Nurse Jane dust the furniture with his tail through the windows," the
bunny answered.
"Then I'm going back, too!" declared the tiger. "It isn't as much fun
roaming by yourself through the woods as I thought it would be. I'm
going back!"
"Before you start," kindly suggested Uncle Wiggily, "please come to my
bungalow with me."
"Does more furniture need dusting?" asked the tiger, laughing. "I have
no fluffy tuft on the end of my tail, as has the lion."
"It isn't that," the bunny answered. "But I would like to have Nurse
Jane put some salve on the place where the thorn ran in your paw, and
also wrap it up in a rag."
"That would be very nice," spoke the tiger. "Right gladly will I come
with you."
So he limped through the forest with the bunny gentleman, and soon they
came to the hollow stump bungalow.
"More company for you, Nurse Jane!" called the jolly rabbit uncle.
"That's nice," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "Oh, you're a tiger, aren't
you?" she went on, as she saw the striped beast.
"And he has a sore paw," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "Will you put salve on it
for him, Nurse Jane?"
"Of course," answered the muskrat lady. And when the tiger's sore paw
was nicely wrapped in a clean rag, he started off through the woods to
find the circus.
"Good-bye, and come again," invited Uncle Wiggily, making a low and
polite bow with his tall silk hat.
"I will," promised the tiger. And then the bunny suddenly exclaimed:
"Oh, your scissors, Nurse Jane! I forgot all about getting them
sharpened," and he picked them up from where they had fallen when he
took off his hat.
"Oh, dear! That's too bad!" said the muskrat lady. "And I wanted to cut
the linen in strips to make sheets and pillow cases. Now it is so late
I'm afraid the sharpening place will be closed."
"Perhaps I can help," said the tiger, turning back.
"Can you sharpen scissors?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"No," was the answer, "but my claws are sharper than any scissors you
ever saw. If you and Nurse Jane will hold the cloth, I will cut it
into strips for you with my sharp claws. I don't need to use my sore
paw. I'll take my other one."
"Oh, that will be very kind of you," said Nurse Jane. "I forgot that
tigers have sharp claws."
So the muskrat lady and the rabbit gentleman held the linen cloth in
front of the tiger, and with his claws he cut and slashed it into just
the shapes Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy needed for making sheets and pillow cases.
"I am very glad I could do you this favor," the tiger said, when all
the linen was cut.
"So am I," spoke Uncle Wiggily, "for if you hadn't been here to use
your claws, Nurse Jane would not have forgiven me for not remembering
to get the scissors sharpened. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!" echoed the tiger, as he walked on to find the circus. And
that night he slept in his cage again.
So if the doorknob doesn't try to crawl through the keyhole to play
bean bag with the rice pudding in the gas stove oven, I'll tell you
next about Uncle Wiggily and the elephant.
STORY XXXII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE ELEPHANT
"Matches, Uncle Wiggily! Matches!" cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy one
morning, as the bunny rabbit gentleman was hopping down the forest
path, away from his hollow stump bungalow.
"What's that? Patches?" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "Did I put on my garden
trousers that have patches?" and he tried to twist his neck like a
corkscrew, so he could look behind him.
"No, I didn't say '_patches_'!" laughed Nurse Jane. "I said _matches_.
Don't forget to bring me some matches to light the fire, when you come
back from looking for an adventure."
"Oh! Matches!" repeated the bunny. "I'll get some for you, Nurse Jane."
Over the fields and through the woods hopped the bunny rabbit
gentleman. He looked here, there and everywhere for an adventure, but
could not seem to find one. The Woozie Wolf nor the Fuzzy Fox did not
chase him to nibble his ears. Not that Uncle Wiggily wanted them to,
but, if they had, that would have been an adventure.
"Well, perhaps I shall find one when I come back," said the bunny
gentleman as he hopped along to the seven and eight cent store, where
he bought a box of matches.
Carrying these fire-sticks in his paw, Uncle Wiggily was hopping
through the forest, on his way back to the hollow stump bungalow when,
all at once, the bunny gentleman felt the ground trembling, and he
heard a sound like a big horn being blown, and then a loud voice said:
"Oh, dear! I can't get it out!"
"Well, what can this be?" thought Uncle Wiggily. "That horn sounds like
the big brass one I heard in the circus. From the way the earth shakes
I'd say a big automobile truck was coming along. And as for someone who
can't get something out--well, that sounds like trouble! I'd like to
help, but first I must see who it is."
Uncle Wiggily looked through the bushes, and at first he thought he saw
the side of some big house moving behind the trees. Then he noticed
something like a great leaf flapping in the wind, and a moment later
something long, like a fire hose, was thrust forward.
"Why, it's an elephant!" exclaimed the bunny, as he caught sight of the
big chap.
"An elephant is just who I am," was the answer in a rumbling voice,
coming through the rubber hose of a trunk. "I'm from the circus, and I
wish I might be back there this minute, eating my hay!"
"Oh, so you have run away from the circus also, like the lion and
tiger?" questioned the bunny.
"Yes," answered the elephant, "I did. But what do you know of my
friends, the lion and tiger?"
"Oh, I have met them," answered Mr. Longears. "But is that your only
sorrow--wishing you were back in the circus?"
"Indeed it is not," the elephant answered. "I have stepped on a loose
stone, and it is fast between the toes of my left hind foot. I can't
get it loose by stamping on the ground, and I can't reach so far back
with my trunk. I'm in great pain and trouble!"
"That is too bad," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "I guess your stamping on the
ground is what I thought was an auto truck coming along."
"Perhaps," admitted the big circus elephant. "I wish I could get that
stone out from between my toes," he went on, stamping so hard that he
shook the very trees, making them rustle as though a wind had blown
them.
"Maybe I can help you," said Uncle Wiggily most kindly. "I have with me
my red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch. With that I may be
able to poke out the stone that hurts you."
"I wish you'd try," begged the elephant.
It did not take the bunny gentleman long to loosen the stone from
between the elephant's toes, for the foot of an elephant is not like
that of a horse or cow--he really has toes and toe-nails, just as you
have, only a little larger, of course. Well, I should say so!
"Ah, I feel much better, Uncle Wiggily! Thank you!" spoke the elephant
through his hollow rubber hose-like trunk, and it sounded like a
trumpet or brass horn when he talked. "Now that the stone is out of my
foot I shall go back to the circus."
"The path to the place where the circus is now showing leads past my
bungalow," said the rabbit gentleman. "I'll hop along and point out for
you the way. I'd like you to meet Nurse Jane."
"That will give me pleasure, also," remarked the elephant, who was very
polite.
So he and Uncle Wiggily went along together, but several times the
bunny had to say:
"Please don't go so fast, Mr. Elephant. I can't keep up with you."
"I beg your pardon," spoke the immense chap. "Suppose I lift you upon
my back and carry you that way?"
"I should much like that," the rabbit uncle said. So in his trunk the
elephant gently lifted up Uncle Wiggily, and set him down on the broad
back.
[Illustration: "Ah, this is even better than my auto," said Uncle
Wiggily]
"Ah, this is even better than my auto," laughed Uncle Wiggily, as the
elephant crashed his way through the forest. Soon they came to the
hollow stump bungalow.
"More company for you, Nurse Jane!" called Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh.
"Eh? What's that? Where are you? I don't see anybody but a big
elephant?" cried the muskrat lady, looking up.
"I'm on his back!" answered the bunny. And as the elephant lifted Mr.
Longears down in the trunk, Nurse Jane was so surprised that she hardly
knew what to say.
"Will you--er--have a cup--I mean a _washtub_ of tea?" the muskrat
lady asked, well knowing that so big a creature must drink a lot of
everything.
"Some water is all I need, thank you," answered the elephant. "I had
something to eat in the forest before I met Uncle Wiggily."
Then the big chap put his trunk down in the brook and sucked up a great
quantity of water. Uncle Wiggily put the box of matches down on the
bench at the side of the bungalow, where the sun shone bright and hot,
and watched the elephant drink.
"Well, now I'll travel along and go back to the circus," said the big
chap with the large trunk and little tail. "I'll tell the lion and
tiger I met you."
"Please do." begged the bunny, and then, all of a sudden Nurse Jane
cried:
"Fire! Fire! Fire! Oh, the sun has set off the box of matches, and the
bungalow is burning! Fire! Fire! Fire!"
Surely enough, this had happened. The box of matches, fizzing and
spluttering, was burning Uncle Wiggily's bungalow.
"Turn in an alarm; Get the firemen! Call out the water bugs!" cried the
bunny gentleman.
"Just a moment! Don't get excited!" spoke the elephant calmly. "I will
put out that fire in a second!"
He sucked up more water from the brook in his trunk and squirted it on
the blaze. The fire hissed and spluttered and died out in a puff of
smoke.
"Oh, you have saved my bungalow!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Thank you ever
so much! Only for you I'd be burned out of house and home!"
"Pooh! That wasn't any more than you did for me--taking the stone out
of my foot," said the elephant. "With my rubber hose-nose of a trunk, I
very often put out little fires."
"Oh, I'm so glad Uncle Wiggily met you!" sighed Nurse Jane. "If he
hadn't, our bungalow would have burned down, perhaps, Mr. Elephant!"
"Well, one good turn deserves another," laughed the elephant as he
tramped away through the forest to find the circus, and the bunny
gentleman and Nurse Jane waved "Good-bye" to the big chap.
So if the wheelbarrow doesn't catch cold when it runs after the train
of cars to get a ride around the block, the next adventure will be
about Uncle Wiggily and the camel.
STORY XXXIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CAMEL
"What sort of an adventure do you think you will have to-day, Uncle
Wiggily?" asked the muskrat lady housekeeper of the bunny rabbit as he
hopped away from the hollow stump bungalow one morning.
"Well, Nurse Jane, I hardly know," was the answer. "I may meet with
some of those queer circus animals again."
"I hope you do," Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy said, as she tied her whiskers in a
bow knot, for she was going to dust the furniture that day. "The circus
animals are very kind to you. And it is strange, for some of them are
such savage jungle beasts."
"Yes," spoke the bunny gentleman, "I am glad to say the circus animals
were kind and gentle. More so than the Pipsisewah or Skeezicks. But
then, you see, the circus animals have been taught to be kind and
good--that is, most of them."
"I hope you never meet the other sort--the kind that will want to
nibble your ears!" exclaimed Nurse Jane as Uncle Wiggily put his tall
silk hat on front-side before and started off with his red, white and
blue striped rheumatism crutch under his paw.
"I hope nothing happens to him," sighed Nurse Jane as she went in to
put the dishes to bed in the china closet.
But something was going to happen to Uncle Wiggily. You shall hear all
about it.
On and on through the woods hopped the bunny rabbit gentleman, looking
first on one side of the path and then on the other for an adventure.
He was beginning to think he would never find one when, all of a
sudden, he heard a rustling in the bushes, and a voice said:
"Oh, dear! I can't go a hop farther! I'm so tired, and my bundle is so
heavy. I guess I'm getting old!"
"Ha! That sounds like trouble of the old-fashioned sort!" murmured
Uncle Wiggily to himself. "I may be able to give some help, as long as
it isn't the fox or wolf, and it doesn't sound like them."
The bunny gentleman peered through the trees and, sitting on a flat
stump, he saw an old gentleman cat, looking quite sad and forlorn.
"Hello, Mr. Cat!" called Uncle Wiggily, cheerfully, as he hopped over
toward the stump. "What's the trouble?"
"Oh, lots of trouble!" mewed the cat. "You see I'm a peddler. I go
about from place to place selling pins and needles and things the lady
animals need when they sew. Here is my pack," and he pointed to a large
bundle on the ground near the stump.
"But what is the matter?" asked the bunny gentleman. "Don't the animal
ladies buy your needles, pins and spools of thread? Just step around
and see Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper. She is
always sewing and mending. She'll buy things from your pack."
"Oh, it isn't _selling_ them that's the trouble," said Mr. Cat. "But I
am getting so old and stiff that I can hardly carry the pack on my back
any longer. I have to sit down and rest because my back aches so much.
Oh, how tired I am! What a weary world this is!"
"Oh, don't say that!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, who felt quite cheerful
that morning. "See how the sun shines!"
"It only makes it so much hotter for me to carry the pack on my back,"
sighed the cat.
"Ha! That is where I can help you!" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "I am quite
well and strong, except for a little rheumatism now and then. That,
however, doesn't bother me now, so I'll carry your peddler's pack for
you."
"Will you? That's very kind!" said the cat. "Perhaps I may be able to
do you a favor some day."
"Oh, that will be all right!" laughed the bunny, as he twinkled his
pink nose. "Come along, we'll travel together and perhaps find an
adventure."
Uncle Wiggily slung the cat-peddler's pack up on his back, the pussy
carried the bunny's crutch, and so off they started together through
the woods. They had not gone very far, and the bunny was wondering
whether he could not sell Nurse Jane a lot of pins to help the poor cat
when, all of a sudden, a loud, snarling sort of voice cried out:
"Oh, where can I find some water? Oh, how much I need a drink! I can go
without one for seven days, but this is the eighth and if I don't see
some water soon I don't know what will happen!"
"I wonder who that is?" asked the peddler cat.
"I don't know, but we'll soon find out," spoke Mr. Longears.
They looked through the bushes and there they saw a very strange
animal, and not what you would call pretty, either. This animal had
a long neck, bent like the letter U, and his face looked as though he
had rolled over on it in his sleep. But the queerest part of all was
his back, on which were two humps, like little mountains, running up to
peaks.
"Oh, what a queer chap!" mewed the peddler cat.
"Hush, don't let him hear you!" whispered Uncle Wiggily. "I think this
is an animal from the circus."
"You are right--I am!" exclaimed the two-humped chap, looking toward
the bushes behind which Uncle Wiggily and the cat were standing. "I
heard what you said, too, Mr. Cat," the odd chap went on. "But I don't
mind. I'm a camel, and I'm used to hearing folks say how queer I look.
But I am in trouble now. Oh, dear!"
"What's the matter?" asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
"I'm so thirsty," the camel said. "You see, I took a long drink before
I ran away from the circus, which I did, very foolishly, as I wanted
some adventures. Well, I'm having them, all right! I've been lost in
the woods, and, though I had enough to eat I couldn't find a thing to
drink. On the desert, where I came from, I could find water once in a
while. But here I'm lost."
"And, though I am a camel," went on the humped creature, "and can hold
enough water in my stomach to last for several days, now my time is up.
I haven't had a drink for over seven days, and unless I get one soon I
don't know what will happen."
"Oh, I can take you to the duck pond and you can get a drink there, Mr.
Camel," Uncle Wiggily said, as he hopped out from behind the bush.
"Oh, ho! What a funny chap you are!" snarled the camel, not that he
was cross, only a snarl was his regular way of speaking. "Are you a
little camel?"
"Why, no, I'm not a camel," answered the bunny. "What made you think
so?"
"Because of that hump on your back," said the camel. "Some of us
camels have two humps, and some only one. But surely you cannot be a
one-humped camel! I never saw one with ears so long!"
"Indeed, I'm not a camel!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "I'm a rabbit, and
this pack that you see belongs to this poor peddler cat, who is too
tired to carry it. So I am carrying it for him."
"That is very kind of you," spoke the thirsty circus animal. "In fact,
it seems to me you are very fond of being kind, Mr. Longears. You carry
the cat's pack, and now you offer to show me where to get a drink. And,
if you can, I wish you would soon lead me to water. I am very thirsty!"
"Follow me!" called Uncle Wiggily. Then he hopped off through the
woods, carrying the cat's peddler pack, and followed by the two-humped
camel, whose long neck swayed to and fro like a clock pendulum, while
his humps shook like two bowls full of jelly.
Soon they came to the duck pond and there the camel put his queer face
down into the water and drank as much as he pleased. He took a long
time to drink, as camels always do, for they must take enough into
their stomachs to last for a week in case they can not find more water
before the end of seven days.
The cat and Uncle Wiggily stood watching the camel, thinking how queer
and homely he was, but honest for all that, when, all of a sudden, out
from behind a bush jumped the bad old Pipsisewah!
"Wow! Wow! I've got you now!" howled the Pipsisewah. "I'll nibble your
ears now, Uncle Wiggily!"
The bunny rabbit gentleman started to run, but, because he had strapped
to his back the pack of the cat peddler, the bunny could not hop fast
at all.
"I'll get you! I'll get you!" cried the Pipsisewah.
"Oh dear! Oh dear!" sighed Uncle Wiggily, wondering who was going to
save him, for he knew the tired old cat peddler couldn't.
And then, all of a sudden, the circus camel finished his long drink,
and, with a jolly snarl, he cried:
"Here! You let Uncle Wiggily alone!" Then with his broad foot, made big
and wide so it would not sink into the soft sand of the desert, the
camel stepped on the tail of the Pipsisewah, holding him back so he
couldn't chase Uncle Wiggily.
"Wow! Wow!" howled the Pip.
"Ha! Ha!" laughed the peddler cat. "Oh, mew!"
"Just wait until I get loose, and I'll chase you, too!" cried the
Pipsisewah to the cat. "Just wait!"
"Don't be afraid!" said the camel, with a smile which made him look
more homely than before, though this didn't matter. "Here, Uncle
Wiggily, hop up on my back, between my two humps! You, too, Mr. Cat,
jump up on my back. You and the bunny gentleman can sit there as the
people of the desert used to ride me before I joined the circus. Hop
up, my kind friends, and I'll soon carry you safe out of these woods.
I can go fast, now that I have had a big drink of water. Hop up!"
Uncle Wiggily, with the cat's pack, hopped up on the back of the camel.
The cat, too, sprang up. All the while the camel kept his broad foot on
the tail of the Pipsisewah, so the bad animal couldn't get loose. And
when the bunny and cat were safe in place, snuggled down in between the
camel's humps, the queer creature started off, letting go the tail of
the Pip.
"Ha! Now you can't get us!" mewed the cat, looking down from the
camel's back.
"Just you wait! I'll get Uncle Wiggily yet, and you too!" the Pip
howled. "And I'll fix you, Mr. Camel, for stepping on my tail!"
"Pooh! Nonsense!" snarled the camel, "Uncle Wiggily helped me by
showing me where to find water, and now I am helping him." And away he
went, quite fast, indeed, for such a queer chap.
And the old Pip skipped away to put some soft moss on his sore tail.
"Isn't this jolly!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his pink nose. "I
never expected to have a ride on the back of a camel! It's just like a
circus parade! I wish Nurse Jane could see me!"
And the muskrat lady did, for the kind camel gave Uncle Wiggily a ride
all the way home to the bunny's hollow stump bungalow, and when the
muskrat lady housekeeper saw Mr. Longears up between the two humps she
cried:
"My land sakes flopsy dub and a basket of soap bubbles! What will
happen next?"
"I don't know," laughed Uncle Wiggily.
"As for me, I am going back to the circus," the camel said. And he did.
The peddler cat, after selling Nurse Jane some sewing silk, stayed
for some time with Mr. Longears, getting rested so he would be strong
enough to carry his own pack of needles, pins and thread. And as for
the bunny--well, he had more adventures, of course.
And the next one will be about Uncle Wiggily and the wild rabbit--that
is if the teaspoon doesn't take the cork out of the bottle of bitter
medicine and give it to the rag doll to make mud pies with.
STORY XXXIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE WILD RABBIT
"There he is again!" cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as she ran to the
window of the hollow stump bungalow and looked out. "He's digging up
all the nice carrots in your garden, Uncle Wiggily!"
"Who is?" asked the bunny gentleman, laying aside the cabbage-leaf
newspaper he was reading, with his glasses perched on his pink,
twinkling nose. "Who is taking my carrots, Nurse Jane?"
"That wild rabbit," answered the muskrat lady housekeeper. "He lives
in the thick bushes in the middle of the woods. I think he hasn't been
here very long, and he doesn't seem to know any of your other animal
friends. He's wild and runs the minute I go out. But he has been
spoiling your garden lately."
"That isn't nice of him," said Uncle Wiggily. "I'll go out myself and
see what he has to say."
But as soon as Uncle Wiggily started down the steps of his hollow stump
bungalow, toward where the other bunny was digging up the carrots, the
wild rabbit hopped away.
"What's the matter with you?" asked Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his pink
nose in a friendly way. "Why are you spoiling my garden?"
"Because I like to!" answered the wild rabbit. "You live in a fine
hollow stump bungalow, and all I have is a hole in the ground, or
burrow. You're rich and I'm poor, and I'm going to spoil everything you
have!"
"Oh, that isn't a good way to feel!" said Uncle Wiggily kindly. "That's
the way the Bolshevics talk! I used to be poor, like you, but I went
off to seek my fortune and I found it. I built me this hollow stump
bungalow, and, if you like, I'll show you how to make one. Nurse Jane
and I will help you!"
"Nope!" cried the wild rabbit. "I'd rather be bad! I'm going to dig
in your garden every chance I get, and you can't catch me, either, so
there!" And it sounded as if that wild rabbit might be making a funny
"face" at Uncle Wiggily. Mind you, I'm not saying for sure, but maybe!
"Dear me!" thought Mr. Longears, as he went back in his house. "That
wild rabbit is certainly a queer chap. I don't want to hurt him, but I
wish he would get tame. I'll have to speak to Policeman Dog Percival
about him, and set Percival on guard in my carrot patch."
"Did you make that wild rabbit stop his digging?" asked Nurse Jane, as
she met Uncle Wiggily coming in.
"No, he says he's going to be bad," sighed the bunny gentleman, as he
took his tall, silk hat down off the rubber plant.
"Where are you going?" asked Nurse Jane.
"Out in the woods to look for an adventure," answered Uncle Wiggily.
"And perhaps I may find a way to make that wild rabbit tame and good."
"I hope so," sighed Nurse Jane. "It isn't nice to have our garden
spoiled."
As Uncle Wiggily was hopping through the woods, over on that side of
the forest nearest the village, where the real children lived, the
bunny gentleman, all of a sudden, heard the voice of a little girl.
"Oh, Donald!" said the little girl, in sad tones. "You've broken it.
You've spoiled my nice little jumping bunny!"
"Well, I didn't mean to," answered a boy's voice. "He jumped all right
a minute ago!"
"Yes, but you went and squeezed the rubber ball too hard, that's what
you did!" sobbed the little girl. "And now my nice Easter bunny won't
hop any more! Boo hoo!"
"Dear, dear!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily to himself. "This is too bad!
There's trouble here! I wonder if I can help?"
You see Uncle Wiggily knew what the boy and girl were saying, though
the bunny himself could not speak their talk. Uncle Wiggily hopped
softly nearer the children. He looked through the bushes, and there he
saw a little boy trying to mend a toy bunny for the little girl.