But the boy's little sister overheard what Doctor and Mother were
saying, and, being a mischievous sort of girl, she decided to have some
fun. At least _she_ called it fun.
"I'm going to stand in front of Brother and hold up a pickle so he can
see it," said Sister to herself. "I want to see what he'll do!"
So Sister hurried down to the kitchen and brought up a pickle. Then
she went in the room where Brother was in bed and, holding the sour
pickle in front of him, called:
"Look!"
And, no sooner did the boy look than he felt a sharp pain in his
throat, almost as bad as toothache, and he cried:
"Go on away! Stop showing me that--that----" Well, he couldn't even say
the word "pickle," for just the thought of anything sour hurts your
mumps, you know.
The boy hid his face in his pillow, and when he couldn't see the pickle
he felt a little better. But his Sister was still full of mischief.
"Lemons! Lemons! Nice sour lemons!" she called teasingly.
"Stop it! Stop it!" begged the boy. "Oh, how my mumps hurt! Mother,
make Sister stop hurting my mumps!"
And when Mother came, and found what Sister was doing, she made the
little girl go to bed, even though it was daytime.
"You will, very likely, get the mumps yourself," said Mother. "And I
hope no one says anything sour to _you_."
And, later on, Sister did get the mumps, but I'm glad to say her
brother did not hold a lemon up in front of her. For, as I told you,
even the _thought_ of anything sour hurts the mumps.
Now you know the reason why I didn't want you to read this story when
you had the swelling in your neck. It was better to wait until your
mumps were gone; wasn't it?
So this boy had the mumps, and he had them on both sides at once, which
is the very worst form. He could hardly swallow anything because of the
pain, even things that were not sour. Now and then he managed to sip a
little hot chocolate.
His mother put a warm flannel bandage around his face, which was much
swelled, and, thus wrapped up, the little boy could, now and then, get
out of bed.
It was on one of these times, when his jaws were wrapped up, and his
face swollen, that Uncle Wiggily happened to hop along through the
woods, not far from the Mump Boy's house. And, having very good eyes,
Mr. Longears saw the sick lad.
"Poor fellow!" thought the bunny gentleman. "He is ill, just as he
thought he was going to be! Toothache it is, too!"
"Who has the toothache!" asked Dr. Possum, for the animal doctor came
along just then, with his bag of medicine held fast in the curl of his
tail.
"That boy," answered Uncle Wiggily, pointing from the bush, where he
and Dr. Possum were hiding, to the window of the boy's home.
"He hasn't the toothache! Those are the mumps!" said Dr. Possum, who
knew all about such things.
"Mumps!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "Oh, that's too bad. Why, if that boy
is mumpy he must have trouble eating. I wonder if I could leave on his
doorstep something he would like--something that he wouldn't have to
chew and which would slip down easily?"
"Whatever you leave for him, don't have it _sour_," advised Dr. Possum,
as he hurried along to see Curly Twistytail, the piggie boy, who had
cut his nose on a piece of glass while digging for wild sunflower roots
in the woods.
"Ha! Nothing sour for the Mump Boy!" said Uncle Wiggily to himself, as
Dr. Possum hopped away. "Then something sweet will be just the proper
thing. Sweet honey! I have it! I'll ask my friends, the bees, for some
of their honey. I'll get Nurse Jane to make a little pail of birch
bark, and I'll leave the wild honey on the boy's stoop."
Off hopped the bunny gentleman, until he found where the bees had their
home in a hollow tree.
"Could you give me some honey for a good boy with bad mumps?" asked the
rabbit.
"Some honey for a good boy with the bad mumps?" said the Queen Bee.
"Certainly, Uncle Wiggily! As much as you like!"
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the bunny's muskrat lady housekeeper, made a
little box of white bark from the birch tree, and when this pretty box
was filled with wild, sweet honey, Uncle Wiggily took it with him one
evening.
It was time for the Mump Boy to go to bed, but the pain in his neck was
so bad that he cried.
"I'm hungry, too," he said. "Oh, why can't I eat something that won't
hurt my mumps?"
"I'll try to think of something for you," said Mother wearily.
Just then Uncle Wiggily hopped to the edge of the forest, close to the
Mump Boy's house, and running up, he put the birch box of wild honey
on the stoop. Then the bunny threw some little stones at the door and
hopped away, hiding in the bushes.
"Wait until I see who's at the door," said Mother, as she smoothed the
boy's pillow. "Then I'll get you something."
She looked out on the porch, and saw the little birch bark box.
"It looks like a valentine," she thought, "though this isn't
Valentine's Day."
"What is it?" asked the boy. "Is it anything I can eat that won't hurt
my mumps?"
"Why, yes, it is!" joyfully said his mother, as she saw what it was.
"Sweet, wild honey!"
Even the name, so different from sour pickles or lemons, made the Mumps
Boy feel better.
"Please give me some," he begged. "It sounds good!"
[Illustration: Uncle Wiggily saw him at the window]
The wild sweet honey slipped down as gently as a feather, not hurting
the boy's neck at all. And soon after that he went to sleep and in a
few days he was better.
Uncle Wiggily saw the boy at the window, the bandage no longer on his
face, and he even saw the boy eating the last of the wild honey.
"I guess he liked it," thought the bunny, as he hopped away.
When the boy was all better, and could be out and play, he asked all of
his friends which one it was who had left the honey on the porch. One
and all answered:
"I didn't do it!"
"I wonder who it was?" said the boy, over and over again.
Well, we know; don't we? But we aren't allowed to tell. And when the
Boy's Sister caught the mumps, Uncle Wiggily left her some honey also.
Which was very kind of him, I think.
So if the little pussy cat doesn't drop her penny in the snowbank,
thinking it will turn into a dollar so she can buy a box of lollypops,
you may next hear about Uncle Wiggily and the measles.
STORY XVIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MEASLES
Once upon a time there was a boy who didn't like to go to school. Every
chance he had he stayed at home instead of going to his classes to
learn his lessons.
Sometimes he would get up in the morning and say:
"Mother, I think I'm going to have the toothache. I guess I better not
go to school to-day."
But his mother would laugh and say:
"Oh, run along! If you get the toothache in school the teacher will let
you come home."
Then the boy would go to school, though he didn't want to, and he would
be thinking up some new excuse for staying home, so really he did not
recite his lessons as well as he might.
One day this boy came running in the house, all excited, and called out:
"Oh, Mother! I just know I can't go to school to-morrow!"
"Why not?" asked Mother.
"'Cause I've been playing with the boy across the street, an' he's got
the measles, an' I'll catch 'em an' I can't go to school. You ought t'
see! He's all covered with red spots!" The boy who didn't like school
was much excited. "He's all red spots!" he exclaimed.
"Is he?" asked Mother. "Well, the measles aren't painful, though they
are 'catching,' as you children say. However, you can't catch them
quite as soon as one day. So you may go to school until you break out
with red spots. Then it will be time enough to stay at home."
"Can't I stay home to-morrow?" begged the boy.
"Oh, of course not!" laughed Mother. "I want you to go to school and
become a smart man! Time enough to stay home when you get the measles!"
Now, of course, this did not suit that boy at all. When he went to bed
he was thinking and thinking of some plan by which he could stay home
from school. For there was to be a hard lesson next day, and, though I
am sorry to say it, that boy was too lazy to study as he ought.
"If I could only break out with the measles I could stay home," he
kept saying over and over again as he lay in bed. Every now and then
he would get up, turn on the electric light in his room and look at
himself in the glass to see if any red spots were coming. But he could
see none.
"What's the matter, Boysie?" his mother called to him from her room.
"Why are you so restless?"
"Maybe I'm getting the measles," he hopefully answered.
"Nonsense! Go to sleep!" laughed Daddy.
Finally the boy did go to sleep, but either he dreamed it, or the idea
came to him in the night, for, early in the morning, he awakened and,
slipping on his bath robe, went into his sister's room.
"Hey, Sis!" he whispered. "Where's your box of paints?"
"What you want 'em for?" asked Sister.
"Oh, I--I'm going to paint something," mumbled the boy. Sister was too
sleepy--for it was only early morning as yet--to wonder much about it,
so she told her brother where to find the paints, and then she turned
over and went to sleep again.
Now what do you suppose that boy did?
Why, he went back to his room, and with his sister's brush and color
box he painted red spots on his face, just as he had seen them on the
face of the real Measles Boy across the street. Then this boy put the
paints away and waited.
After a while Mother called:
"Come, Boysie! Time to get up and go to school!"
"I--I don't guess I'd better go to school this morning," said the boy,
trying to make his voice sound weak and ill and faint-like.
"Not go to school! Why not?" cried Mother in surprise.
"I--I'm all red spots," the boy answered. And when his mother went in
his room, and saw that he really was spotted, she exclaimed:
"Why, you _have_ the measles! I didn't think they'd break out so
_soon_! Well, you must stay in the dark on account of your eyes. I'll
bring you in some breakfast, and of course you can't go to school!"
Then that boy had to put the bedquilt over his mouth so he wouldn't
laugh. If his room had been light his mother, of course, would have
seen that the spots were only red paint. But in the dimness of early
morning she didn't see.
"Isn't Brother going to school?" asked Sister as she ate her breakfast.
"He has the measles," said Mother. "I expect you'll come down with them
next, and break out in a day or so. But wait until you do."
And if Sister thought anything about her red paint she said nothing. I
don't believe she ever imagined her brother would play such a trick.
At first, after his sister had gone to school, and he had been given
his breakfast in bed, the boy thought it was going to be lots of fun
to pretend to have the measles and stay home from school. But after a
while this began to grow tiresome.
It was a beautiful, warm sunshiny day outside, and staying in a dark
room wasn't as much fun as that boy had thought. He could hear the bees
humming outside his open window, and the birds were singing.
His mother opened the door and spoke to him.
"I'm just going across the street a few minutes," she said. "You'll be
all right, won't you?"
"Yes'm," answered the boy. "My measles don't hurt hardly any."
And of course they couldn't, being only painted measles, you know.
When Mother went away, softly closing the door after her, the sound
of the buzzing bees and the singing birds came to the boy through his
window. He knew it must be lovely outside, and yet he had to stay in
bed.
"But I can get up and run out for a little while," he said to himself.
"Mother will never know!"
No sooner thought of than done! The boy quickly put on some
clothes--not many, for it was summer--and out into the yard he went,
his face all red paint spots. He didn't dare wash them off or his
mother would have noticed.
Now it happened that Uncle Wiggily, the bunny rabbit gentleman, was
out that day, taking a walk with Grandfather Goosey Gander. The two
friends passed through the woods, close to the edge of the yard of the
house where the make-believe Measles Boy lived. And the boy saw the
bunny gentleman, all dressed up as Uncle Wiggily was. Grandpa Goosey,
also, had on his coat and trousers. Uncle Wiggily wore his golf suit
that day--black and white checkered trousers and a cap.
[Illustration: "Hop faster!" quacked Grandpa]
"Oh, what a funny rabbit! What a funny goose!" cried the boy. "I'm
going to catch 'em and have a play circus in my yard!"
Forgetting that he was supposed to be suffering from measles, this boy
chased after Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey.
"We'd better run," quacked the goose gentleman. "Boy, you know! Chase
us! Throw stones, you know. Better run; what?"
"I believe you!" answered Uncle Wiggily. "Run it is!"
Off hopped the bunny! Off waddled the goose! But the boy was a fast
runner, in spite of the red spots on his face and he came nearer and
nearer to Uncle Wiggily.
"I'm afraid he's going to catch me, Grandpa!" spoke Mr. Longears
in animal talk, of course, which the boy could not hear, much less
understand.
"Hop faster!" quacked Grandpa, who was half running and half flying.
On came the boy! Grandpa Goosey, who was ahead, looked back and saw
that Uncle Wiggily was soon going to be caught.
"There is only one way to save the bunny," thought Grandpa Goosey.
"I'll splash some water in that boy's face and eyes so he can't see for
a moment. Then Uncle Wiggily and I can get away!"
Near the path along which the boy was chasing the bunny and goose was a
puddle of water. As quick as a wink Grandpa Goosey splashed into this,
and, with his wings and webbed feet, he sent such a shower of water
into the face of the boy that the bad chap had to stop.
"Oh! Ouch! Stop splashing me!" cried the boy. His face was all wet, but
he wiped it off on his sleeve, and with his handkerchief. And when he
had cleared his eyes of water he started to run again.
But by this time Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey were far off, hidden
in the forest, and the boy could not find them.
"I guess I'd better go back home and get into bed," thought the boy.
"Mother will be looking for me."
He was just going in the house when his mother came up the steps.
"Why, Boysie!" exclaimed Mother. "You shouldn't have gone out with the
measles! Why--where _are_ your measles?" she asked, for the spots were
gone. "Your face is all red, like a lobster; but you haven't any more
measles spots! What happened?"
The boy remembered the water that Grandpa Goosey had splashed up from
the puddle. He took out his handkerchief and looked at it. That, too,
was red!
"Why, it's _red paint_!" cried Mother. "Oh, Boysie! How could you play
such a trick?" and she felt so sad that tears came into her eyes. "What
made you do it, Boysie?"
"I--I didn't want to go to school," the boy answered, softly and much
ashamed.
"Oh, how foolish of you!" said Mother. "Now I'll have to take you to
school myself, but I won't tell teacher what you did--that is, I will
not if you study your lessons well."
"I will, Mother! I will!" the make-believe Measles Boy promised. "I'll
never want to stay home from school again!"
And he never did--even when he really had the measles which broke out
on him about a week later. But he did not have them very hard, though
he didn't need any of his sister's paints to make red spots.
And when Grandpa Goosey looked in the window of the boy's house, and
saw the little chap with his face all speckled, the goose gentleman
said:
"Serves him right for chasing Uncle Wiggily and me!"
Well, perhaps it did. Who knows? Anyhow, if it should happen that the
doorknob doesn't turn around and try to crawl through the keyhole when
the milk bottle chases the pussy cat off the back stoop, then I may
tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the chicken-pox.
STORY XIX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CHICKEN-POX
One day Charlie and Arabella Chick, the little rooster and hen children
of Mrs. Cluck-Cluck, the hen lady, came fluttering over to Uncle
Wiggily's hollow stump bungalow.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" cackled Arabella. "What you think has happened?"
"Well, I hardly am able to guess," answered the bunny gentleman. "I do
hope, though, that your coop isn't on fire. You seem much excited, my
dears!"
"Well, I guess you'd be excited, too, if a boy threw stones at you!"
crowed Charlie. "Wouldn't you?"
"Indeed I would," admitted Uncle Wiggily. "Once a boy did stone me and
I didn't like it at all."
"We don't like it either," cawed Arabella.
"Isn't there some way you can stop that boy from throwing sticks and
stones at us?" Charlie wanted to know.
"Tell me about it," suggested Uncle Wiggily.
"Well, it's this way," began Arabella. "This boy lives on the other
side of the Big Forest. Sometimes Charlie and I go over there to pick
up beechnuts and other good things to eat, and every time that boy
sees us he pegs things at us! Wouldn't you call him a bad boy, Uncle
Wiggily?"
"Most surely I would," answered the rabbit gentleman. "But why does he
do it? You don't crow over him; do you, Charlie?"
"No, indeed," answered the rooster boy. "I only crow to warn Arabella
when I see that fellow coming, to tell her to run and hide under a
bush."
"And I don't pick him, or scratch gravel at him or anything like that,"
cackled the little hen girl. "I wish he'd let us alone, Uncle Wiggily."
"We came over to see if you could think up a way to make him stop,"
crowed Charlie. "Can you?"
"Hum! I'll try," promised the bunny gentleman, twinkling his pink nose
like the frosting on top of an orange shortcake. "Suppose we go look
for this boy," went on Uncle Wiggily. "So I'll know him when I see him."
"I can show you his house," offered Charlie. "But we'll have to be
careful. For if he sees us he'll peg things at us."
"Let us hope not," murmured Uncle Wiggily.
But it was a vain hope, as they say in fairy books. For after Uncle
Wiggily, Charlie and Arabella had gone to the other side of a forest,
there, all of a sudden, they saw the boy.
"Hi! There are those funny dressed-up chickens!" shouted the boy, who
had red hair, and a face full of freckles. "And there's a rabbit with
them, all dressed up in a tall silk hat! Oh, my! What style! I'm going
to see if I can knock his hat off with a stone! I'm going to peg rocks
at 'em!"
"See! What did I tell you?" cackled Arabella, who could understand
boy-talk, as could also Charlie and Uncle Wiggily.
"Bang!" bounced a stone on Uncle Wiggily's tall silk hat, sending it
spinning through the air.
"Ha! Ha!" laughed the boy, as he picked up another stone. "I'm a good
shot, I am!"
"I should call that rather a _bad_ shot--for my hat," remarked Uncle
Wiggily, as he picked up his silk hat and hopped toward the bushes.
"Come on, Arabella and Charlie!" called the bunny gentleman. "This boy
is acting just as you said he did. I must think up some way of teaching
him a lesson!"
The little hen girl and rooster boy scooted under the bushes, and
only just in time, for the boy threw many more stones, and one struck
Charlie on the comb. Not the comb that he used to make his feathers
smooth, but the red comb on his head--one of his ornaments; his tail
feathers being others.
"Hi, fellows! Come on chase the funny chickens and the dressed-up
rabbit!" cried the boy. But though some of his chums ran up, as he
called, with sticks and stones, Uncle Wiggily, with Charlie and
Arabella, managed to hide away from the thoughtless lads. For they were
thoughtless. They didn't think that stones hurt animals.
"Yes, I certainly must teach that boy a lesson," said Uncle Wiggily.
"I--I wish he'd catch the chicken-pox!" crowed Charlie. "Or maybe the
roosterpox! Then he'd have to stay in and couldn't chase us!"
"I wouldn't care if he had the mumps and toothache at the same time!"
cackled Arabella.
For several days Uncle Wiggily watched for a chance to teach the
thoughtless boy a lesson, and at last it came. The bunny gentleman was
out hopping in the woods one morning when he met Charlie and Arabella
fluttering along the forest path.
[Illustration: The boy was asleep under a tree----]
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" said Arabella in a cackling whisper. "That boy is
asleep now, on a bed of moss under a tree. He's sleeping hard, too, for
Charlie and I went close to him and he didn't awaken. Maybe you can do
something to him now."
"Maybe I can," said Uncle Wiggily. "I'll go see!"
He hopped through the woods with the chicken children, and soon came
to where the boy was asleep under a tree. It was a pine tree, with
sticky gum oozing from the trunk and branches. And as soon as the bunny
gentleman saw this gum he whispered:
"I have an idea! I'll teach this boy a lesson."
"How?" asked Charlie.
"I'll make him think he has the chicken-pox, or something worse,"
answered the bunny, with a silent laugh.
"Goodie!" cackled Arabella.
"Ha! Ha!" crowed Charlie.
"Quiet now, chicken children," whispered Uncle Wiggily. "Each of you
pull me out a few loose feathers."
Charlie and Arabella did this. Then the bunny uncle took some of the
soft gum from the pine tree, and put spots of it on the face and hands
of the sleeping boy. Though he stirred a little, the boy did not awaken.
When the boy was well spotted with the sticky gum, Uncle Wiggily
took the chicken feathers that Charlie and Arabella had plucked, and
fastened these feathers on the boy's face and hands in the gum.
"Oh, how funny he looks!" softly cackled Arabella.
"Hush!" cautioned Uncle Wiggily, putting his paw on his pink, twinkling
nose. "Let him sleep!"
Drawing back into the bushes, Uncle Wiggily, Charlie and Arabella
waited for the boy to awaken, which he did pretty soon. He turned over,
sat up and stretched. Then he looked at his hands, and saw chicken
feathers stuck on them.
"Oh! Oh!" cried the boy. "What has happened to me?"
He jumped to his feet and caught sight of himself in a spring of water
that was like a looking glass.
"Oh! Oh!" cried the boy again. "This is terrible! Oh, my face!"
Home he ran through the woods, while Charlie and Arabella laughed to
see him go.
"Oh, Mother! Mother! Look at me!" cried the boy. "I'm all feathers! I
must have the chicken-pox!"
"Goodness me, sakes alive and a basket of eggs!" exclaimed the boy's
mother. "You must have gone to sleep in a hen's nest! But you haven't
the chicken-pox! The chicken-pox is spots like the measles, but you are
covered with _feathers_!"
"But how did I get this way?" asked the boy, as he pulled off some of
the feathers. "I wasn't like it when I went to sleep in the woods."
"Maybe a fairy did it," spoke his little sister, who believed in them.
"Pooh! There aren't any fairies!" sneered the boy. "I guess it was that
hen and rooster I stoned."
"Did you do that?" asked his mother. "Did you?"
"A--a little!" stammered the boy.
"Well, it isn't any wonder you're this way, then," Mother said. "And,
for all I know, you may get the real chicken-pox!"
And, as true as I'm telling you that boy did! But he was not made very
ill, for some reason or other. Perhaps because he had to be washed so
clean, to get off the sticky pine gum and the feathers, the chicken-pox
didn't go in very deeply.
At any rate, when the boy was all well again, he threw no more stones
at Charlie or Arabella.
"You cured him, Uncle Wiggily!" crowed the rooster boy.
And I really think the bunny did. So if toy balloon doesn't take the
spout off the teakettle to blow beans through at the egg beater, I'll
tell you next about Uncle Wiggily's Hallowe'en.
STORY XX
UNCLE WIGGILY'S HALLOWE'EN
Hopping along under the bushes one day, near the edge of the forest
nearest to where lived the real boys and girls, Uncle Wiggily Longears,
the bunny rabbit gentleman, heard two boys talking together.
"We'll put a tick-tack on her window," said the First Boy.
"And she'll be scared stiff!" said the Second Boy. "Oh, what fun we'll
have this Hallowe'en!"
"Hum!" thought the bunny rabbit gentleman to himself, after hearing
this. "It may be fun for _you_, but how about whoever it is you're
going to scare stiff? I only hope it isn't my nice muskrat lady
housekeeper, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy!"
Uncle Wiggily twinkled his pink nose, and listened with both ears.
"Yes," went on the First Boy, "we'll have a lot of fun this Hallowe'en
with tick-tacks and the like of that! And we'll put on false faces so
the Little Old Lady of Mulberry Lane won't know us!"
"Oh ho! So that's the one they're going to play tricks on; is it?"
thought Uncle Wiggily to himself. "The Little Old Lady of Mulberry
Lane! I know her--poor creature; she lives all alone, and she may have
a cupboard, like Old Mother Hubbard, but she hasn't a dog or a bone. I
suppose," thought Uncle Wiggily, "that Jackie or Peetie Bow Wow would
stay with her, if she wanted them. I must see about it."