Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty

STORY III UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S RIDE

Out in front of the hollow stump bungalow sat Uncle Wiggily’s automobile. He had put on it a new turnip steering wheel, and he was thinking of going for a ride, when Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy came out on the front stoop and said:

“Here’s the pepper caster, Mr. Longears.”

“Pepper caster? What do I want of that when I’m going for a ride in my auto?” asked the bunny, in surprise. “I don’t need it!”

“Why, yes, you do,” spoke Nurse Jane. “Don’t you remember? You always sprinkle pepper on the sausage tires of your auto, when you want to go fast. And you might want to go fast today.”

“So I might,” said Uncle Wiggily, reflective like, and slow. “So I might. Thank you, Nurse Jane.”

The bunny rabbit gentleman took the pepper caster from the muskrat lady, but still he did not get in his auto and take a ride. Instead he sat down on a bench in front of his bungalow, 20and he let the sun shine through his whiskers and on his pink, twinkling nose.

“I think I’ll sit here and take a rest,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “I did have it in mind to go for a ride, but it is very nice here. It does my old rheumatic joints good to let the sun soak in. I’ll just be lazy and comfortable like today.”

So he took some soft cushions out of the Sunday parlor part of his auto, made himself a little bed on the bench at the sunny side of his machine, and snuggled down.

“Oh, what a funny looking rabbit you are!” cried a jolly little voice all of a sudden. “Come on and play with me, Uncle Wiggily!”

“No, Baby Bunty! Not today!” answered Mr. Longears, not even bothering to open his eyes, he was so lazy like and self-contained. But even if he did not see her, he knew it was Baby Bunty speaking. She was the lively little rabbit girl he had found in a hollow stump, and had brought home to live with him.

“Oh, come and play tag!” begged Bunty.

“No! Nope! Nopey!” said Mr. Longears slowly. “I just want to sit and rest. My joints are too stiff to play tag!”

Then everything grew quiet and peaceful, and Uncle Wiggily thought Baby Bunty had gone away so he could go to sleep. Baby Bunty had gone away, but in a very queer way.

21All of a sudden Uncle Wiggily was awakened by hearing Nurse Jane call out:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Baby Bunty is having a ride.”

“Is she?” asked the bunny slowly. “That’s good! I hope she has a nice one!”

“Oh, but listen!” cried the muskrat lady. “Baby Bunty jumped in your auto while you were asleep, and she sprinkled some pepper on the bologna sausage tires, and now she’s riding away! Run after her! Hop after her and catch her in the auto, or she may be hurt!”

“Oh, my! Oh, my goodness!” cried Uncle Wiggily. He was wide awake now, and he forgot all about his stiff joints and wanting to rest.

On through the woods he hopped. Faster and faster rode Baby Bunty in the runaway auto. Faster and faster hopped Uncle Wiggily. Quicker and quicker went Baby Bunty in the skippily auto. Quicker and quicker hopped Uncle Wiggily after her.

“Stop! Stop!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “What are you trying to do?”

“Oh! I wanted to have some fun, and make you chase me,” said Baby Bunty. “But I didn’t mean to go so fast, and now I can’t stop! Save me! Save me!”

“I will if I can!” panted Uncle Wiggily. He 22wasn’t a bit lazy or sleepy now. Nor were his joints stiff! He was as lively as a cricket.

Suddenly, just as Baby Bunty, not knowing much about automobiles, was going to run into a tree, Uncle Wiggily gave a big skip and a hop and caught up to her. In he jumped, shut off the gasolene, put on the brakes and saved Bunty. Then the little rabbit girl smiled sweetly and said:

“Thank you, Uncle Wiggily. I thought I could make you come and have a ride with me.”

“Well—dont—do—it—again!” said the rabbit gentleman, all out of breath like. “You are getting too lively for me, Baby Bunty! Altogether too lively!”

Still he liked her, and if the can opener doesn’t take the top off the powdered sugar basin and make the goldfish sneeze, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s balloon.

STORY IV UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S BALLOON

“Is she here?” whispered Uncle Wiggily to his muskrat lady housekeeper, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as he hopped into his hollow stump bungalow one day.

“Do you mean Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, who was just here calling on me?” asked Nurse Jane. “If you mean her, she has gone.”

“No, I mean Baby Bunty. Is she here?” asked Uncle Wiggily, still whispering and looking all around the bungalow, while he twinkled his pink nose expectant like.

“Baby Bunty isn’t here,” said Nurse Jane. “I gave her a penny a while ago and she said she was going down to the one-cent store and buy a toy balloon.”

“Ah! Then I can come in and have a rest,” said the rabbit gentleman. “Baby Bunty is good to keep an old rabbit man’s joints from getting stiff,” he said, as he stretched out in his easy chair, “but too much of it is quite enough. I’ll be glad of a little rest.”

Baby Bunty, you know, was a cute little rabbit girl, whose father and mother had been 24taken away by a fox. Uncle Wiggily found Baby Bunty in the woods in a hollow stump, and brought her home with him.

“She’s so lively she’ll keep you from getting old and stiff,” said Nurse Jane. And Baby Bunty was very lively like and always doing something.

“But now, since she has gone down the woodland path to buy a toy balloon, I’ll sit here and rest,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll take a nap until it’s time to eat dinner.”

Uncle Wiggily stretched out in his easy chair. Soon his pink, twinkly nose was still and quiet. Mr. Longears was asleep.

The bunny rabbit gentleman was just dreaming he was chasing Baby Bunty through the woods in his automobile when, all of a sudden, in came running Billie Wagtail, the goat boy.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily!” bleated Billie. “You ought to see her!”

“See whom?” asked Mr. Longears, waking up so suddenly that his nose twinkled twice as fast as it ought. “See whom?”

“Baby Bunty!” answered the goat boy. “She’s away up in the air sailing over the treetops!”

“She is?” cried the bunny gentleman. “Oh, dear! Some more of her tricks to keep me from getting old and stiff, I suppose. Did she take my airship out, as she ran away in my auto yesterday?” he asked Nurse Jane.

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27“I think not,” answered the muskrat lady. “Your airship is still in the stable. And are you sure you saw her up above the trees, Billie?”

“Oh, yes’m! And here comes Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel! He saw her, too!” bleated the goat boy.

“What’s the matter with Baby Bunty?” asked Uncle Wiggily of the chattery chap.

“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Johnnie. “But she’s sailing around just like an airship—over the tops of the trees. Come out and see!”

Out rushed Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane and Billie, the goat, and Johnnie, the squirrel. Surely enough, up above their heads, was Baby Bunty floating along like a cloud.

“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily; “that little rabbit girl is always doing something. But I must chase after her! I must get her down!

“Quick, Nurse Jane. Bring out my flying suit of leather! Billie, you and Johnnie run my airship out of the barn! I’ll have to sail up in my airship and bring down Baby Bunty, but I don’t see how she got up there!”

Uncle Wiggily was soon seated on the sofa cushions of his airship, which had toy circus balloons to raise it up and an electric fan that went whizzieizzie to speed it along. Soon he was 28sailing over the tree tops, up near where Baby Bunty was floating.

“Oh, dear! How did you ever get up here?” asked the rabbit gentleman.

“Oh, I didn’t mean to! Really I didn’t!” said Baby Bunty, half crying. “But I’m glad you came after me, for it will keep you from getting old and stiff!”

“Yes, I s’pose it will!” said Uncle Wiggily, as he sailed close to the little bunny girl and took her into the clothes basket part of his airship. “Ah! Ha! I see how you came to rise off the earth!” he said. “You blew your penny toy balloon up so big that it swelled and raised you up; didn’t you?”

“Yes,” said Baby Bunty, “I did. But I didn’t mean to. I just blew and blew into my toy balloon and it got bigger and bigger, and then I couldn’t get the air out, and the balloon began to go up and I began to go up, and—well, I’m glad you came and got me!” she finished.

“Yes,” said Uncle Wiggily, “I s’pose you are. But don’t do it again.” Then he let the air out of the toy balloon that Baby Bunty had blown too big for herself, and Mr. Longears took the little rabbit girl down to earth in his airship. And everybody said:

“Isn’t Baby Bunty cute!”

29“Yes,” said Mr. Longears, “she is. No one would get stiff joints with her around.” And if the box of talcum powder doesn’t blow smoke in the eyes of the potatoes and make them blink, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s doll.

STORY V UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S DOLL

“Where is Bunty?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one morning, as he came down to breakfast in his hollow stump bungalow.

“Oh, Bunty has gone out to play, long ago!” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.

“Well, I’m glad of that,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, with a sigh, sort of restful like and ample. “It’s a good thing to have Bunty go out and play.”

“Do you mean it’s good for her?” asked Nurse Jane, as she sliced some carrots for the bunny’s breakfast and poured maple sugar sauce over them.

“It’s restful for Bunty and restful for me,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Do you know, Nurse Jane,” he went on, “since I found Baby Bunty, that cute little rabbit girl, in a hollow stump and brought her home to live with us, she certainly has kept me going. Yes, sir!” exclaimed Mr. Longears, explosive like and inflammatory, at the same time documentary, “she certainly has kept me busy!”

31“But it’s good for you,” said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. “You haven’t looked so well in months. Baby Bunty, by being lively, and making you chase her every once in a while, keeps you from getting stiff.”

“Well, yes, perhaps,” admitted the bunny rabbit. “But, at the same time I am glad she has gone out to play this morning. Now, after breakfast, I can sit and read my paper in peace and restfulness.”

And, when he had finished eating his turnip turnovers, with lettuce frosting on, Uncle Wiggily sat down in his easy chair in the sunshine, and began to look over the Cabbage Leaf Gazette, which is the newspaper of the animal people of Woodland, near the Orange Ice Mountains.

But just as Uncle Wiggily was reading how Grandfather Goosey Gander had a cold in his bill and couldn’t quack very well, Nurse Jane suddenly cried:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Come here as quickly as you can. Hurry!”

“What’s the matter now?” asked the rabbit gentleman, as he dropped his paper and gave three hops, a jump and part of a skip to the window, out of which Nurse Jane was looking. “What’s the matter?”

“See! There goes Baby Bunty’s doll!” said 32the muskrat lady. “It’s skidding along over the ground as fast as the skillery-scalery alligator can crawl. Baby Bunty’s doll is running away, and she’ll feel so badly!”

“Baby Bunty’s doll running away? Impossible!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “The doll isn’t alive—it can’t run away!”

“But it is!” said Nurse Jane. “See it skiddle along!”

And, as true as I’m telling you, there was Baby Bunty’s doll, moving along the woodland path, over the green moss, over the green grass, over the brown leaves in and out among the green ferns. The doll was sliding along the ground, but no one was dragging her or pulling her or pushing her—that is as far as Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane could see.

“Did you ever? Can you imagine it!” cried the muskrat lady.

“I can see it!” said the bunny, rubbing his eyes, and his pink, twinkling nose, to make sure he was awake.

“I can see it!” said Uncle Wiggily. “I don’t have to imagine it. But what makes that doll go I don’t know. Some dolls can walk and talk, but I never saw one slide along all by herself before.”

“Run after it, quickly!” cried Nurse Jane. 33“Baby Bunty will feel very badly if her doll is lost! Run after it for her!”

“I will,” said the rabbit gentleman. Not stopping to put on his tall, silk hat, and forgetting all about his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, out of his hollow stump bungalow rushed Uncle Wiggily. After the doll he hopped.

But as fast as he hopped the doll skiddled along just as fast, always keeping ahead of Mr. Longears.

“Oh, ho! I’ll get you yet!” cried the bunny. And he hopped faster and faster. But the doll skiddled along even more quickly. Uncle Wiggily was hopping as he had never hopped before.

“What makes that doll skiddle along?” panted the bunny, all out of breath. “I cannot see any one pulling or pushing her. It can’t be a trick of the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon, for I can see neither of those bad chaps. What makes the doll move along? I must find out, but first I must get hold of it!”

So the bunny hopped along faster and faster, and the doll skiddled along until, all of a sudden, Baby Bunty’s play-toy caught on a twisted tree root, was held fast, and Uncle Wiggily, making a big jump, grabbed it. Then he saw 34that a thin, black but very strong thread was tied around the doll.

“Ha! Some one was pulling that doll along by this black string, and I couldn’t see it,” said the rabbit gentleman. “I wonder who did it?”

“I did!” cried a jolly voice, and out from behind a bush jumped Baby Bunty. “I tied the long thread to my doll, and then I hopped ahead and pulled the doll after me!” said Baby Bunty. “I wanted you to hop along fast, and not get stiff, Uncle Wiggily, and you did! Ho! Ho! Ha! Ha!”

Uncle Wiggily rubbed his pink nose. He shook his paw at Baby Bunty, but he couldn’t help laughing.

“I’m not stiff now,” he said, “but I may be tomorrow.”

“Oh, no you won’t!” laughed Baby Bunty! And if the bath tub doesn’t sprinkle paregoric perfume on the wash rag, thinking it’s a handkerchief, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s medicine.

STORY VI UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S MEDICINE

“Oh, Baby Bunty! Baby Bunty!” called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, to the little rabbit girl, who had been found in a hollow stump by Uncle Wiggily Longears. “Ho, Baby Bunty! Come here, quickly!” called the muskrat lady housekeeper of the rabbit’s bungalow.

“Does Uncle Wiggily want to play tag with me, or hide-and-go-seek?” asked Baby Bunty, as she came running in from the front yard. She had been playing dolls with Susie Littletail, the big rabbit girl, and with Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girls. “Does Uncle Wiggily want to chase me?” asked Baby Bunty.

“No, indeed!” answered Nurse Jane. “You are altogether too lively for Uncle Wiggily, I’m afraid. He is so stiff and lame, from having chased your doll yesterday, as you were pulling it along through the wood by a string—Uncle Wiggily is so lame from his fast hopping that you’ll have to go get Dr. Possum.”

“What for?” asked Baby Bunty, who was, indeed, a lively little rabbit girl, always wanting the bunny gentleman to play with her and chase 36her. She said it kept him lively. Well, it did to a certain extent. “Why does Unk Wig want Dr. Possum?” asked Baby Bunty, giving Mr. Longears one of his pet names.

“Because he is ill,” said Nurse Jane. “He is so lame and stiff that he just sits in an easy chair and grunts. Dr. Possum will come and give Uncle Wiggily some medicine and then he’ll be better.”

“All right! I’ll go!” said Baby Bunty, and pretty soon she came riding back with the animal doctor in his automobile.

“My! But you came quickly!” said Nurse Jane, as Dr. Possum stopped his car amid a shower of leaves, in front of Uncle Wiggily’s hollow stump bungalow.

“I just had to!” said Dr. Possum, getting out and curling his long tail around his satchel of pink, blue, red, yellow and skilligimink colored pills. “Baby Bunty said if I didn’t ride here as fast as I could make the auto go, maybe Uncle Wiggily would never get better.”

“Oh, I think it isn’t quite as bad as that,” said Nurse Jane. “Still Uncle Wiggily is very lame and stiff. He says he can’t move, from having hopped too lively yesterday.”

“Hum! Anybody would be lively where Baby Bunty was,” spoke Dr. Possum. “Now, I’ll have a look at my Uncle Wiggily friend.”

37Well, Dr. Possum gave Mr. Longears red pills and pink pills and yellow pills and brown pills, but still, all that day, the rabbit gentleman sat in his chair and grunted and groaned and said he was so stiff he couldn’t move. Dr. Possum shook his head.

“I can’t understand it,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be much the matter with Uncle Wiggily, but yet he won’t get up and move about. Suppose you make him some sassafras tea,” he said to Nurse Jane.

“I will,” she promised. So Dr. Possum went away, and Nurse Jane went out in the woods to dig up some sassafras roots, and Baby Bunty was left home with Uncle Wiggily. The rabbit gentleman sat in his easy chair, with his eyes shut and his pink nose twinkled hardly any.

“How do you feel now?” asked Baby Bunty.

“Oh, perhaps if I read the paper I’d feel better,” said Mr. Longears.

Baby Bunty handed it to him.

“Now, if you’ll give me my glasses, my dear,” went on Uncle Wiggily, “I’ll sit here and read until Nurse Jane comes back.”

A queer look came over Baby Bunty’s face.

“Where are your glasses?” she asked.

“On the mantel,” said the rabbit gentleman. Baby Bunty looked.

38“I don’t see them,” she answered.

“Oh, maybe they’re on the clock shelf,” spoke Mr. Longears.

“No, they aren’t there,” said Baby Bunty. “I guess you’ll have to get up and help me hunt for them, Uncle Wiggily.”

“Oh, dear! I suppose I must,” groaned the bunny. Slowly, and with much groaning, he got out of his chair. He looked in several places for his glasses so he could read. But he could not find them.

“Maybe they’re behind the piano,” said Baby Bunty. Uncle Wiggily looked there, but no glasses were to be found. “Maybe they’re over here under the couch!” cried Baby Bunty, hopping across the room. Uncle Wiggily followed her. The glasses were not there. “Maybe they’re out in the kitchen. Come on, run out there with me and look,” cried Baby Bunty.

Uncle Wiggily did. And then such a chase, all over the hollow stump bungalow, as Baby Bunty led Uncle Wiggily looking for his glasses! Up stairs and down stairs he hopped, getting more and more lively all the while.

Finally, when Uncle Wiggily was trying to jump up on top of the picture moulding, since Baby Bunty said his glasses might be there, in came Nurse Jane with the sassafras.

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41“Why, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried. “What’s the matter? You must be all better by the lively way you hop about! What’s the matter?”

“I’m looking for my glasses, and Baby Bunty is helping me,” answered Mr. Longears.

“Why, how forgetful you are, Wiggily! There are your glasses, on top of your head, where you so often put them!” said Nurse Jane. “Didn’t you know they were there?”

“No,” said Mr. Longears, “I didn’t.”

“I did—all the while!” laughed Baby Bunty. “But I just wanted you to hop around lively and hunt for them. You aren’t stiff now, are you, Mr. Longears?” she asked, formal like.

“No,” said Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his pink nose, “I am not at all stiff! Yours was the best medicine, Baby Bunty!”

And if the mince pie doesn’t dream that it’s a trolley car and try to run a race with the rag doll’s automobile, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s picnic.

STORY VII UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S PICNIC

“What are you going to do today, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Baby Bunty, as she saw the rabbit gentleman sitting in the sun on a bench at the side of his hollow stump bungalow one morning.

“Oh! I’m going to take a little hop through the woods, and perhaps call on Grandfather Goosey Gander, to see if he is well again, after having had a cold in his bill,” spoke Mr. Longears.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl, who was hidden in a hollow stump until Uncle Wiggily found her.

“What’s the matter?” asked the rabbit gentleman. “Didn’t I hop around enough to suit you when I was looking for my glasses and they were on top of my head all the while!”

“Oh! you hopped enough, and you cured your stiffness,” said Baby Bunty. “But if you are going to the woods,” said the little tot, “can’t you take me for a picnic? I haven’t had a picnic in ever so long.”

“Oh, ho! So you want a picnic!” laughed 43Uncle Wiggily. “Well, I guess we might have one. Tell Nurse Jane to make some carrot sandwiches, and some turnip flopovers, and a few lettuce ice cream cones, and we’ll go in the woods and have a picnic.”

“Oh, goodie! Oh, joy!” cried Baby Bunty, and she clapped her paws together and tried to make her teeny weeny pink nose twinkle as Uncle Wiggily made his. But, of course, it wasn’t the same.

In a little while Nurse Jane had put up a nice lunch in a birch bark basket, and Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty started to hop through the woods.

“Oh! there goes Billie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, and his brother Johnnie is with him,” suddenly called the baby rabbit after a while. “May they come to our picnic?”

“Surely,” answered Uncle Wiggily. And after that he and Baby Bunty saw Lulu, Jimmie and Alice Wibblewobble, the ducks, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, and Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goats.

“Bring them all to our picnic!” invited Uncle Wiggily. “We have lunch enough for all.” So all the animal children went to Baby Bunty’s picnic.

Under a tree, on a carpet of green moss, with a fringe of ferns about it, and using toadstools 44for seats, the rabbit gentleman and Baby Bunty and their friends started the picnic. They had carrot sandwiches, lettuce cakes, turnip jump-arounds and cabbage cookies.

“This is a jolly picnic!” said everybody.

“I’m glad you like it,” spoke Baby Bunty.

And then, all of a sudden, Jackie Bow Wow gave a soft little bark, and said to Baby Bunty:

“Look! Uncle Wiggily is going to sleep. We can’t have any fun at this picnic if he goes to sleep! He ought to play games with us, make whistles from the willow tree and all things like that.”

“Yes,” said Baby Bunty, “so he ought. Oh, dear! I wish Uncle Wiggily wouldn’t go to sleep after he eats! But he almost always does, of late, even at home. I guess he is getting old and stiff.”

“Can’t you make him wake up and be more lively?” asked Lulu Wibblewobble, as she helped a little ant lady lift some carrot bread crumbs over a fallen leaf.

“I’ll try,” said Baby Bunty. “A picnic isn’t any fun unless you play games. And if Uncle Wiggily is going to sleep all the while we can’t play games with him. Now just watch me!”

Baby Bunty slipped up behind Uncle Wiggily, and, taking a long green fern leaf, she softly tickled the bunny rabbit on one of his ears.

45“A-ker-choo! Goo-zeesium!” suddenly sneezed the bunny.

“Oh! He’s waking up!” quacked Jimmie the duck.

“Hush!” whispered Baby Bunty. Then she tickled the rabbit gentleman on his other ear.

“Wa-hoo! Zoop! Zing!” gargled Uncle Wiggily.

“Oh, he’s getting real excited like!” barked Peetie Bow Wow.

“Wait a minute!” begged Baby Bunty, keeping out of sight.

Then she took a soft piece of grass and she let it flicker gently over Uncle Wiggily’s pink nose, which never twinkled when he was asleep. All of a sudden the bunny rabbit gentleman cried:

“Oh zip! Doodle-de-oodle! Gurr! Wafty-zup!” And he sneezed and opened his eyes and sat up and said: “Is anything the matter?”

“Oh, no!” answered Baby Bunty sweetly. “We just want you to play some games with us; that’s all.”

“Play games! Of course I’ll play games. I always do at a picnic,” laughed the rabbit gentleman. “I declare! I must have been asleep!” he said. “And I dreamed that a ladybug tickled me!”

“Oh, no! Nothing like that! Can you 46imagine!” laughed Baby Bunty. And all the other animal children laughed, too. Then Uncle Wiggily played “Hop Over the Stump” and all such fashion games with them, and they had a fine time at the picnic. And if the pumpkin pie doesn’t take the chocolate cake out in the dark and lose it, so there aren’t any cookies for the goldfish, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s bouquet.

STORY VIII UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S BOUQUET

“Will you do me just a little favor, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Baby Bunty one day, as she came home from school, and saw the dear old rabbit gentleman sitting in the sun outside his hollow stump bungalow.

“Do you a favor? Why, of course, I will, Baby Bunty,” said Mr. Longears to the little rabbit girl he had found in the woods. “But I hope it is a favor that will not make me hop around. I am a bit stiff from having gone on the picnic with you yesterday. Though I had a good time, after all,” he said.

“I’m glad you did,” said Baby Bunty. “This favor is a very easy one. You can sit there and do it. All I want you to do is to tell me what kind of woodland flowers to pick for a bouquet for the lady mouse teacher in the hollow stump school.”

“Oh, ho!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “So your lady mouse teacher wants a bouquet, does she?”

“Yes,” answered Baby Bunty. “She told each one of us to bring wild flowers to school tomorrow. Sammie and Susie Littletail, and 48Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, and Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble—they all know where to look in the woods for the blossoms. But I’m such a little rabbit girl I don’t know. So if you’ll tell me about the flowers, I’ll go pick them before supper, and have them ready for tomorrow.”

“Well,” said Uncle Wiggily, slowly like and disengaged, as he tilted back on his easy chair, “there are red flowers and blue ones, and golden yellow ones, and some of purple. They will make a nice bouquet when you pick them. Now run off in the woods, Baby Bunty, and pick some flowers. Then you’ll have pretty posies for your teacher.”

Uncle Wiggily closed his eyes, gave his pink nose a soft little twinkle and was dozing off again into a little before-supper sleep. Baby Bunty shook her little head.

“This will never do,” she thought. “Uncle Wiggily will get old and stiff, and he’ll think his rheumatism is worse and all things like that if I let him keep so quiet. I must rouse him up. I haven’t time to make him chase me, as I want to gather flowers. What shall I do? Oh, I know!”

Softly Baby Bunty hopped off on her tippy tip-paws. Into the woods, not far from the hollow stump bungalow, she went, and there she 49saw some red flowers. She began to pick them, looking back, now and then, through the trees to where Uncle Wiggily was asleep against the side of his hollow stump bungalow.

“I must rouse him up and make him more lively!” thought Baby Bunty. Then, all of a sudden, as she was picking pink flowers she gave a little scream and cried:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Come quick! Here’s a big snake after me!”

“What’s that! A snake! A snake after Baby Bunty when she’s picking a flower bouquet for teacher?” cried the rabbit gentleman, suddenly waking up. “That must never be!”

Quickly he sprang from the bark bench on which he had been sitting. Over to the edge of the woods he ran, where Baby Bunty was picking a bouquet.

“Where’s the snake?” asked Uncle Wiggily, all ready to kindly ask the crawly creature to go away and not hurt the little rabbit girl. “Where’s the snake?”

“There!” cried Baby Bunty, pointing to something squirming on the ground.

“That? Why that is only an angle worm!” said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. “He won’t hurt you, Baby Bunty.”

“Oh! Only an angle worm!” said the little 50rabbit girl, innocent-like and dissembling. “Why, I thought it was a snake!”

The angle worm crawled away, laughing to himself. Uncle Wiggily went back to sleep and Baby Bunty went on picking her bouquet. She glanced back to where Mr. Longears was having a nap. Then Baby Bunty suddenly cried again:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! There’s a big beast in an aeroplane airship flying after me! Come quick and drive him away! Oh! Oh!”

“A big beast in an airship!” exclaimed the rabbit gentleman, suddenly waking up. “Oh, ho! I’ll soon drive him away!” He ran to Baby Bunty.

“There it is!” she said, pointing her paw to something fluttering in the air.

“That? Why, that’s only a dragon fly!” said Uncle Wiggily. “He will never hurt you. All he does is to eat mosquitoes.” And back the bunny went to sleep, while the dragon fly flew on, laughing to himself.

Pretty soon Baby Bunty, who now had some red, white and blue flowers for her bouquet, called:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! There’s a big, wild, spotted leopard after me! Come quick!”

Uncle Wiggily jumped up so quickly from his sleep that he upset the bark bench.

51“Where’s the spotted leopard?” he cried.

“There!” said Baby Bunty, pointing.

“That! Why, that’s only Billy No-Tail, the spotted frog boy!” said Uncle Wiggily. “He won’t hurt you!”

“Oh!” said Baby Bunty softly, “I thought he was a green and yellow spotted leopard. Well, as long as I have roused you up so often, Uncle Wiggily, don’t you think you’d better stay awake now, and help me pick teacher’s bouquet? It will keep you from getting stiff.”

“I suppose so,” said the rabbit gentleman, sort of sighing resigned like. And as he helped pick the flowers he heard Baby Bunty laugh softly every now and then.

“I wonder,” thought Uncle Wiggily, “if she knew, all the while, that it was only an angle worm, a dragon fly and the frog boy? I wonder?”

And so do I. And if the Thanksgiving Fourth of July pinwheel doesn’t scratch the baby’s rattle box and make it squeak like a tin horn I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s hat.

STORY IX UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S HAT

Once upon a time Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy promised Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl, who lived with Uncle Wiggily, to take her down to the fifteen and sixteen cent store to buy a new hat.

But at the last minute Nurse Jane had to go over to help Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, make sugar cookies.

“I’ll take Baby Bunty to the five and ten cent store myself,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll help her get a new hat.”

“Oh, joy!” cried Baby Bunty. “I love to go shopping with you, Uncle Wiggily. Only we’ll go to the nineteen and twenty cent store. They have lovely hats there! Why, some have grass-colored ribbons and one has real cabbage leaf trimmings.”

“That will be fine!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “When you are hungry you can eat part of your hat, Bunty.”

“Oh, I’ll never do that!” said the little rabbit girl, who had been found in a hollow stump.

So Nurse Jane went over to Mrs. Wibblewobble’s 53and Uncle Wiggily started for the three and four cent store—no, I’m wrong—it was the nineteen and twenty. Baby Bunty skipped on ahead, running two and fro, jumping over bushes and snuggling down in clumps of ferns, as though playing hide and seek. Uncle Wiggily went more slowly and rheumatic like.

“Why don’t you jump, as I do?” asked Baby Bunty.

“Oh, my joints are too stiff,” said the bunny rabbit. “I’m getting old, Baby Bunty.”

“Well, then I’ll have to make you lively!” cried the little rabbit girl.

“Oh, please don’t do any more of your tricks!” begged Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. “Just let me hobble along in peace and quietness on my rheumatism crutch. And, Baby Bunty, there is one favor I want to beg of you.”

“What is it?” asked the little rabbit girl as she waved her paw to a spotted lady bug, friendly like.

“Don’t ask me to go in that eleven and twelve cent store with you to get your new hat,” spoke the bunny. “I’ll go as far as the door with you and give you the money. But I’ll wait outside. I never can bear to hop up and down the aisles, from the soap department over to the lace veil counter doing shopping. I’ll wait for you outside.”

54“Very well,” said Baby Bunty. “But I think it would do your stiffness good to come in. However, we shall see.”

So Uncle Wiggily hopped on with the lively little rabbit girl, and soon they were at the—nineteen and twenty cent store, I think. You can look back and make sure.

“Now, I’ll wait here for you,” said the rabbit gentleman, sitting down in a sunny place outside. “Take the money and get a new hat Bunty.”

“What’s the matter with your pa? Isn’t he feeling well?” asked a little mousie girl clerk, as she came up to wait on Baby Bunty, and saw the rabbit gentleman staying outside.

“That isn’t my pa—it’s Uncle Wiggily,” said the little shopper. “He’s getting stiff, but I’ll soon make him feel better.”

Then she began to shop around and look at hats, and pretty soon, having tried on one with carrot trimmings, she went to the door and called:

“Uncle Wiggily! Please come in and see if this looks well on me!”

“Oh, my!” groaned Uncle Wiggily. “Must I come in? Well, only this once.”

Slowly he hopped in, looked at Bunty’s hat, and said:

55

57“Oh, yes. That’s fine. Have it wrapped up and we’ll get home.”

“Oh, but there’s a hat with real radishes on, up on the next floor!” said the little rabbit girl, as she laid aside the carrot hat. “Let’s go look at that!”

Up the stairs she hopped and Uncle Wiggily had to hop after, groaning at his aching joints. Baby Bunty tried on the radish hat.

“That’s fine!” said Uncle Wiggily. “Buy it!”

“Oh, but there’s one on the next floor with a cabbage leaf crown. I want you to see how I look in that!” said Baby Bunty. Up the stairs she hopped and Uncle Wiggily hopped after her. She tried on the cabbage hat.

“Buy it! Oh, buy it!” begged the bunny.

“Oh, but on the next floor is a hat with cucumber salad all around the edges!” said Bunty. “I might look better in that!” Up the stairs she hopped and Uncle Wiggily hopped after her.

Well, sir, Baby Bunty tried on forty-’leven hats before she found one she liked, and by that time Uncle Wiggily was so lively, from hopping up and down stairs, that he felt real reckless like and sporty, and he bought two ice cream cones. He said he felt so good he had to have a treat.

“I thought you’d like to come shopping!” said Baby Bunty. And Uncle Wiggily only 58twinkled his pink nose. But if the molasses jug doesn’t take the candy stick to beat the parlor rug when it’s trying to race with the kitchen oilcloth, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s shoes.

STORY X UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S SHOES

“Uncle Wiggily, I am sorry to trouble you,” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper to the bunny rabbit gentleman one day, “but do you think you could go to the store for me? Or are you too stiff? Is your rheumatism too bad?”

Uncle Wiggily looked all around the hollow stump bungalow before answering. Then he asked:

“Is Baby Bunty here?”

“Not just now,” replied Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, trying not to smile. “Why do you ask?”

“Because if I say I’m too stiff and old to go to the store for you she’ll say I’m not too stiff to play tag with her. And I certainly am!” said Uncle Wiggily, positive like and semi-emphatic. “I don’t want to move about quickly at all today. I just want to go slow and easy like.”

“Then you may,” said Nurse Jane. “I only want you to go to the store for me and get Baby Bunty’s shoes!”

“What’s that?” cried Mr. Longears, and he gave such a jump that his pink nose stopped 60twinkling. “I thought you said you wanted me to go to the store for you, Nurse Jane.”

“So I do. I’d have to go after Bunty’s shoes if you didn’t, and, really, I haven’t time. But you don’t have to take Baby Bunty, so you may hop as slowly as you like. I took her down and she tried on the shoes yesterday. I left them to be stretched. All you have to do is to bring them home.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I like Baby Bunty, and all that, but when I want to hop slowly she wants to play tag and the like of such nonsense. I’ll go to the store alone.”

Away he started, leaning on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a cornstalk. And Uncle Wiggily had not hopped very far before he heard a voice calling:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Wait for me! Wait a minute!”

“My goodness me, sakes alive and some peanut hash!” thought the bunny rabbit. “I hope that isn’t the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon after me!”

He was just going to hide behind a tree when he saw that it was Baby Bunty who was hopping along through the woods.

“Wait a minute, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried.

61“Well, something is surely going to happen now,” thought the bunny rabbit.

It did not take long for Baby Bunty to catch up to Mr. Longears, for she was a lively little rabbit girl.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” she gasped. “I know where you are going! You are going after my new shoes. I heard Nurse Jane tell you! I was playing tag down behind the rain water barrel. I didn’t mean to listen, but I couldn’t help hearing. Please take me with you.”

Well, what could Uncle Wiggily do? He didn’t want to hurt Baby Bunty’s feelings, and he certainly was going after her shoes. So he said:

“Now, look here, Baby Bunty! No tricks, you know! No making me hop up and down stairs to look at you try on new hats, you know!”

“Of course not!” laughed the little rabbit girl. “Besides, we are going after shoes today, and I don’t have to try them on. Nurse Jane helped me buy them yesterday. I’ll be good.”

“And please be quiet—don’t make me do any extra hopping today!” begged the bunny rabbit gentleman. “My joints are too stiff.”

Baby Bunty had a funny little twinkle in her eyes as she hopped along with Mr. Longears. Soon they were at the shoe store and a nice rat gentleman handed Mr. Longears a neat package.

62“Well, this isn’t so bad,” thought the bunny rabbit. “There’s to be no trying on, and, in consequence, there can be no hopping up and down stairs.”

With the shoe package under one leg, and holding Bunty’s paw in his other one, Uncle Wiggily started back for the hollow stump bungalow.

“Can’t we go any faster than this?” asked Baby Bunty. “I want to hurry home and wear my new shoes.”

“Oh, this is fast enough for my rheumatic joints,” spoke the rabbit gentleman, contented like.

Baby Bunty started to run backward.

“Why—why—where are you going?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

“Oh, I think the man forgot to put any laces in my new shoes!” cried Baby Bunty. “I must run back and get them. You wait for me, Uncle Wiggily.”

“No, I can’t wait,” said Mr. Longears. “I must go with you, to see that you don’t get lost!”

Back ran Baby Bunty and back ran Uncle Wiggily. And when they reached the shoe store the rat gentleman said:

“Why, the lacers are in the shoes!”

“Oh, how silly of me!” said Baby Bunty. “So they are! Now we must hop along fast, 63Uncle Wiggily, or it will be dark before we get home!” So, whether he liked it or not, Uncle Wiggily had to hop along very fast, and so did Baby Bunty. But it’s a good thing they did, for, when they were almost at the hollow stump bungalow, out popped the bad Pipsisewah, trying to get the new shoes.

And, only that Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty were hopping so fast, the Pip might have caught them.

But he didn’t, I am glad to say, and when Baby Bunty reached home and tried on her new shoes they fitted perfectly, and Uncle Wiggily wasn’t hardly stiff at all. And if the lawn mower doesn’t try to cut a slice off the cake of soap for the goldfish to take a bath, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s hair ribbon.

STORY XI UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S RIBBON

Once upon a time Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl, who was hidden in a hollow stump until she was found, said to Uncle Wiggily:

“Will you come with me for a walk in the woods today?”

“Why, yes, Baby Bunty, I think I will,” answered Mr. Longears. “But I am a bit stiff, and my rheumatism hurts a little, so please don’t ask me to chase you or do anything exciting like that.”

“I won’t,” promised Baby Bunty, but, as she tied her red sky-blue pink hair ribbon around her neck, the little rabbit girl smiled in a queer way.

“No,” she said to herself, as Uncle Wiggily took his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch down off the fence post, “I won’t make him chase me, but I’ll keep him from going to sleep. He’s a dear old rabbit gentleman, but he’s getting old—or he thinks he is. I must keep him lively!”

So Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty hopped off through the woods. Nurse Jane Fuzzy 65Wuzzy stood in the doorway of the hollow stump bungalow and watched them.

“My! Baby Bunty has on her best hair ribbon today,” said the muskrat lady housekeeper. “I hope nothing happens to it.”

As Baby Bunty hopped along, now running ahead of Uncle Wiggily and now lagging behind to pick a pretty flower, all of a sudden her green yellow brown hair ribbon caught on a bush and the bow was untied.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Please tie my hair ribbon!” cried Baby Bunty with a laugh.

Uncle Wiggily leaned on his red white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and, with his paws, tied Baby Bunty’s ribbon.

“There!” he said, as he patted down the big bow, which looked like the wings of a butterfly, “I hope your hair ribbon doesn’t come untied again.”

“I hope so, too,” said Baby Bunty.

On and on she hopped through the woods with Uncle Wiggily. They were looking for a nice place for the little rabbit girl to play. All of a sudden, as she was peeping down in a robin’s nest, to see how big the little birds were, her hair ribbon caught on a branch of a tree, and loose the bow came again.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Will you please tie my hair ribbon?” cried Baby Bunty with a laugh.

66“Dear me!” said Uncle Wiggily. “That’s a very loose ribbon, Baby Bunty! I ought to have brought some glue to make the bow stay tied fast.”

But he fixed it for the little rabbit girl, and on they hopped again. Pretty soon they came to a beautiful place in the woods. On the ground was a soft velvet carpet of green grass. Around it was a fringe of ferns. Overhead was a big umbrella of trees, which kept off the hot sun.

“Here is a good place for you to play, Baby Bunty,” said Uncle Wiggily. “You may gather flowers, hop on the grass or even turn somersaults.”

“And what are you going to do, Uncle Wiggily?” asked the little rabbit girl.

“Oh, I shall go to sleep,” said the old gentleman rabbit.

Baby Bunty wrinkled up her nose in a funny little way, but she didn’t say anything—just then. Uncle Wiggily found a soft stump for a seat, with a soft mossy covered tree for a back rest, and there he sat down. Pretty soon his eyes closed, his pink nose stopped twinkling, and he was asleep.

“Oh, dear!” said Baby Bunty. “This isn’t any fun—to have him go to sleep! Ah, I know what I’ll do!”

She played around a little, turning peppersaults 67and somersaults, and, all at once, she gave her hair ribbon a little pull.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried, running up to the rabbit gentleman. “My ribbon is untied again! Please fix it for me!”

Uncle Wiggily opened his eyes and grunted.

“It seems to me your hair ribbon is always coming untied,” he said. But he made a nice fancy bow for Baby Bunty, and then he went to sleep again, while she played about. But, pretty soon back she hopped.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried.

“What!” exclaimed the old rabbit gentleman. “Is your hair ribbon loose again? Am I never to get any sleep?”

“It isn’t my hair ribbon this time,” said Baby Bunty. “But I saw a big fox sneaking along in the bushes behind you, and I thought he might bite some souse off your ears, so I woke you up!”

“I’m glad you did!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “And you awakened me just in time, too. Now we can run away before the fox gets us!”

And run away they did, and the old fox didn’t get them.

“But I would have had a nice lot of souse off Uncle Wiggily’s ears, if Baby Bunty hadn’t awakened him,” said the fox, hungry like.

And, if the green grass doesn’t turn pink when the red rose leaves fall on it, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s ball.

STORY XII UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S BALL

“Will you come for another nice walk in the woods, today, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl, as she danced around the hollow stump bungalow where she lived with Mr. Longears.

“Hum! Another nice walk in the woods, eh?” asked Uncle Wiggily, suspicious like and premeditated. “Are you going to wear a big hair ribbon bow, that comes untied all the while?” he asked.

“Oh, no!” laughed Baby Bunty. “I’ll only wear a tiny bow today. I won’t keep waking you up all the time to tie it for me.”

That’s what Baby Bunty did in the story before this, if you will kindly remember. But, after all, it was a good thing she did. On account of the fox, you know.

“Well, come along!” said Uncle Wiggily, after he had asked his muskrat lady housekeeper, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, what they were going to have for dinner.

“May I bring my rubber ball?” asked Baby Bunty, as she came out of the hollow stump 69bungalow with a very small pumpkin-colored hair ribbon around her ears.

“Oh, yes, bring your ball along,” said Uncle Wiggily kindly. “But please don’t sprinkle any water from it on me while I’m asleep.”

“I won’t,” promised Baby Bunty. And then, as Uncle Wiggily hopped along on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and as Baby Bunty ran along beside him, the little rabbit girl said: “Oh, dear! If he’s going to sleep every time we come to the woods, I’ll have no fun at all. But maybe I’ll find a way to keep him awake,” she said to herself, as she bounced her rubber ball.

On they went through the green woods, Baby Bunty running to and fro as fast as an automobile, and Uncle Wiggily coming along more like a trolley car, substantial-like, though unpoetical. The little rabbit girl picked pretty flowers now and then, while Mr. Longears chewed a bit of birch bark, or nibbled at sassafras and wintergreen, hoping it would cure his rheumatism.

“Now here is a nice place for you to play, Baby Bunty,” said Uncle Wiggily when they reached a green glade in the forest. “And I’ll just sit down on this soft, mossy log and think a bit.”

“Yes, I know what that means!” whispered 70Baby Bunty to herself. “It means he’ll go to sleep and won’t play tag or anything with me, and I can’t have any fun! Oh, dear!”

She bounced her ball on a bare, sandy place, while Uncle Wiggily picked out the softest, green, mossy log he could find. He laid aside his rheumatism crutch, took off his tall silk hat, and, folding his paws over his red vest, closed his eyes. His pink nose stopped twinkling.

“He’s asleep!” said Baby Bunty.

All of a sudden her bouncing rubber ball gave a big jump, and before the little rabbit girl could get her paws on it the rubber ball bounded right over on Uncle Wiggily’s bare head.

“Oh, I say! A-ker-choo! What’s that?” he cried, waking up all at once, and not partly, as he did sometimes.

“It is only my rubber ball!” said Bunty sweetly. “I’m so sorry it struck you! But, now that you are awake, don’t you want to play tag with me?”

“Not now,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I will later. I haven’t had my nap out yet. Please be careful of your ball, Baby Bunty.”

“I will,” said the little rabbit girl with a smile.

Uncle Wiggily closed his eyes again, and he was just slumbering nicely, when, just as Baby Bunty gave her rubber ball an extra hard bounce, 71away it flew again, and this time it landed right on the rabbit gentleman’s pink nose.

“My goodness me, sakes alive and some rice pudding without any raisins in!” he cried. “What’s that?”

“Only my rubber ball,” said Bunty, sweetly. “I’m sorry it awakened you. Don’t you want to——”

“I want to finish my nap,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Please go away far off and bounce your ball, Bunty.”

Once more he went to sleep. Baby Bunty, with a funny look on her face, hopped off in the woods. Then, all of a sudden, through the trees came flying her rubber ball. Straight as an arrow it flew, and it struck Uncle Wiggily right on his red vest.

“Oh, my goodness me, sakes alive and some peanut lollypops!” he cried. “Is that your ball again, Bunty?”

“Yes,” said the little rabbit girl, “it is. I was trying to throw it so Bully No-Tail, the frog boy, could toss it back to me. But I guess I didn’t throw straight enough. I’m sorry my ball hit you, Uncle Wiggily, but, now that you are awake, don’t you want to——”

“Oh, yes, I’ll play tag or hide-and-go seek or even turn somersaults!” laughed the bunny.

72“Between you and your ball, Baby Bunty, I’ll never get any sleep!”

“I thought you wouldn’t,” said Baby Bunty, smiling in a funny way. Then she and Mr. Longears had lots of fun. And, if the sunshine doesn’t tickle the raindrops and make them fall on the umbrella plant, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s carriage.

STORY XIII UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S CARRIAGE

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily, Uncle Wiggily,” called a jolly voice one day outside the hollow stump bungalow, where Mr. Longears, the rabbit gentleman, lived with Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper.

“Ha! I wonder if that’s Sammie or Susie Littletail, or Johnnie or Billie Bushytail?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as he turned a leaf of the cabbage newspaper he was reading.

“That’s Baby Bunty,” said Nurse Jane. “I guess she wants you to take her for a ride in her little red carriage. I see she has it out in front.”

“Oh, I can’t play with Baby Bunty today!” said Uncle Wiggily quickly. “I must go over and call on Grandfather Goosey Gander.”

“Baby Bunty will be so disappointed,” spoke Nurse Jane.

“It’s too bad,” agreed Mr. Longears. “But I must have a little rest and quiet. Baby Bunty is so lively!”

“Well, she keeps you that way, too,” said the muskrat lady. “And, on the whole, perhaps it 74is a good thing for you. I believe you have become younger these last two weeks.”

“Hum!” said Uncle Wiggily, noncommital like and unconvinced. “Anyhow I can’t play with Baby Bunty this morning.”

And when he told this to the little rabbit girl, whom he had found in a hollow stump, she said:

“Oh, dear! Then I’ll have to go off in the woods by myself and pick wild flowers. But will you play with me some other time, Uncle Wiggily, and chase me and have a game of tag and all that?”

“Yes,” promised Uncle Wiggily, as he put on his tall silk hat, and looked to see if his pink nose was twinkling properly, “I’ll play with you later.”

So he went one way through the woods, and Baby Bunty went another, pushing her carriage, in which she often used to be wheeled when she was smaller than she was now.

“Don’t get lost!” said Uncle Wiggily, as he waved his paw to the little rabbit girl.

“I’ll try not to,” she said.

Uncle Wiggily had a nice visit with his old friend, Grandfather Goosey Gander. They talked about the time when they were young and spry.

“But I’m getting old and stiff now,” said Uncle Wiggily.

75“You need some one to keep you lively,” quacked Grandpa Goosey.

“Oh, I have some one!” laughed Mr. Longears. “You should see Baby Bunty! Say, now I think of it, come on back to my hollow stump bungalow and stay to lunch. I’ll show you Baby Bunty—if she’s home. But she’s nearly always out in the woods, hopping around. She started off with her carriage just before I came here. Perhaps she went to get some one to give her a ride, as I had no time. Come and see Baby Bunty.”

“I will!” promised Grandfather Goosey Gander.

Together he and Uncle Wiggily went through the woods. But they had not traveled very far before, all at once, Grandpa Goosey cried:

“Look there, Uncle Wiggily! What’s that rolling down the hill in front of us? It looks like a baby carriage!”

“It is!” cried Mr. Longears, as he peered through his spectacles. “It’s Baby Bunty’s carriage, and it’s running away down hill. Oh, she’ll be hurt! I must hop after that carriage and stop it!”

“You never can catch that carriage!” quacked Grandpa Goosey. “It’s rolling down hill too fast! You are so old and stiff, like myself——”

76“Am I old and stiff?” cried Uncle Wiggily. “You just watch me hop!”

He jammed his tall silk hat down on his head, took a tight hold of his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and down the hill he leaped.

Faster and faster rolled Baby Bunty’s carriage! Faster and faster hopped Uncle Wiggily, his coat tails streaming out behind like two girls’s hair ribbons.

“I’ll save you, Bunty! I’ll save you!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “Don’t jump out of the carriage. I’ll get you! I can hop fast, even if I am stiff!”

With one big, extra long hop he reached the carriage, and caught hold of it in his paws just as it was going to tip over. He looked inside, thinking to see Baby Bunty half frightened out of her eye teeth, but, instead, there was only a big bouquet of wild flowers.

“Well! Well! What does this mean?” asked Uncle Wiggily, all out of breath, but still not stiff any more. “What is all this?”

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Baby Bunty, from the top of the hill, where she stood with Grandpa Goosey, “did you think I was in that runaway carriage?”

“I certainly did!” answered Mr. Longears.

“Why, I wasn’t at all!” laughed Baby Bunty. 77“I just used it to hold the wild flowers I picked. And when I wheeled it to the top of the hill it slipped away from me, and ran down. My! But you did run fast, Uncle Wiggily!”

“I should say he did!” quacked Granda Goosey. “Faster than I ever saw him hop before.”

“But it’s good for his rheumatism,” spoke Baby Bunty.

Mr. Longears never said a word as he wheeled the carriage up hill. But if the ice cream doesn’t melt when the gas stove asks it to dance the fox trot, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s party.

STORY XIV UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S PARTY

“My goodness me, sakes alive, Nurse Jane!” cried Uncle Wiggily Longears one morning, as he came downstairs in his hollow stump bungalow. “Why are you making so many cakes, pies and jam tarts? You have enough for a picnic!”

“These are for Baby Bunty!” explained the muskrat lady housekeeper.

“What! Is she going to eat all those?” asked Uncle Wiggily, surprised-like, not to say disconcerted.

“Oh, I’m going to let her have a play party in the yard,” explained Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. “Baby Bunty has been a good little girl lately, and when she asked me if she couldn’t have a party, with real cakes and cookies, I said yes. I hope you don’t mind.”

“Oh, not at all. Not at all!” quickly cried Uncle Wiggily. “If Baby Bunty has a party she won’t want me to chase her, or play tag, or go off to the woods to keep young and from getting stiff. If she has a party I can have a good sleep and rest.”

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81“But you’ll come to her party a little while, won’t you?” asked Nurse Jane. “Just look in to be polite, you know.”

“Oh, yes,” answered the rabbit gentleman. “I’ll just drop in for a cup of tea.”

Baby Bunty was delighted to have a party. She danced around the hollow stump bungalow and put on her best green yellow pink hair ribbon, making Uncle Wiggily tie it for her.

“You’re a dear, good, old Uncle Wiggily,” said Baby Bunty. “You’ll come to my party, won’t you?”

“Yes, but I just want to sit on a soft stump and watch you and the other animal children play,” spoke Mr. Longears. “I’m getting too old and stiff for parties!”

“We’ll see about that!” spoke Baby Bunty, with a funny little laugh.

Nurse Jane made the jam tarts, she frosted the cakes and she put fancy trimmings on the cookies and pies.

“Now everything is ready for your party!” said the muskrat lady to Baby Bunty. “Have you invited all your friends?”

“Yes, and Uncle Wiggily, too,” said the little rabbit girl, who was once found asleep in a hollow stump.

The little party tables were set out under the grape vine, in the shade. Pretty soon along came Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbits; Johnnie 82and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels; Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the ducks, and many others.

“Now, everybody sit down!” invited Baby Bunty, when they had gathered around the tables, filled with good things. “Welcome to my party! Uncle Wiggily, will you sing a little song?”

Uncle Wiggily, who wore his newest red vest, looked surprised. But still he sang a song about once there was a carrot with a long and slender tail, and when it went out walking it swam in the water pail.

“Now, everybody begin to eat!” invited Baby Bunty. “Oh, isn’t it fun to have a party! Uncle Wiggily, please pass Jackie Bow Wow a puppy cake!”

Uncle Wiggily, who had picked out a nice shady corner, and was just closing his eyes, opened them again, and passed the little doggie boy a cake.

“I’ll just sit here quietly,” thought Uncle Wiggily to himself. “Pretty soon they’ll all be so busy eating that they won’t notice me. Then I can go to sleep and forget about my rheumatism.”

The animal children were laughing and talking, and also eating the good things. Uncle Wiggily’s eyes were closed. He was dreaming he and 83Grandpa Goosey Gander were playing Scotch checkers, when, all of a sudden, Baby Bunty said:

“Uncle Wiggily, please pass Nannie Wagtail some paste pudding!”

“Eh! What’s that? Oh, I guess I had my eyes shut!” said the bunny gentleman. But he passed the paste pudding to the little goat girl, and he was just going to sleep again, when Bunty said:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Do try some of these turnip jam tarts! They’re wonderful!”

“Oh, yes. Jam tarts!” stammered the rabbit gentleman, awakening suddenly. However, he managed to eat a tart, and he was almost asleep again when Bunty suddenly said:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily, will you please pass the rose leaf ice cream to Arabella Chick!”

“Why, certainly,” said Uncle Wiggily, and he wondered if he would ever get a nice, quiet nap, such as he had counted on. After he had passed Lulu Wibblewobble some corn meal puddin’, the rabbit gentleman dozed off again, but he was suddenly awakened when Baby Bunty cried:

“Oh, here they are! Here they come! Oh, look, everybody!”

“My goodness me, sakes alive and some fire engines!” cried Mr. Longears, waking up so suddenly that he spilled some carrot marmalade 84on his red vest. “What’s the matter, Baby Bunty? Is it the Pipsisewah and the Skuddlemagoon come to spoil your party?”

“Why, no,” answered the little rabbit girl, sweetly. “It’s just the grasshopper and the cricket musicians, who are coming to play for the dancing. May I have a one-step with you, Uncle Wiggily?”

“Oh, Baby Bunty!” laughed Mr. Longears, as the grasshoppers tuned their hind-leg fiddles. “No one could go to sleep at your party!”

“Nor grow old or stiff, either,” said Baby Bunty. Then they all had a fine time. And if the jumping Jack doesn’t fall out of the salt cellar and scare the coal man when he brings in the ice, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s skipping rope.

STORY XV UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S ROPE

“Uncle Wiggily, would you do me a little favor?” asked Baby Bunty one morning, as she came out on the porch of the hollow stump bungalow, where Mr. Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was reading the paper.

“Well, Baby Bunty!” said Uncle Wiggily, to the little rabbit girl, whom he had found in a hollow stump tree, “I’d do almost anything for you, but please don’t ask me to come to any more parties, or chase you or play tag, or take you out in the woods with your rubber ball. I simply can’t do that, for I am too old and stiff!”

“Oh, this isn’t anything like that. All I want is for you to come with me while I buy a skipping rope. I want to learn to jump. All the other animal girls jump salt and pepper and vinegar and mustard, and I, too, want to learn.”

“Well,” said Uncle Wiggily, slowly, “that sounds like an easy favor. I’ll come, Baby Bunty.” “She surely can’t make me jump rope,” said Mr. Longears to himself. “I’m safe this time. I’ll get a chance to sleep today.”

So, putting on his tall silk hat, and taking his 86red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch with him, Uncle Wiggily hopped with Baby Bunty through the woods, to the ten and eleven cent store where wild grape vine jumping, or skipping, ropes were sold.

“Give Baby Bunty a nice rope,” said Uncle Wiggily to the little mousie girl clerk behind the counter, and the little rabbit girl soon had the finest one you can imagine, with puff balls on the ends so her paws wouldn’t slip off.

“Now I must learn to jump,” said Baby Bunty, as she and Uncle Wiggily started back through the woods.

Baby Bunty had watched Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the ducks, and some of the other animal girls skipping their wild grape vine ropes, so the little rabbit girl knew something about it. She swung the rope over her head and jumped “salt,” which is very slow jumping indeed.

“And while you are learning to skip rope, Baby Bunty,” said Uncle Wiggily, “I’ll just sit down on this soft green mossy log and go to sleep. You won’t mind, will you?”

“Oh, no,” answered Baby Bunty.

She found a nice, smooth place in the woods, where the green grass made a velvet carpet, and there Baby Bunty began to learn to jump. 87Uncle Wiggily’s pink nose stopped twinkling, and he fell asleep.

“Oh, dear!” said Baby Bunty, after a bit, “I never can learn all by myself. I’m going to tie one end of my grape vine rope to a tree, and ask Uncle Wiggily to turn the other end for me. Then I can learn to jump and, after a while, I’ll be able to turn for myself.”

Gently she tickled Uncle Wiggily under the chin with a soft piece of grass.

“Eh! What’s the matter? Mosquitoes?” cried the bunny gentleman, as he sat up suddenly and opened his eyes.

“Oh, no,” answered Baby Bunty. “I’m sorry to wake you up, Uncle Wiggily, but will you please turn rope for me? Just turn it salt, which is very slowly, and perhaps you can do that and sleep at the same time.”

“Perhaps!” said Uncle Wiggily, but rather doubtful like. “We’ll try.”

So he took one end of the grape vine rope, while the other end was tied to a tree, and Uncle Wiggily turned for Baby Bunty. He turned slowly, as one must for “salt,” and Uncle Wiggily’s eyes were just closing, and he was dozing off, when Baby Bunty said:

“Oh, could you please turn a little faster, Uncle Wiggily? I’m beginning to learn how. Please turn as fast as pepper.”

88“All right,” said Mr. Longears, good-natured like and accommodating. So he turned faster—like pepper you know—and even at that he was soon falling asleep again, when Bunty cried:

“Oh, I’m doing fine, Uncle Wiggily! I can even jump as fast as vinegar now, if you’ll turn more quickly for me.”

“Well, I’ll turn faster,” said Mr. Longears. “But I can plainly see that I’ll get no sleep today.”

So he turned “vinegar,” and Bunty jumped it easily, for she was fast learning how. Even then Uncle Wiggily nodded, and was almost going to sleep, when Bunty cried:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Please turn mustard! Turn mustard fashion as fast as you can! Wake up and turn mustard!”

“What’s this! Can you so soon jump as fast as mustard?” cried the bunny, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Oh, no, I can’t jump mustard yet!” cried Bunty. “But I had to say something to wake you up quickly. Look, here comes the bad Pipsisewah! We must run! Run as fast as you can! Run mustard fashion!”

“I will!” said Uncle Wiggily, and he did, and so did Bunty, and by running mustard, which is very fast, they soon got safely away from the bad Pipsisewah.

89“Hum!” said the Pip, as he was left behind in the woods. “If it hadn’t been for Baby Bunty waking up Uncle Wiggily, I surely would have had his souse!”

So it’s a good thing the little rabbit girl learned how to skip her grape vine rope, isn’t it? And the next day she could jump mustard. And if the automobile doesn’t go swimming in with the gold fish and make the poll parrot sleep in the cat’s cradle, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s scooter.

STORY XVI UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S SCOOTER

One day, when Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, came home to his hollow stump bungalow, having been over to call on Grandpa Goosey Gander, Mr. Longears saw Baby Bunty sitting on the front steps looking very sad and sorrowful.

“What’s the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Did you lose your grape vine skipping rope, Baby Bunty?”

“Oh, no,” answered the little rabbit girl. “My rope is all right, and I can jump salt, pepper, vinegar, mustard and even rice pudding. But I want a scooter, Uncle Wiggily! I want a scooter very much!”

“A scooter!” cried the bunny rabbit gentleman, in surprise. “What is that? Something new to jump rope with?”

“Oh, no,” answered Baby Bunty with a smile. “A scooter is a little two-wheeler roller skate wagon. It has wheels on it, and a place for you to stand with your feet and a place to hold on by your paws. You get on the scooter, give yourself a little push, and away you scoot as fast as 91anything! I want a scooter, Uncle Wiggily. All the other animal boys and girls have ’em!”

“Then you shall have one, too!” cried Mr. Longears. “Come on, Baby Bunty, we’ll go down to the fifteen and sixteen cent store and get you a scooter!”

“Oh, joy!” said Baby Bunty, clapping her paws, and trying to make her pink nose twinkle like Uncle Wiggily’s. But she didn’t do it very well, being so small.

A little later the rabbit gentleman and the little girl, who had been found in a hollow stump, were on their way through the woods to the fifteen and sixteen cent barn where they sold scooters.

“Give me the best one you have for Baby Bunty,” ordered Uncle Wiggily, and it was given him.

“Oh, may I ride home on it?” asked Baby Bunty, when they were on the smooth woodland path once more.

“Why, yes, if you know how,” said Uncle Wiggily.

“Oh, all you have to do with a scooter,” spoke Baby Bunty, “is to get on with your hind paws, hold fast to the handle with your front paws, give yourself a push and away you scoot!”

“Let me see you try it,” said Uncle Wiggily.

92“Maybe you’d better go first,” said Baby Bunty.

“Oh, no, indeed!” laughed her uncle. “I’m too old and stiff, and my rheumatism makes me feel too funny to ride on a scooter. Go ahead, Baby Bunty.”

Baby Bunty got on the foot-part of the scooter. She held tightly with her front paws, and gave herself a push with one hind paw. Along went the scooter, but alas! Likewise a-lack-a-day! Baby Bunty must have steered the wrong way, for bunk! into a tree she ran.

“Oh, did you hurt yourself?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as he ran to help her.

“Oh, no!” laughed the little rabbit girl. “It’s fun when I get so I know how to do it!”

Off she started once more, but this time she ran into a stump and bunked her nose.

“Are you hurt?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

“No—no,” said Bunty bravely. “But I must be more careful.”

The next time she steered very straight, but she sent the scooter right into a mud puddle and the mud splashed on Uncle Wiggily’s tall silk hat. But, as the hat was black, the mud spots do not show very plainly.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Baby Bunty. “I don’t believe I’ll ever learn how to ride my scooter. I should have bought roller skates. Don’t you 93want to ride and show me how, Uncle Wiggily?”

“Dear me!” said the rabbit gentleman, unpretentious like. “Do you think, at my age, I could?”

“Of course!” said Baby Bunty.

“I am lame and stiff and have the rheumatism,” said Uncle Wiggily, “but I’ll try anything once. Let me see that scooter, Bunty!”

Uncle Wiggily got on with his hind paws. He took hold with his front paws and he gave himself a push. And, just as it would happen, the scooter was then at the top of a hill. Down this hill went the funny little two-wheeled wagon, with Uncle Wiggily on it.

“Stop! Oh, stop!” begged Mr. Longears, as he saw what was before him. “I didn’t know this was down hill! Stop!”

But it was too late to stop! Down he went, faster and faster. And the scooter traveled so quickly that it rolled straight along and didn’t go from side to side, or bunk into anything.

“Oh, how wonderfully well Uncle Wiggily rides!” said Baby Bunty at the top of the hill, as she began to hop down.

And just then, at the bottom of the hill, the scooter, with Uncle Wiggily on it, struck a stump. Up in the air went the rabbit gentleman, and down he came with a thump. But he landed on a bed of soft moss and wasn’t hurt 94a bit. The scooter came down with a bump beside him. Uncle Wiggily looked around, dazed like. Baby Bunty came hopping down the hill.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried. “That was wonderful! But I didn’t know that was the way to get off a scooter.”

“It isn’t,” said Mr. Longears. “And don’t you try that way, either. But I enjoyed my ride. I’m not as stiff as I was, but I may be more so tomorrow. Now I’ll give you some lessons, Baby Bunty.”

The little rabbit girl soon learned to ride her scooter, but not down hill, and she had lots of fun. And if the clock doesn’t strike the dinner bell and make the gas stove think it’s time for supper before breakfast, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the flowers.

STORY XVII UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE FLOWERS

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, was hopping through the woods one day, wondering what Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy would have for his dinner in the hollow stump bungalow, when, suddenly, Mr. Longears heard some one call:

“Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Wait for me! Oh, wait for me!”

Quickly the rabbit gentleman turned around, and lowered his long ears, so they would not stick up over the tops of the bushes.

“I am not sure, as yet, whether I want to wait for whoever this is, or not,” said Uncle Wiggily, cautious like and reserved. “If it’s the Pipsisewah, or the Skuddlemagoon, I certainly don’t want them to see me, or the see the souse on my ears.”

Again the voice cried:

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Wait for me! Where are you. I saw you a moment ago, but now I can’t see you! Please wait for mee!”

“Why, that’s Baby Bunty!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, with a joyful twinkle of his pink nose. 96“My dear little baby rabbit, who was found in a stump! Of course I’ll wait for her.”

Then Uncle Wiggily let his ears flop up, so they could be seen over the bushes, and the little rabbit girl cried:

“Oh, now I can see you! Wait a minute and I’ll hop to where you are.”

Uncle Wiggily sat on a stump and waited. Pretty soon Baby Bunty came hopping along the woodland path.

“My goodness me, sakes alive and some peanut butter cakes!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “What is that yellow stuff on your paws, Baby Bunty?”

“Those are yellow flowers,” said Baby Bunty. “I picked both my paws full of them, and I’m going to give them to Nurse Jane.”

“Yellow flowers, eh?” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “Oh, so they are!” he went on, as he brushed some cobwebs off his glasses. “It is very kind of you to gather them for Nurse Jane.”

“I’m glad you think so,” spoke Baby Bunty. “Have a smell, Uncle Wiggily!” and she held her bouquet of yellow blossoms under the pink, twinkling nose of Uncle Wiggily.

“Oh, Baby Bunty, don’t!” begged Uncle Wiggily, drawing back. “Oh, dear me! A-ker-choo. Ker-snitzio! Bushwah! Bur-r-r-r!” and he sneezed eleven-sixteen times.

97“Oh! Are you catching cold, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Baby Bunty.

“No,” answered the old rabbit gentleman. “It’s just the flowers. They have some yellow dust on them, and the petals are so ticklish that, when they touched my nose, they made me sneeze. I like your flowers, Baby Bunty, and so will Nurse Jane, but please don’t hold them so close to my nose again.”

“I won’t,” promised the little rabbit girl. “Now we’ll have a nice game of tag! Come on, chase me!” and away she hopped through the woods.

“Hi, there! Come back!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Don’t run so fast, Baby Bunty! You may get lost or the Pipsisewah may catch you. Come back!”

“No, you chase me! Come on, tag me!” cried Baby Bunty.

“Oh, dear, I suppose I’ll have to,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, with a sort of sighing groan. “But I’m so old and stiff-like——”

But still he felt he must hop on to see that no harm came to Baby Bunty. And that little rabbit girl certainly led the old gentleman rabbit a long chase.

On through the woods hopped Baby Bunty, carrying her yellow flowers, and after her hopped Uncle Wiggily. All of a sudden Mr. 98Longears, looking ahead, saw the bad old Pipsisewah jump out from behind a stump, and make a grab for Baby Bunty!

“Oh, dear me, and some fire engine rice pudding!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I should have run faster after Baby Bunty to save her from the Pipsisewah. Yet, even if I were there, what could I do? And what can she do? Oh, this is too bad!”

Then, as he watched, he suddenly saw brave Baby Bunty thrust her bouquet of yellow flowers into the very face of the Pipsisewah. Right under his nose the little rabbit girl held the fuzzy blossoms, and then the Pip quickly turned a backward somersault and a forward peppersault and he went:

“Ker-choo! A-ker-choo-choo! Kersnooziozoozium!”

And he sneezed so hard that he sneezed himself away up over the trees, and far enough off so he couldn’t hurt Uncle Wiggily or Baby Bunty.

“Well, that’s the time the fuzzy, sneezy flowers came in useful!” said Uncle Wiggily.

Then he hopped up to Baby Bunty and found her smiling.

“Now do you like my flowers?” she asked.

“Yes,” answered Uncle Wiggily, “I do. And I’ll carry one of the bouquets for you.” But he 99was careful to hold it away from his pink, twinkling nose, as he didn’t want to sneeze as hard as the Pipsisewah had done.

So, everything came out all right, and if the fried egg doesn’t go to sleep on the sofa cushion and make the rocking chair think it’s a yellow rose, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the white birch.

STORY XVIII UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE WHITE BIRCH

“Where is Baby Bunty this morning?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, as he came downstairs to a rather late breakfast in his hollow stump bungalow.

“Do you want her to make you chase her, and play tag, or gather more yellow flowers to give the Pipsisewah a sneeze?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she poured some carrot gravy over Uncle Wiggily’s lettuce pancakes.

“Oh, indeed, I don’t want Baby Bunty for anything like that,” spoke Mr. Longears. “I was just thinking, if she were off playing somewhere, I could rest and not have to hop about like a jumping Jack walking a tight rope.”

“Oh, Baby Bunty is good for you!” laughed Nurse Jane. “Still, you needn’t worry now. She is out of the way. She has gone over to play with Beckie Stubtail, the little girl bear, and she is going to stay to supper. Baby Bunty doesn’t want to come home until after dark, and she told me to ask you to go after her.”

“I will,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Hurray! 101Much as I love Baby Bunty, I like to be quiet, sometimes. Now I can eat my breakfast and have a little sleep.”

So Uncle Wiggily did. In the afternoon he took a hop through the woods and had a little adventure with a frog lady. She was Mrs. No-Tail, the mother of Bully and Bawly, and Mrs. No-Tail fell into a pile of dry dust. Being fond of water, she didn’t like being dry, but she might never have gotten out of the dust if Uncle Wiggily had not helped her.

Then, after supper, Mr. Longears said to Nurse Jane:

“Now I will go over to Beckie Stubtail’s house and get Baby Bunty. She won’t be afraid to come home through the dark woods if I am with her.”

“No,” spoke Nurse Jane, “I hardly believe she will. But be very careful coming through the dark woods, Uncle Wiggily. The Pipsisewah may be hiding there waiting for you.”

“I’ll be careful!” promised the bunny rabbit. “But is there any favor I could do for you when I go to bring home Baby Bunty?”

“Yes,” replied Nurse Jane, “there is. If you have time, after you stop at the Stubtail house for our little rabbit girl, I wish you’d step over to Mrs. Wibblewobble’s, the duck lady. She has a bag of sugar for me. It’s three pounds 102she is giving me back for some she borrowed of me to make cornmeal cakes.”

“I’ll stop at Mrs. Wibblewobble’s and get the sugar, and also bring Baby Bunty home,” said Uncle Wiggily.

Then he hopped off through the woods. It was getting dark, but Uncle Wiggily didn’t care about that. Baby Bunty might, but he never would.

Soon the rabbit gentleman was at the home of Beckie Stubtail, the little bear girl. As he drew near he heard merry shouts and laughter.

“The children are having a good time,” thought Uncle Wiggily, and so they were. When they knew he was there, Baby Bunty wanted him to come in and play some games. But Mr. Longears said:

“No, Baby Bunty! It is getting late, and I have to stop at Mrs. Wibblewobble’s to get the sugar for Nurse Jane. You may come over again some other time.”

So, Baby Bunty said good night to Beckie Stubtail, and then the little rabbit girl and Uncle Wiggily started back through the dark woods.

“Aren’t you afraid?” asked Baby Bunty.

“Not a bit!” laughed Mr. Longears. He noticed that Bunty hopped close to his side, and 103did not run on ahead and want him to chase her, as she often did.

It did not take Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty long to get to the duck house, and there Mrs. Wibblewobble had the sugar wrapped up in a paper bag for them. Then, once more, Mr. Longears and Bunty started through the dark woods.

“Oh, what’s that?” suddenly asked the little rabbit girl, stopping and pointing ahead.

“Nothing but an old stump,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Come on!” They went along a little farther, and Baby Bunty all of a sudden cried:

“Oh, look! There’s a giant!”

“Nonsense!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “That’s only a big rock that looks like a giant. Hop along!”

They hopped along a little farther, and, all at once, Baby Bunty gave a backward jump, bunked into Uncle Wiggily so hard that she burst the paper bag, letting the sugar spill out, and she cried:

“Oh, what’s that big, tall, white thing waving its arms at us on the path? Oh, Uncle Wiggily! What is it? What is it?”

Baby Bunty snuggled close up against the rabbit gentleman. Uncle Wiggily looked once, he looked twice and he looked three times at the white thing. Truly it did seem to be waving its 104arms in the dark. Then Uncle Wiggily laughed.

“Why, that is only a white birch-bark tree, Baby Bunty,” he said. “You mustn’t be afraid of a white birch tree. And I’m glad we came to this one. With some of the loose bark I can make a new bag for the sugar. And I’ll be glad to do it, for the sugar is running down my leg and it tickles like sand at the seashore.”

So Uncle Wiggily made a bag from the white birch bark, put the sugar in it, and he and Baby Bunty were soon safe in the hollow stump bungalow. And if the cough drop doesn’t fall off toadstool and tickle rice pudding under the chin when they’re in the moving pictures, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the little pond.

STORY XIX UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LITTLE POND

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, was hopping along through Woodland near the Orange Ice Mountains, not far from Asbury Grove, where he had built his hollow stump bungalow. Mr. Longears was looking first on one side of the path and then on the other with his pink, twinkling nose.

I mean Uncle Wiggily had his pink nose with him; I don’t mean he was looking with it. Gracious, no! He looked with his eyes.

“Hello, Uncle Wiggily! Are you looking for an adventure?” asked Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, as he scampered up a hickory tree to see if any nuts were growing yet. But it was too early.

“No, I’m not exactly looking for an adventure,” spoke the bunny gentleman. “I want to find Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl who used to live in a hollow stump.”

“Do you want her to chase you and play tag?” asked Johnnie.

“Indeed, I do not!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Baby Bunty is too lively for me! She says she 106makes me chase her so I won’t get old and stiff. But it’s fun to be sort of restful like once in a while. Now I’m looking for Baby Bunty because Nurse Jane wants her to come and have her paws and face washed for supper. Have you seen her?”

“Do you mean Nurse Jane or Baby Bunty?” asked the squirrel boy, sort of joking like and comical.

“Baby Bunty, of course!” answered Uncle Wiggily. “I know where Nurse Jane is. She’s baking a strawberry long-cake in my hollow stump bungalow. But if you haven’t seen Baby Bunty I must hop along and look in other places.”

So Uncle Wiggily hopped along, and pretty soon he came to the shore of a large pond. On one bank of the pond were growing a number of tall plants, with thick, green leaves.

“Ha! Those are nice plants,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Perhaps they may have seen Baby Bunty pass this way.”

So, understanding the language of flowers, which is about the same as that which is talked by the leaves and vines, Uncle Wiggily asked the green plants if they had seen the little rabbit girl.

“No,” answered one large plant, “we haven’t seen Baby Bunty. We have been so busy trying 107to shake off a lot of bad, red, biting bugs, on our stalks and leaves, that we haven’t had a chance to look for any one. We wish we could drive the bugs away.”

“I can do that,” kindly offered Uncle Wiggily. “I will drive away the red bugs that are biting your thick, green, glossy leaves. I’ll knock them off with my red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch.”

“Please do!” begged the plants growing on the edge of the big pond.

So Uncle Wiggily drove away the biting bugs by tapping on the green, thick-leaved plants with his crutch, and the plants thanked the rabbit gentleman very much.

“If we can ever do you or any of your friends a favor we shall be glad to,” they said.

Uncle Wiggily hardly thought a plant could ever do you a favor, but just you wait and see. On and on through the woods hopped the rabbit gentleman, until pretty soon he came to a cute little shady dingly dell, and there was Baby Bunty lying on the grass fast asleep. In one paw was her wooden doll—Sarah Jane Sassafras Ricepudding.

“Oh, Bunty! Wake up!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Nurse Jane wants you to come home! It’s nearly supper time!”

Baby Bunty awakened with a start, rubbed 108her eyes, and then, holding her doll, Matilda Arabella Flapdoodle, in one paw, the little rabbit girl took hold of Uncle Wiggily’s coat tail and back to the hollow stump bungalow they started.

They had not gone very far, and they were hopping toward the big pond of water, when, all of a sudden, out from behind a stump popped the bad old Skuddlemagoon.

“Oh, ho! Now I have you!” cried the Skuddlemagoon.

Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty ran as fast as they could. So did the Skuddlemagoon. Pretty soon Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty came to the big pond.

“Oh, if only this pond were little now,” sighed Uncle Wiggily, “we could jump across it.”

“What good would that do?” asked Baby Bunty.

“Why, once on the other side, we would be safe from the Skuddlemagoon,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “The policeman dog lives on the other side of this pond. But, as it is now, it is too big for us to jump across, and if we have to run all the way around it the bad chap may catch us.”

And then, just as true as I’m telling you, all of a sudden the big pond began to shrink up. It shut its banks close together and became so little 109that Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty could easily jump across without getting wet.

All the way across the pond they jumped, and, when they were safe on the other side, the little pond suddenly stretched into a big one again and it was so large that the Skuddlemagoon couldn’t jump over.

“Oh, we’re safe, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Bunty. “We’re safe! But what made the big pond get little and then grow big again?”

“I don’t know,” answered Mr. Longears.

Then some voices spoke: “We made the big pond get little for you,” said the green stalks and leaves on the bank. “We shrank and also stretched the pond for you. We are rubber plants, you know, and rubber can stretch and shrink.”

That’s just how it happened. Weren’t those stretchy rubber plants good to Baby Bunty and Mr. Longears? And if the bluebell flower doesn’t ring so late in the morning that the alarm clock gets late for school, and can’t have any sawdust candy for recess, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the funny stump.

STORY XX UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE FUNNY STUMP

“Good-by, Uncle Wiggily! Good-by!” called Baby Bunty to Mr. Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one morning, as he stood on the front porch of his hollow stump bungalow.

“What’s that? ‘Good-by?’ Why, you aren’t going to leave me; are you?” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Are you going to leave me after I found you in the woods, and took care of you and—and all that!”

“Oh, but you say I make you chase me and play tag, and that I won’t let you sit around and get stiff and old and all the like of that! I’d better go away,” and really it looked as though Baby Bunty were going away, for she had a little bundle in one paw.

“Oh, don’t go away!” begged Uncle Wiggily. “I don’t mind chasing you, and I was only fooling about you making me get old and stiff.”

“And I was only fooling about going away!” laughed Baby Bunty. “I’m only going to take my painting lesson from Mother Nature. She knows how to color the flowers red, blue and golden, and she is giving me painting lessons. 111My paints are in this bundle. When I finish learning how to make a blue sky turn pink I’ll come back to you.”

“Please do!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I shall miss you.”

“Then, in an hour or so, if you walk through the woods you may meet me coming home from my painting lesson,” spoke Bunty.

“I will!” promised Uncle Wiggily. Then Baby Bunty hopped on with her box of colors, and Mr. Longears went to see Grandfather Goosey Gander.

“What do you s’pose Baby Bunty can paint?” asked Grandpa Goosey, when Uncle Wiggily had told about the little rabbit girl learning how to make a green leaf look red.

“I don’t know what she can paint, but she is a smart little thing,” said Mr. Longears. “It would be hard to find her equal if you hopped or waddled for one whole day and part of another.”

“I believe you!” quacked Grandpa Goosey Gander.

Pretty soon it was time for Uncle Wiggily to start hopping along the woodland path to meet Baby Bunty, for soon she would be leaving Mother Nature’s studio, where the little rabbit girl took her lessons.

“I must get Baby Bunty to give my red, white and blue striped barber pole rheumatism 112crutch a new coat of paint,” thought Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped along. “And I wonder just where I shall meet her!”

All of a sudden he heard a joyful sound.

“Hi, there, Uncle Wiggily! Here I am! Whoop-de-doodle-woodle!” and along hopped Baby Bunty. There was a smudge of red paint on one ear, a dab of blue paint on her left paw and a dribble of yellow paint on her hair ribbon.

“I’ve been having my painting lessons,” she said to Uncle Wiggily.

“I see you have!” he agreed, with a laugh. “Well, we’ll hop home now, and see what Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy has for supper.”

Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty were hopping along, when, all of a sudden, out from under a pile of dried grass jumped the bad old Magoosielum. The Magoosielum is worse than either the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon.

“Ah, ah! I’m in luck today!” cried the Magoosielum. “A rabbit gentleman and a rabbit girl! Let me see, whose souse shall I eat first? I guess I’ll take yours, Uncle Wiggily.”

With that the Magoosielum let go of Baby Bunty, well knowing she would not run away without Uncle Wiggily. Then the Magoosielum began looking at the rabbit gentleman’s ears to see where the best place would be to begin eating 113souse. For that is what souse is—pickled ears of nice rabbits.

“Well, I’ll take some left ear souse first,” said the Magoosielum, and he was just starting to do this, and Uncle Wiggily didn’t know what to do. The rabbit gentleman saw Baby Bunty open her paint box.

“That will not help any,” sadly thought Uncle Wiggily. “The only thing that will drive away a Magoosielum is pineapple cheese, and Baby Bunty has none of that.”

Then the bad animal stood in front of Uncle Wiggily picking out a good place to begin nibbling the souse, so Mr. Longears couldn’t see what Bunty was doing with the paint box. All he could see was that she was near a funny, old, gnarled and fire-blackened stump.

But, all of a sudden, Baby Bunty cried:

“Look out now, you bad old Magoosielum. Look out, or my friend, the Snippy-Snappy, will get you!”

And, as true as I’m telling you, there stood what seemed to be a little, short, squatty animal, with a big red mouth, a green nose, one yellow eye and one pink eye, one brown cheek and one purple one, and his teeth. Oh, his teeth were all sorts of colors, some even being Skilligimink shade!

“Oh, wow! Oh, this is terrible!” howled the 114bad Magoosielum. “Don’t let that Snippy-Snappy get me! I won’t hurt you, Uncle Wiggily!” And away ran the bad chap, not hurting Mr. Longears nor Bunty at all.

“But won’t the Snippy-Snappy get my souse?” asked Mr. Longears, when he saw that the unpleasant creature was gone. “Aren’t we in danger from the Snippy-Snappy?”

“Of course not!” laughed Bunty. “I just made the Snippy-Snappy on the outside of the funny old stump, with my colored paints. I painted the Snippy-Snappy, Uncle Wiggily, to scare the Magoosielum.”

“And right well you scared him,” spoke the bunny. “You surely are learning to paint, Bunty.” And if the safety pin doesn’t slide off the cushion and try to sprinkle soapsuds in the eye of the needle, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the queer log.

STORY XXI UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE QUEER LOG

“Where’s Uncle Wiggily? Where’s Uncle Wiggily?” asked Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl, of Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, one morning. “Where is he?”

“Why, Uncle Wiggily has gone to the store for me,” answered the muskrat lady housekeeper of the hollow stump bungalow. “He has gone to get me some molasses!”

“Oh, dear!” sighed Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl, who had been found in a hollow stump.

“Why, whatever is the matter?” asked Nurse Jane, who had a dab of flour on her nose. And whenever the muskrat lady had a dab of flour on her nose you could be sure that she was making a pie. “Don’t you like molasses cake, Bunty?” Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy asked.

“Oh, yes! Have you any?” Baby Bunty wanted to know.

“I’ll make one as soon as Uncle Wiggily comes back with the jug of molasses,” went on Nurse Jane. “But why did you say ‘Oh, dear!’ in such a doleful voice?”

“Because I wished Uncle Wiggily were here 116to chase me, or play tag, or something! I’m so afraid he’ll get old and stiff.”

“Well, why don’t you hop off in the woods and meet him?” asked Nurse Jane of the lively little rabbit girl. Baby Bunty could hardly ever keep still. “If you go to meet him you’ll see him hopping along with the molasses jug,” went on the muskrat lady, “and then he’ll chase you, or play tag or let you help him carry the sweet stuff I’m going to put in a cake.”

“I’ll do that,” said Baby Bunty, and away she hopped with her rubber doll named Beatrice Ethelmore Lemonsqueezer.

As she was hopping through the woods to meet Uncle Wiggily, all of a sudden Baby Bunty heard, near a little spring of water, a sad voice crying:

“Oh, I’m so wet! Oh, if some one would only help me out of the water!”

“Some one is drowning!” said Baby Bunty. “I wonder if I could save them?”

On a bed of soft, green moss, she put her wax doll, Sarah Ann Belinda Washbasin, and hurried to the side of the little spring. There Baby Bunty saw a poor honey bee splashing in the water.

“I’ll save you!” kindly said the little rabbit girl. With a long stick she fished the half-drowned 117bee out of the pool, and placed him on a leaf in the sun where his wings could dry.

“Thank you for saving me,” buzzed the bee, when he had shaken off some of the water. “I shall be glad to do you a favor, if I may. Do you want me to make you some honey?”

“Oh, thank you, no; not now,” answered Baby Bunty. “Uncle Wiggily is bringing home the molasses jug. But some other time we may want your honey.”

“Any time you do I’ll give you some,” buzzed the bee. Then he flew away to look for more honey flowers. Baby Bunty was glad she had saved the bee, which a big dragon fly had knocked into the spring of water.

On and on through the woods hopped Baby Bunty, and pretty soon she saw Uncle Wiggily coming toward her, with the molasses jug on his paw.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried the little rabbit girl. “I’m so glad I met you. Now I’ll help you carry the molasses jug and when we get home you’ll chase me, and play tag; won’t you?”

“Oh, yes, I guess so,” answered Mr. Longears.

“It will keep you from getting old and stiff, you know,” said Baby Bunty sweetly, as she took hold of one side of the molasses jug.

She and Uncle Wiggily hopped on, but, all 118of a sudden, out from behind a bush jumped the bad old fox.

“Oh, ho!” cried the fox. “This time I have you!”

He made a grab for Uncle Wiggily and Bunty, but they were too quick for him.

“Run, Bunty! Run!” cried Mr. Longears. And he ran and hopped, and so did Bunty, and they got away from the fox. But, alas, they dropped the molasses jug and they didn’t dare stop to pick it up, or go back after it.

“Oh, dear! What shall I do?” sighed Uncle Wiggily. “I have lost the molasses and jug, and Nurse Jane will be so disappointed! Oh, dear!” and he sat down on a queer log, that had a hole in each end, and warts like a toad all over it.

“It is too bad,” said Baby Bunty.

“What is too bad?” asked a gentle, little voice, and out of one end of the queer log flew the very same honey bee that Baby Bunty had saved from the spring. “What is too bad?” asked the bee.

“The fox chased us and I lost the molasses jug,” said Uncle Wiggily.

“Oh, ho! Don’t let that worry you!” buzzed the bee. “Inside this queer log I and many other bees have a lot of flower honey. It is as sweet as molasses, and I’ll give you all you want. 119Here, make a box of some white birch bark from this tree, and take Nurse Jane a lot of our honey.”

“Oh, that will be just fine!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Nurse Jane can make honey cakes!” And the muskrat lady did. So you see losing the molasses jug didn’t so much matter after all. And if the man in the moon doesn’t want to come and live in our house and make the lady bug move into the garage, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the lightning bug.

STORY XXII UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LIGHTNING BUG

“Tag! You’re it!” cried Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl, one morning, as she ran around on the porch of the hollow stump bungalow and tapped Uncle Wiggily on his tall silk hat with her paw.

“Oh, dear! Now I suppose I’ve got to chase you!” exclaimed the rabbit gentleman, as he started his pink nose to twinkling. “And I’m so stiff I can hardly run this morning!”

But Mr. Longears chased the little rabbit girl, and he really felt better after a lively race around the hollow stump bungalow, so that some of his stiffness was gone as he set forth, a little later, to hop through the woods with Bunty.

“What sort of an adventure do you think we’ll have today, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Baby Bunty, as she hopped along beside the rabbit gentleman.

“Oh, you never can tell,” he answered. “I suppose the skillery-scalery alligator, or the bad old Pipsisewah will come along and——”

Hardly had Uncle Wiggily said these few 121words than he and Baby Bunty heard a sad little voice saying:

“Oh, dear! Oh, dear, me! Here I’m caught in a sassafras tree!”

“Who’s that?” asked Baby Bunty.

“I don’t know who it is, but I know who it isn’t!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily.

“Then who isn’t it?” asked Baby Bunty.

“It isn’t the Pipsisewah,” spoke the rabbit gentleman. “He never uses poetry, though he did eat some of your sugary frosted chocolate cake the other day. But I must see who this is. They may need help.”

“Indeed I do!” went on the sad little voice.

“Who are you?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

“A lightning bug,” was the answer. “Some persons call us fireflies, and that’s a good name, too. But I am caught fast by my legs in the sticky gum on this sassafras tree, and I can’t get loose.”

“I’ll help you,” said Uncle Wiggily.

“So will I,” added Baby Bunty.

She and Uncle Wiggily looked, and they saw a little brown and drab bug on the branch of a sassafras tree not far away.

“You don’t look like a lightning bug,” said Baby Bunty. “You don’t shine at all.”

“I only shine in the dark,” said the bug.

“Yes, that is true; many times I have seen 122you, or your friends,” admitted Uncle Wiggily. Then he gently set the firefly free from the sticky gum, and the little bug flew away. But before it left it said:

“If ever I can help you, or Baby Bunty, I shall be most glad to do so, Uncle Wiggily.”

“Oh, pray, don’t mention it,” spoke the rabbit gentleman, diffident-like and shy.

Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty traveled on and on over the fields and through the woods, looking for an adventure, but they could not seem to find any, unless you call helping the lightning bug an adventure.

And pretty soon it began to get dark, for Uncle Wiggily had stayed out later than he meant to.

“Oh, dear!” sighed Baby Bunty. “Hadn’t we better get back to your hollow stump, Uncle Wiggily?”

“Yes, I think so,” said the rabbit gentleman. But when he tried to find the path that led to home and Nurse Jane he could not. It was too dark.

“Oh, we are lost in the woods and the bad Pipsisewah will get us,” cried Baby Bunty.

“Hush!” said Uncle Wiggily. “It will be all right. I’ll light a fire here on this big stone. The Pipsisewah, or no other wild animal, will come where there is a fire!”

123

125“Then please light one,” begged Baby Bunty.

But when Uncle Wiggily tried to make the fire he found he had no matches. And then, all of a sudden, there was heard a crackling and rustling in the bushes.

“Oh, the Pipsisewah is coming!” cried Baby Bunty.

“He’d soon go away if I could make these sticks burn!” said Uncle Wiggily, trying again to find a match, but he could not.

The Pipsisewah came nearer and nearer, howling for rabbit-ear souse. And then, all of a sudden, a little bright and shining light flew through the air, and came down on the flat stone where Uncle Wiggily had placed the sticks to make a fire. And, in another moment ten thousand other little points of light came flying along. They dropped down among the dry sticks and branches at the spot where Uncle Wiggily had tried to make the blaze until it looked as if the whole place were burning.

“Oh, look!” cried Baby Bunty. “We have a bonfire!”

And the Pipsisewah, seeing the bright light, gave a grumble and growl and quickly sneaked away.

“Just my luck!” he said. “I thought I’d have a bit of souse, but I don’t even dare go near the fire!”

126And Uncle Wiggily, looking among the sticks, said:

“This isn’t burning fire at all; it’s just a lot of lightning bugs crawling on the pieces of wood.”

“Yes, that’s what we are,” said a voice. “I am the lightning bug you saved from the sticky gum, and these are my cousins and my sisters and my aunts.”

“And you saved us from the Pipsisewah!” said Uncle Wiggily, and so the lightning bugs had. Then the firefly bugs flew on ahead, lighting the path to the hollow stump bungalow for the bunnies, and all was well.

And if the loaf of bread doesn’t hide in the flower pot when the rice pudding wants it to help catch the raisins for a pie, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the roses.

STORY XXIII UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE ROSES

“Dear me!” exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy one day, as she walked down to the end of her garden near the hollow stump bungalow. “This is too bad!”

“What’s the matter now?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears. “Have Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, those two little puppy dog boys, been digging up your seeds?”

“No,” answered the muskrat lady housekeeper to the bunny rabbit gentleman, “not quite that. But something has been eating my lovely roses. And I wanted to keep them nice to send a bouquet to Grandpa Goosey Gander.”

“Ha! Some one has been eating your roses have they, Nurse Jane?” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, animosity-like and determined. “Well, do you think Johnnie or Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, or Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck, or perhaps Curly and Floppy Twistytail, the piggie boys, could have taken the flowers?”

“No, indeed!” said Nurse Jane. “They wouldn’t do that. Some one seems to have been chewing the lovely rose petals, that are like 128satin velvet, and also, many of the green leaves are eaten.”

“Then I just know who did it!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I know who has been eating your roses!”

“Who?” asked Nurse Jane, all excited like.

“The Skuddlemagoon, the Skeezicks or the Pipsisewah! Either one of those bad chaps!” said the bunny.

“I think so, too,” said Baby Bunty, who hopped along just then, rolling her hoop. “Can you catch them, Uncle Wiggily?”

“I’m going to try,” said the brave bunny gentleman.

“Oh, please don’t!” begged Nurse Jane. “I don’t want you to run into danger, Uncle Wiggily, and catching the Skeezicks, the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon would be very dangerous. The roses aren’t worth it.”

“Oh, yes they are,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But I am not going to run into danger. The way I’ll catch whoever is eating your rose petals will be this. I’ll hide out here in the grass, and when I see the Skuddlemagoon, the Pipsisewah or the Skeezicks sneaking up to bite a flower, I’ll run out, sprinkle some salt on their tails and that will make them behave.”

“Well, perhaps if you do it that way it will 129be all right,” said Nurse Jane. “But do take care of yourself, Uncle Wiggily; won’t you?”

“I will,” promised the bunny rabbit gentleman. So he got the big salt cellar out of the kitchen, and then he hid himself in the tall grass near the rose bushes in Nurse Jane’s garden.

“I’m going to hide with you, too, and watch,” said Baby Bunty. “I can tell you when the Pipsisewah is coming, Uncle Wiggily.”

“Yes, you may hide with me,” said Mr. Longears. “You are a lively little rabbit girl, and you will not fall asleep yourself, nor let me.”

“Indeed, I won’t,” promised Baby Bunty, and she kept tickling Uncle Wiggily with a piece of ribbon grass on his pink, twinkling nose every time he looked as though he were going to doze off and fall asleep.

Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty had not been hiding and watching very long before, all of a sudden, the little rabbit girl whispered:

“Here comes the Skeezicks!”

“Eh? The Skeezicks? So he does!” spoke the rabbit gentleman softly, and, looking over the top of the grass he saw the bad chap sneaking along. The Skeezicks picked off a rose and held it in his paw.

“Now I’ll slip out and sprinkle salt on his tail!” said Uncle Wiggily. And he was just going to do this when Baby Bunty said:

130“Oh, wait! Here comes the Skuddlemagoon!”

And, surely enough, into the garden came also the bad Skuddlemagoon.

“Two of ’em! This is going to be our busy day!” said Uncle Wiggily softly, as he looked to see if he had enough salt. “Well, I’ll tame ’em both! They must learn to let Nurse Jane’s roses alone,” said he.

Uncle Wiggily was just going to hop out and sprinkle salt on the tails of the Skeezicks and the Skuddlemagoon, when Baby Bunty caught him by the coat tails—she caught Uncle Wiggily, I mean—and pulled him back down in the tall grass.

“Look out! Here comes the Pipsisewah!” cried the lively little rabbit girl, in a shrill whisper.

Uncle Wiggily looked. Surely enough there was the old Pip, and just as the Skuddlemagoon and the Skeezicks had done, the Pipsisewah picked a rose.

“Now we know who has been eating Nurse Jane’s flowers,” said Uncle Wiggily to Baby Bunty. “Well, here I go to sprinkle salt on all three of their tails, and then we’ll see what happens.”

“Better wait,” said the little rabbit girl, and, as she said that the Pipsisewah exclaimed:

131“Now, gentlemen, I believe we are all ready. Take a smell of your roses and then we’ll rush up to the bungalow, grab Uncle Wiggily and take away all his souse.”

“Right you are!” growled the Skuddlemagoon and the Skeezicks. All three of the bad chaps lifted the roses to their noses to smell the sweet posies, when, all of a sudden, a big, black pinching beetle flew out of the rose the Skeezicks had and pinched him on the nose. And a big black beetle flew out of the rose the Skuddlemagoon held and pinched him on the nose. And then a big black beetle flew out of the rose the Pipsisewah held and pinched him on the nose.

“Wow! Wow! Wow!” cried the bad animals. “This is too much!”

And away they ran, not hurting Uncle Wiggily at all, and they never took any more of Nurse Jane’s flowers. And because the beetles had been so brave they were given all the rose leaf honey they wanted.

Now if the umbrella doesn’t run out in the rain, and get its rubbers all wet so it can’t slide down the ironing board, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the red tulip.

STORY XXIV UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE RED TULIP

Down in Nurse Jane’s garden, near the hollow stump bungalow, grew many flowers besides the roses, out of which flew the black beetles to nip the noses of the Skeezicks, the Skuddlemagoon and the Pipsisewah, as I have told you.

Among the flowers were big tulips, white, golden and pink, and, best of all, Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, loved a tulip that was red.

“It makes me think of so many things that are beautiful,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I could look at the red tulip all day long.”

“Well, please don’t look at it all day just now, if you please!” begged Nurse Jane with a laugh. “Far be it from me, Uncle Wiggily, to hurt your feelings,” said she, “or to make you stop loving my flowers. But it is getting late afternoon now, and I have company coming for tea. There isn’t a bit of sugar in the bungalow, and unless you go to the seven and eight cent store and get me some—well, my little tea party will not be at all nice.”

“Oh, excuse me! I’ll go get the sugar at 133once,” said Uncle Wiggily. Then, putting on his tall, silk hat, and taking his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch off the garden gate, Uncle Wiggily started to hop to the nine and ten cent store for some sugar.

“But I must take just one more look at the red tulip,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I want to remember how beautiful it was as I hop along to the store.”

So he went into the garden again, and stood looking at the red flower, the petals of which were spread wide open to let the sun warm the heart of the blossom.

Then Uncle Wiggily noticed that some weeds were growing up too near the red tulip, so he dug them out with the end of his red crutch.

“Weeds are not good for flowers,” said Uncle Wiggily.

Just then Baby Bunty called to him from the back kitchen window:

“Uncle Wiggily, if you don’t stop fussing over that tulip, and hurry on to the store, it will be closed—I mean the store will be closed. It’s getting late.”

“Yes, and the tulip will be closed also,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Tulip flowers close when evening comes and open in the morning. But I’ll hurry, Baby Bunty.”

Giving one last look at his favorite flower, 134Uncle Wiggily hopped on to the ten and eleven cent store. The afternoon was rapidly turning into evening, and the bunny rabbit gentleman hurried as fast as he could. But, just as Baby Bunty had said, he had spent too much time over the red tulip. The store was closed and Uncle Wiggily could get no sugar.

“This is too bad!” he exclaimed. “What am I going to do for sugar for Nurse Jane’s tea! She’ll be so disappointed. I’ll go see if I can find another store that isn’t closed, as my red tulip must be closed now.”

So Uncle Wiggily hopped on through the woods, but no other store could he find. And it was getting later and later, and he knew it must be almost time for Nurse Jane’s company to arrive and have tea.

“Well, there is no help for it,” said the rabbit gentleman, sort of ashamed like and perfunctory. “I’ll just have to tell Nurse Jane I reached the store too late. She’ll have to use molasses to sweeten the tea. And yet that will not be at all nice.”

Still there was nothing else to be done. If it had been spring he could have gotten some sweet maple sugar sap from a tree, but the sap had stopped running.

“I guess molasses is what she’ll have to use,” said the bunny, as he hopped around the back 135way into his hollow stump bungalow. “I’ll take one last look at my red tulip,” he said. He wanted to put off, as long as possible, telling Nurse Jane the bad news.

Uncle Wiggily reached the garden. His red tulip had closed up its petals. Just as he had expected, until the blossom looked more like a bud than a full flower. And, as Uncle Wiggily looked at the red tulip he heard, coming from it, a voice which said:

“Let me out! Oh, please, let me out!”

“Who are you and where are you?” asked the rabbit gentleman in surprise.

“I am a buzzing bee and I am inside the red tulip,” was the answer. “I was getting a bit of yellow pollen on my legs, to help make wax, when the tulip flower suddenly closed its petals and I’m caught.”

“Yes, that is just what happened,” said the red tulip. “I’m sorry, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d open my petals and let you out, my dear bee, but I can not, I can not open my petals until morning.”

“Ah, but I can open them and I will, and I’ll let the bee out,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But I’ll do so very gently, my dear red tulip. I will not hurt you.”

Very carefully Uncle Wiggily opened the red tulip and out flew the buzzing bee.

136“Thank you, Uncle Wiggily,” it said. And then it went on: “But why do you look so sad and worried?”

“Because I forget Nurse Jane’s sugar, or, rather, I got to the store too late,” was the answer.

“Oh, I can easily fix that,” said the bee. “Since you were so kind as to let me out of the red tulip, I’ll call a lot of my friends and we’ll bring sweet honey for Nurse Jane’s tea.” And the bees did, and so everything was all right, and Nurse Jane said the honey was better than sugar.

And, if the clothes pin doesn’t try to climb out of the thread box when it’s hiding away from the cake of soap as they play tag, you shall next hear about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s slippers.

STORY XXV UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S SLIPPERS

“Well, I think she is all ready now, except her slippers,” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.

“Who is ready?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, as he hopped up the steps of his hollow stump bungalow, in time to hear his muskrat lady housekeeper ring the dinner bell.

“Baby Bunty,” answered Nurse Jane. “She is all ready except her slippers, and I thought you’d get them for her.”

“Well, I’ll do almost anything for Baby Bunty except chase her, or play tag, on the days when I’m too lame and stiff,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he sat down on the softest side of the porch, for his rheumatism hurt him a little just then. “But what’s all this about her slippers, and what is Baby Bunty getting ready for?” he asked.

“Oh, a little party that Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girl, is going to give,” spoke Nurse Jane. “I have made Baby Bunty a new dress for it, and she has a new sky-blue-pink hair ribbon, so she is all ready except her slippers. Will 138you go to the five and six cent store and get them?”

“Of course I will!” said Uncle Wiggily with a jolly laugh that made his nose twinkle like a piece of cherry pie going to a moving picture show. “I’ll hop right along,” said the bunny rabbit gentleman, “and get Baby Bunty’s slippers. Don’t let her go to the party until I get back.”

“Oh, she can’t go without her slippers,” spoke Nurse Jane. “I’m going in now and curl her fur.”

So while the muskrat lady did this Uncle Wiggily hopped over the fields and through the woods to the seven and eight cent store to get Baby Bunty’s party slippers.

Now the rabbit gentleman had not gone very far over hill and dale than, all at once, he saw a nice hoptoad lady limping along the woodland path, trying to carry a loaf of dandelion bread. But she was going very slowly, was the hoptoad lady, and, every now and then, she would drop the loaf of bread.

“Why, my dear Mrs. Toad, what’s the matter?” kindly asked Uncle Wiggily as he caught up to her. “Have you met with an accident?”

“I should say so,” was the answer. “An automobile ran over my toes, and I can hardly walk; much less carry the loaf of dandelion bread.”

“Then allow me to carry it for you,” said Uncle 139Wiggily. And he did, and he helped the hoptoad lady limp to her home under an old log.

“I know what it is to be lame and hardly able to walk,” spoke Mr. Longears, as the toad lady thanked him. “I am only too glad that I could help you,” said he.

Then he hopped on a little farther and he met a bumble bee caught fast in the sticky gum of a pine tree. With his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, Uncle Wiggily helped the bee get its legs free, and away it flew.

“If I can ever help you I will, dear Uncle Wiggily,” buzzed the bee.

Then the bunny uncle hopped on and on, and pretty soon he came to the store where Nurse Jane had told him to get Baby Bunty’s slippers.

But alas! When he reached the place the store was closed, for it was much later in the afternoon than Uncle Wiggily had thought. It was so light, and with the clocks being set an hour ahead, you know, that he thought he had plenty of time. But the store was locked for the night.

“Well, if I can’t get Baby Bunty’s slippers here I’ll have to go to a drug store or somewhere else,” thought the bunny rabbit. “Drug stores keep open late.”

But the drug stores did not sell party slippers for little rabbit girls, and, though he tried in many other places, and even in a moving picture 140show, Uncle Wiggily could buy no slippers for Baby Bunty.

“Oh, dear! What shall I do?” thought Mr. Longears. “Baby Bunty will be so disappointed! She can’t go to the party without slippers! Oh, dear! What shall I do?”

“Ha! Perhaps I can help you, Uncle Wiggily,” said a buzzing voice. “I am the bumble bee to whom you were so kind. I know where there are a lot of lady slippers, and——”

“Oh, but Baby Bunty is too small to wear a lady’s slipper,” said the rabbit. “But where are those of which you speak?”

“Right over here,” buzzed the bee, and he flew over to where there was a large bed of the flowers called “Lady’s Slippers.” He perched upon a pink blossom and said: “Here are some very small flowers, Uncle Wiggily, I’m sure they would do for Baby Bunty.”

“And if they are too large I can make them smaller,” said another voice. “I am the toad lady whom you helped,” the voice went on, “and I can take a tuck in the flower slippers with some toad-flax, sewing them up, and making them just fit Baby Bunty.”

“Oh, I wish you would,” said Uncle Wiggily.

So he picked two of the smallest lady slipper flowers which the bee pointed out, the toad lady made them smaller, and Baby Bunty wore them 141to Alice Wibblewobble’s party. And all the animal girls said:

“Oh, aren’t Baby Bunty’s slippers cute!”

So everything came out all right.

A remarkably well told, instructive series of stories of animals, their characteristics and the exciting incidents in their lives. Young people will find these tales of animal life filled with a true and intimate knowledge of nature lore.

In this new children’s series the adventures of many familiar animal characters are pictured in a realistic manner. Young readers will find these captivating tales of the habits, haunts and pranks of their little animal friends brimful of entertainment.