and peeping over the top of his pink, twinkling nose. "There he stands,
all day long, with nothing to eat but grass."
"What else would he eat?" asked Nurse Jane, suspiciously.
"I don't s'pose he ever had a cherry pie," went on Uncle Wiggily
reflective-like. "Poor horse! Never had any cherry pie!"
"Wiggy!" exclaimed Nurse Jane, as she took a firmer hold of the basket
handle. "If you are thinking of giving Grandpa Goosey's pie to that
horse----"
"Well, that's just what I'm thinking of," answered Mr. Longears. "Here,
Nurse Jane, please give me that pie. You may run back home and get the
one you were saving for me to give to Grandpa Goosey. I'll call this
pie mine, and I'm going to give it to the horse."
"Well, I never in all my born days," exclaimed Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, "heard
the like of that!"
Still she knew Uncle Wiggily meant to be kind, so she gave the bunny
rabbit gentleman the basket with the pie inside, and started back for
the hollow stump bungalow to get the other.
The bunny rabbit certainly was not selfish, whatever else he was.
"Hello, Horsie!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped through the
field where the big animal was eating.
"Hello," answered the horse. "Oh, it's Uncle Wiggily!" he went on, as
he stopped cropping the grass and looked up.
"Did you ever eat a cherry pie?" asked the bunny rabbit, beginning to
take the cloth off the one in the basket.
"Cherry pie? I don't believe I ever did," slowly answered the horse.
"Cherry pie! Hum! No, I never tasted any."
"Wouldn't you like to?" asked the bunny. "I should think you would get
tired of eating grass all day long."
"Well, grass is my food, and I like it," neighed the horse. "But I like
some oats once in a while, and some bran. Yes, and I think I'd like
some cherry pie, also."
"Here! Take this one! Nurse Jane can bake more!" said generous Uncle
Wiggily, and he held out the pie.
"Oh, my! That's a fine one!" whinnied the horse. "That looks most
delicious."
"And it tastes as delicious as it looks," went on the bunny. "I know
Nurse Jane's pies. Take a bite!"
The horse did. One bit was all that was needed to enable him to eat the
whole pie, for it was only rabbit size, of course, not as large as the
pies your mother bakes.
"Um!" said the horse, as the red cherry juice ran down his lips. "That
was a good pie! I could eat more!"
"I'm sorry, but that's the only one I have," spoke Uncle Wiggily.
"Nurse Jane has gone to get mine, that she put in the cupboard, to give
to Grandpa Goosey. But to-morrow I'll have her bake you a large pie."
Just then Nurse Jane came along, with the other pie in the basket, and
Uncle Wiggily said:
"The horse ate that cherry pie, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, and liked it very
much. I have told him you'd bake him a larger one."
"Well, I s'pose I can," said the muskrat lady, looking at Uncle Wiggily
in a funny way. "I s'pose I can."
"You are very kind," neighed the horse. "If I could only do you some
favor----"
But just then, all of a sudden, out from behind a bush jumped the bad
old Woozie Wolf.
"Ah ha!" howled the Wolf. "This is the time I have caught Nurse Jane as
well as Uncle Wiggily. I shall have four ears to nibble to-day!" and he
looked hungrily at the bunny and muskrat lady.
"Do you mean to say you are going to hurt good, kind Uncle Wiggily, who
has just given me a cherry pie?" asked the horse quickly.
"Of course I am!" growled the Wolf. "He gave me no pie! I'm going to
nibble the bunny!"
"Well, I just won't let you!" said the horse.
"How are you going to stop me?" asked the Wolf.
"Well, I have big teeth," the horse said. "They are not as sharp as
yours, for they do not need to be so that I may crop the grass. But I
can bite you with them, just the same."
"Ho! Ho!" sneered the Wolf. "Two can play at that game! I can bite
worse than you."
"That's so, he can," whispered Uncle Wiggily to the horse. "Be careful!"
"Well, then I'll _kick_!" said the horse. "I'll rear up on my front
legs and kick you with my hind ones, Mr. Wolf, if you hurt Uncle
Wiggily."
"But you have no sharp toe-nails, such as I have!" growled the Wolf.
"I'll scratch you with my toe-nails if you kick me."
"That's right--he will!" whispered Nurse Jane.
"I'm afraid you cannot save us," sadly said the bunny gentleman to the
kind horse.
"Yes, I can!" suddenly neighed the horse. "This Wolf can do some things
better than I, but he cannot run as fast. Quick! Jump up on my back,
Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane. I'll gallop and trot, I'll gallop and
trot and I'll gallop and trot--until I take you far away from this bad
animal!"
"Don't you dare take Uncle Wiggily away from me!" howled the Wolf, for
well he knew he could not run as fast as the horse.
[Illustration: The wolf was left far, far, behind.]
"Yes, I shall! I'll save Uncle Wiggily!" whinnied the horse. "Up on my
back! Quick!" he called to the bunny and Nurse Jane.
Up they leaped, before the Wolf could get them. Then the horse galloped
and trotted, galloped and trotted and galloped and trotted, until the
Wolf was left far, far behind. And, oh, how angry that Wolf was! And
how he howled! I wish you could have heard him.
No, on second thought, it is just as well you didn't hear him. It was
not very nice howling.
"There! Now you are safe, Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane," said the
horse, as he stopped galloping and trotting, away over on the far side
of the field, far, far from the Wolf.
"Thank you for saving us," spoke the bunny, as he and Nurse Jane slid
off the horsie's back.
"I'll bake you the largest cherry pie that ever was," promised the
muskrat lady, "just as soon as I take this one to Grandpa Goosey."
And she made such a large pie that it took the horse forty 'leven bites
to eat it.
So everything came out all right, you see. And if the postman doesn't
try to slip a letter through the slot in the baby's penny bank, and
make the five cent piece jump over the dollar bill, I'll tell you next
about Uncle Wiggily and the cow.
STORY XXIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE COW
This is a story about Uncle Wiggily and the cow. Not the cow with the
crumpled horn, nor yet the one that jumped over the moon, when the dish
ran away with the spoon.
This was a sort of a red cow which ate green grass and gave white milk
that was churned into yellow butter to be eaten on brown bread. There
is no use asking me about all those colors for I don't know--nobody
knows. They're just there, and that's all there is about it.
Now for the story.
One day the bunny rabbit gentleman was hopping over the fields and
through the woods on his way to the store for Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.
He was going to get his muskrat lady housekeeper a jug of molasses so
Nurse Jane might make a cake.
Uncle Wiggily hopped on and on, wondering if he would have an adventure
that day, and he was thinking how good the molasses cake would taste
when, all of a sudden, down in a field he saw a red cow. Not exactly
red like a rose, you understand, or red like a barn, but still somewhat
between those colors--a brownish-red, I suppose it would be called.
"Moo! Moo! Moo!" called the cow, in such mournful tones that Uncle
Wiggily right away said:
"Something must be the matter! I'm going down and see if I can help
that poor cow!"
Down into the meadow hopped the bunny rabbit gentleman, and when he
reached the cow he looked at her and she looked at him, and the bunny
asked:
"What is the matter, Mrs. Cow?"
"Oh," was the sad answer, "I've lost the cud that I always chew, and
now I don't know what to do! I'm so upset I'm sure I'll give sour milk
to-night, instead of sweet!"
"That would be too bad," Uncle Wiggily remarked. "This cud of
yours--may I ask what it is?"
[Illustration: "Well! Well!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily.]
"Well, it isn't gum, as many boys and girls suppose, when they see me
chewing," spoke the cow lady. "My cud is a bunch of grass, which I crop
and pull up by winding my tongue about it, for I haven't two sets of
teeth as have many animals. I only have teeth on my upper jaw. On my
lower jaw I have no teeth, but the gums are very hard so I can chew
grass, and that is what makes my cud. I only chew the grass a little
bit, when I first pull it from the meadow. I swallow it down into my
first stomach, and, when I have more time, I bring the cud of grass up
into my mouth and chew it as long as I please, so it will be good for
me to put into my last stomach."
"Well, well!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily in surprise. "So you have two
stomachs and only one set of teeth."
"Yes," went on the cow, "but what is worrying me now is to know whether
I lost my cud of grass in the meadow, after I had chewed on it a while,
or whether it slipped down into my last stomach before it was time."
"What will happen if it did?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"I'm afraid I'll have indigestion," the cow lady answered. "And that
will make my milk bad and sour. Oh, dear! I wish I knew where my cud
was!"
"How did you come to lose it--or miss it?" asked the bunny.
"Why, I was watching Bully and Bawly No-Tail, the two frog boys,
hopping down by the brook," the cow lady said. "They were playing
leap-toad, you know--or, perhaps, it was leap-frog; and Bully made such
a funny jump over Bawly's back that I laughed right out loud. I was
chewing my cud at the time, and when I stopped laughing I missed it.
Now whether I swallowed it, or whether it dropped in the brook, I don't
know. Isn't that dreadful?"
"Can't you tell by the way you feel--inside, you know," asked the
bunny, "what became of your cud?"
"Not for some little time," answered the cow lady, "and then it will be
too late. Oh, if only I could find my cud somewhere in this meadow I'd
know I hadn't swallowed it, and I'd be all right."
"I know just how you feel," said Uncle Wiggily. "Once, when Susie
Littletail, the rabbit, was a tiny baby, her mother gave her a big cake
spoon to play with. She went out of the room, leaving Susie to play
with the spoon, and when she came back it was gone."
"What was gone?" asked the cow lady, "Susie or the spoon?"
"The spoon," answered the bunny gentleman. "And as Susie was too little
to talk, and tell where it was, her mother didn't know whether she had
hidden, or dropped the spoon somewhere, or whether she had swallowed
it."
"Just fancy!" mooed the cow. "How exciting! But what happened?"
"Why, finally," said Uncle Wiggily, "after I had hopped over to help,
we found the spoon behind the piano where Susie had thrown it. Then we
knew she hadn't swallowed it."
"And if I could find my cud I'd know I hadn't swallowed _that_," sadly
said the cow lady.
"I'll help you look," offered Uncle Wiggily. "I'm a pretty good hopper,
and I'll hop around the meadow and look for your cud of half-chewed
grass."
The bunny set down his molasses jug and began looking all over the
meadow for the cud. And the cow helped, but she could not move very
fast. Besides, she was worried and nervous.
"Here it is! I've found it!" suddenly called Uncle Wiggily, and there
on the grass, near the brook where the frog boys had been leaping, was
the cow lady's cud.
"Oh, how glad I am to get it back!" she mooed as she began to chew it
again. "Now my milk will be nice and sweet. You have done me a great
favor, Uncle Wiggily. I hope I may do you the same some day."
"Pray do not mention it," said the bunny politely, as he hopped on with
his molasses jug. "It was just a little adventure for me."
Uncle Wiggily hopped on to the store, had the jug filled with molasses
and then went to his hollow stump bungalow.
"Well, you were gone a long time," said Nurse Jane. "I have been
waiting to make the ginger cake."
"I had to help a cow lady find her lost cud," said the bunny.
"Oh, Wiggy! What next!" laughed Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "Helping cow ladies!
Oh! Oh!"
"That's all right," the bunny said. "Perhaps some day a cow lady may
help us."
"I don't see how she can," spoke Nurse Jane, as she started to make
the cake. But pretty soon she called to the bunny who had gone to sit
outside on a bench and warm his rheumatism in the sun.
"Oh, Wiggy!" exclaimed Nurse Jane. "I can't get the cork out of the
molasses jug. It's in so tight! I can't pull it out, and if I break it,
and push it inside, then the molasses won't run out. Oh, what a lot of
trouble!"
"Let me try!" offered the bunny. But he could not get the cork out of
the molasses jug either, not even with his red, white and blue striped
rheumatism crutch.
"I guess I'll have to break the jug!" said the bunny at last.
"Oh, don't do that!" spoke a voice behind him, and, turning, Uncle
Wiggily saw the cow lady. "I am on my way home to be milked," she
mooed, "and I saw you in trouble, so I came over. What's wrong?"
"We can't get the cork out of the molasses jug," answered Uncle Wiggily.
"Perhaps I can," said Mrs. Cow. "Please let me try."
"We have a corkscrew somewhere," remarked Nurse Jane, "but I can't find
it."
"I shall not need it," went on the cow.
Then with one of her long, sharp horns she easily pried the cork out of
the molasses jug, breaking nothing and making it very easy for Nurse
Jane to pour out the sweet stuff for the ginger cake.
"Thank you, Mrs. Cow," said Uncle Wiggily, as the milk lady animal went
on her way.
"Pray don't mention it!" mooed the cow. "Now we are even, as far as
favors go!"
Uncle Wiggily looked at Nurse Jane, and the muskrat lady smiled at the
bunny gentleman.
"You were right, Wiggly," spoke Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "I never thought a
cow could help anyone, but this shows how little I know."
"That's all right!" laughed the bunny. "Mistakes will happen!"
So once again everything came out all right for the bunny gentleman,
you see, and if the pussy cat doesn't make a popcorn ball out of snow,
for the puppy dog to play bean bag with, you shall next hear about
Uncle Wiggily and the camping boys.
STORY XXV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CAMPING BOYS
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! What you think?" cried Baby Bunty one day, as she
hopped up to the rabbit gentleman, who was pulling the weeds out of his
carrot garden.
"What I think, Baby Bunty?" repeated Mr. Longears, smiling down one
side of his pink, twinkling nose. "Well, I think lots of things, my
little rabbit girl. But if you think I'm going to play _tag_ with you
this morning you are wrong. I haven't time!"
"Oh, I don't want you to play tag!" exclaimed Baby Bunty, though she
was such a lively little tyke that she nearly always wanted Uncle
Wiggily to play a game of some sort. "But there's something over in the
woods," she went on. "What you think it is?" and she was quite excited.
"Something over in the woods, Baby Bunty?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as he
looked at one of his carrots to see if the point needed sharpening; but
it didn't, I'm glad to say. "Well, what's in the woods, Baby Bunty; the
Fox, the Skeezicks or the Pipsisewah?"
"Neither one, Uncle Wiggily," answered the little rabbit girl. "But
there's a lot of those funny animals you call 'boys,' and they're
making a snow house, and maybe they'll try to catch you, or me or Nurse
Jane," and Baby Bunty looked quite worried.
"A _snow_ house this time of year! Tut! Tut! Nonsense!" laughed Uncle
Wiggily. "This is summer and there isn't any snow with which to make
houses."
"Well, these boys, in the woods, are making a _white_ house, anyhow,
Uncle Wiggily," spoke the little rabbit girl, who once had lived in a
hollow stump, before she came to visit the bunny gentleman. "It's a
white house, and there's a lot of boys, and they're cutting down wood,
and making a fire and boiling a kettle of water and oh, they're doing
lots of things! I thought I'd better come and tell you."
"Hum!" said Uncle Wiggily, straightening up to rest his back, which
ached from pulling the weeds out of his garden. "Yes, perhaps it is a
good thing you told me, Baby Bunty. I'll go have a look at the white
house the boys are putting up."
Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty hopped through the woods, and soon they
were near that side of the forest nearest the village where real boys
and girls lived. Through the green trees gleamed something white, on
which the sun shone as brightly as it does at the seashore.
"There's the house," said Baby Bunty, pointing with her paw off among
the trees.
"Ho! That isn't exactly a _house_!" Uncle Wiggily told the little
rabbit girl. "That's a white tent, and those boys must be camping
there. Boys like to come to the woods to camp in the summer. We'll hop
a little closer and listen. Then we can tell what they are doing."
"We mustn't let 'em see us!" whispered Baby Bunty. "Oh, no!"
"Well, no, maybe not first along," Uncle Wiggily agreed. "But nearly
all boys, especially the kind that go camping, are fond of animals,
and will not hurt them. We will see what sort of boys these are, Baby
Bunty."
So the bunny gentleman and the little rabbit girl hid behind the bushes
and watched the camping boys, for that is what they were. They had come
to spend a few weeks in the woods, living in a white tent which, at
first, Baby Bunty thought was a snow house.
The boys had just come to camp, and the tent had been up only a little
while. But already the lads had started a campfire; and they had hung a
Gypsy kettle over the blaze, and were cooking soup.
"Get some more water, somebody!" called one boy.
"And I'm not going to cut any more wood!" exclaimed another. "I've been
cutting wood ever since we got here!"
"We'll take turns!" spoke a third boy.
"Look out! That soup's boiling over!" shouted a fourth.
"They're regular boys all right!" chuckled Uncle Wiggily, as he
crouched under a bush with Baby Bunty. "They're so excited at coming to
camp they hardly know what they're doing."
Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty could hear and understand what the boys
said, though they themselves could not speak to the camping chaps. For
a time the two rabbits watched the little lads, who were trying to get
a meal. They made many mistakes, of course, such as getting the salt
mixed up with the sugar, and they left the bread out of its tin box so
it dried, for they had never been camping before.
"But they'll soon learn," said Uncle Wiggily.
"I hope they won't chase us, and throw stones at us," Baby Bunty
remarked, as she and Mr. Longears hopped away.
"I think they are good boys," spoke the bunny gentleman.
And the camping boys were. When they had finished eating they scattered
crumbs so the birds could pick them up. Larger pieces of left-over food
were placed on a flat stump where the squirrels and chipmunks could get
them.
Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the two boy squirrels, saw some of this
food as they were coming through the woods. The camping boys were away
just then, so the squirrel chaps had no fear of going close to the
white tent-house. Johnnie found a piece of bread and butter, and Billie
picked up half a ginger snap.
[Illustration: Johnnie found a piece of bread and butter.]
"That shows the camping boys are kind to animals," said Uncle Wiggily,
when Johnnie and Billie told him what they had found. "I hope I may get
a chance to do these lads a favor."
And Uncle Wiggily had this chance sooner than he expected.
For about a week the weather was most lovely for camping. The sun shone
every day, the wind blew just enough to send the sailboat spinning
about the lake and there wasn't a drop of rain.
It is rain which soaks most of the fun out of camping, just as rain
takes away your fun at home. And these boys, never having camped in a
tent before, gave no thought to storms.
One afternoon it began to rain. Uncle Wiggily, in his hollow stump
bungalow, where he was reading the cabbage-leaf paper, heard the
pitter-patter of the drops on the window, and looked up.
"Where is Baby Bunty, Nurse Jane?" asked the bunny gentleman.
"Why, she hasn't come back from the store yet," answered the muskrat
lady housekeeper.
"Did she take an umbrella?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"No," replied Nurse Jane, "she did not."
"Then she'll get soaking wet!" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "I'll go after
her with a toadstool."
You know in Woodland, near the Orange Ice Mountain, where Uncle Wiggily
lived, toadstools were often used for umbrellas. Of course, some of the
animal folk had regular umbrellas, but when they were in a hurry they
could break off a big toadstool, or mushroom, and use that.
So Uncle Wiggily hopped out of his hollow stump bungalow, and, growing
near his front gate, he found a big toadstool. Picking this, he held it
over his head and hurried along through the rain to meet Baby Bunty,
who had gone to the three and five cent store for Nurse Jane.
Uncle Wiggily had to hop almost to the place where the tent of the
camping boys stood before he met the little rabbit girl, half drenched.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! You ought to see!" cried Baby Bunty. "There is so
much water around the tent that those nice boys will be washed away, I
guess!"
"Water around their tent?" repeated the bunny gentleman. "You don't say
so!"
"Yes," said Baby Bunty. "The rain is coming down so hard that it is
running like a little brook around the tent. The boys are inside, and I
heard them saying that the water would soon come up over the cots and
they wouldn't have any dry place to sleep to-night!"
"Silly boys!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, holding the toadstool umbrella
over Baby Bunty. "They didn't know enough to dig a ditch around the
outside of their tent to let the rain water run off. All campers do
that, but as this is the first time these boys came to the woods I
suppose they didn't know about it. Always dig a ditch, or trench, in
the earth around your tent when you go camping, Baby Bunty."
"I will," promised the little rabbit girl, real serious like.
"But that isn't going to help the boys now," went on Uncle Wiggily. "I
think I shall have to take a paw in this. They are good boys, and are
kind to animals. I must do them a favor."
"But how can you?" asked Baby Bunty.
"Why, I, being a rabbit, am one of the best diggers in the world,"
went on Mr. Longears. "Still, I will need help to dig a ditch around
the tent, as it is rather large. Hop home, Baby Bunty, and tell Sammie
Littletail, Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail, the beaver boys, and Grandpa
Whackum, the old beaver gentleman, to please come here. With their help
I can dig the ditch."
So Baby Bunty, taking the toadstool umbrella, hopped away, and Uncle
Wiggily, to await her return, hid under a thick-branched pine tree
which kept off most of the rain. The drops pelted down, and around the
tent of the camping boys was almost a flood. Night was coming on, too,
and before morning the water would rise up so high that it would wet
the feet of the boys in their beds.
Pretty soon, just about dusk, when it was still raining hard, along
came Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, Toodle and Noodle the beavers,
with their broad, flat tails, and Grandpa Whackum, the oldest beaver of
them all. Beavers just love to work in the water and they can dig dirt
canals better than most boys.
"Lively now, my friends!" called Uncle Wiggily, coming out from under
the pine tree. "We'll dig a ditch around the tent for the kind boys.
They won't see us, as they are inside, and probably will not come out
in the train."
So Uncle Wiggily, Sammie and the beavers began work. Quickly and
silently they dug and dug and dug in the soft earth, piling the dirt to
one side, and making a trench so that the rain water could run off into
the brook. And soon the little pond that had formed around the tent of
the camping boys had drained away.
"Now they will have no more trouble," said Uncle Wiggily as he and his
friends, all wet and muddy, finished the trench. "We can go home."
Home they went, through the rain, to get something to eat and dry
out. And in the morning, though it still rained, no water rose inside
the boys' tent. And none came through the roof, for that was like an
umbrella, the canvas cloth being stretched over the ridge-pole.
"Oh, look!" cried one boy, coming to the flap of the tent, as the front
of the canvas house is called. "Someone has dug a ditch around our
camp, and now we'll keep dry!"
"Why, it's a regular little canal!" exclaimed a second boy. "It wasn't
there yesterday!"
"Who did it?" asked the other lads.
But none of them knew, and I hope you will not tell them, for I want to
keep it a secret.
And when the rain stopped, the ground around the tent dried out very
quickly because the proper ditch had been dug around it. And the
camping boys put out on the flat stump many good things for the animal
folk to eat. And the next time those boys went camping they knew enough
to make a trench around their tent.