noticed what Uncle Wiggily did. "I wonder what he means? Wiggy," she
called, "are you getting ready for some strange, new adventure, such as
stopping bad boys from tying tin cans on dogs' tails?"
"Nothing like that now; no, my dear," answered the bunny rabbit, and he
quickly pulled the table cover over something he had been looking at.
"This is a secret!"
"Oh--a secret!" exclaimed Nurse Jane, puzzled-like.
The muskrat lady looked at a calendar hanging on the wall, and noticed
that the day was February 14.
"I think I can guess what your secret is, Uncle Wiggily," she said to
herself. "I s'pose it's something for Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, or
maybe for Grandpa Goosey Gander. Well, I hope you enjoy it."
Then Nurse Jane went back to the dining room, where she was giving the
dishes their morning bath; and Uncle Wiggily began to rustle some paper
and tie knots in a piece of gold string, the while murmuring to himself:
"I hope she likes it! Oh, I do hope she likes it. I'll put it on the
steps, throw a stone at the door so she thinks someone is knocking, and
then I'll run and hide behind a bush and watch how surprised she is
when she opens it."
Uncle Wiggily had been very busy all that morning, after having been
out in the woods the day before. What he had made I shall tell you
about in a little while. Enough now for you to know that the bunny
rabbit had something he did not want Nurse Jane to see.
Pretty soon, after opening the door a crack, and listening to Miss
Fuzzy Wuzzy wash the face of the clock, Uncle Wiggily hopped softly
out and down the front steps, with a box under his paw. His tall silk
hat was on rather sideways, and he carried his red, white and blue
striped rheumatism crutch upside down, but when you remember that it
was February 14, I think you will kindly excuse the bunny gentleman.
Uncle Wiggily hopped on through the woods, and over the fields. Every
now and then he would stop, and, with his crutch, brush to one side
the dried leaves and little heaps of snow that were scattered here and
there in the forest.
"I hope I may find some," said Mr. Longears to himself. "It won't be
half so pretty without them. I hope I find some."
He searched in many places, and at last he found what he was looking
for. Carefully he picked something up off the ground, and put it in the
box he carried.
"Nurse Jane will surely like this," said the bunny gentleman. He was
about to hop on again when, all of a sudden, he heard someone crying in
the woods. There was a sobbing sound and, looking around the corner of
a tree, Uncle Wiggily saw a little girl, sitting on a log. And she was
crying as hard as she could cry!
"That isn't the Freckled Girl," said the bunny gentleman to himself.
"She said she wouldn't mind her freckles after she looked at the pretty
speckled birds' eggs. It isn't the Freckled Girl. I wonder who she is,
and what's the matter?"
And pretty soon Uncle Wiggily found out, for he heard the sobbing girl
say:
"Oh, I wish I had money enough to buy one! All the other girls and boys
can buy valentines to send teacher, but I can't! And she'll think I
don't like her, but I do! Oh, I wish I had a valentine!"
"My goodness me sakes alive and some peanut pudding!" whispered the
bunny rabbit gentleman. "That girl is crying because she hasn't a
valentine for her teacher!"
Then the bunny gentleman looked down at the box, wrapped in tissue
paper, which he carried under his paw--the box in which he had placed
something he had found under the leaves and snow of the forest a little
while before.
"She wants a valentine," murmured the bunny rabbit gentleman. "And here
I have one that I made for Nurse Jane. I was going to leave it on the
steps and surprise my muskrat lady housekeeper. But I suppose I could
give it to this little girl, and--well, Nurse Jane won't care, when I
tell her."
"I'll do it! I'll give this girl my valentine," said Uncle Wiggily so
suddenly that his pink nose almost twinkled backward.
He looked over the top of a bush behind which he had sat down to wrap
up Nurse Jane's valentine. Then the bunny hopped over to the girl who
sat on the log, still sobbing because she had no token for her teacher.
The girl heard the rustling in the leaves, made by Uncle Wiggily's paws
as he hopped, and she looked up suddenly. Then she rubbed her eyes,
hardly able to believe what she saw.
"Why! Why!" she murmured. "Am I dreaming? Is this a fairy? A rabbit
gentleman, dressed in a tall silk hat, and with his red, white and blue
striped rheumatism crutch! Oh! Why, it's Uncle Wiggily! It's Uncle
Wiggily out of my Bedtime Story Books! Oh, how glad I am to see you,
dear Uncle Wiggily! Please come up and sit by me on this log!"
But Uncle Wiggily was not allowed to do this. He put his paw over his
lips, to show that though he could hear, and understand what the girl
said, he could not talk to her in reply. Then he placed his valentine
beside her on the log and quickly hopped away.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Wait a minute! Please wait a minute!" cried the
girl, but the bunny gentleman dared not stay.
"I must try and find Nurse Jane another valentine," he said to himself,
as he skipped along the woodland paths.
Left alone, the girl on the log opened the box Uncle Wiggily had left.
It was made from pieces of white birch bark, such as the Indians used
for their canoes. Inside, were some sprigs from an evergreen tree, with
some round, brown buttons from the sycamore tree. And in the middle
of the evergreen sprigs were some lovely pink and white blossoms of
the trailing arbutus--the earliest flower of Spring--growing under the
leaves and late snows. It was these arbutus flowers which the bunny had
come to the woods to find and complete his valentine. Now he had given
it to the girl.
"Oh, how lovely!" she murmured, tears no longer in her eyes. "Won't
teacher be surprised when I put this on her desk and tell her Uncle
Wiggily gave it to me? Oh, there's a verse, too!"
And there was! Written on a piece of white birch bark, which is what
the animal folk use instead of paper, was this little verse:
"These twigs of cedar, like my heart,
Are ever green for you.
The blossoms whisper that I am
Your Valentine so true!"
"I know teacher will just love this!" said the little girl, and she was
so excited she could hardly run to school. She had to hop and skip.
"Here's a valentine Uncle Wiggily gave me in the woods," the little
girl told her teacher, all excited and out of breath.
"Uncle Wiggily? How strange!" exclaimed the teacher. "I--I hope you
didn't dream it," she said to the little girl. "But, at any rate, the
valentine is real. And how lovely! It's the very nicest one I ever saw!"
Then you can imagine how pleased the little girl was. Uncle Wiggily,
hopping back to his bungalow through the woods, gnawed a piece of white
birch bark off a tree, and, with a burned, black stick for a pencil, he
scribbled on it:
"Dear Nurse Jane: This is my valentine. I love you!"
"+Uncle Wiggily.+"
And when the muskrat lady found that on the doorstep a little later,
she laughed and said it was the nicest valentine she could wish for.
And when Uncle Wiggily told about giving the other valentine to the sad
little girl, the muskrat lady said:
"You did just right, Wiggy! Now let's go to the movies!"
So they did. And if electric light doesn't cry when it has to go down
cellar in the dark, to get a piece of coal for the fire to play with,
you shall next hear about Uncle Wiggily and the bad dog.
STORY VII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BAD DOG
Once upon a time, about as many years ago as it takes a lollypop to
slide down the back cellar door, there lived in a kennel, not far from
Uncle Wiggily's hollow stump bungalow, a bad dog. And the bunny rabbit
gentleman, more than once, wished that this dog would always stay in
his kennel, or remain chained in front of it so he couldn't get loose.
"For that dog," said Uncle Wiggily to Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, "is the
pest of my life! Every time he sees me he chases me. He isn't at all
like Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, or Old Dog Percival."
"Why don't you scratch sand and gravel in his eyes as you did in the
face of the bad boy?" asked the muskrat lady housekeeper.
"You can't treat dogs as you do boys," replied Uncle Wiggily. "Though,
of course, some boys and some dogs are great friends. But this dog
seems always to want to chase me."
"Then you must be very careful if you go off in the woods to-day,
looking for an adventure," said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.
"I will," promised the bunny rabbit gentleman.
Away he hopped on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch,
and his tall, silk hat. And this time Uncle Wiggily took with him his
glasses, which he sometimes wore in order to see better.
"And I want to see the very best I can to-day," said Mr. Longears to
himself, as he hopped along. "I want to see that bad, unpleasant dog
before he sees me!"
Uncle Wiggily was skipping along, thinking perhaps that he had better
pick a bunch of violets and take them to the lady mouse teacher in the
hollow stump school, when, all of a sudden, there sounded through the
woods a loud:
"Wuff! Wuff!"
"That isn't the Fox, nor yet the Wolf, nor even the Skillery Scallery
Alligator," said Uncle Wiggily, looking around the corner of the
mulberry bush. "I think it must be that savage dog!"
And, surely enough it was. And a moment later the dog came bursting
through the bushes, barking and growling and headed straight for Uncle
Wiggily.
"I'll make believe I'm playing baseball and try for a home run!" said
the rabbit gentleman to himself, and through the bushes, turning and
twisting this way and that, he ran for his hollow stump bungalow.
Uncle Wiggily reached it only just in time, too. For as he hopped up
the steps, and closed the door, locking it, the dog jumped over the
gate.
"My goodness me sakes alive and a basket of soap bubbles!" cried Nurse
Jane. "What's the matter, Wiggy? Is the house on fire?"
"It's that dog--chasing--me!" panted the bunny, for he was quite out
of breath.
"The idea! How impolite of him!" exclaimed the muskrat lady, and she
shook her broom out of the window at the bad chap.
"Well, you got away from me this time, but the next time I'll get you,"
growled the dog, as he slunk away.
"Why is he so anxious to catch you?" asked Nurse Jane, as Uncle Wiggily
sat down in an easy chair to rest.
"Oh, I guess he'd chase any of the animal folk he saw in the wood,"
answered the bunny gentleman. "He'd chase Sammie or Susie Littletail
the rabbits, Johnnie or Billie Bushytail the squirrels and I'm sure he
would make Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children, lose
their feathers in trying to flutter away from him."
"It's too bad," said Nurse Jane. "You ought to speak to Old Percival,
the Policeman Dog about this bad chap."
"I shall," said Uncle Wiggily. He did, too, but the bad dog was so sly
that Old Percival could not catch him. Uncle Wiggily also spoke to the
little dog, whom he had saved from having a tin can tied on his tail by
a bad boy.
"I'll tell this savage dog to let you alone," the little chap promised.
But all this did no good. Every time the bad dog saw Uncle Wiggily
in the woods he chased the rabbit gentleman, and once nearly caught
the bunny. I don't know why this dog was so unpleasant and mean
toward Uncle Wiggily. I guess maybe the dog didn't know any better.
Perhaps he thought Uncle Wiggily didn't like dogs, but Mr. Longears
did--especially Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the little puppy chaps.
Well, as it happened, one day the people who owned the big, savage dog,
that always chased Uncle Wiggily, went away on a visit. And they went
in such a hurry that they left the dog chained to his kennel, and they
forgot to leave him any water to drink, or food to eat.
At first the dog was not hungry, but later in the day, when it was time
for him to have had a meal, and some water, that dog began to feel very
unhappy.
"Bow! Wow! Wow!" he barked, trying to call someone out to feed him, and
pour water in the sun-dried pan. But no one came, and the dog grew more
hungry, and so thirsty that his tongue hung down out of his mouth.
Just about this time Uncle Wiggily was going through the woods on
his way to the six and seven cent store to get Nurse Jane a spool of
thread. The bunny rabbit heard the barking of the dog, and started to
run, for he knew that voice. But as he paused to listen, and find out
from which direction the sound came, so he could run away from it,
instead of toward it, Uncle Wiggily heard a voice saying:
"Bow wow! Oh, how hungry I am! How thirsty I am!"
It was the savage dog speaking, and Uncle Wiggily of course understood
animal talk, even better than he had learned to know, as he had of
late, what boys and girls said.
"Hum! So that dog is hungry and thirsty, is he?" said the bunny to
himself. "Well, why doesn't he go and dig up some of the bones he must
have buried? And why doesn't he go to the duck pond and get a drink, I
wonder?"
Uncle Wiggily thought there was something strange about this, and
as the barking and animal-talking voice of the dog did not come any
nearer, the bunny hopped over to see what was the matter.
There he saw the savage dog, fastened by a heavy chain to his kennel,
with nothing to eat, no water to drink and no one to bring him any.
"Oh, how hungry I am! How thirsty I am!" barked the dog.
[Illustration: "Oh, are you?" politely asked Uncle Wiggily]
"Oh, are you?" politely asked Uncle Wiggily, looking out from behind a
stone. He was not afraid to be this near the bad dog, for the savage
chap was chained, and could not get loose.
"Yes, I am very thirsty and hungry," whined the dog. "But of course
I don't expect you to feed me or give me water. I've been too bad to
you--I've chased you too often! I can't ask you to help me!"
"I don't see why not," said Uncle Wiggily politely. "If I were ill in
my bungalow, with rheumatism, and Nurse Jane wasn't there to wait on
me, and you came along, wouldn't you get me a drink of water?"
The dog thought a moment before answering. Then he sort of drooped his
tail, sorry-like and softly said:
"Yes, I believe I would."
"Then," said the bunny gentleman, "I'll bring you a drink, and if you
tell me where you have buried some bones, I'll dig them up for you,
since I can't loosen your kennel chain to let you dig them yourself."
"Oh, how kind you are!" said the dog. "I--I really don't deserve this."
"Stuff and nonsense!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "We all make
mistakes--that's why they put rubbers on the end of lead pencils, as
someone has said. I'll help you when you're in trouble."
Then the bunny found a half a cocoanut shell, and dipping this in the
nearby brook, brought water to the thirsty dog. And when he had taken
a long drink, cooling his parched and hot tongue, the dog pointed to
where he had buried some bones, behind the barn.
Uncle Wiggily dug up the bones with his paws, which were just made for
such work, and carried them to the dog.
"Oh, I can't thank you enough," said Gurr-Rup, which was the dog's
name. "And I promise, Mr. Longears, that I'll never chase you again."
"Thank you!" laughed the bunny, as he hopped on to the three and four
cent store. "I hoped you wouldn't."
So this teaches us that it doesn't hurt the needle to put the thread
in its eye, and if the apple doesn't jump out of the dumpling, and try
to hide in the chocolate cake, when it ought to take the pie to the
moving pictures, on the next page you will find a story about Uncle
Wiggily and Puss in Boots.
STORY VIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND PUSS IN BOOTS
"Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?" called Nurse Jane Fuzzy one day,
as the muskrat lady saw the bunny gentleman hopping away from his
hollow stump bungalow.
"I am going to get myself a new pair of rubber boots," said Mr.
Longears. "My old ones are wearing out, and they have little holes in,
so they leak. We have had so much rain, of late, that I will need a new
pair of boots if I am to look for any more adventures. So I am going to
the shoemaker's."
"But why are you taking your old boots along?" asked Nurse Jane, for
Uncle Wiggily had them under his paw.
"I am taking them to the shoemaker to show him what size I want my new
boots," answered the bunny. "Also he may be able to mend these old ones
so they will do to wear in the garden."
"That's a good idea," said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "And while you are out I
wish you would go to the seven and eight cent store for me. I want some
needles and thread, some balls of red yarn and some white flannel."
"My! All that! Are you going to make a bedquilt?" asked the bunny
gentleman.
"No," laughed Nurse Jane. "I am going to use the white flannel to make
me a new petticoat, the red yarn I am going to use to knit Sammie and
Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, some mittens, and the needle and
thread I will use to sew up a hole in the lace curtain."
"Very well," spoke Uncle Wiggily politely, "you shall have all three,
and I'll get myself a new pair of boots."
It did not take the bunny rabbit gentleman long to hop to the shop of
the Monkey Doodle shoemaker, where Mr. Longears bought himself a new
pair of rubber boots.
"As for those old ones," said the Monkey chap, "I can mend them for
you, so they will do to wear many times yet."
"Please do so," begged the bunny. And when his old boots were mended he
carried them over his shoulder with the new ones, for he was wearing
his shoes. Along he hopped to the seven and eight cent store.
Uncle Wiggily bought the needles, thread, white flannel and red yarn
for the rabbit children's mittens, and he was hopping back to his
hollow stump bungalow, when, all of a sudden, coming from behind a
sassafras bush, he heard a voice saying:
"Oh, dear! How sad! Now I suppose they'll take me out of all the story
books, and the children will never love me any more!"
"Hum! This is strange," said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "I wonder who
it is that can't be in the story books any more? That is very sad! I
wouldn't want them to put me out of all the Bedtime Story Books in
which I have my adventures."
So the bunny gentleman looked around the corner of a lollypop bush,
and there he saw a cat, dressed in a coat, trousers and cap, but
without anything on his hind paws, sitting on a stump.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Cat!" politely greeted Uncle Wiggily. "You seem to
be in trouble."
"I am," was the answer. "Only my name is Puss, and not Cat, though, of
course, that's what I really am. Puss in Boots is my right name, but
there is no use trying to keep it any longer."
"Why not?" Uncle Wiggily asked.
"Because I have lost my boots," answered Puss. "A little while ago I
met a cross dog who chased me. I ran across a swamp and became stuck
in the mud. I managed to pull my paws out of the boots, but the boots
themselves remained fast in the mud. Now I have no boots and I can be
called Puss in Boots no longer! I shall have to keep out of all the
story books!"
[Illustration: "I have lost my boots," answered Puss]
"Nonsense!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "Why, I have two pairs of boots
here! Take one of them, I can only wear one pair of boots at a time,"
and very politely Mr. Longears gave his new boots to the cat.
"Oh, but I can't take your new boots!" objected Puss. "The old ones
will do me very well."
"No," kindly insisted Uncle Wiggily. "Please take the new ones. Since
my old ones were mended they will answer me very well, and they'll be
easier on my paws."
So Uncle Wiggily gave Puss the new boots, keeping the old mended ones
for himself, and as the cat put the boots on his paws he looked just as
he ought to--like his pictures in the story books.
"Now I can keep my place, the children will not miss me. Thank you,
Uncle Wiggily," mewed Puss.
"Pray do not mention it," said the bunny. "I am glad I don't have to
carry two pairs of boots."
So Mr. Longears hopped on a little farther, and soon he heard some tiny
voices saying:
"Oh, Mother dear! Look here! Look here!
Our mittens we have lost!"
"Ho! I should know who they are!" said the bunny. "Those must be the
three kittens!"
And, surely enough, they were, as the bunny saw a moment later, when
he turned around the corner of a mulberry tree. There were three little
pussy kittens, holding up their paws for their mother to see, and there
wasn't a single mitten on any one of the paws! What do you think of
that?
"What, lost your mittens! You careless kittens!
Now you can't have any pie!"
Thus sang the mother cat. And when the three little kittens, who had
lost their mittens, began to cry, Uncle Wiggily felt so sorry for them
that he stepped up and said:
"Excuse me, Mrs. Cat. But I have a lot of red yarn I bought for Nurse
Jane to knit mittens for Sammie and Susie Littletail. There is more
than Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy needs, I'm sure, so I shall give you some to knit
mittens for your pussies."
"Oh, how kind you are!" mewed the mother cat, as Uncle Wiggily gave her
three balls of red yarn, still leaving plenty for the rabbit children's
mittens. "Now you may have some pie, and I'll give Uncle Wiggily a
piece, too," said the cat mother to her kittens.
"You are very kind," remarked Mr. Longears. "But I must hop on with the
needle and thread, and the piece of white flannel Nurse Jane is going
to use to make herself a new petticoat."
So on hopped the bunny, while the mother cat sat down to knit some
new mittens for her kittens. And Uncle Wiggily had not gone very far
before, all of a sudden, he heard another sad mewing sound and a voice
said:
"Dear me! The hole goes all the way through! I shall never be able to
go to see Old Mother Hubbard this way! Oh, what an accident!"
"That sounds like more trouble," thought Uncle Wiggily, and, looking
over the top of a stone wall, he saw a pussy cat lady sitting on a
stump, sadly looking at her skirt.
"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Longears.
"Oh! How you surprised me!" mewed the cat lady. "But here is the
trouble. I'm Pussy Cat Mole. I jumped over a coal, and in my best
petticoat burned a great hole!" and she showed the edge of her
petticoat where, surely enough, a hole was burned through.
"And I ought to be at Mother Hubbard's now, to go with her to the
movies," said Pussy Cat Mole. "But, alas, I can not go!"
"Oh, yes, you can!" said Uncle Wiggily.
"Not with this big burned hole in my petticoat!" mewed the cat.
"Ah, but you shall sew on a patch," said the bunny. "I have here needle
and thread, and some white flannel. Can't you mend your best petticoat
with all those?"
"Indeed I can," mewed Pussy Cat Mole. "Thank you, so much!"
Uncle Wiggily gave her a needle and thread, and with her claws Miss
Mole tore off a piece of white flannel, for there was more than
Nurse Jane needed. She sewed the patch neatly on, and then, with her
petticoat nicely mended, Pussy Cat Mole went on to Mother Hubbard's.
"Ah, how delightful it is to be helpful," said Uncle Wiggily, as he
hopped back to his bungalow. And he was very glad he had met the three
cats, one after another. For a little later that day the bad Woozie
Wolf chased the bunny.
But the mother of the three kittens, after she had knit their mittens,
tickled the wolf with her knitting needles. Puss with the boots,
stepped on the wolf's tail so hard that he cried "Ouch!" And Pussy Cat
Mole ran at the wolf with a piece of red stone, which she pretended was
a red hot coal that in her best petticoat had burned a great hole.
"I'll burn you! I'll burn you!" she mewed at the wolf.
"Then this is no place for me!" he howled, and away he ran, not hurting
the bunny at all. And how the bunny gentleman and the three cats
laughed!
So if the elephant from the Noah's Ark doesn't drop a cold penny down
the back of the gold fish and make it sneeze, the next story is going
to be about Uncle Wiggily and the lost boy.
STORY IX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LOST BOY
"There goes that boy out again, flying his kite," said Nurse Jane Fuzzy
Wuzzy, as she looked from the window of the hollow stump bungalow one
morning.
"What boy?" Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.
"The new boy who has just moved into the red brick house," answered the
muskrat lady housekeeper. "I hope he isn't a bad boy, who will chase
you, Uncle Wiggily, and come to the forest to play tricks on Sammie and
Susie Littletail, and the other animal boys and girls."
"Oh, he doesn't look like that kind of a boy," said the bunny rabbit
gentleman, as he sat down to eat his breakfast of carrot pancakes
with turnip maple sugar gravy sprinkled down the middle. "But I'll be
careful until I get to know him better."
Uncle Wiggily's hollow stump bungalow had lately been rebuilt near the
edge of a wood, and, just beyond the thicket of trees and tangle of
bushes was a small town, where lived many boys and girls.
Only a few of these boys and girls knew about the bunny rabbit
gentleman, and his muskrat lady nurse, and those who did were kind to
Uncle Wiggily, because the rabbit gentleman had been kind to them,
doing them many favors.