and six cent store, and on
my way there I may have an adventure. Who knows?"
"We are going to school," said Susie. "Will you walk part of the way
with us, Uncle Wiggily?"
"To be sure I will!" crowed the old gentleman rabbit, making believe
he was Mr. Cock A. Doodle, the rooster.
So Uncle Wiggily, with Sammie and Susie, started off across the
snow-covered fields and through the woods. Pretty soon they came to
the path the rabbit children must take to go to the hollow-stump
school, where the lady mouse teacher would hear their carrot and
turnip gnawing lessons.
"Good-by, Uncle Wiggily!" called Sammie and Susie. "We hope you have
a nice adventure,"
"Good-by. Thank you, I hope I do," he answered.
Then the rabbit gentleman walked on, while Sammie and Susie hurried
to school, and pretty soon Mr. Longears heard a queer grunting noise
behind some bushes near him.
"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" came the sound.
"Hello! Who is there?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Why, if you please, I am here, and I am the first little pig," came
the answer, and out from behind the bush stepped a cute little
piggie boy, with a bundle of straw under his paw.
"So you are the first little pig, eh?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "How
many of you are there altogether?"
"Three, if you please," grunted the first little pig. "I have two
brothers, and they are the second and third little pigs. Don't you
remember reading about us in the Mother Goose book?"
"Oh, of course I do!" cried Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his nose. "And
so you are the first little pig. But what are you going to do with
that bundle of straw?"
"I'm going to build me a house, Uncle Wiggily, of course," grunted
the piggie boy. "Don't you remember what it says in the book? 'Once
upon a time there were three little pigs, named Grunter, Squeaker
and Twisty-Tail.' Well, I'm Grunter, and I met a man with a load of
straw, and I asked him for a bundle to make me a house. He very
kindly gave it to me, and now, I'm off to build it."
"May I come?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "I'll help you put up your
house."
"Of course you may come--glad to have you," answered the first
little pig. "Only you know what happens to me; don't you?"
"No! What?" asked the rabbit gentleman. "I guess I have forgotten
the story."
"Well, after I build my house of straw, just as it says in the
Mother Goose story book, along comes a bad old wolf, and he blows it
down," said the first little pig.
"Oh, how dreadful!" cried Uncle Wiggily, "but maybe he won't come
to-day."
"Oh, yes, he will," said the first little pig. "It's that way in the
book, and the wolf has to come."
"Well, if he does," said Uncle Wiggily, "maybe I can save you from
him."
"Oh, I hope you can!" grunted Grunter. "It is no fun to be chased by
a wolf."
So the rabbit gentleman and the piggie boy went on and on, until
they came to the place where Grunter was to build his house of
straw. Uncle Wiggily helped, and soon it was finished.
"Why, it is real nice and cozy in here," said Uncle Wiggily, when he
had made a big pile of snow back of the straw house to keep off the
north wind, and had gone in with the little piggie boy.
"Yes, it is cozy enough," spoke Grunter, "but wait until the bad
wolf comes. Oh, dear!"
"Maybe he won't come," said the rabbit, hopeful like.
"Yes, he will!" cried Grunter. "Here he comes now."
And, surely enough, looking out of the window, the piggie boy and
Uncle Wiggily saw a bad wolf running over the snow toward them. The
wolf knocked on the door of the straw house and cried:
"Little pig! Little pig! Let me come in."
"No! No! By the hair of my chinny-chin-chin. I will not let you in!"
answered Grunter, just like in the book.
"Then I'll puff and I'll blow, and I'll blow your house in!" howled
the wolf. Then he puffed and he blew, and, all of a sudden, over
went the straw house. But, just as it was falling down, Uncle
Wiggily cried:
"Quick, Grunter, come with me! I'll dig a hole for us in the pile
of snow that I made back of your house and in there we'll hide where
the wolf can't find us!" Then the rabbit gentleman, with his strong
paws, just made for digging, burrowed a hole in the snow-bank, and
as the straw house toppled down, into this hole he crawled with
Grunter.
"Now I've got you!" cried the wolf, as he blew down the first
little pig's straw house. But when the wolf looked he couldn't see
Grunter or Uncle Wiggily at all, because they were hiding in the
snow-bank.
"Well, well!" howled the wolf. "This isn't like the book at all!
Where is that little pig?"
But the wolf could not find Grunter, and soon the bad creature went
away, fearing to catch cold in his eyes. Then Uncle Wiggily and
Grunter came out of the snow-bank and were safe, and Uncle Wiggily
took Grunter home to the rabbit house to stay until Mother Goose
came, some time afterward, to get the first little pig boy.
"Thank you very much, Uncle Wiggily," said Mother Goose, "for being
kind to one of my friends."
"Pray don't mention it. I had a fine adventure, besides saving a
little pig," said the rabbit gentleman. "I wonder what will happen
to me to-morrow?"
And we shall soon see for, if the snowball doesn't wrap itself up in
the parlor rug to hide away from the jam tart, when it comes home
from the moving pictures, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and
the second little pig.
CHAPTER III
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SECOND PIG
"There! It's all done!" exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the nice
muskrat lady housekeeper, who, with Uncle Wiggily Longears, the
rabbit gentleman, was staying in the Littletail rabbit house, since
the hollow-stump bungalow had burned down.
"What's all done?" asked Uncle Wiggily, looking over the tops of his
spectacles.
"These jam tarts I baked for Billie and Nannie Wagtail, the goat
children," said Nurse Jane. "Will you take them with you when you go
out for a walk, Uncle Wiggily, and leave them at the goat house?"
"I most certainly will," said the rabbit gentleman, very politely.
"Is there anything else I can do for you, Nurse Jane?"
But the muskrat lady wanted nothing more, and, wrapping up the jam
tarts in a napkin so they would not catch cold, she gave them to Mr.
Longears to take to the two goat children.
Uncle Wiggily was walking along, wondering what sort of an adventure
he would have that day, or whether he would meet Mother Goose again,
when all at once he heard a voice speaking from behind some bushes.
"Yes, I think I will build my house here," the voice said. "The wolf
is sure to find me anyhow, and I might as well have it over with.
I'll make my house here."
Uncle Wiggily looked over the bushes, and there he saw a funny
little animal boy, with some pieces of wood on his shoulder.
"Hello!" cried Uncle Wiggily, making his nose twinkle in a most
jilly-jolly way. "Who are you, and what are you going to do?"
"Why, I am Squeaker, the second little pig, and I am going to make a
house of wood," was the answer. "Don't you remember how it reads in
the Mother Goose book? 'Once upon a time there were three little
pigs, named Grunter, Squeaker and----'"
"Oh, yes, I remember!" Uncle Wiggily said. "I met your brother
Grunter yesterday, and helped him build his straw house."
"That was kind of you," spoke Squeaker. "I suppose the bad old wolf
got him, though. Too bad! Well, it can't be helped, as it is that
way in the book."
[Illustration: "Little pig! Little pig!
Let me come in!"]
Uncle Wiggily didn't say anything about having saved Grunter, for he
wanted to surprise Squeaker, so the rabbit gentleman just twinkled
his nose again and asked:
"May I have the pleasure of helping you build your house of wood?"
"Indeed you may, thank you," said Squeaker. "I suppose the old wolf
will be along soon, so we had better hurry to get the house
finished."
Then the second little pig and Uncle Wiggily built the wooden house.
When it was almost finished Uncle Wiggily went out near the back
door, and began piling up some cakes of ice to make a sort of box.
"What are you doing?" asked Squeaker.
"Oh, I'm just making a place where I can put these jam tarts I have
for Nannie and Billie Wagtail," the rabbit gentleman answered. "I
don't want the wolf to get them when he blows down your house."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Squeaker. "I rather wish, now, he didn't have to
blow over my nice wooden house, and get me. But he has to, I s'pose,
'cause it's in the book."
Still, Uncle Wiggily didn't say anything, but he just sort of
blinked his eyes and twinkled his pink nose, until, all of a sudden,
Squeaker looked across the snowy fields, and he cried:
"Here comes the bad old wolf now!"
And, surely enough, along came the growling, howling creature. He
ran up to the second little pig's wooden house, and, rapping on the
door with his paw, cried:
"Little pig! Little pig! Let me come in!"
"No, no! By the hair on my chinny-chin-chin I will not let you in,"
said the second little pig, bravely.
"Then I'll puff and I'll blow, and I'll puff and I'll blow, and blow
your house in!" howled the wolf.
Then he puffed out his cheeks, and he took a long breath and he blew
with all his might and main and suddenly:
"Cracko!"
Down went the wooden house of the second little piggie, and only
that Uncle Wiggily and Squeaker jumped to one side they would have
been squashed as flat as a pancake, or even two pancakes.
"Quick!" cried the rabbit gentleman in the piggie boy's ear. "This
way! Come with me!"
"Where are we going?" asked Squeaker, as he followed the rabbit
gentleman over the cracked and broken boards, which were all that
was left of the house.
"We are going to the little cabin that I made out of cakes of ice,
behind your wooden house," said Uncle Wiggily. "I put the jam tarts
in it, but there is also room for us, and we can hide there until
the bad wolf goes off."
"Well, that isn't the way it is in the book," said the second little
pig. "But----"
"No matter!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Hurry!" So he and Squeaker hid in
the ice cabin back of the blown-down house, and when the bad wolf
came poking along among the broken boards, to get the little pig, he
couldn't find him. For Uncle Wiggily had closed the door of the ice
place, and as it was partly covered with snow the wolf could not see
through.
"Oh, dear!" howled the wolf. "That's twice I've been fooled by those
pigs! It isn't like the book at all. I wonder where he can have
gone?"
But he could not find Squeaker or Uncle Wiggily either, and finally
the wolf's nose became so cold from sniffing the ice that he had to
go home to warm it, and so Uncle Wiggily and Squeaker were safe.
"Oh, I don't know how to thank you," said the second little piggie
boy as the rabbit gentleman took him home to Mother Goose, after
having left the jam tarts at the home of the Wagtail goats.
"Pray do not mention it," spoke Uncle Wiggily, modest like, and shy.
"It was just an adventure for me."
He had another adventure the following day, Uncle Wiggily did. And
if the dusting brush doesn't go swimming in the soap dish, and get
all lather so that it looks like a marshmallow cocoanut cake, I'll
tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the third little pig.
CHAPTER IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE THIRD PIG
Uncle Wiggily Longears sat in the burrow, or house under the ground,
where he and Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, lived with
the Littletail family of rabbits since the hollow-stump bungalow had
burned.
"Oh, dear!" sounded a grunting, woofing sort of voice over near one
window.
"Oh, dear!" squealed another voice from under the table.
"Well, well! What is the matter with you two piggie boys?" asked
Uncle Wiggily, as he took down from the sideboard his red, white and
blue barber-pole striped rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane had
gnawed for him out of a cornstalk.
"What's the trouble, Grunter and Squeaker?" asked the rabbit
gentleman.
"We are lonesome for our brother," said the two little piggie boys
No. 1 and No. 2. "We want to see Twisty-Tail."
For the first and second little pigs, after having been saved by
Uncle Wiggily, and taken home to Mother Goose, had come back to pay
a visit to the bunny gentleman.
"Well, perhaps I may meet Twisty-Tail when I go walking to-day,"
spoke Uncle Wiggily. "If I do I'll bring him home with me."
"Oh, goodie!" cried Grunter and Squeaker. For they were the first
and second little pigs, you see. Uncle Wiggily had saved Grunter
from the bad wolf when the growling creature blew down Grunter's
straw house. And, in almost the same way, the bunny uncle had saved
Squeaker, when his wooden house was blown over by the wolf. But
Twisty-Tail, the third little pig, Uncle Wiggily had not yet helped.
"I'll look for Twisty-Tail to-day," said the rabbit gentleman as he
started off for his adventure walk, which he took every afternoon
and morning.
On and on went Uncle Wiggily Longears over the snow-covered fields and
through the wood, until just as he was turning around the corner near
an old red stump, the rabbit gentleman heard a clinkity-clankity
sort of a noise, and the sound of whistling.
"Ha! Some one is happy!" thought the bunny uncle. "That's a good
sign--whistling. I wonder who it is?"
He looked around the stump corner and he saw a little animal chap,
with blue rompers on, and a fur cap stuck back of his left ear, and
this little animal chap was whistling away as merrily as a butterfly
eating butterscotch candy.
"Why, that must be the third little pig!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily.
"Hello!" called the rabbit gentleman. "Are you Twisty-Tail?"
"That's my name," answered the little pig, "and, as you see, I am
building my house of bricks, just as it tells about in the Mother
Goose book."
And, surely enough, Twisty-Tail was building a little house of red
bricks, and it was the tap-tap-tapping of his trowel, or
mortar-shovel, that made the clinkity-clankity noise.
"Do you know me, Uncle Wiggily?" asked the piggie boy. "You see I am
in a book. 'Once upon a time there were three little pigs, and----'"
"I know all about you," interrupted Uncle Wiggily. "I have met
Mother Goose, and also your two brothers."
"They didn't know how to build the right kind of houses, and so the
wolf got them," said Twisty-Tail. "I am sorry, but it had to happen
that way, just as it is in the book."
Uncle Wiggily smiled, but said nothing.
"I met a man with a load of bricks, and I begged some of them to
build my house," said Twisty-Tail. "No wolf can get me. No, sir-ee!
I'll build my house very strong, not weak like my brothers'. No,
indeed!"
"I'll help you build your house," offered Uncle Wiggily, kindly, and
just as he and Twisty-Tail finished the brick house and put on the
roof it began to rain and freeze.
"We are through just in time," said Twisty-Tail, as he and the
rabbit gentleman hurried inside. "I don't believe the wolf will come
out in such weather."
But just as he said that and looked from the window, the little
piggie boy gave a cry, and said:
"Oh, here comes the bad animal now! But he can't get in my house, or
blow it over, 'cause the book says he didn't."
The wolf came up through the freezing rain and knocking on the third
piggie boy's brick house, said:
"Little pig! Little pig! Let me come in!"
"No! No! By the hair of my chinny-chin-chin, I will not let you in!"
grunted Twisty-Tail.
"Then I'll puff and I'll blow, and I'll blow your house in!" howled
the wolf.
"You can't! The book says so!" laughed the little pig. "My house is
a strong, brick one. You can't get me!"
"Just you wait!" growled the wolf. So he puffed out his cheeks, and
he blew and he blew, but he could not blow down the brick house,
because it was so strong.
"Well, I'm in no hurry," the wolf said. "I'll sit down and wait for
you to come out."
So the wolf sat down on his tail to wait outside the brick house.
After a while Twisty-Tail began to get hungry.
"Did you bring anything to eat, Uncle Wiggily?" he asked.
"No, I didn't," answered the rabbit gentleman. "But if the old wolf
would go away I'd take you where your two brothers are visiting with
me in the Littletail family rabbit house and you could have all you
want to eat."
Rut the wolf would not go away, even when Uncle Wiggily asked him
to, most politely, making a bow and twinkling his nose.
"I'm going to stay here all night," the wolf growled. "I am not
going away. I am going to get that third little pig!"
"Are you? Well, we'll see about that!" cried the rabbit gentleman.
Then he took a rib out of his umbrella, and with a piece of his shoe
lace (that he didn't need) for a string he made a bow like the
Indians used to have.
"If I only had an arrow now I could shoot it from my umbrella-bow,
hit the wolf on the nose and make him go away," said Uncle Wiggily.
Then he looked out of the window and saw where the rain, dripping
from the roof, had frozen into long, sharp icicles.
"Ha!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "An icicle will make the best kind of an
arrow! Now I'll shoot the wolf, not hard enough to hurt him, but
just hard enough to make him run away."
Reaching out the window Uncle Wiggily broke off a sharp icicle. He
put this ice arrow in his bow and, pulling back the shoe string,
"twang!" he shot the wolf on the nose.
"Oh, wow! Oh, double-wow! Oh, custard cake!" howled the wolf. "This
isn't in the Mother Goose book at all. Not a single pig did I get!
Oh, my nose! Ouch!"
Then he ran away, and Uncle Wiggily and Twisty-Tail could come
safely out of the brick house, which they did, hurrying home to the
bunny house where Grunter and Squeaker were, to get something to
eat. So everything came out right, you see, and Uncle Wiggily saved
the three little pigs, one after the other.
And if the canary bird doesn't go swimming in the rice pudding, and
eat out all the raisin seeds, so none is left for the parrot, I'll
tell you next of Uncle Wiggily and Little Boy Blue.
CHAPTER V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND LITTLE BOY BLUE
"Uncle Wiggily, are you very busy to-day?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, who, with the old rabbit
gentleman, was on a visit to the Bushytail family of squirrels in
their hollow-tree home.
After staying a while with the Littletail rabbits, when his
hollow-stump bungalow had burned down, the bunny uncle went to visit
Johnnie and Billie Bushytail.
"Are you very busy, Uncle Wiggily?" asked the muskrat lady.
"Why, no, Nurse Jane, not so very," answered the bunny uncle. "Is
there something you would like me to do for you?" he asked, with a
polite bow.
"Well, Mrs. Bushytail and I have just baked some pies," said the
muskrat lady, "and we thought perhaps you might like to take one to
your friend, Grandfather Goosey Gander."
[Illustration]
"Fine!" cried Uncle Wiggily, making his nose twinkle like a star on
a Christmas tree in the dark. "Grandpa Goosey will be glad to get a
pie. I'll take him one."
"We have it all ready for you," said Mrs. Bushytail, the squirrel
mother of Johnnie and Billie, as she came in the sitting-room. "It's
a nice hot pie, and it will keep your paws warm, Uncle Wiggily, as
you go over the ice and snow through the woods and across the
fields."
"Fine!" cried the bunny uncle again. "I'll get ready and go at
once."
Uncle Wiggily put on his warm fur coat, fastened his tall silk hat
on his head, with his ears sticking up through holes cut in the
brim, so it would not blow off, and then, taking his red, white and
blue striped rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him
out of a cornstalk, away he started. He carried the hot apple pie in
a basket over his paw.
"Grandpa Goosey will surely like this pie," said Uncle Wiggily to
himself, as he lifted the napkin that was over it to take a little
sniff. "It makes me hungry myself. And how nice and warm it is," he
went on, as he put one cold paw in the basket to warm it; warm his
paw I mean, not the basket.
Over the fields and through the woods hopped the bunny uncle. It
began to snow a little, but Uncle Wiggily did not mind that, for he
was well wrapped up.
When he was about halfway to Grandpa Goosey's house Uncle Wiggily
heard, from behind a pile of snow, a sad sort of crying voice.
"Hello!" exclaimed the bunny uncle, "that sounds like some one in
trouble. I must see if I can help them."
Uncle Wiggily looked over the top of the pile of snow, and, sitting
on the ground, in front of a big icicle, was a boy all dressed in
blue. Even his eyes were blue, but you could not very well see them,
as they were filled with tears.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. "This is quite too
bad! What is the matter, little fellow; and who are you?"
"I am Little Boy Blue, from the home of Mother Goose," was the
answer, "and the matter is that it's lost!"
"What is lost?" asked Uncle. "If it's a penny I will help you find
it."
"It isn't a penny," answered Boy Blue. "It's the hay stack which I
have to sleep under. I can't find it, and I must see where it is or
else things won't be as they are in the Mother Goose book. Don't you
know what it says?" And he sang:
"Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
There are sheep in the meadow and cows in the corn.
Where's Little Boy Blue, who looks after the sheep?
Why he's under the hay stack, fast asleep.
"Only I can't go to sleep under the hay stack, Uncle Wiggily,
because I can't find it. And, oh, dear! I don't know what to do!"
and Little Boy Blue cried harder than ever, so that some of his
tears froze into little round marbles of ice, like hail stones.
"There, there, now!" said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. "Of course you
can't find a hay stack in the winter. They are all covered with
snow."
"Are they?" asked Boy Blue, real surprised like.
"Of course, they are!" cried Uncle Wiggily, in his most jolly voice.
"Besides, you wouldn't want to sleep under a hay stack, even if
there was one here, in the winter. You would catch cold and have the
sniffle-snuffles."
"That's so, I might," Boy Blue said, and he did not cry so hard now.
"But that isn't all, Uncle Wiggily," he went on, nodding at the
rabbit gentleman. "It isn't all my trouble."
"What else is the matter?" asked the bunny uncle.
"It's my horn," spoke the little boy who looked after the cows and
sheep. "I can't make any music tunes on my horn. And I really have
to blow my horn, you know, for it says in the Mother Goose book that
I must. See, I can't blow it a bit." And Boy Blue put his horn to
his lips, puffed out his cheeks and blew as hard as he could, but no
sound came out.
"Let me try," said Uncle Wiggily. The rabbit gentleman took the horn
and he, also, tried to blow. He blew so hard he almost blew off his
tall silk hat, but no sound came from the horn.
"Ah, I see what the trouble is!" cried the bunny uncle with a jolly
laugh, looking down inside the "toot-tooter." "It is so cold that
the tunes are all frozen solid in your horn. But I have a hot apple
pie here in my basket that I was taking to Grandpa Goosey Gander.
I'll hold the cold horn on the hot pie and the tunes will thaw out."
"Oh, have you a pie in there?" asked Little Boy Blue. "Is it the
Christmas pie into which Little Jack Horner put in his thumb and
pulled out a plum?"
"Not quite, but nearly the same," laughed Uncle Wiggily. "Now to
thaw out the frozen horn."
The bunny uncle put Little Boy Blue's horn in the basket with the
hot apple pie. Soon the ice was melted out of the horn, and Uncle
Wiggily could blow on it, and play tunes, and so could Boy Blue.
Tootity-toot-toot tunes they both played.
"Now you are all right!" cried the bunny uncle. "Come along with me
and you may have a piece of this pie for yourself. And you may stay
with Grandpa Goosey Gander until summer comes, and then blow your
horn for the sheep in the meadow and the cows in the corn. There is
no need, now, for you to stay out in the cold and look for a
haystack under which to sleep."
"No, I guess not," said Boy Blue. "I'll come with you, Uncle
Wiggily. And thank you, so much, for helping me. I don't know what
would have happened only for you."
"Pray do not mention it," politely said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh.
Then he and little Boy Blue hurried on through the snow, and soon
they were at Grandpa Goosey's house with the warm apple pie, and oh!
how good it tasted! Oh, yum-yum!
And if the church steeple doesn't drop the ding-dong bell down in
the pulpit and scare the organ, I'll tell you next about Uncle
Wiggily and Higgledee Piggledee.
CHAPTER VI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND HIGGLEDEE PIGGLEDEE
One day Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, was
sitting in an easy chair in the hollow-stump house of the Bushytail
squirrel family, where he was paying a visit to Johnnie and Billie
Bushytail, the two squirrel boys.
There came a knock on the door, but the bunny uncle did not pay much
attention to it, as he was sort of taking a little sleep after his
dinner of cabbage soup with carrot ice cream on top.
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, went out in
the hall, and when she came back, with her tail all tied up in a
pink ribbon, (for she was sweeping) she said:
"Uncle Wiggily, a friend of yours has come to see you."
"A friend of mine!" cried Uncle Wiggily, awakening so suddenly that
his nose stopped twinkling. "I hope it isn't the bad old fox from
the Orange Mountains."
"No," answered Nurse Jane with a smile, "it is a lady."
"A lady?" exclaimed the old rabbit gentleman, getting up quickly, and
looking in the glass to see that his ears were not criss-crossed.
"Who can it be?"
"It is Mother Goose," went on Nurse Jane. "She says you were so kind
as to help Little Boy Blue the other day, when his horn was frozen,
and you thawed it on the warm pie, that perhaps you will now help
her. She is in trouble."
"In trouble, eh?" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, sort of smoothing down
his vest, fastidious like and stylish. "I didn't know she blew a
horn."
"She doesn't," said Nurse Jane. "But I'll bring her in and she can
tell you, herself, what she wants."
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" cried Mother Goose, as she set her broom down
in one corner, for she never went out unless she carried it with
her. She said she never could tell when she might have to sweep the
cobwebs out of the sky. "Oh, Uncle Wiggily, I am in such a lot of
trouble!"
"Well, I will be very glad to help you if I can," said the bunny
uncle. "What is it?"
"It's about Higgledee Piggledee," answered Mother Goose.
"Higgledee Piggledee!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, "why that sounds
like----"
"She's my black hen," went on Mother Goose. "You know how the verse
goes in the book about me and my friends."
And, taking off her tall peaked hat, which she wore when she rode on
the back of the old gander, Mother Goose sang:
"Higgledee Piggledee, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen.
Sometimes nine and sometimes ten.
Higgledee Piggledee, my black hen.
Gentlemen come every day,
To see what my black hen doth lay."
"Well," asked Uncle Wiggily, "what is the trouble? Has Higgledee
Piggledee stopped laying? If she has I am afraid I can't help you,
for hens don't lay many eggs in winter, you know."
"Oh, it isn't that!" said Mother Goose, quickly. "Higgledee
Piggledee lays as many eggs as ever for gentlemen--sometimes nine
and sometimes ten. But the trouble is the gentlemen don't get them."
"Don't they come for them?" asked Uncle Wiggily, sort of puzzled
like and wondering.
"Oh, yes, they come every day," said Mother Goose, "but there are no
eggs for them. Some one else is getting the eggs Higgledee Piggledee
lays."
"Do you s'pose she eats them herself?" asked the old rabbit
gentleman, in a whisper. "Hens sometimes do, you know."
"Not Higgledee Piggledee," quickly spoke Mother Goose. "She is too
good to do that. She and I are both worried about the missing eggs,
and as you have been so kind I thought perhaps you could help us."
"I'll try," Uncle Wiggily said.
"Then come right along to Higgledee Piggledee's coop," invited
Mother Goose. "Maybe you can find out where her eggs go to. She lays
them in her nest, comes off, once in a while, to get something to
eat, but when she goes back to lay more eggs the first ones are
gone."
Uncle Wiggily twinkled his nose, tied his ears in a hard knot, as he
always did when he was thinking, and then, putting on his fur coat
and taking his rheumatism crutch with him, he went out with Mother
Goose.
Uncle Wiggily rode in his airship, made of a clothes-basket, with
toy circus balloons on top, and Mother Goose rode on the back of a
big gander, who was a brother to Grandfather Goosey Gander. Soon
they were at the hen coop where Higgledee Piggledee lived.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily, I am so glad you came!" cackled the black hen.
"Did Mother Goose tell you about the egg trouble?"
"She did, Higgledee Piggledee, and I will see if I can stop it. Now,
you go on the nest and lay some eggs and then we will see what
happens," spoke Uncle Wiggily.
So Higgledee Piggledee, the black hen, laid some eggs for gentlemen,
and then she went out in the yard to get some corn to eat, just as
she always did. And, while she was gone, Uncle Wiggily hid himself
in some straw in the hen coop. Pretty soon the old gentleman heard a
gnawing, rustling sound and up out of a hole in the ground popped
two big rats, with red eyes.
"Did Higgledee Piggledee lay any eggs today?" asked one rat, in a
whisper.
"Yes," spoke the other, "she did."
"Then we will take them," said the first rat. "Hurray! More eggs for
us! No gentlemen will get these eggs because we'll take them
ourselves. Hurray!"
He got down on his back, with his paws sticking up in the air. Then
the other rat rolled one of the black hen's eggs over so the first
rat could hold it in among his four legs. Next, the second rat took
hold of the first rat's tail and began pulling him along, egg and
all, just as if he were a sled on a slippery hill, the rat sliding
on his back over the smooth straw. And the eggs rode on the rat-sled
as nicely as you please.
"Ha!" cried Uncle Wiggily, jumping suddenly out of his hiding-place.
"So this is where Higgledee Piggledee's eggs have been going, eh?
You rats have been taking them. Scatt! Shoo! Boo! Skedaddle! Scoot!"
And the rats were so scared that they skedaddled away and shooed
themselves and did everything else Mr. Longears told them to do, and
they took no eggs that day. Then Uncle Wiggily showed Mother Goose
the rat hole, and it was stopped up with stones so the rats could
not come in the coop again. And ever after that Higgledee Piggledee,
the black hen, could lay eggs for gentlemen, sometimes nine and
sometimes ten, and there was no more trouble as there had been
before Uncle Wiggily caught the rats and made them skedaddle.
So Mother Goose and the black hen thanked Uncle Wiggily very much.
And if the stylish lady who lives next door doesn't take our feather
bed to wear on her hat when she goes to the moving pictures, I'll
tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Little Bo Peep.
CHAPTER VII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND LITTLE BO PEEP
"What are you going to do, Nurse Jane?" asked Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as he saw the muskrat lady
housekeeper going out in the kitchen one morning, with an apron on,
and a dab of white flour on the end of her nose.
"I am going to make a chocolate cake with carrot icing on top,"
replied Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.
"Oh, good!" cried Uncle Wiggily, and almost before he knew it he
started to clap his paws, just as Sammie and Susie Littletail, the
rabbit children, might have done, and as they often did do when they
were pleased about anything. "I just love chocolate cake!" cried the
bunny uncle, who was almost like a boy-bunny himself.
"Do you?" asked Nurse Jane. "Then I am glad I am going to make one,"
and, going into the kitchen of the hollow-stump bungalow, she began
rattling away among the pots, pans and kettles.
For now Nurse Jane and Uncle Wiggily were living together once more
in their own hollow-stump bungalow. It had burned down, you
remember, but Uncle Wiggily had had it built up again, and now he
did not have to visit around among his animal friends, though he
still called on them every now and then.
"Oh, dear!" suddenly cried Nurse Jane from the kitchen. "Oh, dear!"
"What is the matter, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy?" asked the bunny uncle. "Did
you drop a pan on your paw?"
"No, Uncle Wiggily," answered the muskrat lady. "It is worse than
that. I can't make the chocolate cake after all, I am sorry to say."
"Oh, dear! That is too bad! Why not?" asked the bunny uncle, in a
sad and sorrowful voice.
"Because there is no chocolate," went on Nurse Jane. "Since we came
to our new hollow-stump bungalow I have not made any cakes, and
to-day I forgot to order the chocolate from the store for this one."
"Never mind," said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. "I'll go to the store and
get the chocolate for you. In fact, I would go to two stores and
part of another one for the sake of having a chocolate cake."
"All right," spoke Nurse Jane. "If you get me the chocolate I'll
make one."
Putting on his overcoat, with his tall silk hat tied down over his
ears so they would not blow away--I mean so his hat would not blow
off--and with his rheumatism crutch under his paw, off started the
old gentleman rabbit, across the fields and through the woods to the
chocolate store.
After buying what he wanted for Nurse Jane's cake, the old gentleman
rabbit started back for the hollow-stump bungalow. On the way, he
passed a toy store, and he stopped to look in the window at the
pop-guns, the spinning-tops, the dolls, the Noah's Arks, with the
animals marching out of them, and all things like that.
"It makes me young again to look at toys," said the bunny uncle.
Then he went on a little farther until, all at once, as he was
passing a bush, he heard from behind it the sound of crying.
"Ha! Some one in trouble again," said Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder if it
can be Little Boy Blue?" He looked, but, instead of seeing the
sheep-boy, whom he had once helped, Uncle Wiggily saw a little girl.
"Ha! Who are you?" the bunny uncle asked, "and what is the matter?"
"I am Little Bo Peep," was the answer, "and I have lost my sheep,
and don't know where to find them."
"Why, let them alone, and they'll come home, wagging their tails
behind them," said Uncle Wiggily quickly, and he laughed jolly like
and happy, because he had made a rhyme to go with what Bo Peep said.
"Yes, I know that's the way it is in the Mother Goose book," said
Little Bo Peep, "but I've waited and waited, and let them alone ever
so long, but they haven't come home. And now I'm afraid they'll
freeze."
"Ha! That's so. It _is_ pretty cold for sheep to be out," said Uncle
Wiggily, as he looked across the snow-covered field, and toward the
woods where there were icicles hanging down from the trees.
"Look here, Little Bo Peep," went on the bunny uncle. "I think your
sheep must have gone home long ago, wagging their tails behind them.
And you, too, had better run home to Mother Goose. Tell her you met
me and that I sent you home. And, if I find your sheep, I'll send
them along, too. So don't worry."
"Oh, but I don't like to go home without my sheep," said Bo Peep,
and tears came into her eyes. "I ought to bring them with me. But
today I went skating on Crystal Lake, up in the Lemon-Orange
Mountains, and I forgot all about my sheep. Now I am afraid to go
home without them. Oh, dear!"
Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute, then he said:
"Ha! I have it! I know where I can get you some sheep to take home
with you. Then Mother Goose will say it is all right. Come with me."
"Where are you going?" asked Bo Peep.
"To get you some sheep." And Uncle Wiggily led the little shepardess
girl back to the toy store, in the window of which he had stopped to
look a while ago.
"Give Bo Peep some of your toy woolly sheep, if you please," said
Uncle Wiggily to the toy store man. "She can take them home with
her, while her own sheep are safe in some warm place, I'm sure. But
now she must have some sort of sheep to take home with her in place
of the lost ones, so it will come out all right, as it is in the
book. And these toy woolly sheep will do as well as any; won't they,
Little Bo Peep?"
"Oh, yes, they will; thank you very much, Uncle Wiggily," answered
Bo Peep, making a pretty little bow. Then the rabbit gentleman
bought her ten little toy, woolly sheep, each one with a tail which
Bo Peep could wag for them, and one toy lamb went: "Baa! Baa! Baa!"
as real as anything, having a little phonograph talking machine
inside him.
"Now I can go home to Mother Goose and make believe these are my
lost sheep," said Bo Peep, "and it will be all right."
"And here is a piece of chocolate for you to eat," said Uncle
Wiggily. Then Bo Peep hurried home with her fleecy toy sheep, and,
later on, she found her real ones, all nice and warm, in the barn
where the Cow with the Crumpled Horn lived. Mother Goose laughed in
her jolliest way when she saw the toy sheep Uncle Wiggily had bought
Bo Peep.
"It's just like him!" said Mother Goose.
And if the goldfish doesn't climb out of his tank and hide in the
sardine tin, where the stuffed olives can't find him, I'll tell you
next about Uncle Wiggily and Tommie Tucker.
CHAPTER VIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND TOMMIE TUCKER
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" called Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl, one
day, as she went over to see her bunny uncle in his hollow-stump
bungalow. "Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Isn't it too bad?"
"Isn't what too bad?" asked the old gentleman rabbit, as he
scratched his nose with his left ear, and put his glasses in his
pocket, for he was tired of reading the paper, and felt like going
out for a walk.
"Too bad about my talking and singing doll, that I got for
Christmas," said Susie. "She won't sing any more. Something inside
her is broken."
"Broken? That's too bad!" said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. "Let me see.
What's her name?"
"Sallieann Peachbasket Shortcake," answered Susie.
"What a funny name," laughed the bunny uncle.
Uncle Wiggily took Susie's doll, which had been given her at
Christmas, and looked at it. Inside the doll was a sort of
phonograph, or talking machine--a very small one, you know--and when
you pushed on a little button in back of the doll's dress she would
laugh and talk. But, best of all, when she was in working order, she
would sing a verse, which went something like this:
"I hope you'll like my little song,
I will not sing it very long.
I have two shoes upon my feet,
And when I'm hungry, then I eat."
Uncle Wiggily wound up the spring in the doll's side, and then he
pressed the button--like a shoe button--in her back. But this time
Susie's doll did not talk, she did not laugh, and, instead of
singing, she only made a scratchy noise like a phonograph when it
doesn't want to play, or like Bully No-Tail, the frog boy, when he
has a cold in his head.
"Oh, dear! This is quite too bad!" said Uncle Wiggily. "Quite
indeed."
"Isn't it!" exclaimed Susie. "Do you think you can fix her, Uncle?"
Mr. Longears turned the doll upside down and shook her. Things
rattled inside her, but even then she did not sing.
"Oh, dear!" cried Susie, her little pink nose going twinkle-inkle,
just as did Uncle Wiggily's. "What can we do?"
"You leave it to me, Susie," spoke the old rabbit gentleman. "I'll
take the doll to the toy shop, where I bought Little Bo Peep's
sheep, and have her mended."
"Oh, goodie!" cried Susie, clasping her paws. "Now I know it will be
all right," and she kissed Uncle Wiggily right between his ears.
"Well, I'm sure I _hope_ it will be all right after _that_," said
the bunny uncle, laughing, and feeling sort of tickled inside.
Off hopped Uncle Wiggily to the toy shop, and there he found the
same monkey-doodle gentleman who had sold him the toy woolly sheep
for Little Bo Peep.
"Here is more trouble," said Uncle Wiggily. "Can you fix Susie's
doll so she will sing, for the doll is a little girl one, just like
Susie, and her name is Sallieann Peachbasket Shortcake."
The monkey-doodle man in the toy store looked at the doll.
"I can fix her," he said. Going in his back-room workshop, where
there were rocking-horses that needed new legs, wooden soldiers who
had lost their guns, and steamboats that had forgotten their
whistles, the toy man soon had Susie's doll mended again as well as
ever. So that she said: "Papa! Mama! I love you! I am hungry!" And
she laughed: "Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!" and she sang:
"I am a little dollie,
'Bout one year old.
Please take me where it's warm, for I
Am feeling rather cold.
If you're not in a hurry,
It won't take me very long,
To whistle or to sing for you
My pretty little song."
"Hurray!" cried Uncle Wiggily when he heard this. "Susie's dolly is
all right again. Thank you, Mr. Monkey-Doodle, I'll take her to
Susie." Then Uncle Wiggily paid the toy-store keeper and hurried off
with Susie's doll.
Uncle Wiggily had not gone very far before, all at once from around
the corner of a snowbank he heard a sad, little voice crying:
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
"My goodness!" said the bunny uncle. "Some one else is in trouble. I
wonder who it can be this time?"
He looked, and saw a little boy standing in the snow.
"Hello!" cried Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice. "Who are you, and
what's the matter?"
"I am Little Tommie Tucker," was the answer. "And the matter is I'm
hungry."
"Hungry, eh?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "Well, why don't you eat?"
"I guess you forgot about me and the Mother Goose book," spoke the
boy. "I'm in that book, and it says about me:
"'Little Tommie Tucker,
Must sing for his supper.
What shall he eat?
Jam and bread and butter.'"
"Well?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "Why don't you sing?"
"I--I can't!" answered Tommie. "That's the trouble. I have caught
such a cold that I can't sing. And if I don't sing Mother Goose
won't know it is I, and she won't give me any supper. Oh, dear! Oh,
dear! And I am so hungry!"
"There now, there! Don't cry," kindly said the bunny uncle, patting
Tommie Tucker on the head. "I'll soon have you singing for your
supper."
"But how can you when I have such a cold?" asked the little boy.
"Listen. I am as hoarse as a crow."
And, truly, he could no more sing than a rusty gate, or a last
year's door-knob.
"Ah, I can soon fix that!" said Uncle Wiggily. "See, here I have
Susie Littletail's talking and singing doll, which I have just had
mended. Now you take the doll in your pocket, go to Mother Goose,
and when she asks you to sing for your supper, just push the button
in the doll's back. Then the doll will sing and Mother Goose will
think it is you, and give you bread and jam."
"Oh, how fine!" cried Tommie Tucker. "I'll do it!"
"But afterward," said Uncle Wiggily, slowly shaking his paw at
Tommie, "afterward you must tell Mother Goose all about the little
joke you played, or it would not be fair. Tell her the doll sang and
not you."
"I will," said Tommie. He and Uncle Wiggily went to Mother Goose's
house, and when Tommie had to sing for his supper the doll did it
for him. And when Mother Goose heard about it she said it was a fine
trick, and that Uncle Wiggily was very good to think of it.
Then the bunny uncle took Susie's mended doll to her, and the next
day Tommie's cold was all better and he could sing for his supper
himself, just as the book tells about.
And if the little mouse doesn't go to sleep in the cat's cradle and
scare the milk bottle so it rolls off the back stoop, I'll tell you
next about Uncle Wiggily and Pussy Cat Mole.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND PUSSY CAT MOLE
"Oh, dear! I don't believe he's ever coming!" said Nurse Jane Fuzzy
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she stood at the window of
the hollow-stump bungalow one day, and looked down through the
woods.
"For whom are you looking, Nurse Jane?" asked Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the rabbit gentleman. "If it's for the letter-man, I think
he went past some time ago."
"No, I wasn't looking for the letter-man," said the muskrat lady. "I
am expecting a messenger-boy cat to bring home my new dress from the
dressmaker's, but I don't see him."
"A new dress, eh?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "Pray, what is going on?"
"My dress is going on me, as soon as it comes home, Uncle Wiggily,"
the muskrat lady answered, laughingly. "And then I am going on over
to the house of Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady. She and I are
going to have a little tea party together, if you don't mind."
"Mind? Certainly not! I'm glad to have you go out and enjoy
yourself," said Uncle Wiggily, jolly like and also laughing.
"But I can't go if my new dress doesn't come," went on Nurse Jane.
"That is, I don't want to."
"Look here!" said the bunny uncle, "I'll tell you what I'll do,
Nurse Jane, I'll go for your dress myself and bring it home. I have
nothing to do. I'll go get your dress at the dressmaker's."
"Will you, really?" cried the muskrat lady. "That will be fine! Then
I can curl my whiskers and tie a new pink bow for my tail. You are
very good, Uncle Wiggily."
"Oh, not at all! Not at all!" the rabbit gentleman said, modest like
and shy. Then he hopped out of the hollow-stump bungalow and across
the fields and through the woods to where Nurse Jane's dressmaker
made dresses.
"Oh, yes, Nurse Jane's dress!" exclaimed Mrs. Spin-Spider, who wove
silk for all the dresses worn by the lady animals of Woodland. "Yes,
I have just finished it. I was about to call a messenger-boy cat and
send it home, but now you are here you may take it. And here is some
cloth I had left over. Nurse Jane might want it if ever she tears a
hole in her dress."
Uncle Wiggily put the extra pieces of cloth in his pocket, and then
Mrs. Spin-Spider wrapped Nurse Jane's dress up nicely for him in
tissue paper, as fine as the web which she had spun for the silk,
and the rabbit gentleman started back to the hollow-stump bungalow.
Mrs. Spin-Spider lived on Second Mountain, and, as Uncle Wiggily's
bungalow was on First Mountain, he had quite a way to go to get
home. And when he was about half way there he passed a little house
near a gray rock that looked like an eagle, and in the house he
heard a voice saying:
"Oh, dear! Oh, isn't it too bad? Now I can't go!"
"Ha! I wonder who that can be?" thought the rabbit gentleman. "It
sounds like some one in trouble. I will ask if I can do anything to
help."
The rabbit gentleman knocked on the door of the little house, and a
voice said:
"Come in!"
Uncle Wiggily entered, and there in the middle of the room he saw a
pussy cat lady holding up a dress with a big hole burned in it.
"I beg your pardon, but who are you and what is the matter?"
politely asked the bunny uncle, making a low bow.
"My name is Pussy Cat Mole," was the answer, "and you can see the
trouble for yourself. I am Pussy Cat Mole; I jumped over a coal,
and----"
"In your best petticoat burned a great hole," finished Uncle
Wiggily. "I know you, now. You are from Mother Goose's book and I
met you at a party in Belleville, where they have a bluebell flower
on the school to call the animal children to their lessons."
"That's it!" meowed Pussy Cat Mole. "I am glad you remember me,
Uncle Wiggily. It was at a party I met you, and now I am going to
another. Or, rather, I was going until I jumped over a coal, and in
my best petticoat burned a great hole. Now I can't go," and she held
up the burned dress, sorrowful like and sad.
"How did you happen to jump over the coal?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, it fell out of my stove," said Pussy Cat Mole, "and I jumped
over it in a hurry to get the fire shovel to take it up. That's how
I burned my dress. And now I can't go to the party, for it was my
best petticoat, and Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, asked me to be
there early, too; and now--Oh, dear!" and Pussy Cat Mole felt very
badly, indeed.
"Mrs. Wibblewobble's!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Why, Nurse Jane is
going there to a little tea party, too! This is her new dress I am
taking home."
"Has she burned a hole in it?" asked the pussy cat lady.
"No, she has not, I am glad to say," the bunny uncle replied. "She
hasn't had it on, yet."
"Then she can go to the party, but I can't," said Pussy Cat Mole,
sorrowfully. "Oh, dear!"
"Yes, you can go!" suddenly cried Uncle Wiggily. "See here! I have
some extra pieces of cloth, left over when Mrs. Spin-Spider made
Nurse Jane's dress. Now you can take these pieces of cloth and mend
the hole burned by the coal in your best petticoat. Then you can go
to the party."
"Oh, so I can," meowed the pussy cat. So, with a needle and thread,
and the cloth she mended her best petticoat.
All around the edges and over the top of the burned hole the pussy
cat lady sewed the left-over pieces of Nurse Jane's dress which was
almost the same color. Then, when the mended place was pressed with
a warm flat-iron, Uncle Wiggily cried:
"You would never know there had been a burned hole!"
"That's fine!" meowed Pussy Cat Mole. "Thank you so much, Uncle
Wiggily, for helping me!"
"Pray do not mention it," said the rabbit gentleman, bashful like
and casual. Then he hurried to the hollow-stump bungalow with Nurse
Jane's dress, and the muskrat lady said he had done just right to
help mend Pussy Cat Mole's dress with the left-over pieces. So she
and Nurse Jane both went to Mrs. Wibblewobble's little tea party,
and had a good time.
And so, you see, it came out just as it did in the book: Pussy Cat
Mole jumped over a coal, and in her best petticoat burned a great
hole. But the hole it was mended, and my story is ended. Only never
before was it known how the hole was mended. Uncle Wiggily did it.
And, if the apple doesn't jump out of the peach dumpling and hide in
the lemon pie when the knife and fork try to play tag with it, I'll
tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Jack and Jill, and it will be
a Valentine story.
CHAPTER X
UNCLE WIGGILY AND JACK AND JILL
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, was asleep in
an easy chair in his hollow-stump bungalow one morning when he heard
some one calling:
"Hi, Jack! Ho, Jill! Where are you? Come at once, if you please!"
"Ha! What's that? Some one calling me?" asked the bunny uncle,
sitting up so suddenly that he knocked over his red, white and blue
striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy,
the muskrat lady housekeeper, had gnawed for him out of a
corn-stalk. "Is any one calling me?" asked Mr. Longears.
"No," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "That's Mother Goose calling Jack
and Jill to get a pail of water."
"Oh! is that all?" asked the rabbit gentleman, rubbing his pink eyes
and making his nose twinkle like the sharp end of an ice cream cone.
"Just Mother Goose calling Jack and Jill; eh? Well, I'll go out and
see if I can find them for her."
Uncle Wiggily was always that way, you know, wanting to help some
one. This time it was Mother Goose. His new hollow-stump bungalow
was built right near where Mother Goose lived, with all her big
family; Peter-Peter Pumpkin-Eater, Little Jack Horner, Bo Peep and
many others.
"Ho, Jack! Hi, Jill! Where are you?" called Mother Goose, as Uncle
Wiggily came out of his hollow stump.
"Can't you find those two children?" asked the rabbit gentleman,
making a polite good morning bow.
"I am sorry to say I cannot," answered Mother Goose. "They were over
to see the Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe, a while ago, but where
they are now I can't guess, and I need a pail of water for Simple
Simon to go fishing in, for to catch a whale."
"Oh, I'll get the water for you," said Uncle Wiggily, taking the
pail. "Perhaps Jack and Jill are off playing somewhere, and they
have forgotten all about getting the water."
"And I suppose they'll forget about tumbling down hill, too," went
on Mother Goose, sort of nervous like. "But they must not. If they
don't fall down, so Jack can break his crown, it won't be like the
story in my book, and everything will be upside down."
"So Jack has to break his crown; eh?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "That's
too bad. I hope he won't hurt himself too much."
"Oh, he's used to it by this time," Mother Goose said. "He doesn't
mind falling, nor does Jill mind tumbling down after."
"Very well, then, I'll get the pail of water for you," spoke the
bunny uncle, "and Jack and Jill can do the tumbling-down-hill part."
Uncle Wiggily took the water pail and started for the hill, on top
of which was the well owned by Mother Goose. As the bunny uncle was
walking along he suddenly heard a voice calling to him from behind a
bush.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily, will you do me a favor?"
"I certainly will," said Mr. Longears, "but who are you, and where
are you?"
"Here I am, over here," the voice went on. "I'm Jack, and will you
please give this to Jill when you see her?"
Out from behind the bush stepped Jack, the little Mother Goose boy.
In his hand he held a piece of white birch bark, prettily colored
red, green and pink, and on it was a little verse which read:
"Can you tell me, pretty maid,
Tell me and not be afraid,
Who's the sweetest girl, and true?--
I can; for she's surely you!"
"What's this? What's this?" asked Uncle Wiggily, in surprise.
"What's this?"
"It's a valentine for Jill," said Jack. "To-day is Valentine's Day,
you see, but I don't want Jill to know I sent it, so I went off here
and hid until I could see you to ask you to take it to her."
"All right, I'll do it," Uncle Wiggily said, laughing. "I'll take
your valentine to Jill for you. So that's why you weren't 'round to
get the pail of water; is it?"
"Yes," answered Jack. "I wanted to finish making my valentine. As
soon as you give it to Jill I'll get the water."
"Oh, never mind that," said the bunny uncle. "I'll get the water,
just you do the falling-down-hill part. I'm too old for that."
"I will," promised Jack. Then Uncle Wiggily went on up the hill, and
pretty soon he heard some one else calling him, and, all of a
sudden, out from behind a stump stepped Jill, the little Mother
Goose girl.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" said Jill, bashfully holding out a pretty red
leaf, shaped like a heart, "will you please give this to Jack. I
don't want him to know I sent it."
"Of course, I'll give it to him," promised the rabbit gentleman.
"It's a valentine, I suppose, and here is something for you," and
while Jill was reading the valentine Jack had sent her, Uncle
Wiggily looked at the red heart-shaped leaf. On it Jill had written
in blue ink:
"One day when I went to school,
Teacher taught to me this rule:
Eight and one add up to nine;
So I'll be your valentine."
"My, that's nice!" said Uncle Wiggily, laughing. "So that's why
you're hiding off here for, Jill, to make a valentine for Jack?"
"That's it," Jill answered, blushing sort of pink, like the frosting
on a strawberry cake. "But I don't want Jack to know it."
"I'll never tell him," said Uncle Wiggily.
So he went on up the hill to get a pail of water for Mother Goose.
And on his way back he gave Jill's valentine to Jack, who liked it
very much.
"And now, since you got the water, Jill and I will go tumble down
hill," said Jack, as he found the little girl, where she was reading
his valentine again. Up the hill they went, near the well of water,
and Jack fell down, and broke his crown, while Jill came tumbling
after, while Uncle Wiggily looked on and laughed. So it all happened
just as it did in the book, you see.
Mother Goose was very glad Uncle Wiggily had brought the water for
Simple Simon to go fishing in, and that afternoon she gave a
valentine party for Sammie and Susie Littletail, the Bushytail
squirrel brothers, Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goats, and all the
other animal friends of Uncle Wiggily. And every one had a fine
time.
And if the cup doesn't jump out of the saucer and hide in the
spoonholder, where the coffee cake can't find it, I'll tell you next
about Uncle Wiggily and little Jack Horner.
CHAPTER XI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND JACK HORNER
"Well, I think I'll go for a walk," said Uncle Wiggily Longears, the
rabbit gentleman, one afternoon, when he was sitting out on the
front porch of his hollow-stump bungalow. He had just eaten a nice
dinner that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper,
had gotten ready for him.
"Go for a walk!" exclaimed Nurse Jane. "Why, Mr. Longears, excuse me
for saying so, but you went walking this morning."
"I know I did," answered the bunny uncle, "but no adventure happened
to me then. I don't really count it a good day unless I have had an
adventure. So I'll go walking again, and perhaps I may find one. If
I do, I'll come home and tell you all about it."
"All right," said Nurse Jane. "You are a funny rabbit, to be sure!
Going off in the woods, looking for adventures when you might sit
quietly here on the bungalow front porch."
"That's just it!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "I don't like to be too
quiet. Off I go!"
"I hope you have a nice adventure!" Nurse Jane called after him.
"Thank you," answered Uncle Wiggily, politely.
Away over the fields and through the woods went the bunny uncle,
looking on all sides for an adventure, when, all of a sudden he
heard behind him a sound that went:
"Honk! Honk! Honkity-honk-honk!"
"Ha! That must be a wild goose!" thought the rabbit gentleman.
So he looked up in the air, over his head, where the wild geese
always fly, but, instead of seeing any of the big birds, Uncle
Wiggily felt something whizz past him, and again he heard the loud
"Honk-honk!" noise, and then he sneezed, for a lot of dust from the
road flew up his nose.
"My!" he heard some one cry. "We nearly ran over a rabbit! Did you
see?"
And a big automobile, with real people in it, shot past. It was the
horn of the auto that Uncle Wiggily had heard, and not a wild goose.
"Ha! That came pretty close to me," thought Uncle Wiggily, as the
auto went on down the road. "I never ride my automobile as fast as
that, even when I sprinkle pepper on the bologna sausage tires. I
don't like to scare any one."
Perhaps the people in the auto did not mean to so nearly run over
Uncle Wiggily. Let us hope so.
The old gentleman rabbit hopped on down the road, that was between
the woods and the fields, and, pretty soon, he saw something bright
and shining in the dust, near where the auto had passed.
"Oh, maybe that's a diamond," he said, as he stooped over to pick it
up. But it was only a shiny button-hook, and not a diamond at all.
Some one in the automobile had dropped it.
"Well, I'll put it in my pocket," said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "It
may come in useful to button Nurse Jane's shoes, or mine."
The bunny gentleman went on a little farther, and, pretty soon, he
came to a tiny house, with a red chimney sticking up out of the
roof.
"Ha! I wonder who lives there?" said Uncle Wiggily.
He stood still for a moment, looking through his glasses at the
house and then, all of a sudden, he saw a little lady, with a tall,
peaked hat on, run out and look up and down the road. Her hat was
just like an ice cream cone turned upside down. Only don't turn your
ice cream cone upside down if it has any cream in it, for you might
spill your treat.
"Help! Help! Help!" cried the lady, who had come out of the house
with the red chimney.
"Ha! That sounds like trouble!" said Uncle Wiggily. "I think I had
better hurry over there and see what it is all about."
He hopped over toward the little house, and, when he reached it he
saw that the little lady who was calling for help was Mother Goose
herself.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" exclaimed Mother Goose. "I am so glad to see
you! Will you please go for help for me?"
"Why, certainly I will," answered the bunny gentleman. "But what
kind of help do you want; help for the kitchen, or a wash-lady help
or----"
"Neither of those," said Mother Goose. "I want help so Little Jack
Horner can get his thumb out of the pie."
"Get his thumb out of the pie!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "What in the
world do you mean?"
"Why, you see it's this way," went on Mother Goose. "Jack Horner
lives here. You must have heard about him. He is in my book. His
verse goes like this:
"Little Jack Horner
Sat in a corner,
Eating a Christmas pie.
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said what a great boy am I.
"That's the boy I mean," cried Mother Goose. "But the trouble is
that Jack can't get his thumb out. He put it in the pie, to pull out
the plum, but it won't come out--neither the plum nor the thumb.
They are stuck fast for some reason or other. I wish you'd go for
Dr. Possum, so he can help us."
"I will," said Uncle Wiggily. "But is Jack Horner sitting in a
corner, as it says in the book?"
"Oh, he's doing that all right," answered Mother Goose. "But, corner
or no corner, he can't pull out his thumb."
"I'll get the doctor at once," promised the bunny uncle. He hurried
over to Dr. Possum's house, but could not find him, as Dr. Possum
was, just then, called to see Jillie Longtail, who had the
mouse-trap fever.
"Dr. Possum not in!" cried Mother Goose, when Uncle Wiggily had
hopped back and told her. "That's too bad! Oh, we must do something
for Jack. He's crying and going on terribly because he can't get his
thumb out."
Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute. Then, putting his paw in his
pocket, he felt the button-hook which had dropped from the
automobile that nearly ran over him.
"Ha! I know what to do!" cried the bunny uncle, suddenly.
"What?" asked Mother Goose.
"I'll pull out Jack's thumb myself, with this button-hook," said Mr.
Longears. "I'll make him all right without waiting for Dr. Possum."
Into the room, where, in the corner, Jack was sitting, went the
bunny gentleman. There he saw the Christmas-pie boy, with his thumb
away down deep under the top crust.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" cried Jack. "I'm in such trouble. Oh, dear! I
can't get my thumb out. It must be caught on the edge of the pan, or
something!"
"Don't cry," said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. "I'll get it out for you."
[Illustration: "I wish you'd go for Dr. Possum."]
So he put the button-hook through the hole in the top pie crust,
close to Jack's thumb. Then, getting the hook on the plum, Uncle
Wiggily, with his strong paws, pulled and pulled and pulled, and----
All of a sudden out came the plum and Jack Homer's thumb, and they
weren't stuck fast any more.
"Oh, thank you, so much!" said Jack, as he got up out of his corner.
"Pray don't mention it," spoke Uncle Wiggily, politely. "I am glad I
could help you, and it also makes an adventure for me."
Then Jack Horner, went back to his corner and ate the plum that
stuck to his thumb. And Uncle Wiggily, putting the button-hook back
in his pocket, went on to his hollow-stump bungalow. He had had his
adventure.
So everything came out all right, you see, and if the snow-shovel
doesn't go off by itself, sliding down hill with the ash can, when
it ought to be boiling the cups and saucers for supper, I'll tell
you next about Uncle Wiggily and Mr. Pop-Goes.
CHAPTER XII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND MR. POP-GOES
"Uncle Wiggily," said Mrs. Littletail, the rabbit lady, one morning,
as she came in the dining-room where Mr. Longears was reading the
cabbage leaf paper after breakfast, "Uncle Wiggily, I don't like you
to go out in such a storm as this, but I do need some things from
the store, and I have no one to send."
"Why, I'll be only too glad to go," cried the bunny uncle, who was
spending a few days visiting the Littletail family in their
underground burrow-house. "It isn't snowing very hard," and he
looked out through the window, which was up a little way above
ground to make the burrow light. "What do you want, Mrs.
Littletail?" he asked.
"Oh, I want a loaf of bread and some sugar," said the bunny mother
of Sammie and Susie Littletail.
"And you shall certainly have what you want!" cried Uncle Wiggily,
as he got ready to go to the store. Soon he was on his way, wearing
his fur coat, and hopping along on his corn-stalk rheumatism crutch,
while his pink nose was twinkling in the frosty air like a red
lantern on the back of an automobile.
"A loaf of home-made bread and three and a half pounds of granulated
sugar," said Uncle Wiggily to the monkey-doodle gentleman who kept
the grocery store. "And the best that you have, if you please, as
it's for Mrs. Littletail."
"You shall certainly have the best!" cried the monkey-doodle
gentleman, with a jolly laugh. And while he was wrapping up the
things for Uncle Wiggily to carry home, all at once there sounded in
the store a loud:
"Pop!"
"My! What's that?" asked Uncle Wiggily, surprised like and excited.
"I heard a bang like a gun. Are there any hunter-men, with their
dogs about? If there are I must be careful."
"No, that wasn't a gun," said the monkey-doodle gentleman. "That was
only one of the toy balloons in my window. I had some left over from
last year, so I blew them up and put them in my window to make it
look pretty. Now and then one of them bursts." And just then, surely
enough, "Pop! Bang!" went another toy balloon, bursting and
shriveling all up.
Uncle Wiggily looked in the front window of the store and saw some
blown-up balloons that had not burst.
"I'll take two of those," he said to the monkey-doodle gentleman.
"Sammie and Susie Littletail will like to play with them."
"Better take two or three," said the monkey-doodle gentleman. "I'll
let you have them cheap, as they are old balloons, and they will
burst easily."
So he let the air out of four balloons and gave them to Uncle
Wiggily to take home to the bunny children.
The rabbit gentleman started off through the snow-storm toward the
underground house, but he had not gone very far before, just as he
was coming out from behind a big stump, he heard voices talking.
"Now, I'll tell you how we can get those rabbits," Uncle Wiggily
heard one voice say. "I'll crawl down in the burrow, and as soon as
they see me they'll be scared and run out--Uncle Wiggily, Mrs.
Littletail, the two children, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy and all. Then
you can grab them, Mr. Bigtail! I am glad I happened to meet you!"
"Ah, ha!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "Mr. Bigtail! I ought to know that
name. It's the fox, and he and some one else seem to be after us
rabbits. But I thought the fox promised to be good and let me alone.
He must have changed his mind."
Uncle Wiggily peeked cautiously around the stump, taking care to
make no noise, and there he saw a fox and another animal talking.
And the rabbit gentleman saw that it was not the fox who had
promised to be good, but another one, of the same name, who was bad.
"Yes, I'll go down the hole and drive out the rabbits and you can
grab them," said the queer animal.
"That's good," growled the fox, "but to whom have I the honor of
speaking?" That was his way of asking the name of the other animal,
you see.
"Oh, I'm called Mr. Pop-Goes," said the other.
"Mr. Pop-Goes! What a queer name," said the fox, and all the while
Uncle Wiggily was listening with his big ears, and wondering what it
all meant.
"Oh, Pop-Goes isn't all my name," said the queer animal. "Don't you
know the story in the book? The monkey chased the cobbler's wife all
around the steeple. That's the way the money goes, Pop! goes the
weasel. I'm Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel, you see. I'm 'specially good
at chasing rabbits."
"Oh, I see!" barked Mr. Bigtail, the fox. "Well, I'll be glad if you
can help me get those rabbits. I've been over to that Uncle
Wiggily's hollow-stump bungalow, but he isn't around."
"No, he's visiting the Littletail rabbits," said Mr. Pop-Goes, the
weasel. "But we'll drive him out."
Then Uncle Wiggily felt very badly, indeed, for he knew that a
weasel is the worst animal a rabbit can have after him. Weasels are
very fond of rabbits. They love them so much they want to eat them,
and Uncle Wiggily did not want to be eaten, even by Mr. Pop-Goes.
"Oh, dear!" he thought. "What can I do to scare away the bad fox and
Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel? Oh, dear!" Then he thought of the toy
balloons, that made a noise like a gun when they were blown up and
burst. "The very thing!" thought the rabbit gentleman.
Carefully, as he hid behind the stump, Uncle Wiggily took out one of
the toy balloons. Carefully he blew it up, bigger and bigger and
bigger, until, all at once:
"Bang!" exploded the toy balloon, even making Uncle Wiggily jump.
And as for the fox and Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel, why they were so
kerslostrated (if you will kindly excuse me for using such a word)
that they turned a somersault, jumped up in the air, came down,
turned a peppersault, and started to run.
"Did you hear that noise?" asked the weasel. "That was a pop, and
whenever I hear a pop I have to go! And I'm going fast!"
"So am I!" barked the fox. "That was a hunter with a gun after us, I
guess. We'll get those rabbits some other time."
"Maybe you will, and maybe not!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, as he
hurried on to the burrow with the bread, sugar and the rest of the
toy balloons, with which Sammie and Susie had lots of fun.
So you see Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel, didn't get Uncle Wiggily after
all, and if the pepper caster doesn't throw dust in the potato's
eyes, and make it sneeze at the rag doll, I'll tell you next about
Uncle Wiggily and Simple Simon.
CHAPTER XIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND SIMPLE SIMON
"There!" exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady
housekeeper, who, with Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman,
was visiting at the Littletail rabbit burrow one day. "There they
are, Uncle Wiggily, all nicely wrapped up for you to carry."
"What's nicely wrapped up?" asked the bunny uncle. "And what do you
want me to carry?" And he looked over the tops of his spectacles at
the muskrat lady, sort of surprised and wondering.
"I want you to carry the jam tarts, and they are all nicely wrapped
up," went on Nurse Jane. "Don't you remember, I said I was going to
make some for you to take over to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady?"
"Oh, of course!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "The jam tarts are for Lulu,
Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children. I remember now.
I'll take them right over."
"They are all nicely wrapped up in a clean napkin," went on the
muskrat lady, "so be careful not to squash them and squeeze out the
jam, as they are very fresh."
"I'll be careful," promised the old rabbit gentleman, as he put on
his fur coat and took down off the parlor mantle his red, white and
blue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, made of a corn-stalk.
"Oh, wait a minute, Uncle Wiggily! Wait a minute!" cried Mrs.
Littletail, the bunny mother of Sammie and Susie, the rabbit
children, as Mr. Longears started out. "Where are you going?"
"Over to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady's house, with some jam
tarts for Lulu, Alice and Jimmie," answered Uncle Wiggily.
"Then would you mind carrying, also, this little rubber plant over
to her?" asked Mrs. Littletail. "I told Mrs. Wibblewobble I would
send one to her the first chance I had."
"Right gladly will I take it," said Uncle Wiggily. So Mrs.
Littletail, the rabbit lady, wrapped the pot of the little rubber
plant, with its thick, shiny green leaves, in a piece of paper, and
Uncle Wiggily, tucking it under one paw, while with the other he
leaned on his crutch, started off over the fields and through the
woods, with the jam tarts in his pocket. Over toward the home of the
Wibblewobble duck family he hopped.
Mr. Longears, the nice old rabbit gentleman, had not gone very far
before, all at once, from behind a snow-covered stump, he heard a
voice saying:
"Oh, dear! I know I'll never find him! I've looked all over and I
can't see him anywhere. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?"
"My! That sounds like some one in trouble," Uncle Wiggily said to
himself. "I wonder if that is any of my little animal friends? I
must look."
So the rabbit gentleman peeked over the top of the stump, and there
he saw a queer-looking boy, with a funny smile on his face, which
was as round and shiny as the bottom of a new dish pan. And the boy
looked so kind that Uncle Wiggily knew he would not hurt even a
lollypop, much less a rabbit gentleman.
"Oh, hello!" cried the boy, as soon as he saw Uncle Wiggily. "Who
are you?"
"I am Mr. Longears," replied the bunny uncle. "And who are you?"
"Why, I'm Simple Simon," was the answer. "I'm in the Mother Goose
book, you know."
"Oh, yes, I remember," said Uncle Wiggily. "But you seem to be _out_
of the book, just now."
"I am," said Simple Simon. "The page with my picture on it fell out
of the book, and so I ran away. But I can't find him anywhere and I
don't know what to do."
"Who is it you can't find?" asked the rabbit.
"The pie-man," answered the funny, round-faced boy. "Don't you
remember, it says in the book, 'Simple Simon met a pie-man going to
the fair?'"
"Oh, yes, I remember," Uncle Wiggily answered. "What's next?"
"Well, I can't find him anywhere," said Simple Simon. "I guess the
pie-man didn't fall out of the book when I did."
"That's too bad," spoke Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
"It is," said Simple Simon. "For you know he ought to ask me for my
penny, when I want to taste of his pies, and indeed, I haven't any
penny--not any, and I'm _so_ hungry for a piece of pie!" And Simple
Simon began to cry.
"Oh, don't cry," said Uncle Wiggily. "See, in my pocket I have some
jam tarts. They are for Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the
ducks, but there are enough to let you have one."
"Why, you are a regular pie-man yourself; aren't you?" laughed
Simple Simon, as he ate one of Nurse Jane's nice jam tarts.
"Well, you might call me that," said the bunny uncle. "Though I
s'pose a tart-man would be nearer right."
"But there's something else," went on Simple Simon. "You know in the
Mother Goose book I have to go for water, in my mother's sieve. But
soon it all ran through." And then, cried Simple Simon, "Oh, dear,
what shall I do?" And he held out a sieve, just like a coffee
strainer, full of little holes. "How can I ever get water in that?"
he asked. "I've tried and tried, but I can't. No one can! It all
runs through!"
Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute. Then he cried:
"I have it! I'll pull some leaves off the rubber plant I am taking
to Mrs. Wibblewobble. We'll put the leaves in the bottom of the
sieve, and, being of rubber, water can't get through them. Then the
sieve will hold water, or milk either, and you can bring it to your
mother."
"Oh, fine!" cried Simple Simon, licking the sticky squeegee jam off
his fingers. So Uncle Wiggily put some rubber plant leaves in the
bottom of the sieve, and Simple Simon, filling it full of water,
carried it home to his mother, and not a drop ran through, which, of
course, wasn't at all like the story in the book.
"But that isn't my fault," said Uncle Wiggily, as he took the rest
of the jam tarts to the Wibblewobble children. "I just had to help
Simple Simon." Which was very kind of Uncle Wiggily, I think; don't
you? It didn't matter if, just once, something happened that wasn't
in the book.
And Mrs. Wibblewobble didn't at all mind some of the leaves being
off her rubber plant. So you see we should always be kind when we
can; and if the canary bird doesn't go to sleep in the bowl with the
goldfish, and forget to whistle like an alarm clock in the morning,
I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the crumple-horn cow.
CHAPTER XIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CRUMPLE-HORN COW
"Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy,
the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit gentleman
starting out from his hollow-stump bungalow one day. He was back
again from his visit to Sammie and Susie Littletail.
"Oh, I'm just going for a walk," answered Mr. Longears. "I have not
had an exciting adventure since I carried the valentines for Jack
and Jill, before they tumbled down hill, and perhaps to-day I may
find something else to make me lively, and happy and skippy like."
"Too much hopping and skipping is not good for you," the muskrat
lady said.
"Yes, I think it is, if you will excuse me for saying so," spoke
Uncle Wiggily politely. "It keeps my rheumatism from getting too
painful."
Then, taking his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch from
inside the talking machine horn, Uncle Wiggily started off.
Over the fields and through the woods went the rabbit gentleman,
until, pretty soon, as he was walking along, wondering what would
happen to him that day, he heard a voice saying:
"Moo! Moo! Moo-o-o-o-o!"
"Ah! That sounds rather sad and unhappy like," spoke the rabbit
gentleman to himself. "I wonder if it can be any one in trouble?"
So he peeked through the bushes and there he saw a nice cow, who was
standing with one foot in the hollow of a big stump.
"Moo! Moo!" cried the cow. "Oh, dear, will no one help me?"
"Why, of course, I'll help you," kindly said Uncle Wiggily. "What is
the matter, and who are you?"
"Why, I am the Mother Goose cow with the crumpled horn," was the
answer, "and my foot is caught so tightly in the hole of this stump
that I cannot get it out."
"Why, I'll help you, Mrs. Crumpled-horn Cow," said Uncle Wiggily,
kindly. Then, with his rheumatism crutch, the rabbit gentleman
pushed loose the cow's hoof from where it was caught in the stump,
and she was all right again.
"Oh, thank you so much, Uncle Wiggily," spoke the crumpled-horn cow.
"If ever I can do you a favor I will."
"Thank you," said the rabbit gentleman, politely. "I'm sure you
will. But how did you happen to get your hoof caught in that stump?"
"Oh, I was standing on it, trying to see if I could jump over the
moon," was the answer.
"Jump over the moon!" cried the rabbit gentleman. "You surprise me!
Why in the world----"
"It's this way, you see," spoke the crumpled-horn lady cow. "In the
Mother Goose book it says: 'Hi-diddle-diddle, the cat's in the
fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon.' Well, if one cow did that, I
don't see why another one can't. I got up on the stump, to try and
jump over the moon, but my foot slipped and I was caught fast.
"I suppose I should not have tried it, for I am the cow with the
crumpled horn. You have heard of me, I dare say. I'm the cow with
the crumpled horn, that little Boy Blue drove out of the corn. I
tossed the dog that worried that cat that caught the rat that ate
the malt that lay in the house that Jack built."
"Oh, I remember you now," said Uncle Wiggily.
"And this is my crumpled horn," went on the cow, and she showed the
rabbit gentleman how one of her horns was all crumpled and crooked
and twisted, just like a corkscrew that is used to pull hard corks
out of bottles.
"Well, thank you again for pulling out my foot," said the cow, as
she turned away. "Now I must go toss that dog once more, for he's
always worrying the cat."
So the cow went away, and Uncle Wiggily hopped on through the woods
and over the fields. He had had an adventure, you see, helping the
cow, and later on he had another one, for he met Jimmie
Wibblewobble, the boy duck, who had lost his penny going to the
store for a cornmeal-flavored lollypop. Uncle Wiggily found the
penny in the snow, and Jimmie was happy once more.
The next day when Uncle Wiggily awakened in his hollow-stump
bungalow, and tried to get out of bed, he was so lame and stiff that
he could hardly move.
"Oh, dear!" cried the rabbit gentleman. "Ouch! Oh, what a pain!"
"What is it?" asked Nurse Jane. "What's the matter?"
"My rheumatism," answered Uncle Wiggily. "Please send to Dr. Possum
and get some medicine. Ouch! Oh, my!"
"I'll go for the medicine myself," Nurse Jane said, and, tying her
tail up in a double bow-knot, so she would not step on it, and trip,
as she hurried along, over to Dr. Possum's she went.
The doctor was just starting out to go to see Nannie Wagtail, the
little goat girl, who had the hornache, but before going there Dr.
Possum ran back into his office, got a big bottle of medicine, which
he gave to Nurse Jane, saying:
"When you get back to the hollow-stump bungalow pull out the cork
and rub some on Uncle Wiggily's pain."
"Rub the cork on?" asked Nurse Jane, sort of surprised like.
"No, rub on some of the medicine from the bottle," answered Dr.
Possum, laughing as he hurried off.
Uncle Wiggily had a bad pain when Nurse Jane got back.
"I'll soon fix you," said the muskrat lady. "Wait until I get the
cork out of this bottle." But that was more easily said than done.
Nurse Jane tried with all her might to pull out the cork with her
paws and even with her teeth. Then she used a hair pin, but it only
bent and twisted itself all up in a knot.
"Oh, hurry with the medicine!" begged Uncle Wiggily. "Hurry,
please!"
"I can't get the cork out," said Nurse Jane. "The cork is stuck in
the bottle."
"Let me try," spoke the bunny uncle. But he could not get the cork
out, either, and his pain was getting worse all the while.
Just then came a knock on the bungalow door, and a voice said:
"I am the cow with the crumpled horn. I just met Dr. Possum, and he
told me Uncle Wiggily had the rheumatism. Is there anything I can do
for him? I'd like to do him a favor as he did me one."
"Yes, you can help me," said the rabbit gentleman. "Can you pull a
tight cork out of a bottle?"
"Indeed I can!" mooed the cow. "Just watch me!" She put her crooked,
crumpled horn, which was just like a corkscrew, in the cork, and,
with one twist, out it came from the bottle as easily as anything.
Then Nurse Jane could rub some medicine on Uncle Wiggily's
rheumatism, which soon felt much better.
So you see Mother Goose's crumpled-horn cow can do other things
besides tossing cat-worrying dogs. And if the fried egg doesn't go
to sleep in the dish pan, so the knives and forks can't play tag
there, I'll tell you next of Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard.
CHAPTER XV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND OLD MOTHER HUBBARD
"Uncle Wiggily, have you anything special to do this morning?" asked
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper for the rabbit
gentleman, as she saw him get up from the breakfast table in his
hollow-stump bungalow.
"Anything special? Why, no, I guess not," answered the bunny uncle.
"I was going out for a walk, and perhaps I may meet with an
adventure on the way, or I may help some friends of Mother Goose, as
I sometimes do."
"You are always being kind to some one," said Nurse Jane, "and that
is what I want you to do now. I have just made an orange cake,
and----"
"An orange cake?" cried Uncle Wiggily, his pink nose twinkling. "How
nice! Where did you get the oranges?"
"Up on the Orange Mountains, to be sure," answered the muskrat lady,
with a laugh. "I have made two orange cakes, to tell the exact
truth, which I always do. There is one for us and I wanted to send
one to Dr. Possum, who was so good to cure you of the rheumatism,
when the cow with the crumpled horn pulled the hard cork out of the
medicine bottle for us."
"Send an orange cake to Dr. Possum? The very thing! Oh, fine!" cried
the bunny uncle. "I'll take it right over to him. Put it in a
basket, so it will not take cold, Nurse Jane."
The muskrat lady wrapped the orange cake in a clean napkin, and then
put it in the basket for Uncle Wiggily to carry to Dr. Possum.
Off started the old rabbit gentleman, over the woods and through the
fields--oh, excuse me just a minute. He did not go over the woods
this time. He only did that when he had his airship, which he was
not using to-day, for fear of spilling the oranges out of the cake.
So he went over the fields and through the woods to Dr. Possum's
office.
"Well, I wonder if I will have any adventure to-day?" thought the
old rabbit gentleman, as he hopped along. "I hope I do, for----"
And then he suddenly stopped thinking and listened, for he heard a
dog barking, and a voice was sadly saying:
"Oh, dear! It's too bad, I know it is, but I can't help it. It's
that way in the book, so you'll have to go hungry."
Then the dog barked again and Uncle Wiggily said:
"More trouble for some one. I hope it isn't the bad dog who used to
bother me. I wonder if I can help any one?"
He looked around, and, nearby, he saw a little wooden house on the
top of a hill. The barking and talking was coming from that house.
"I'll go up and see what is the matter?" said the rabbit gentleman.
"Perhaps I can help."
He looked through a window of the house before going in, and he saw
a lady, somewhat like Mother Goose, wearing a tall, peaked hat, like
an ice cream cone turned upside down. And with her was a big dog,
who was looking in an open cupboard and barking. And the lady was
singing:
"Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard
To get her poor dog a bone.
But, when she got there,
The cupboard was bare,
And so the poor dog had none."
"And isn't there anything else in the house to eat, except a bone,
Mother Hubbard?" the dog asked. "I'm so hungry?"
"There isn't, I'm sorry to say," she answered. "But I'll go to the
baker's to get you some bread----"
"And when you come back you will think I am dead," said the dog,
quickly. "I'll look so, anyhow," he went on, "for I am so hungry.
Isn't there any way of getting me anything to eat without going to
the baker's? I don't care much for bread, anyhow."
"How would you like a piece of orange cake?" asked Uncle Wiggily,
all of a sudden, as he walked in Mother Hubbard's house. "Excuse
me," said the bunny uncle, "but I could not help hearing what your
dog said. I know how hard it is to be hungry, and I have an orange
cake in my basket. It is for Dr. Possum, but I am sure he would be
glad to let your dog have some."
"That is very kind of you," said Mother Hubbard.
"And I certainly would like orange cake," spoke the dog, making a
bow and wagging his nose--I mean his tail.
"Then you shall have it," said Uncle Wiggily, opening the basket. He
set the orange cake on the table, and the dog began to eat it, and
Mother Hubbard also ate some, for she was hungry, too, and, what do
you think? Before Uncle Wiggily, or any one else knew it, the orange
cake was all gone--eaten up--and there was none for Dr. Possum.
"Oh, see what we have done!" cried Mother Hubbard, sadly. "We have
eaten all your cake, Uncle Wiggily. I'm sure we did not mean to, but
with a hungry dog----"
"Pray do not mention it," said the rabbit gentleman, politely. "I
know just how it is. I have another orange cake of my own at home.
I'll go get that for Dr. Possum. He won't mind which one he has."
"No. I can't let you do that," spoke Mother Hubbard. "You were too
kind to be put to all that trouble. Next door to me lives Paddy
Kake, the baker-man. I'll have him bake you a cake as fast as he
can, and you can take that to Dr. Possum. How will that do?"
"Why, that will be just fine!" said Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his
pink nose at the dog, who was licking up the last of the cake crumbs
with his red tongue.
So Mother Hubbard went next door, where lived Paddy Kake, the baker.
And she said to him:
"Paddy Kake, Paddy Kake, baker-man,
Bake me a cake as fast as you can.
Into it please put a raisin and plum,
And mark it with D. P. for Dr. Possum."
"I will," said Paddy Kake. "I'll do it right away."
And he did, and as soon as the cake was baked Uncle Wiggily put it
in the basket where the orange one had been, and took it to Dr.
Possum, who was very glad to get it. For the raisin and plum cake
was as good as the orange one Mother Hubbard and her dog had eaten.
So you see everything came out all right after all, and if the cork
doesn't pop out of the ink bottle and go to sleep in the middle of
the white bedspread, like our black cat, I'll tell you next about
Uncle Wiggily and Little Miss Muffet.
CHAPTER XVI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND MISS MUFFET
"Rat-a-tat-tat!" came a knock on the door of the hollow-stump
bungalow, where Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, lived
with Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper.
"Rat-a-tat-tat!"
"Come in," called Nurse Jane, who was sitting by a window, mending a
pair of Uncle Wiggily's socks, which had holes in them.
The door opened, and into the bungalow stepped a little girl. Oh,
she was such a tiny thing that she was not much larger than a doll.
"How do you do, Nurse Jane," said the little girl, making a low bow,
and shaking her curly hair.
"Why, I am very well, thank you," the muskrat lady said. "How are
you?"
"Oh, I'm very well, too, Nurse Jane."
"Ha! You seem to know me, but I am not so sure I know you," said
Uncle Wiggily's housekeeper. "Are you Little Bo Peep?"
"No, Nurse Jane," answered the little girl, with a smile.
"Are you Mistress Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?"
Nurse Jane wanted to know.
"I am not Mistress Mary," answered the little girl.
"Then who are you?" Nurse Jane asked.
"I am little Miss Muffet, if you please, and I have come to sit on a
tuffet, and eat some curds and whey. I want to see Uncle Wiggily,
too, before I go away."
"All right," spoke Nurse Jane. "I'll get you the tuffet and the
curds and whey," and she went out to the kitchen. The muskrat lady
noticed that Miss Muffet said nothing about the spider frightening
her away.
"Perhaps she doesn't like to talk about it," thought Miss Fuzzy
Wuzzy, "though it's in the Mother Goose book. Well, I'll not say
anything, either."
So she got the tuffet for little Miss Muffet; a tuffet being a sort
of baby footstool. And, indeed, the little girl had to sit on
something quite small, for her legs were very short.
"And here are your curds and whey," went on Nurse Jane, bringing in
a bowl. Curds and whey are very good to eat. They are made from
milk, sweetened, and are something like a custard in a cup.
So little Miss Muffet, sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey,
just as she ought to have done.
"And," said Nurse Jane to herself, "I do hope no spider will come
sit beside her to frighten Miss Muffet away, before Uncle Wiggily
sees her, for she is a dear little child."
Pretty soon some one was heard hopping up the front steps of the
bungalow, and Nurse Jane said:
"There is Uncle Wiggily now, I think."
"Oh, I'm glad!" exclaimed little Miss Muffet, as she handed the
muskrat lady the empty bowl of curds and whey. "I want to see him
very specially."
In came hopping the nice old rabbit gentleman, and he knew Little
Miss Muffet right away, and was very glad to see her.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" cried the little girl. "I have been waiting to
see you. I want you to do me a very special extra favor; will you?"
"Why, of course, if I can," answered the bunny uncle, with a polite
bow. "I am always glad to do favors."
"You can easily do this one," said Little Miss Muffet. "I want you
to come----"
And just then Uncle Wiggily saw a big spider crawling over the floor
toward the little girl, who was still on her tuffet, having finished
her curds and whey.
"And if she sees that spider, sit down beside her, it surely will
frighten her away," thought Uncle Wiggily, "and I will not be able
to find out what she wants me to do for her. Let me see, she hasn't
yet noticed the spider. I wonder if I could get her out of the room
while I asked the spider to kindly not to do any frightening, at
least for a while?"
So Uncle Wiggily, who was quite worried, sort of waved his paw
sideways at the spider, and twinkled his pink nose and said "Ahem!"
which meant that the spider was to keep on crawling, and not go near
Miss Muffet. Uncle Wiggily himself was not afraid of spiders.
"Yes, Uncle Wiggily," went on little Miss Muffet, who had not yet
seen the spider. "I want you to come to----" and then she saw the
rabbit gentleman making funny noses behind her back, and waving his
paw at something, and Miss Muffet cried:
"Why, what in the world is the matter, Uncle Wiggily? Have you hurt
yourself?"
"No, no," the rabbit gentleman quickly exclaimed. "It's the spider.
She's crawling toward you, and I don't want her to sit down beside
you, and frighten you away."
Little Miss Muffet laughed a jolly laugh.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" she cried. "I'm not at all afraid of spiders!
I'd let a dozen of them sit beside me if they wanted to, for I know
they will not harm me, if I do not harm them. And besides, I knew
this spider was coming all the while."
"You did?" cried Nurse Jane, surprised like.
"To be sure I did. She is Mrs. Spin-Spider, and she has come to
measure me for a new cobweb silk dress; haven't you, Mrs.
Spin-Spider?"
"Yes, child, I have," answered the lady spider. "No one need be
afraid of me."
"I'm not," Uncle Wiggily said, "only I did not want you to frighten
Miss Muffet away before she had her curds and whey."
"Oh, I had them," the little girl said. "Nurse Jane gave them to me
before you came in, Uncle Wiggily. But now let me tell you what I
came for, and then Mrs. Spin-Spider can measure me for a new dress.
I came to ask if you would do me the favor to come to my birthday
party next week. Will you?"
"Of course I will!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I'll be delighted."
"Good!" laughed Little Miss Muffet. Then along came Mrs.
Spin-Spider, and sat down beside her and did not frighten the little
girl away, but, instead, measured her for a new dress.
So from this we may learn that cobwebs are good for something else
than catching flies, and in the next chapter, if the piano doesn't
come upstairs to lie down on the brass bed so the pillow has to go
down in the coal bin to sleep, I'll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and
the first little kitten.
CHAPTER XVII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE FIRST KITTEN
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old rabbit gentleman, was asleep in
his easy chair by the fire which burned brightly on the hearth in
his hollow-stump bungalow. Mr. Longears was dreaming that he had
just eaten a piece of cherry pie for lunch, and that the cherry pits
were dropping on the floor with a "rat-a-tat-tat!" when he suddenly
awakened and heard some one knocking on the front door.
"Ha! Who is there? Come in!" cried the rabbit gentleman, hardly
awake yet. Then he happened to think:
"I hope it isn't the bad fox, or the skillery-scalery alligator,
whom I have invited in. I ought not to have been so quick."
But it was none of these unpleasant creatures who had knocked on
Uncle Wiggily's door. It was Mrs. Purr, the nice cat lady, and when
the rabbit gentleman had let her in she looked so sad and sorrowful
that he said:
"What is the matter, Mrs. Purr? Has anything happened?"
"Indeed there has, Mr. Longears," the cat lady answered. "You know
my three little kittens, don't you?"
"Why, yes, I know them," replied the bunny uncle. "They are Fuzzo,
Muzzo and Wuzzo. I hope they are not ill?"
"No, they are not ill," said the cat lady, mewing sadly, "but they
have run away, and I came to see if you would help me get them
back."
"Run away! Your dear little kittens!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "You
don't mean it! How did it happen?"
"Well, you know my little kittens had each a new pair of mittens,"
said Mrs. Purr.
"Yes, I read about that in the Mother Goose book," said the rabbit
gentleman. "It must be nice to have new mittens."
"My little kittens thought so," went on Mrs. Purr. "Their
grandmother, Pussy Cat Mole, knitted them."
"I have met Pussy Cat Mole," said Uncle Wiggily. "After she jumped
over a coal, and in her best petticoat burned a great hole, I helped
her mend it so she could go to the party."
"I heard about that; it was very good of you," mewed Mrs. Purr. "But
about my little kittens, when they got their mittens, what do you
think they did?"
"Why, I suppose they went out and played in the snow," Uncle Wiggily
said. "I know that is what I would have done, when I was a little
rabbit, if I had had a new pair of mittens."
"I only wish they had done that," Mrs. Purr said. "But, instead,
they went and ate some cherry pie. The red pie-juice got all over
their new mittens, and when they saw it they became afraid I would
scold them, and they ran away. I was not home when they ate the pie
and soiled their mittens, but the cat lady who lives next door told
me.
"Now I want to know if you will try to find my three little kittens
for me; Fuzzo, Wuzzo and Muzzo? I want them to come home so badly!"
"I'll go look for them," promised the old rabbit gentleman. So
taking his red, white and blue rheumatism crutch, off he started
over the fields and through the woods. Mrs. Purr went back home to
get supper, in case her kittens, with their pie-soiled mittens,
should come back by themselves before Uncle Wiggily found them.
On and on went the old rabbit gentleman. He looked on all sides and
through the middle for any signs of the lost kittens, but he saw
none for quite a while. Then, all at once, he heard a mewing sound
over in the bushes, and he said:
"Ha! There is the first little kitten!" And there, surely enough she
was--Fuzzo!
"Oh, dear!" Fuzzo was saying, "I don't believe I'll ever get them
clean!"
"What's the matter now?" asked the rabbit gentleman, though he knew
quite well what it was, and only pretended he did not. "Who are you
and what is the matter?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm in such trouble," said the first little kitten. "My sisters
and I ate some pie in our new mittens. We soiled them badly with the
red pie-juice. Weren't we naughty kittens?"
"Well, perhaps just a little bit naughty," Uncle Wiggily said. "But
you should not have run away from your mamma. She feels very badly.
Where are Muzzo and Wuzzo?"
"I don't know!" answered Fuzzo. "They ran one way and I ran another.
I'm trying to get the pie-juice out of my mittens, but I can't seem
to do it."
"How did you try?" Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.
[Illustration: "Weren't we naughty kittens?"]
"I am rubbing my mittens up and down on the rough bark of trees and
on stones," answered Fuzzo. "I thought that would take the pie
stains out, but it doesn't."
"Of course not!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "Now you come with me. I am
going to take you home. Your mother sent me to look for you."
"Oh, but I'm afraid to go home," mewed Fuzzo. "My mother will scold
me for soiling my nice, new mittens. It says so in the book."
"No, she won't!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "You just leave it to me.
But first you come to my hollow-stump bungalow."
So Fuzzo, the first little kitten, put one paw in Uncle Wiggily's,
and carrying her mittens in the other, along they went together.
"Where are you, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy?" called the rabbit
gentleman, when they reached his hollow-stump bungalow. "I want you
to make some nice, hot, soapy suds and water, and wash this first
little kitten's mittens. Then they will be clean, and she can take
them home with her."
So the muskrat lady made some nice, hot, soap-bubbily suds and in
them she washed the kitten's mittens. Then, when they were dry,
Uncle Wiggily took the mittens, and also Fuzzo to Mrs. Purr's house.
"Oh, how glad I am to have you back!" cried the cat mother. "I
wouldn't have scolded you, Fuzzo, for soiling your mittens. You must
not be afraid any more."
"I won't," promised the first little kitten, showing her nice, clean
mittens.
And then Uncle Wiggily said he would go find the other two lost baby
cats. And so, if the milkman doesn't put goldfish in the ink bottle,
to make the puppy dog laugh when he goes to bed, I'll tell you next
about Uncle Wiggily and the second kittie.
CHAPTER XVIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SECOND KITTEN
"Well, where are you going now, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane
Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, of the rabbit gentleman,
one day as she saw him starting out of his hollow-stump bungalow,
after he had found the first of the little kittens who had soiled
their mittens.
"I am going to look for the second little lost kitten," replied the
bunny uncle, "though where she may be I don't know. Her name is
Muzzo."
"Why, her name is almost like mine, isn't it?" asked Nurse Jane
Fuzzy Wuzzy.
"A little like it," said Uncle Wiggily. "Poor little Muzzo! She and
the other two kittens ran off after they had soiled their mittens,
eating cherry pie when their mother, Mrs. Purr, was not at home."
"It is very good of you to go looking for them," said Nurse Jane.
"Oh, I just love to do things like that," spoke the rabbit
gentleman. "Well, good-by. I'll see if I can't find the second
kitten now."
Away started the rabbit gentleman, over the fields and through the
woods, looking on all sides for the second lost kitten, whose name
was Muzzo.
"Where are you, kittie?" called Uncle Wiggily. "Where are you,
Muzzo? Come to me! Never mind if your mittens are soiled by
cherry-pie-juice. I'll find a way to clean them."
But no Muzzo answered. Uncle Wiggily looked everywhere, under bushes
and in the tree tops; for sometimes kitty cats climb trees, you
know; but no Muzzo could he find. Then Uncle Wiggily walked a little
farther, and he saw Billie Wagtail, the goat boy, butting his head
in a snow-bank.
"What are you doing, Billie?" asked the rabbit gentleman.
"Oh, just having some fun," answered Billie, standing up on his hind
legs.
"You haven't seen a little lost kitten, with cherry-pie-juice on her
new mittens, have you?" asked the rabbit gentleman.
"No, I am sorry to say I have not," said Billie, politely. "Did you
lose one?"
"No, she lost herself," said Uncle Wiggily, and he told about Muzzo.
"I'll help you look for her," offered the goat boy, so he and Uncle
Wiggily started off together to try to find poor little lost Muzzo,
and bring her home to her mother, Mrs. Purr.
Pretty soon, as the rabbit gentleman and the goat boy were walking
along they heard a little mewing cry behind a pile of snow, and
Uncle Wiggily said:
"That sounds like Muzzo now."
"Perhaps it is. Let's look," said Billie Wagtail.
He and the bunny uncle looked over the pile of snow, and there,
surely enough, they saw a little white pussy cat sitting on a stone,
looking at her mittens, which were all covered with red pie-juice.
"Oh, dear!" the little pussy was saying. "I don't know how to get
them clean! What shall I do? I can't go home with my mittens all
soiled, or my mamma will whip me."
Of course, Mrs. Purr, the cat lady, would not do anything like that,
but Muzzo thought she would.
"What are you trying to do to clean your mittens, Muzzo?" asked
Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, how you surprised me!" exclaimed the second little lost kitten.
"I did not know you were here."
"Billie Wagtail and I came to look for you," said Uncle Wiggily.
"But what about your mittens?"
"Oh, I have been dipping them in snow, trying to clean them," said
Muzzo. "Only the pie-juice will not come out."
"Of course not," spoke Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh. "It needs hot
soap-suds and water to clean them. You come home to my bungalow and
we will get some."
"Oh, I am so cold and tired I can't go another step," said the
second little kitten, who had run away from home after she soiled
her mittens. "I just can't."
"Well, then, I don't know how you are going to get your mittens
washed, out here in the cold and snow," said the rabbit gentleman.
"Ha! I know a way!" said Billie Wagtail, the goat boy.
"How?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"I'll get an empty tomato can," spoke Billie. "I know where there is
one, for I was eating the paper off it, to get the paste, just
before you came along."
Goats like to eat paper off tomato cans, you know, because the paper
is stuck on with sweet paste, and that is as good to goat children
as candy is to you.
"I'll go get the tomato can," said Billie, "and you can make a fire,
Uncle Wiggily."
"And then what?" asked the rabbit gentleman.
"Then we will melt some snow, and make some hot water," went on
Billie. "I have a cake of soap in my pocket, that I just bought at
the store for my mother.
"With the hot water in the can, and the soap, we can make a suds,
and wash Muzzo's mittens out here as well as at your bungalow."
"So we can, Billie!" cried the bunny uncle. "You go get the empty
tomato tin and I'll make the fire. You needn't try to wash your
soiled mittens in the snow any more, Muzzo," he said to the second
lost kittie. "We will do it for you, in soapy water, which is
better."
Soon Uncle Wiggily made a fire. Back came Billie Wagtail with the
tomato can. Some snow was put in it, and it was set over the blaze.
Soon the snow melted into water, and then when the water was hot
Uncle Wiggily made a soapy suds as Nurse Jane had done.
"Now I can wash my mittens!" cried Muzzo, and she did. And when they
were nice and clean she went home with them, and oh! how glad her
mother was to see her!
"Never run away again, Muzzo," said the cat lady.
"I won't," promised the kitten. "But where is Wuzzo?"
"She is still lost," said Mrs. Purr.
"But I will go find her, too," said Uncle Wiggily.
And if the apple pie doesn't go out snowballing with the piece of
cheese, and forget to come back to dinner, I'll tell you next about
Uncle Wiggily and the third little kitten.
CHAPTER XIX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE THIRD KITTEN
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, came walking
slowly up the front path that led to his hollow-stump bungalow. He
was limping a little on his red, white and blue striped barber-pole
rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady
housekeeper, had gnawed for him out of a corn-stalk.
"Well, I'm glad to be home again," said the rabbit uncle, sitting
down on the front porch to rest a minute. And just then the door in
the hollow stump opened, and Nurse Jane, looking out, said:
"Oh, here he is now, Mrs. Purr."
With that a cat lady came to the door and she said:
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! I thought you never would come back. Did you
find her?"
"Find who?" asked the rabbit gentleman. "I was not looking for any
one. I have just been down to Lincoln Park to see some squirrels who
live in a hollow tree. They are second cousins to Johnnie and Billie
Bushytail, the squirrels who live in our woods. I had a nice visit
with them."
"Then you didn't find Wuzzo, my third little lost kitten, did you?"
asked Mrs. Purr, the cat mother.
"What! Is Wuzzo still lost?" asked the bunny uncle, in great
surprise. "I thought she had come home."
"No, she hasn't," said Mrs. Purr. "You know you found my other
kittens, Fuzzo and Muzzo, for me, but Wuzzo, the third little
kitten, is still lost. She has been away all night, and I came over
here the first thing this morning to see if you would not kindly go
look for her. But you had already left and I have been waiting here
ever since for you to come back."
"Yes, I stayed longer with the park squirrels than I meant to," said
Uncle Wiggily. "But now I am back I will start off and try to find
Wuzzo. It's too bad your three little kittens ran away."
They had, you know, as I told you in the two stories before this
one. The three little kittens ate cherry pie with their new mittens
on. And they soiled their mittens. Then they were so afraid their
mother, Mrs. Purr, would scold them that they all ran away.
But Mrs. Purr was a kind cat, and would not have scolded at all. And
when she found her little kittens were gone she asked Uncle Wiggily
to find them.
"And you did find the first two, Fuzzo and Muzzo," said the cat
lady. "So I am sure you can find the third one, Wuzzo."
"I hope I can," Uncle Wiggily said. "I remember now I started off to
find her, but my rheumatism hurt me so I had to come back to my
bungalow. Then I forgot all about Wuzzo. But I'm all right now, and
I'll start off."
So away over the fields and through the woods went Uncle Wiggily,
looking for the third little lost kitten. When he had found the two
others he had helped them wash the pie-juice off their mittens, so
they were nice and clean. And then the kittens were not afraid to go
home.
Uncle Wiggily looked all over for the third little kitten, under
bushes, up in trees (for cats climb trees, you know), and even
behind big rocks Uncle Wiggily looked. But no Wuzzo could he find.
At last, when the rabbit gentleman came to a big hollow log that was
lying on the ground, he sat down on it to rest, and, all of a
sudden, he heard a voice inside the log speaking. And the voice
asked:
"Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?"
"I've been to London to see the Queen," answered another voice.
"Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you do there?"
"I frightened a little mouse, under her chair," came the answer, and
this time it was a little pussy cat kitten speaking, Uncle Wiggily
was certain.
The old rabbit gentleman looked in one end of the hollow log, and
there surely enough, he saw Wuzzo, the third lost kitten.
And besides Wuzzo, Uncle Wiggily saw Neddie Stubtail, the little
bear boy, who always slept in a hollow log all Winter. But this time
Neddie was awake, for it was near Spring.
"Wuzzo, Wuzzo! Is that you? What are you doing there?" asked Uncle
Wiggily. "Don't you know your poor mother is looking all over for
you, and that she has sent me to find you? Why don't you come home?"
"I--I'm afraid to," said Wuzzo, crawling out of the hollow log, and
Neddie, the boy bear also crawled out, saying:
"Hello, Uncle Wiggily!"
"How do you do, Neddie," spoke the bunny uncle. "How long has Wuzzo
been staying with you?"
"She just ran in my hollow log," said the little bear chap, "and her
tail, brushing against my nose, tickled me so that I sneezed and
awakened from my Winter sleep."
"Where have you been all night, since you ran away, Wuzzo?" asked
Uncle Wiggily.
"Well," answered the third little kitten. "After Fuzzo, Muzzo and I
soiled our mittens with cherry pie we all ran away."
"Yes, I know that part," spoke the bunny uncle. "It was not right to
do, but I have found the two other lost kitties. I couldn't find
you, though. Why was that?"
"Because I met Mother Goose," said Wuzzo, "and she asked me to go to
London to see the Queen. She took me through the air on the back of
her big gander, and we flew as quickly as you could have gone in
your airship."
"You went to London to see the Queen!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, in
surprise. "Well, well! What did you do there?"
"I frightened a little mouse under her chair, just as Mother Goose
wanted me to do," said Wuzzo. "Then the big gander flew with me to
these woods and went back to get Mother Goose, who stayed to talk
with the Queen. So here I am, but I don't know the way home."
"Oh, I'll take you home all right," said Uncle Wiggily. "But first
we must wash your mittens."
"Oh, I did that for her, in the log," said Neddie Stubtail,
laughing. "With my red tongue I licked off all the sweet
cherry-pie-juice, which I liked very much. So, now the mittens are
clean."
"Good!" cried the bunny uncle. "Now we will go to your mother,
Wuzzo. She will be glad to know that you frightened a little mouse
under the Queen's chair."
So Uncle Wiggily took the third little kitten home, and thus they
were all found. And if the cat on our roof doesn't jump down the
chimney, and scare the lemon pie so it turns into an apple dumpling,
I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Jack horse.
CHAPTER XX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE JACK HORSE
"Well, where are you going to-day, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane
Fuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit gentleman
putting on his tall silk hat, and taking his red, white and blue
striped rheumatism crutch down off the mantel.
"I am going over to see Nannie and Billy Wagtail, the goat
children," answered the bunny uncle. "I have not seen them in a long
while."
"But they'll be at school," said Nurse Jane.
"I'll wait until they come home, then," said Uncle Wiggily. "And
while I'm waiting I'll talk to Uncle Butter, the nice old gentleman
goat."
So off started Uncle Wiggily over the fields and through the woods.
Pretty soon he came to the house where the family of Wagtail goats
lived. They were given that name because they wagged their little
short tails so very fast, sometimes up and down, and again sideways.
"Why, how do you do, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Mrs. Wagtail, as she
opened the door for the rabbit gentleman. "Come and sit down."
"Thank you," he answered. "I called to see Nannie and Billie. But I
suppose they are at school."
"Yes, they are studying their lessons."
"Well, I'll come in then, and talk to Uncle Butter, for I suppose
you are busy."
"Yes, I am, but not too busy to talk to you, Mr. Longears," said the
goat lady. "Uncle Butter is away, pasting up some circus posters on
the billboard, and I wish he'd come back, for I want him to go to
the store for me."
"Couldn't I go?" asked Uncle Wiggily, politely. "I have nothing
special to do, and I often go to the store for Nurse Jane. I'd like
to go for you."
"Very well, you may," said Mrs. Wagtail. "I want for supper some
papers off a tomato can, and a few more off a can of corn, and here
is a basket to put them in. And you might bring a bit of brown
paper, so I can make soup of it."
"I will," said Uncle Wiggily, starting off with the basket on his
paw. Goats, you know, like the papers that come off cans, as the
papers have sweet paste on them. And they also like brown grocery
paper itself, for it has straw in it, and goats like straw. Of
course, goats eat other things besides paper, though.
Uncle Wiggily was going carefully along, for there was ice and snow
on the ground, and it was slippery, and he did not want to fall.
Soon he was at the paper store, where he bought what Mrs. Wagtail
wanted.
And on the way back to the goat lady's house something happened to
the old rabbit gentleman. As he stepped over a big icicle he put his
foot down on a slippery snowball some little animal chap had left on
the path, and, all of a sudden, bango! down went Uncle Wiggily,
basket of paper, rheumatism crutch and all.
"Ouch!" cried the rabbit gentleman, "I fear something is broken,"
for he heard a cracking sound as he fell.
He looked at his paws and legs and felt of his big ears. They seemed
all right. Then he looked at the basket of paper. That was crumpled
up, but not broken, and the bunny uncle's tall silk hat, while it
had a few dents in, was not smashed.
"Oh, dear! It's my rheumatism crutch," cried Uncle Wiggily. "It's
broken in two, and how am I ever going to walk without it this
slippery day I don't see. Oh, my goodness me sakes alive and some
bang-bang tooth powder!"
Carefully the rabbit gentleman arose, but as he had no red, white
and blue striped crutch to lean on, he nearly fell again.
"I guess I'd better stay sitting down," thought Uncle Wiggily.
"Perhaps some one may come along, and I can ask them go get Nurse
Jane to gnaw for me another rheumatism crutch out of a corn-stalk.
I'll wait here until help comes."
Uncle Wiggily waited quite a while, but no one passed by.
"It will soon be time for Billie and Nannie Wagtail to pass by on
their way from school," thought the bunny uncle. "I could send them
for another crutch, I suppose."
So he waited a little longer, and then, as no one came, he tried to
walk with his broken crutch. But he could not. Then Uncle Wiggily
cried:
"Help! Help! Help!" but still no one came. "Oh, dear!" said the
rabbit gentleman, "if only Mother Goose would fly past, riding on
the back of her gander, she might take me home." He looked up, but
Mother Goose was not sweeping cobwebs out of the sky that day, so he
did not see her.
Then, all of a sudden, as the rabbit gentleman sat there, wondering
how he was going to walk on the slippery ice and snow without his
crutch to help him, he heard a jolly voice singing:
"Ride a Jack horse to Banbury Cross,
To see an old lady jump on a white horse.
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
She shall have music wherever she goes."
And with that along through the woods came riding a nice, old lady
on a rocking-horse. And on the side of the rocking-horse was painted
in red ink the name:
JACK
"Why, hello, Uncle Wiggily!" called the nice old lady, shaking her
toes and making the bells jingle a pretty tune. "What is the matter
with you?" she asked.
"Oh, I am in such trouble," replied the bunny uncle. "I fell down on
a slippery snowball, and broke my crutch. Without it I cannot walk,
and I want to take these papers to Mrs. Wagtail, the goat lady, to
eat."
"Ha! If that is all your trouble I can soon fix matters!" cried the
jolly old lady. "Here, get up beside me on my Jack horse, and I'll
ride you to Mrs. Wagtail's, and then take you home to your
hollow-stump bungalow."
"Oh, will you? How kind!" said Uncle Wiggily. "Thank you! But have
you the time?"
"Lots of time," laughed the old lady. "It doesn't really matter when
I get to Banbury Cross. Come on!"
Uncle Wiggily got up on the back of the Jack horse, behind the old
lady. She tinkled the rings on her fingers and jingled the bells on
her toes, and so, of course, she'll have music wherever she goes.
"Just as the Mother Goose books says," spoke the bunny uncle. "Oh,
I'm glad you came along."
"So am I," said the nice old lady. Then she took Uncle Wiggily to
the Wagtail house, where he left the basket of papers, and next he
rode on the Jack horse to his bungalow, and, after the bunny uncle
had thanked the old lady, she, herself, rode on to Banbury Cross, to
see another old lady jump on a white horse. And very nicely she did
it too, let me tell you.
So everything came out all right, and in the next chapter, if the
apple pie doesn't turn a somersault and crack its crust so the juice
runs out, I'll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the clock-mouse.
CHAPTER XXI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CLOCK-MOUSE
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old rabbit gentleman, sat in an
easy chair in his hollow-stump bungalow. He had just eaten a nice
lunch, which Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper,
had put on the table for him, and he was feeling a bit sleepy.
"Are you going out this afternoon?" asked Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, as she
cleared away the dishes.
"Hum! Ho! Well, I hardly know," Uncle Wiggily answered, in a sleepy
voice. "I may, after I have a little nap."
"Your new red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch is ready for
you," went on Nurse Jane. "I gnawed it for you out of a fine large
corn-stalk."
Uncle Wiggily had broken his other crutch, if you will kindly
remember, when he slipped as he was coming back from the store,
where he went for Mrs. Wagtail, the goat lady. And it was so
slippery that the rabbit gentleman never would have gotten home,
only he rode on a Jack horse with the lady, who had rings on her
fingers and bells on her toes, as I told you in the story before
this one.
"Thank you for making me a new crutch, Nurse Jane," spoke the bunny
uncle. "If I go out I'll take it."
Then he went to sleep in his easy chair, but he was suddenly
awakened by hearing the bungalow clock strike one. Then, as he sat
up and rubbed his eyes with his paws, Uncle Wiggily heard a thumping
noise on the hall floor and a little voice squeaked out:
"Ouch! I've hurt my leg! Oh, dear!"
"My! I wonder what that can be? It seemed to come out of my clock,"
spoke Mr. Longears.
"I did come out of your clock," said some one.
"You did? Who are you, if you please?" asked the bunny uncle,
looking all around. "I can't see you."
"That's because I'm so small," was the answer. "But here I am, right
by the table. I can't walk as my leg is hurt."
Uncle Wiggily looked, and saw a little mouse, who was holding his
left hind leg in his right front paw.
"Who are you?" asked the bunny uncle.
"I am Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse," was the answer. "And I am a
clock-mouse."
"A clock-mouse!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, in surprise. "I never
heard of such a thing."
"Oh, don't you remember me? I'm in Mother Goose's book. This is how
it goes:
"'Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
And down he come,
Hickory Dickory Dock!'"
"Oh, now I remember you," said Uncle Wiggily. "And so you are a
clock-mouse."
"Yes, I ran up your clock, and then when the clock struck one, down
I had to come. But I ran down so fast that I tripped over the
pendulum. The clock reached down its hands and tried to catch me,
but it had no eyes in its face to see me, so I slipped, anyhow, and
I hurt my leg."
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," said Uncle Wiggily. "Perhaps I can fix
it for you. Nurse Jane, bring me some salve for Hickory Dickory
Dock, the clock-mouse," he called.
The muskrat lady brought some salve, and, with a rag, Uncle Wiggily
bound up the leg of the clock-mouse so it did not hurt so much.
"And I'll lend you a piece of my old crutch, so you can hobble along
on it," said Uncle Wiggily.
"Thank you," spoke Hickory Dickory Dock, the clock-mouse. "You have
been very kind to me, and some day, I hope, I may do you a favor. If
I can I will."
"Thank you," Uncle Wiggily said. Then Hickory Dickory Dock limped
away, but in a few days he was better, and he could run up more
clocks, and run down when they struck one.
It was about a week after this that Uncle Wiggily went walking
through the woods on his way to see Grandfather Goosey Gander. And
just before he reached his friend's house he met Mother Goose.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily," she said, swinging her cobweb broom up and
down, "I want to thank you for being so kind to Hickory Dickory
Dock, the clock-mouse."
"It was a pleasure to be kind to him," said Uncle Wiggily. "Is he
all better now?"
"Yes, he is all well again," replied Mother Goose. "He is coming to
run up and down your clock again soon."
"I'll be glad to see him," said Uncle Wiggily. Then he went to call
on Grandpa Goosey, and he told about Hickory Dickory Dock, falling
down from out the clock.
On his way back to his hollow-stump bungalow, Uncle Wiggily took a
short cut through the woods. And, as he was passing along, his paw
slipped and he became all tangled up in a wild grape vine, which was
like a lot of ropes, all twisted together into hard knots.
"Oh, dear!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I'm caught!" The more he tried to
untangle himself the tighter he was held fast, until it seemed he
would never get out.
"Oh!" cried the rabbit gentleman. "This is terrible. Will no one
come to get me out? Help! Help! Will some one please help me?"
"Yes, I will help you, Uncle Wiggily," answered a kind, little
squeaking voice.
"Who are you?" asked the rabbit gentleman, moving a piece of the
grape vine away from his nose, so he could speak plainly.
"I am Hickory Dickory Dock, the clock-mouse," was the answer, "and
with my sharp teeth I will gnaw the grape vine in many pieces so you
will be free."
"That will be very kind of you," said Uncle Wiggily, who was quite
tired out with his struggles to get loose.
So Hickory Dickory Dock, with his sharp teeth, gnawed the grape
vine, and, in a little while, Uncle Wiggily was loose and all right
again.
"Thank you," said the bunny uncle to the clock-mouse, as he hopped
off, and Hickory Dickory Dock went with him, for his leg was all
better now. "Thank you very much, nice little clock-mouse."
"You did me a favor," said Hickory Dickory Dock, "and now I have
done you one, so we are even." And that's a good way to be in this
world. So, if the ink bottle doesn't turn pale when it sees the
fountain pen jump in the goldfish bowl and swim I'll tell you next
about Uncle Wiggily and the late scholar.
CHAPTER XXII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LATE SCHOLAR
"Heigh-ho!" cried Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman,
one morning, as he hopped from bed and went to the window of his
hollow-stump bungalow to look out. "Heigh-ho! It will soon be
Spring, I hope, for I am tired of Winter."
Then he went down-stairs, where Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat
lady housekeeper, had his breakfast ready on the table.
Uncle Wiggily ate some cabbage pancakes with carrot maple sugar
sprinkled over them, and then as he wiped his whiskers on his red
tongue, which he used for a napkin, and as he twinkled his pink nose
to see if it was all right, Nurse Jane said:
"Yesterday, Uncle Wiggily, you told me you would like me to make
some lettuce cakes today; did you not?"
"I did," answered Uncle Wiggily, sort of slow and solemn like. "But
what is the matter, Nurse Jane? I hope you are not going to tell me
that you cannot, or will not, make those lettuce cakes."
"Oh, I'll make them, all right enough, Wiggy," the muskrat lady
answered, "only I have no lettuce. You will have to go to the store
for me."
"And right gladly will I go!" exclaimed the bunny uncle, speaking
like some one in an old-fashioned story book. "I'll get my
automobile out and go at once."
Uncle Wiggily had not used his machine often that Winter, as there
had been so much snow and ice. But now it was getting close to
Spring and the weather was very nice. There was no snow in the woods
and fields, though, of course, some might fall later.
"It will do my auto good to have me ride in it," said the bunny
uncle. He blew some hot air in the bologna sausage tires, put some
talcum powder on the steering-wheel so it would not catch cold, and
then, having tickled the whizzicum-whazzicum with a goose feather,
away he started for the lettuce store.
It did not take him long to get there, and, having bought a nice
head of the green stuff, the bunny uncle started back again for his
hollow-stump bungalow.
"Nurse Jane will make some fine lettuce cakes, with clover ice cream
cones on top," he said to himself, as he hurried along in his
automobile.
He had not gone very far, and he was about halfway home, when from
behind a bush he heard the sound of crying. Now, whenever Uncle
Wiggily heard any one crying he knew some one was in trouble, and as
he always tried to help those in trouble, he did it this time.
Stopping his automobile, he called:
"Who are you, and what is the matter? Perhaps I can help you."
Out from behind the bush came a boy, a nice sort of boy, except that
he was crying.
"Oh, are you Simple Simon?" asked Uncle Wiggily, "and are you crying
because you cannot catch a whale in your mother's water pail?"
"No; I am not Simple Simon," was the answer of the boy.
"Well, you cannot be Jack Horner, because you have no pie with you,
and you're not Little Boy Blue, because I see you wear a red
necktie," went on the bunny uncle. "Do you belong to Mother Goose at
all?"
[Illustration]
"Yes," answered the boy. "I do. You must have heard about me. I am
Diller-a-Dollar, a ten o'clock scholar, why do you come so soon? I
used to come at ten o'clock, but now I'll come at noon. Don't you
know me?"
"Ha! Why, of course, I know you!" cried Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly
voice, as he put some lollypop oil on the doodle-oodleum of his
auto. "But, why are you crying?"
"Because I'm going to be late at school again," said the boy. "You
see of late I have been late a good many mornings, but this morning
I got up early, and was sure I would get there before noon."
"And so you will, if you hurry," Uncle Wiggily said, looking at his
watch, that was a cousin to the clock, up which, and down which, ran
Hickory Dickory Dock, the mouse. "It isn't anywhere near noon yet,"
went on the rabbit gentleman. "You can almost get to school on time
this morning."
"I suppose I could," said the boy, "and I got up early on purpose to
do that. But now I have lost my way, and I don't know where the
school is. Oh, dear! Boo hoo! I'll never get to school this week, I
fear."
"Oh, yes, you will!" said Uncle Wiggily, still more kindly. "I'll
tell you what to do. Hop up in the automobile here with me, and I'll
take you to the school. I know just where it is. Sammie and Susie
Littletail, my rabbit friends, and Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the
squirrels, as well as Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goats, go
there. Hop in!"
So Diller-a-Dollar, the late scholar, hopped in the auto, and he and
Uncle Wiggily started off together.
"You'll not be late this morning," said the bunny uncle. "I'll get
you there just about nine o'clock."
Well, Uncle Wiggily meant to do it, and he might have, only for what
happened. First a hungry dog bit a piece out of one of the bologna
sausage tires on the auto wheels, and they had to go slower. Then a
hungry cat took another piece and they had to go still more slowly.
A little farther on the tinkerum-tankerum of the automobile, which
drinks gasolene, grew thirsty and Uncle Wiggily had to give it a
glass of lemonade. This took more time.
And finally when the machine went over a bump the cork came out of
the box of talcum powder and it flew in the face of Uncle Wiggily
and the late scholar and they both sneezed so hard that the auto
stopped.
"See! I told you we'd never get to school," sadly said the boy. "Oh,
dear! And I thought this time teacher would not laugh, and ask me
why I came so soon, when I was really late."
"It's too bad!" Uncle Wiggily said. "I did hope I could get you
there on time. But wait a minute. Let me think. Ha! I have it! We
are close to my bungalow. We'll run there and get in my airship.
That goes ever so much faster than my auto, and I'll have you to
school in no time."
No sooner said than done! In the airship the late scholar and Uncle
Wiggily reached school just as the nine o'clock bell was ringing,
and so Diller-a-Dollar was on time this time after all. And the
teacher said:
"Oh, Diller-a-Dollar, my ten o'clock scholar, you may stand up in
line. You used to come in very late, but now you come at nine."
So the late scholar was not late after all, thanks to Uncle Wiggily,
and if the egg beater doesn't go to sleep in the rice pudding, where
it can't get out to go sleigh-riding with the potato masher, I'll
tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Baa-Baa, the black sheep.
CHAPTER XXIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BAA-BAA BLACK SHEEP
"My goodness! But it's cold to-day!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, as he came down to breakfast in
his hollow-stump bungalow one morning. "It is very cold."
"Indeed it is," said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady
housekeeper, as she put the hot buttered cabbage cakes on the table.
"If you go out you had better wear your fur coat."
"I shall," spoke the bunny uncle. "And I probably shall call on
Mother Goose. She asked me to stop in the next time I went past."
"What for?" Nurse Jane wanted to know.
"Oh, Little Jack Horner hurt his thumb the last time he pulled a
plum out of his Christmas pie, and Mother Goose wanted me to look at
it, and see if she had better call in Dr. Possum. So I'll stop and
have a look."
"Well, give her my love," said Nurse Jane, and Uncle Wiggily
promised that he would.
A little later he started off across the fields and through the
woods to the place where Mother Goose lived, not far from his own
hollow-stump bungalow. Uncle Wiggily had on his fur overcoat, for it
was cold. It had been warm the day before, when he had taken
Diller-a-Dollar, the ten o'clock scholar, to school, but now the
weather had turned cold again.
"Come in!" called Mother Goose, when Uncle Wiggily had tapped with
his paw on her door. "Come in!"
The bunny uncle went in, and looked at the thumb of Little Jack
Horner, who was playing marbles with Little Boy Blue.
"Does your thumb hurt you much, Jack?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Yes, I am sorry to say it does. I'm not going to pull any more
plums out of Christmas pies. I'm going to eat cake instead," said
Jack Horner.
"Well, I'll go get Dr. Possum for you," offered Uncle Wiggily. "I
think that will be best," he remarked to Mother Goose.
Wrapped in his warm fur overcoat, Uncle Wiggily once more started
off over the fields and through the woods. He had not gone very far
before he heard a queer sort of crying noise, like:
"Baa! Baa! Baa!"
"Ha! That sounds like a little lost lamb," said the bunny uncle,
"only there are no little lambs out this time of year. I'll take a
look. It may be some one in trouble, whom I can help."
Uncle Wiggily looked around the corner of a stone fence, and there
he saw a sheep shivering in the cold, for most of his warm, fleecy
wool had been sheared off. Oh! how the sheep shivered in the cold.
"Why, what is the matter with you?" asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
"I am c-c-c-c-cold," said the sheep, shiveringly.
"What makes you cold?" the bunny uncle wanted to know.
"Because they cut off so much of my wool. You know how it is with
me, for I am in the Mother Goose book. Listen!
"'Baa-baa, black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, sir; yes, sir; three bags full.
One for the master, one for the man,
And one for the little boy who lives in the lane.'
"That's the way I answered when they asked me if I had any wool,"
said Baa-baa.
"And what did they do?" asked the bunny uncle.
"Why they sheared off my fleece, three bags of it. I didn't mind
them taking the first bag full, for I had plenty and it was so warm
I thought Spring was coming. And it doesn't hurt to cut off my
fleecy wool, any more than it hurts to cut a boy's hair. And after
they took the first bag full of wool for the master they took a
second bag for the man. I didn't mind that, either. But when they
took the third----"
"Then they really did take three?" asked Uncle Wiggily, in surprise.
"Oh, yes, to be sure. Why it's that way in the book of Mother Goose,
you know, and they had to do just as the book says."
"I suppose so," agreed Uncle Wiggily, sadly like.
"Well, after they took the third bag of wool off my back the weather
grew colder, and I began to shiver. Oh! how cold I was; and how I
shivered and shook. Of course if the master and the man, and the
little boy who lives in the lane, had known I was going to shiver
so, they would not have taken the last bag of wool. Especially the
little boy, as he is very kind to me.
"But now it is done, and it will be a long while before my wool
grows out again. And as long as it is cold weather I will shiver, I
suppose," said Baa-baa, the black sheep.
"No, you shall not shiver!" cried Uncle Wiggily.
"How can you stop me?" asked the black sheep.
"By wrapping my old fur coat around you," said the rabbit gentleman.
"I have two fur overcoats, a new one and an old one. I am wearing
the new one. The old one is at my hollow-stump bungalow. You go
there and tell Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy to give it to you. Tell her I
said so. Or you can go there and wait for me, as I am going to get
Dr. Possum to fix the thumb of Little Jack Horner, who sat in a
corner, eating a Christmas pie."
"You are very kind," said Baa-baa. "I'll go to your bungalow and
wait there for you."
So he did, shaking and shivering all the way, but he soon became
warm when he sat by Nurse Jane's fire. And when Uncle Wiggily came
back from having sent Dr. Possum to Little Jack Horner, the rabbit
gentleman wrapped his old fur coat around Baa-baa, the black sheep,
who was soon as warm as toast.
And Baa-baa wore Uncle Wiggily's old fur coat until warm weather
came, when the sheep's wool grew out long again. So everything was
all right, you see.
And now, having learned the lesson that if you cut your hair too
short you may have to wear a fur cap to stop yourself from getting
cold, we will wait for the next story, which, if the pencil box
doesn't jump into the ink well and get a pail of glue to make the
lollypop stick fast to the roller-skates, will be about Uncle
Wiggily and Polly Flinders.
CHAPTER XXIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND POLLY FLINDERS
"There!" cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper,
who took care of the hollow-stump bungalow for Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the rabbit gentleman. "There, it is all finished at last!"
"What's all finished?" asked the bunny uncle, who was reading the
paper in his easy chair near the fire, for the weather was still
cold. "I hope you don't mean you have finished living with me, Nurse
Jane? For I would be very lonesome if you were to go away."
"Oh, don't worry, I'll not leave you, Wiggy," she said. "What I
meant was that I had finished making the new dress for Susie
Littletail, the rabbit girl."
"Good!" cried the bunny uncle. "A new dress for my little niece
Susie. That's fine! If you like, Nurse Jane, I'll take it to her."
"I wish you would," spoke the muskrat lady. "I have not time myself.
Just be careful of it. Don't let the bad fox or the skillery-scalery
alligator with humps on his ears bite holes in it."
"I won't," promised Uncle Wiggily. So taking the dress, which Nurse
Jane had sewed for Susie, over his paw, and with his tall silk hat
over his ears, and carrying his red, white and blue striped
barber-pole rheumatism crutch, off Uncle Wiggily started for the
Littletail home.
"Susie will surely like her dress," thought the rabbit gentleman.
"It has such pretty colors." For it had, being pink and blue and red
and yellow and purple and lavender and strawberry and lemon and
Orange Mountain colors. There may have been other colors in it, but
I can think of no more right away.
Uncle Wiggily was going along past Old Mother Hubbard's house, and
past the place where Mother Goose lived, when, coming to a place
near a big tree, Uncle Wiggily saw another house. And from inside
the house came a crying sound.
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?" sobbed a voice.
"Ah, ha! More trouble!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I seem to be finding
lots of people in trouble lately. Well, now to see who this is!"
Going up to the house, and peering in a window, Uncle Wiggily saw a
little girl sitting before a fireplace. And this little girl was
crying.
"Hello!" called Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice, as he opened the
window. "What is the matter? Are you Little Bo Peep, and are you
crying because you have lost your sheep?"
"No, Uncle Wiggily," answered the little girl. "I am crying because
I have spoiled my nice new dress, and when my mother comes home and
finds it out she will whip me."
"Oh, no!" cried the bunny uncle. "Your mother will never do that.
But who are you?"
"Why, don't you know? I am little Polly Flinders, I sat among the
cinders, warming my pretty little toes. 'And her mother came and
caught her, and she whipped her little daughter, for spoiling her
nice new clothes.'
"That's what it says in the Mother Goose book," said Polly Flinders,
"and, of course, that's what will happen to me. Oh, dear! I don't
want to be whipped. And I didn't really spoil quite all my nice new
clothes. It's only my dress, and some hot ashes got on that."
"Well, that isn't so bad," said Uncle Wiggily. "It may be that I can
clean it for you." But when he looked at Polly's dress he saw that
it could not be fixed, for, like Pussy Cat Mole's best petticoat,
Polly's dress had been burned through with hot coals, so that it was
full of holes.
"No, that can't be fixed, I'm sorry to say," said Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, dear!" sobbed Polly Flinders, as she sat among the cinders.
"What shall I do? I don't want to be whipped by my mother."
"And you shall not be," said the bunny uncle. "Not that I think she
would whip you, but we will not give her a chance. See here, I have
a new dress that I was taking to Susie Littletail. Nurse Jane can
easily make my little rabbit niece another.
"So you take this one, and give me your old one. And when your
mother comes she will not see the holes in your dress. Only you must
tell her what happened, or it would not be fair. Always tell mothers
and fathers everything that happens to you."
"I will," promised Polly Flinders.
She soon took off her old dress and put on the new one intended for
Susie, and it just fitted her.
"Oh, how lovely!" cried Polly Flinders, looking at her toes.
"And now," said Uncle Wiggily, "you must sit no more among the
cinders."
"I'll not," Polly promised, and she went and sat down in front of
the looking-glass, where she could look proudly at the new
dress--not too proudly, you understand, but just proud enough.
Polly thanked Uncle Wiggily, who took the old soiled and burned
dress to Susie's house. When the rabbit girl saw the bunny uncle
coming she ran to meet him, crying:
"Oh! did Nurse Jane send you with my new dress?"
"She did," answered Uncle Wiggily, "but see what happened to it on
the way," and he showed Susie the burned holes and all.
"Oh, dear!" cried the little rabbit girl, sadly. "Oh, dear!"
"Never mind," spoke Uncle Wiggily, kindly, and he told all that had
happened. It was a sort of adventure, you see.
"Oh, I'm glad you gave Polly my dress!" said Susie, clapping her
paws.
"Nurse Jane shall make you another dress," promised Uncle Wiggily,
and the muskrat lady did. And when the mother of Polly Flinders came
home she thought the new dress was just fine, and she did not whip
her little daughter. In fact, she said she would not have done so
anyhow. So that part of the Mother Goose book is wrong.
And thus everything came out all right, and if the shaving brush
doesn't whitewash the blackboard, so the chalk can't dance on it
with the pencil sharpener, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily
and the garden maid.
CHAPTER XXV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE GARDEN MAID
"Hey, ho, hum!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit
gentleman, as he stretched up his twinkling, pink nose, and reached
his paws around his back to scratch an itchy place. "Ho, hum! I
wonder what will happen to me to-day?"
"Are you going out again?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat
lady housekeeper. "It seems to me that you go out a great deal, Mr.
Longears."
"Well, yes; perhaps I do," admitted the bunny uncle. "But more
things happen to me when I go out than when I stay in the house."
"And do you like to have things happen to you?" asked Miss Fuzzy
Wuzzy.
"When they are adventures I do," answered the rabbit gentleman. "So
here I go off for an adventure."
Off started the nice, old, bunny uncle, carrying his red, white and
blue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch--over his shoulder this
time. For his pain did not hurt him much, as the sun was shining, so
he did not have to limp on the crutch, which Nurse Jane had gnawed
for him out of a corn-stalk.
Uncle Wiggily had not gone very far toward the fields and woods
before he heard Nurse Jane calling to him.
"Oh, Wiggy! Wiggy, I say! Wait a moment!"
"Yes, what is it?" asked the rabbit gentleman, turning around and
looking over his shoulder. "Have I forgotten anything?"
"No, it was I who forgot," said the muskrat lady housekeeper. "I
forgot to tell you to bring me a bottle of perfume. Mine is all
gone."
"All right, I'll bring you some," promised Mr. Longears. "It will
give me something to do--to go to the perfume store. Perhaps an
adventure may happen to me there."
Once more he was on his way, and soon he reached the perfume store,
kept by a nice buzzing bee lady, who gathered sweet smelling
perfume, as well as honey, from the flowers in Summer and put it
carefully away for the Winter.
"Some perfume for Nurse Jane, eh?" said the bee lady, as the rabbit
gentleman knocked on her hollow-tree house. "There you are, Uncle
Wiggily," and she gave him a bottle of the nice scent made from a
number of flowers.
"My! That smells lovely!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he pulled out
the cork, and took a long sniff. "Nurse Jane will surely like that
perfume!"
With the sweet scented bottle in his paw, the rabbit gentleman
started back toward his hollow-stump bungalow. He had not gone very
far before he saw a nurse maid, out in the garden, back of a big
house. There was a basket in front of the maid, with some clothes in
it, and stretched across the garden was a line, with more clothes on
it, flapping in the wind.
"Ha!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder if that garden maid,
hanging up the clothes, wouldn't like to smell Nurse Jane's perfume?
Nurse Jane will not mind, and perhaps it will be doing that maid a
kindness to let her smell something sweet, after she has been
smelling washing-soap-suds all morning."
So the bunny uncle, who was always doing kind things, hopped over to
the garden maid, and politely asked:
"Wouldn't you like to smell this perfume?" and he held out the
bottle he had bought of the bee lady.
The garden maid turned around, and said in a sad voice:
"Thank you, Uncle Wiggily. It is very kind of you, I'm sure, and I
would like to smell your perfume. But I can't."
"Why not?" asked the bunny uncle. "The cork is out of the bottle.
See!"
"That may very well be," went on the garden maid, "but the truth of
the matter is that I cannot smell, because a blackbird has nipped
off my nose."
Uncle Wiggily, in great surprise, looked, and, surely enough, a
blackbird had nipped off the nose of the garden maid.
"Bless my whiskers!" cried the bunny uncle. "What a thing for a
blackbird to do--nip off your nose! Why did he do such an impolite
thing as that?"
"Why, he had to do it, because it's that way in the Mother Goose
book," said the maid. "Don't you remember? It goes this way:
"'The King was in the parlor,
Counting out his money,
The Queen was in the kitchen,
Eating bread and honey.
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
Along came a blackbird
And nipped off her nose.'
"That's the way it was," said the garden maid.
"Oh, yes, I remember now," spoke Uncle Wiggily.
"Well, I'm the maid who was in the garden, hanging out the clothes,"
said she, "and, as you can see, along came a blackbird and nipped
off my nose. That is, you can't see the blackbird, but you can see
the place where my nose ought to be."
"Yes," answered Uncle Wiggily, "I can. It's too bad. That blackbird
ought to have his feathers ruffled."
"Oh, he didn't mean to be bad," said the garden maid. "He had to do
as it says in the book, and he had to nip off my nose. So that's why
I can't smell Nurse Jane's nice perfume."
Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute. Then he said:
"Just you wait here. I think I can fix it so you can smell as well
as ever."
Then the bunny uncle hurried off through the woods until he found
Jimmie Caw-Caw, the big black crow boy.
"Jimmie," said the bunny uncle, "will you fly off, find the
blackbird, and ask him to give back the garden maid's nose so she
can smell perfume?"
"I will," said Jimmie Caw-Caw, very politely. "I certainly will!"
Away he flew, and, after a while, in the deep, dark part of the
woods he found the blackbird, sitting on a tree.
"Please give me back the garden maid's nose," said Jimmie, politely.
"Certainly," answered the blackbird, also politely. "I only took it
off in fun. Here it is back. I'm sorry I bothered the garden maid,
but I had to, as it's that way in the Mother Goose book."
Off to Uncle Wiggily flew Jimmie, the crow boy, with the young
lady's nose, and soon Dr. Possum had fastened it back on the garden
maid's face as good as ever.
"Now you can smell the perfume," said Uncle Wiggily, and when he
held up the bottle the maid said:
"Oh, what a lovely smell!"
So the bunny uncle left a little perfume in a bottle for the garden
maid, and then she went on hanging up the clothes, and she felt very
happy because she had a nose. So you see how kind Uncle Wiggily and
Jimmie were, and Nurse Jane, too, liked the perfume very much.
So if the little girl's roller-skates don't run over the pussy's
tail and ruffle it all up so she can't go to the moving picture
party, I'll tell you next of Uncle Wiggily and the King.
CHAPTER XXVI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE KING
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old rabbit gentleman, was sitting
in an easy chair in his hollow-stump bungalow, one day, looking out
of the window at the blue sky, and he was feeling quite happy. And
why should he not be happy?
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, his muskrat lady housekeeper, had just given
him a nice breakfast of cabbage pancakes, with carrot maple sugar
tied in a bow-knot in the middle, and Uncle Wiggily had eaten nine.
Nine cakes, I mean, not nine bows.
"And now," said the bunny uncle to himself, "I think I shall go out
and take a walk. Perhaps I may have an adventure. Do you want any
perfume, or anything like that from the store?" asked Mr. Longears
of Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.
"No, thank you, I think not," answered the muskrat lady. "Just bring
yourself home, and that will be all."
"Oh, I'll do that all right," promised the bunny gentleman. So away
he hopped, over the fields and through the woods, humming to himself
a little song which went something like this:
"I'm feeling happy now and gay,
Why shouldn't I, this lovely day?
'Tis time enough to be quite sad,
When wind and rain make weather bad.
But, even then, one ought to try
To think that soon it will be dry.
So then, no matter what the weather,
Smile, as though tickled by a feather."
Uncle Wiggily felt happier than ever when he had sung this song,
but, as he went along a little further, he came, all at once, to a
very nice house indeed, out of which floated the sound of a sad
voice.
Uncle Wiggily was surprised to hear this, for the house was such a
nice one that it seemed no one ought to be unhappy who lived there.
The house was made of gold and silver, with diamond windows, and the
chimney was made of a red ruby stone, which, as every one knows, is
very expensive. But with all that the sad voice came sailing out of
one of the opened diamond windows, and the voice said:
"Oh, dear! It's gone! I can't find it! I dropped it and it rolled
down a crack in the floor. Now I'll never get it again. Oh, dear!"
"Well, that sounds like some one in trouble," said the bunny uncle.
"I must see if I cannot help them," for Uncle Wiggily helped real
folk, who lived in fine houses, as well as woodland animals, who
lived in hollow trees.
Uncle Wiggily hopped up to the open diamond window of the gold and
silver house, with the red ruby chimney, and, poking his nose
inside, the rabbit gentleman asked:
"Is there some one here in trouble whom I may have the pleasure of
helping?"
"Yes," answered a voice. "I'm here, and I'm surely in trouble."
"Who are you, and what is the trouble, if I may ask?" politely went
on Uncle Wiggily.
"I am the king," was the answer. "This is my palace, but, with all
that, I am in trouble. Come in."
In hopped Uncle Wiggily, and there, surely enough, was the king, but
he was in the kitchen, down on his hands and knees, looking with one
eye through a crack in the floor, which is something kings hardly
ever do.
"It's down there," he said. "And I can't get it. I'm too fat to go
through the crack."
"What's down there?" Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.
"My money," answered the king. "You may have heard about me," and he
recited this little verse:
"The king was in the kitchen,
Counting out his money;
The queen was in the parlor,
Eating bread and honey;
The maid was in the garden,
Hanging out the clothes,
Along came a blackbird,
Who nipped off her nose."
The fat man got up off the kitchen floor.
"I'm the king," he said, taking up his gold and diamond crown from a
kitchen chair, where he had put it as he kneeled down, so it would
not fall off and be dented. "From Mother Goose, you know; don't
you?"
"Yes, I know," answered Uncle Wiggily.
"I dare say you'll find the queen in the parlor eating bread and
honey," went on the king. "At least I saw her start for there with a
plate, knife and fork as I was coming here. And, no doubt, the maid
is in the garden, where she'll pretty soon have her nose nipped off
by a blackbird."
"That part happened yesterday," said Uncle Wiggily. "I was there
just after it happened, and I got Jimmie Caw-Caw, the crow boy, to
fly after the blackbird and bring back the maid's nose. She is as
well as ever now and can smell all kinds of perfume."
"Good!" cried the fat king. "You were very kind to help her. I only
wish you could help me. But I don't see how you can. My money, which
I was counting, fell out of my hands and dropped down a crack in the
floor. I can see it lying down there in the dirt, but I can't get at
it unless I move to one side my gold and silver palace, and I don't
want to do that. I don't suppose you can move a palace, can you?"
And he looked askingly at Uncle Wiggily.
"No, I can't do that," said the bunny uncle. "But still I think I
can get your money without moving the palace."
"How?" asked the king.
"Why, I can go outside," said Mr. Longears, "and with my strong
paws, which are just made for digging, I can burrow, or dig, a place
through the dirt under your palace-house, crawl in and get what you
dropped."
"Oh, please do!" cried the king.
So Uncle Wiggily did.
Down under the cellar wall of the palace, through the dirt, dug the
bunny gentleman, with his strong paws. Pretty soon he was right
under the kitchen, and there, just where they had dropped through
the crack, were the king's gold and silver pennies and other pieces
of money. Uncle Wiggily picked them up, put them in his pocket and
crawled out again.
"There you are, king," he said. "You have your money back."
"Oh, thank you ever so much!" cried the king. "I'll have the cook
give you some carrots." And he did, before he went on counting his
money in the kitchen. And this time he stuffed a dish-rag in the
crack so no more pennies would fall through.
"Well, Uncle Wiggily, where are you going now?" asked the King, as
he saw the bunny gentleman hopping away with the bunch of carrots.
"I hardly know that myself," answered the rabbit. "I want to have
more adventures, either with the friends of Old Mother Hubbard and
Mother Goose, or with some of the animal or birds that live in the
woods."
"I think some adventures with birds would be exciting," spoke the
King. "This blackbird who nipped off the maid's nose was a lively
sort of chap."
"He was, indeed," agreed the bunny gentleman. "I think I should like
some adventures with my feathered friends who fly in the air. When I
come back I'll tell you about them, Mr. King."
"Please do," begged the gentleman with the gold and diamond crown.
And so, as long as the rabbit wishes it, and if the condensed milk
doesn't jump out of the molasses jug and scare the coffee pot so
that it drinks tea, I shall make the next book "Uncle Wiggily and
the Birds," and I hope you will like it.
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