[Illustration: [Uncle Wiggily]]
UNCLE WIGGILY
[TRADE MARK REGISTERED]
AND
BABY BUNTY
_by_
HOWARD R. GARIS
_Author of_ “UNCLE WIGGILY BEDTIME STORIES”, “UNCLE WIGGILY’S PICTURE
BOOK”, “UNCLE WIGGILY’S STORY BOOK”, Etc.
_Illustrated by_
LOUIS WISA
[Illustration: [Logo]]
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
UNCLE WIGGILY BOOKS
(TRADE MARK REGISTERED)
_by_
HOWARD R. GARIS
BEDTIME STORIES
UNCLE WIGGILY and CHARLIE and ARABELLA CHICK
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE RINGTAILS
UNCLE WIGGILY ON SUGAR ISLAND
UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY
UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE COUNTRY
UNCLE WIGGILY’S PUZZLE BOOK
UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS
UNCLE WIGGILY’S ADVENTURES
UNCLE WIGGILY’S AUTOMOBILE
UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FARM
UNCLE WIGGILY’S BUNGALOW
UNCLE WIGGILY’S FORTUNE
UNCLE WIGGILY’S TRAVELS
UNCLE WIGGILY’S AIRSHIP
Larger Uncle Wiggily Volumes
UNCLE WIGGILY’S PICTURE BOOK
_33 full colored illustrations and 32 in black and white_
UNCLE WIGGILY’S STORY BOOK
_16 full colored illustrations and 29 in black and white_
_Copyright 1920 by_
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY
_Printed in the United States of America_
STORY I
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY
“Ouch! Oh, dear! My! My!”
That was what Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy heard one day in the hollow stump
bungalow. She was just getting breakfast for Uncle Wiggily Longears, the
bunny gentleman.
“My goodness me sakes alive and a basket of potato chips!” cried Nurse
Jane, accidentally dropping a stewed carrot into the turnip marmalade.
“I hope the Skeezicks, or the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon hasn’t
caught Mr. Longears!”
She looked in the dining room. The uncle bunny had just come downstairs
to his breakfast.
“Ouch! Oh, me! Oh, my!” groaned Uncle Wiggily as he sat down in his
chair, which was gnawed out of a grape vine root.
“Why, no one is biting him,” said Nurse Jane, as she looked all around.
“Whatever in the world is the matter, Wiggy?” she asked, bringing in his
breakfast turnip.
“Oh, I’m getting old, I guess,” he answered. “My joints are stiff, and
it isn’t all rheumatism, either. I can’t move around as spry as I’d like
to. Every time I bend over, or stoop, or try to hurry I get aches and
pains and——”
“Oh, nonsense!” laughed Nurse Jane. “You only imagine it. You’re as
young as ever! What you need is some one lively around the house. Some
one to chase you, to tag you and make you spry. I can’t do it, because I
have the housework to look after. But if you could get some bright,
frisky, lively little chap—why, you’d be a different rabbit.”
“I s’pose I would,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Do you mean to get Johnnie or
Billie Bushytail, one of the squirrel boys? They’re lively enough.”
“Yes, they’re lively enough,” said Nurse Jane, “but they have to frisk
around their own home nest. You want some one to stay here with you a
long time.”
“All right,” said Uncle Wiggily, sad like and not very hopeful. “After
breakfast I’ll go to the five and six cent store and see if I can get a
lively little chap to cheer me up.”
“You won’t find any at the five and six, nor even at the ten and eleven
cent store,” said Nurse Jane. “True, the little mousie girl clerks are
lively enough, but they have to work. You need a—well, a sort of
companion. I’m getting too old for you.”
“Nonsense!” scoffed Uncle Wiggily.
But, as he hopped over the fields and through the woods after breakfast
the more he thought of what Nurse Jane had said the more he knew she was
right.
“I need some one lively to make me jump around,” thought the bunny. “If
only I could get a——”
Just then he heard a little voice calling:
“Let me out! Let me out.”
“Ha! Where does that voice come from?” asked the bunny. “Where are you,
whoever you are?”
“In this hollow stump, right behind you!” answered the voice. “Oh, I
hate being cooped up here! I want to get out and jump around and chase
my shadow and jump over moonbeams and all things like that.”
“Are you—are you a fairy?” asked Uncle Wiggily sort of hopeful like. “If
I help you out of the hollow stump, could you make me feel younger and
more lively?”
“Of course I could; but I’m not a fairy,” was the answer, given with a
jolly laugh.
“You must be a fairy or else you couldn’t take away my old-age aches and
pains,” said the bunny. “Well, as long as you aren’t the
skillery-scalery alligator, or the Pipsisewah, I’ll let you out. But how
did you get in?”
“Let me out and I’ll tell you,” said the voice.
The hollow stump was partly filled with old dried leaves, broken sticks
and bits of bark. Uncle Wiggily scraped all this away with his paws, and
out popped the dearest little girl rabbit you ever saw.
“Oh, who are you?” asked Uncle Wiggily in surprise.
“I am Baby Bunty,” was the answer. “I was going through the woods with
my papa and mamma a while ago, but a bad fox caught them, and I was left
all alone. So I hid in the hollow stump, the birds piled leaves and bits
of bark over me to cover me, but when it rained it was packed down so
hard that I couldn’t get out. So I had to cry for help.”
“Well, I’m glad I helped you,” said the bunny. “But how are you going to
make me feel young again——”
“Tag! You’re it!” suddenly cried Baby Bunty, tapping Uncle Wiggily with
her paw. “Now you have to chase me!” and away she hopped through the
woods.
“My goodness! If she goes along like that, all alone, the fox will catch
her!” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll have to run after her! But my aches—my
pains—oh dear!”
Away hopped the rabbit gentleman, after Baby Bunty. She ran fast and so
did Uncle Wiggily, and when they reached his hollow stump bungalow he
was so warm and excited and so anxious about Baby Bunty—why, he wasn’t
lame or stiff a bit! Can you imagine?
“I told you so!” laughed Nurse Jane, when she saw the baby rabbit, which
Mr. Longears said he would keep in his bungalow. “Now that you have some
one young around you’ll get younger yourself.”
And Mr. Longears did. And if the top of the house doesn’t go down cellar
to see why the laundry tubs can’t wash the coal white, I’ll tell you
next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s skates.
STORY II
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S SKATES
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, was asleep in his
hollow stump bungalow one morning, when he heard, as if in a dream,
Nurse Jane Fuzzy ring the breakfast bell.
“Oh! Um! Ah! I don’t hardly believe I’ll get up this morning!” said
Uncle Wiggily, sort of stretchy like. “You may keep breakfast for me,
Nurse Jane.”
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! You must get up! You must get up! You must get up!
Oh, Uncle Wiggily, you must get up! You must get up today! Right away!”
sang a jolly little voice.
Uncle Wiggily gave a sudden start. All his aches and pains seemed to go
away at once, and he felt as spry as a new grasshopper.
“Hello! Who’s down there?” he called from the top of the stairs, for the
voice seemed to come from the dining room, down below. “Who wants me to
get up?”
“It’s Baby Bunty!” said Nurse Jane. “Have you forgotten that you brought
her home from a hollow stump yesterday, and that she’s going to live
here?”
“Oh, I did forget!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Is she still here?”
“Well, you’d better come down here and look after her while I get
breakfast!” said Nurse Jane. “I never saw such a lively little rabbit
before! She nearly jumped over the milk bottle while I had my back
turned!”
Uncle Wiggily smiled until his pink nose twinkled on both sides at once.
“So Baby Bunty is lively, is she?” said the bunny gentleman. “Well,
that’s just what I need to keep me from getting old and stiff.”
“Hurry, Uncle Wiggily! Hurry!” called Baby Bunty.
“What’s the hurry?” asked Mr. Longears, as he smoothed out his fur with
a pine tree cone for a brush.
“Why, this is the first of May!” went on the little rabbit girl, who was
going to live with Uncle Wiggily. “It’s the first of May and we’re going
out and gather flowers today, tra-la!”
“Who’s going?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as he came downstairs to breakfast.
“You and I are going to gather flowers. We’ll have fun, many joyful
hours!” sang Baby Bunty, as she danced about the breakfast room like a
sunbeam playing tag with a pussy cat.
“Oh, oh! We’ll see about that!” said Uncle Wiggily. “Now you run out and
play while I eat, and then we’ll see what happens. Did you have your
breakfast?”
“Oh, yes, Baby Bunty was up as soon as I was,” said Nurse Jane.
Uncle Wiggily ate his breakfast slowly and carefully. He didn’t like to
hurry except when the Pipsisewah was chasing him. And after he had eaten
some carrot pancakes, Uncle Wiggily felt sort of lazy like and
comfortable.
“I’ll play a little trick on Baby Bunty,” he thought. “I don’t believe
it will do my old bones good to go off in the damp woods so early in the
morning to gather flowers. I’ll wait until the sun is warmer. I’ll just
stay here and go to sleep. She’ll forget all about me.”
So Uncle Wiggily curled up in the easy chair, thinking how good it felt
to rest his tired bones and joints. But, all of a sudden, as he was sort
of dozing off to sleep, he heard Nurse Jane cry:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Come here! Come quickly! There goes Baby Bunty off
on her skates.”
“Baby Bunty? Going off on her skates! Why, she hasn’t any skates!” cried
the rabbit gentleman, suddenly waking up! “She’s too little to have
roller skates, and it isn’t the time of year for ice skates. How you
talk, Nurse Jane!”
“Well, there she goes, anyhow!” said the muskrat lady. “She’s a lively
little tyke, is Baby Bunty. She made herself a pair of roller skates out
of some old round clothespins, and there she goes on them, skating down
the woodland path. You’d better run after her, Uncle Wiggily, or a bad
fox may catch her!”
“That’s so!” cried Uncle Wiggily. Then he forgot all about his stiff
joints, and how he used to have rheumatism and all that. Away he hopped
and ran and leaped and jumped after Baby Bunty. And away the little
Bunty went on her clothespin roller skates.
“Come on, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried to him. “See if you can catch me!”
Well, Uncle Wiggily finally did, but it was hard work, and he was so out
of breath when he finally ran and caught up to Baby Bunty that he could
hardly twinkle his pink nose at all.
“Isn’t this jolly!” laughed the little bunny girl tyke. “Now we can get
May flowers! I wanted you to be lively and come, and you did. You came
right after me!”
“Yes, but you led me quite a chase!” panted Uncle Wiggily. “However, I
guess I feel better after it. I’m not stiff, now!” And he wasn’t a bit,
and he and Baby Bunty gathered a fine bouquet of May blossoms. And if
the molasses jug doesn’t get stuck in the alley when it’s trying to run
through and tag the sugar cookie, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily
and Bunty’s ride.
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, and 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.
All 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 wasn’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 taken 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.
[Illustration: [Airship]]
“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 sailing 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!”
“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!”
“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 the 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. “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 that 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 her.
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.”
Well, 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.
“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.
[Illustration: [Uncle Wiggily]]
“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 Uncle 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 for 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.
“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 imagine!” 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 Johnnie 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 saw 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 rabbit 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.
“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 and 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.”
“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:
[Illustration: [Uncle Wiggily]]
“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 twinkled 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 twinkling. “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.
“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.
“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!”