girl, if she wasn't too large," quacked Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck.
"We'll try!" said Uncle Wiggily. "All of you take the grape-vine ropes
from your sleds and follow me."
Quickly the animal children did this, taking with them only the large
double sled of Neddie Stubtail, the boy bear, which was the largest
sled of all. It was low and flat, and Uncle Wiggily thought it would be
easy to roll a little girl up on it and pull her along.
Soon Uncle Wiggily and the animal children reached the hill where the
real boys and girls had coasted. None of them was there now, all having
gone home to their suppers.
"Here she is!" softly barked Jackie, leading the way to a snowbank, at
the foot of the hill.
And there, sound asleep in the soft, warm snow was--Bumps!
Yes, as true as I'm telling you--Bumps!
The little girl had been sliding down with her sister, and had rolled
off the sled at the bottom of the hill after about the forty-'leventh
coast. And Bumps was so tired, and sleepy, from having been outdoors so
long, that, as soon as she rolled from the sled into the snow, she fell
asleep! Think of that!
And as Sister wanted to have a race with Brother and some of the other
children, she never noticed what happened to Bumps. But there she
was--in the snow asleep. Poor little Bumps!
"It will never do to leave her here!" whispered Uncle Wiggily to the
animal boys and girls. "Don't awaken her, but roll her over on Neddie's
sled, and we'll pull her to her home. I know where she lives. We'll
leave her in front of the door, I'll throw a snowball to make a sound
like a knock, and then we can run away. Her father and mother will come
out and take her in."
So all working together, pushing, pulling, tugging and rolling most
gently, the bunny gentleman and the animal boys and girls slid Bumps
upon the low sled of the bear boy. Then they fastened the grape-vine
ropes to it, and, all taking hold, off they started over the snow
toward the village.
It was almost dark, so no one saw the strange procession of Uncle
Wiggily and his friends; and the bunny gentleman was glad of this.
Right up to the home of Bumps they pulled her, and just as they got the
sled in her yard Bumps opened her eyes.
"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she cried when she saw all the animal children, and Uncle
Wiggily, too, standing around her. "I'm in fairyland! Oh, how I love
it!"
"Quick, Sammie--Susie--Jackie--Peetie--scoot away!" called Uncle
Wiggily in animal talk, and the rabbits, squirrels, guinea pigs, ducks,
bears, beavers and others, all hopped away through the soft snow, out
of sight. Uncle Wiggily tossed a snowball at the door, making a sound
like a knock, and then the bunny gentleman also hopped away, laughing
to himself.
He turned back in time to see the door open and Sister, Brother, Daddy
and Mother rush out.
"Oh, here's Bumps, now!" cried Brother. "We must have forgotten and
left her at the hill."
"Oh, that's what we did!" exclaimed Sister.
"Yes, but how did she get home?" asked Mother. "She never walked, I'm
sure!"
"And look at the queer wooden sled!" said Sister.
"Who brought you home, Bumps?" asked Daddy.
"A--a nice bunny man, and some little bunnies, and squirrels, and
a little bear boy and some ducks and chickens and little lambs
and--and----" But Bumps was out of breath now.
"Oh, she's been asleep and _dreamed_ this!" laughed Brother. "Some man
must have found her and put her on this board for a sled, to bring her
home."
"Nope!" declared Bumps, "it was a bunny! It was a funny bunny!"
"Bring her in the house!" laughed Mother. "She must have been dreaming!"
But we know it wasn't a dream; don't we? And if the strawberry
shortcake doesn't go swimming with the gold fish in the lemonade and
catch cold, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the picnic.
STORY XV
UNCLE WIGGILY'S PICNIC
"Come on, Uncle Wiggily! Wake up! Wake up!" called Nurse Jane Fuzzy
Wuzzy in the hollow stump bungalow one morning. "Come on!"
"What's that? What's the matter? Is the chimney on fire again?" asked
the bunny gentleman, and he was so excited that he slid down the
banister, instead of hopping along from step to step as he should have
done.
"Of course the chimney isn't on fire!" laughed Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "But
this is the day for the picnic of the animal children, and you promised
to go with them to the woods."
"Oh, so I did!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, and he put one paw on his pink
nose to stop the twinkling, which started as soon as he grew excited
over thinking the chimney was on fire. "Well, I'm glad you called me,
Nurse Jane. I'll get ready for the picnic at once. What are you going
to put up for lunch?"
"Oh, some carrot bread, turnip cookies, lettuce sandwiches and nut
cake," answered the muskrat lady.
"That sounds fine!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "I'm very glad I'm going to
the picnic!"
"Well, you had better hurry and get ready," remarked Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.
"Here come Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow to see if you aren't soon going to
start."
Uncle Wiggily looked from the window of his hollow stump bungalow, and
saw the two little puppy dog boys coming along.
Jackie was so excited that he stubbed his paw and fell down twice,
while Peetie was so anxious to show Uncle Wiggily what was in the
package of lunch the puppies were going to take to the woods, that
Peetie fell down three times, and turned a back somersault.
"Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Aren't you coming?" barked Jackie.
"Hurry or it may rain and spoil the picnic," added Peetie.
"Oh, I hope not!" answered the bunny gentleman. "For if there is one
thing, more than another, that spoils a picnic, it is rain! Snow isn't
so bad, for we don't have picnics when it snows."
"Maybe it won't rain," hopefully spoke Nurse Jane, who was busy putting
up lunch for Uncle Wiggily. "There isn't a cloud in the sky!"
And, surely enough, when Uncle Wiggily, Nurse Jane and dozens of animal
children started off to the woods for their picnic, the sun shone
bravely down from the blue sky and a more lovely day could not have
been wished for.
The forest where the bunny gentleman, Nurse Jane and the animal
children went for their picnic was a large one, with many trees and
bushes. There were dozens of places for the squirrels, rabbits, goats,
ducks, dogs, pussy cats and others to play; and when they reached the
grove they put their lunches under bushes, on the soft cool, green moss
and began to have fun.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Please turn skipping rope for us?" begged
Brighteyes, the little guinea pig girl.
"And please come play ball with us!" grunted Curly and Floppy
Twistytail, the piggie boys.
"Have a game of marbles with us," teased Billie Wagtail, the goat, and
Jacko Kinkytail, the monkey chap.
"I'll play with you all in turn," laughed the bunny gentleman. He was
in the midst of having fun, and was just gnawing off a piece of wild
grape vine to make a swing for Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the ducks,
when up came hopping Bully No-Tail, the frog boy. Bully was quite
excited.
"What's the matter, Bully?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, gur-ump!" croaked Bully. "There is a big crowd of boys and girls
over on the other side of the pond. They're having a picnic, too!
Ger-ump! Ger-ump!"
"Real boys and girls!" added Bawly, who was Bully's brother.
"Hump-bump!"
"Well, that will do no harm!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "Let the real boys
and girls have their picnic. They will not see us, for very few boys
and girls know how to use their eyes when they go to the woods. I have
often hidden beside a bush close to where a boy passed, and he never
saw me. Let the boys and girls have their picnic, and we'll have ours!"
So that's the way it was. Uncle Wiggily and the animal children played
tag, and they slid down hill. Perhaps you think they could not do this
in summer when there was no snow. But the hills in the forest were
covered with long, smooth, brown pine needles, and these layers of
needles were so slippery that it was easy to slide on them.
And then, all of a sudden, just about when it was time to eat lunch, it
began to rain! Oh, how hard the drops pelted down! Rain! Rain! Rain!
"Scurry for shelter--all of you!" cried Nurse Jane. "Get out of the
rain!"
The animal boys and girls knew how to take care of themselves in a
rain storm, even if they had no umbrellas. Most of them had on fur or
feathers which water does not harm. And they snuggled down under trees
and bushes, finding shelter and dry spots so that, no matter how hard
it poured, they did not get very wet.
They hid their lunches under rocks and overhanging trees so nothing was
spoiled. And when the rain was over and the sun came out, as it did,
the animal picnic went on as before, and when the food was set out on
flat stumps for tables, there was enough for everyone, and plenty left
over.
Nurse Jane was looking at what remained of the good things to eat when
Jackie Bow Wow, who, with Peetie, had been splashing in a mud puddle,
came running up wagging his tail.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" barked Jackie. "What you think? Those real
children, on the other side of the wood, they had their things to eat
out on some stumps for tables, just as we had, and when the rain came,
oh! it spoiled everything!"
"They didn't know how to keep their lunches dry," added Peetie. "Now
they haven't anything to eat for their picnic, and they are starting
home, and some of the little girls are crying."
"That's too bad!" murmured Uncle Wiggily, kindly. "Too bad that the
rain had to spoil their picnic! Now we have plenty of things left that
children could eat--nuts, apples, some popcorn and pears," for the
animal folk had brought all these, and many more, to the woods with
them. "We have lots left over."
"We could give them something to eat," spoke Nurse Jane, "but how are
we going to get it to them? We can't call them here; and it would never
do to let them see us carrying the things to them."
"No," agreed Uncle Wiggily. "But I think I have a plan. We can make
some baskets of birch bark. Some of the animal children--such as Jacko
and Jumpo Kinkytail, the monkeys, Joie and Tommie Kat, Johnnie and
Billie Bushytail, the squirrels--are good tree climbers. Let them climb
trees near where the real children are having their picnic, and lower
to them, on grape-vine ropes, the food we have left."
"Oh, yes!" mewed Tommie, the kitten boy. "What jolly fun!"
Quickly Nurse Jane began to gather up the food. Uncle Wiggily put it in
birch bark baskets the animal children made and then, with the baskets,
fastened to vines, in their paws or claws, the animal boys went through
the wood to the place of the other picnic. Uncle Wiggily and the
remaining animal children followed.
There the poor, disappointed real children were, looking at their
rain-soaked and spoiled lunches. Some of the little girls were crying.
"We might as well go home," grumbled a boy. "Our picnic is no good!"
"Mean old rain!" sighed a girl.
But just then the animal chaps with lunch from Uncle Wiggily's
picnic--lunch which had not been rained on--climbed up into trees
over the heads of the boys and girls. Not a sound did the animal
chaps make. And when the real boys and girls had their backs turned,
there were lowered to the stump tables enough good things for a jolly
feast--apples, pears, popcorn, nuts and many other dainties.
[Illustration: The animal boys scurried off]
A little girl happened to turn around and see the birch bark baskets of
good things just as the animal boys scurried off through the trees.
"Oh, look!" cried the girl. "The fairies have been here! They have
left us some lunch in place of ours that the rain spoiled. Oh, see the
fairy lunch!"
And I suppose that is as good a name for it as any, since the boys and
girls didn't see Uncle Wiggily's friends lower the baskets from the
trees. And the real boys and girls ate the lunch and had a most jolly
time, and so did the bunny gentleman and his picnic crowd.
Now if the rubber plant doesn't stretch over and tickle the teapot so
that it pours coffee instead of milk into the sugar bowl, you may next
hear about Uncle Wiggily in the rain storm.
STORY XVI
UNCLE WIGGILY'S RAIN STORM
Down pelted the rain in Animal Land.
It also poured in Boy and Girl Land, which was on the other side of
the forest from where Uncle Wiggily Longears lived in his hollow stump
bungalow.
The bunny rabbit gentleman looked out of a window, and saw the drops
fall drip, drip, dripping from trees and bushes, making little puddles
amid the leaves where birds could come, later, and take a bath.
"You aren't thinking of going out in this storm; are you?" asked Nurse
Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady bungalow-keeper, as she saw Mr.
Longears putting on his coat.
"Why, I was, yes," slowly answered the bunny gentleman. "I am
neither sugar nor salt, that I will melt in the rain. And, as it
isn't freezing, I think I'll take a hop through the woods, and see
Grandfather Goosey Gander."
"Well, as long as you are going out, I wish you'd go to the store for
me," requested Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.
"What do you want?" asked the bunny gentleman.
"Oh, bring a muskmelon for dinner," said Nurse Jane.
"A watermelon would be much easier to carry through the rain," Uncle
Wiggily answered. "I think I'll bring a watermelon. If it gets wet no
harm is done."
"All right," agreed Nurse Jane, laughing, so away hopped the bunny
rabbit uncle, over the fields and through the woods. It seemed to rain
harder and harder, but Uncle Wiggily did not mind. He had an umbrella,
though he did not always carry one. It was made from a toadstool, and
it kept off most of the rain. Though, as Mr. Longears said, he was
neither a lollypop nor an ice-cream cone that would melt in a shower.
But not everyone was as happy as Uncle Wiggily in this storm. On the
other side of the forest, as I told you, was Boy and Girl Land, and in
one of the houses lived a brother and a sister. They, too, stood at the
window, pressing their noses against the glass as the rain beat down,
and they were not happy.
"Rain, rain, go away!
Come again some other day!
Brother and I want to go and play!"
That is the verse the little girl recited over and over again as she
watched the rain pelting down. But the storm did not stop for all that
she said the verse backward and frontward.
"Will it ever stop?" crossly cried the boy. "Why doesn't it stop?"
and he drummed on the window sill, banged his feet on the floor and
whistled. And his sister loudly recited over and over again:
"Rain, rain, go away!"
"Children! Children!" gently called Mother from where she was lying
down in the next room. "Can't you please be a little quiet? My head
aches and I am trying to rest. The noise makes my pain worse."
"We're sorry, Mother," said the girl.
"But being quiet isn't any fun!" grumbled the boy. "Why can't we go out
and play?"
"Because you would get all wet," answered his mother. "I've told you
that two or three times, dear. Now please be quiet. It will stop
raining sometime, and then you may go out."
"What can we play with?" asked the boy, not very politely I'm sorry to
say.
"Why, some of your toys," replied his mother. "Surely you have enough."
"I'm tired of 'em!" grunted the boy.
"So'm I," echoed his sister.
Then she began once more to say the verse about the rain, as if that
would do any good, and the boy rubbed his nose up and down the window,
making queer marks.
Uncle Wiggily, on his way to see Grandpa Goosey Gander, and get a
watermelon for Nurse Jane, took a short cut through a field, and passed
the house where the children were kept in on account of the rain. And,
as it happened, the window near which the boy and girl stood was open a
little way at the top.
So, as the bunny gentleman hopped past, he not only saw the children,
but he heard what they said, being able, as I have before related to
you, to understand real talk.
But the children were looking up at the sky so intently, trying to see
if it would stop raining, that they never noticed Uncle Wiggily. Though
if they had seen him, all dressed as he was like a gentleman from the
moving pictures, they would have been very much surprised.
"Too bad those children have to stay in on account of the rain,"
thought Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder if I couldn't find some way of amusing
them? If they are tired of their own playthings I might toss in,
through the open window, some of the things the animal boys and girls
play with. I'll do it!"
Off through the woods in the rain hopped Uncle Wiggily. He found a
number of smooth, brown acorns, some of which had the cups, or caps
still on. He filled one pocket with the acorns.
Next the bunny picked up some cones from the pine tree. There were
large and small cones, and Nurse Jane always used one as a nutmeg
grater, it was so rough, while Uncle Wiggily kept one near his bed to
scratch his back at night.
"Let me see, what else would the animal children take?" said the bunny
to himself. "I think they would take some green moss, and the girls
would make beds with it for their dolls. The animal boys would take
hollow reeds and blow little pebbles through them as real boys blow
beans in their tin shooters. I'll take some moss and reeds."
This the bunny uncle did, also picking up some empty snail and
periwinkle shells he found on the bank of a brook.
"The little girl can string these shells for beads," thought the bunny.
"And I'll strip off some pieces of white birch bark so the boy can make
a little canoe, as the Indians used to do."
Having gathered all these things--playthings which the animal children
found in the woods every day--the bunny hopped back to the house of
the boy and girl. The window was open, but the boy and girl had left
it. The girl was giving her mother a drink of water, and the boy was
bringing up some coal for the fire.
"This is my chance!" thought Uncle Wiggily.
Standing outside, he tossed in through the open window the acorns,
the pine cones, the shells, the moss and other things. Then he hopped
quickly away and hid behind a bush. He could hear the children come
back into the room, and soon he heard the girl cry:
"Oh, look what the wind blew in! Some acorns! I can make little cups of
them, and use the tops for saucers! And I'll set a play-party table for
my doll, and decorate it with green moss. Oh, how perfectly lovely!"
"I'm going to make a boat out of this birch bark!" cried the boy. "And
look! A hollow reed, like a bean blower! Now I can have some fun!"
"Look at the lovely shells I can string and make a necklace of!" went
on the girl.
"And I can make wooden legs, and a wooden head and stick em on these
pine cones and make believe they're Noah's ark animals!" laughed the
boy. "Hurray!" he cried most happily.
"What is going on out there?" called Mother from where she was lying
down. "Have you found something to play with?"
"Yes'm," answered the boy. "We'll be quiet now."
"And we don't care if it does rain," said the girl. "The wind blew a
lot of lovely things in the window!"
But of course we know that Uncle Wiggily tossed them in.
"I guess they'll be all right now, no matter how much it rains,"
said the bunny, as he hopped along to see Grandpa Goosey, and buy the
snowmelon--excuse me, I mean the watermelon--for Nurse Jane.
So this teaches us that sometimes a rain storm is good for letting
you find out new ways of having fun. And if the looking-glass doesn't
make funny faces at the rag doll, when she's trying to see if her
hair ribbon is on backward, on the next page you may read about Uncle
Wiggily and the mumps.
+Note+
Uncle Wiggily specially requests that the following story will NOT be
read to children who have the mumps. Please wait until they are better.
STORY XVII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MUMPS
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, was hopping through
the woods one day, and he was thinking of making his way over to the
other side of the forest, where the real boys and girls lived, hoping
he might have an adventure, when, all at once, Mr. Longears heard some
voices talking behind a mulberry bush.
"I know what we can do," said the voice of a boy, as Uncle Wiggily
could tell, for he had learned to know the talk of boys and girls.
"What can we do?" asked the voice of another boy.
"We can pick up a lot of stones," went on the first boy, "and we can
make believe we're hunters, and we can walk through the woods and throw
stones at the birds, and squirrels, and rabbits! Come on! Let's do it!"
"Oh, no! I don't want to do _that_," said the second boy. "It isn't any
fun to throw stones at birds and bunnies. If you hit a mother bird, and
break her wing, she can't take anything to eat to the little birds, and
they'll starve."
"Pooh! That's nothing!" exclaimed the first boy, and Uncle Wiggily
peeked over the top of the bush to see what manner of boys these were.
But the bunny rabbit gentleman kept himself well hidden.
"I don't want any stones thrown at me," he thought.
"And," went on the second boy, who seemed rather kind, "if you throw
a stone at a rabbit you might break its leg, and then it couldn't hop
home to the baby rabbits."
"That is very true!" thought Uncle Wiggily, who was listening to all
that went on. "I wish there were more boys like this kind one."
"Well, I don't care!" grumbled the first boy. "I'm going off and throw
stones at birds and rabbits and squirrels!"
"And I'm going home," said the second boy. "I don't feel very good. I
have a pain in my cheek and maybe I'm going to have the toothache."
"Goodness me, sakes alive! I hope nothing like _that_ happens to such
a kind boy," thought Uncle Wiggily. "And as for that other chap, I'll
run ahead of him, through the woods, and tell my friends to hide so he
can't throw stones at them."
So, while one boy went home and the other picked up some stones, Uncle
Wiggily skipped along through the woods, calling, in his animal talk,
to his friends to hide themselves.
"For a boy is coming to stone you!" exclaimed the bunny rabbit
gentleman. "Hide! Hide away from the stone-throwing boy!"
And so it happened that when the unkind chap came tramping through the
woods, the only bird he saw to stone was an old black crow, as black as
black could be.
"I'll hit you!" cried the boy, as he threw a stone.
But the crow was a wise old bird, and wastn't even afraid of the scary,
stuffed men that farmers put in their cornfields. So the crow dodged
the stone and then he laughed at the boy.
"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed the old black crow. "Haw! Haw! Haw!"
The boy grew very cross at this, and threw more stones, and some fell
among the flower bushes where some bees were gathering the sweet juices
of flowers to make into honey. One stone knocked a bee off a blossom,
and spilled the honey it was gathering.
"Just for that I'm going to sting that boy!" buzzed the bee. Out it
flittered, making such a zipping sound around that boy's head as to
cause the bad chap to drop his stones and run away. So the bee did not
have to sting him after all.
"Boys are no good!" buzzed the bee to Uncle Wiggily, as the honey chap
flew back to the flowers.
"Oh, _some_ boys are good," said the bunny gentleman. "The boy who was
with this bad chap was good, and kind to animals. And that reminds me;
this boy said he didn't feel very well. I must hop over to-morrow, and
take a look at his house. I know where he lives. I hope he isn't going
to have the toothache."
But the kind boy, as I call him just for fun, you know, had something
worse than the toothache. His neck and jaws began to swell in the
night, and he could hardly swallow a drink of water which his mother
gave him when she heard him tossing in bed.
"What you s'pose is the matter of me, Mother?" asked the boy.
"Well," said Mother, as she smoothed his pillow, "perhaps you caught
cold in the woods to-day."
But it was worse than that. When the Doctor came in the morning, and
looked at the boy, and gently felt of his neck (even which gentle touch
made the boy want to cry) the Doctor said:
"Hum! Mumps!"
"Did you say 'bumps,' Doctor?" asked the boy's mother. "Did he fall
down and bump himself?"
"No, I said _mumps_!" exclaimed the doctor. "That's a swelling inside
his neck, and it will hurt him a lot. But if you keep him in bed, and
warm, and give him easy things to eat, he'll soon be all right again."
"Poor boy!" murmured Mother. "Well, I suppose _mumps_ are better than
_bumps_!"
"I'm not so sure about that," spoke the Doctor as he walked to the door
with the boy's mother. "Whatever you do," he said in a whisper, "don't
give him anything _sour_--such as lemons or pickles. Sour things make
the mumps pain more than ever. Don't even _speak_ of vinegar in front
of him, or so much as _whisper_ it!"