UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BABY
"Well," said Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, to himself,
as he stood in the middle of the woods and looked around. "I don't seem
to be going to have any adventures today at all. I wonder what's the
matter?"
Something was wrong, that is certain.
The bunny uncle had been hopping along all the morning, and part of the
afternoon, and not a single adventure had he found. Almost always
something happened to him, but this time was different.
He had not met Alice from Wonderland, nor any of her queer relations,
and Uncle Wiggily had not seen any of his animal boy or girl friends, so
the rabbit gentleman was beginning to feel a bit lonesome.
Then, all of a sudden, before you could count a million (providing you
had time and wanted to), Uncle Wiggily saw, fluttering from a tree,
what he thought was a flag.
"That's queer," he said to himself, only out loud. "I wonder if any of
my mosquito enemies have made a camp there under the trees, and are
flying the flag before they come to bite me? I'll go closer and see."
Uncle Wiggily was very brave, you know, even if he only had his red,
white and blue striped rheumatism crutch instead of the talcum powder
popgun that shot bean-bag bullets. So up he went to where he thought he
saw the mosquito enemy's flag fluttering, and my goodness me sakes alive
and some chocolate cake ginger snaps! It wasn't the mosquito flag at
all, which shows that we ought never to be afraid until we are sure what
a thing is--and sometimes not then.
"Why, it's a lady's veil!" cried Uncle Wiggily, as he looked at the
fluttering thing. And, as he said that, someone, who was sitting on an
old log, turned around, and--there was the Wonderland Duchess
herself--the queer, stout lady who looked like a barrel of flour--very
rich you know!
[Illustration]
"Oh, hello, Uncle Wiggily!" called the Duchess, who is a sort of
princess grown up. "I'm glad to see you. I have a friend of yours here
with me!"
"Do you mean Alice?" asked the bunny.
"No, this time it's the Baby," answered the Duchess, and then Uncle
Wiggily saw that she had a live baby in her arms upside down. I mean the
baby was upside down, not the arms of the Duchess, though perhaps it
would have been better that way.
"Bless me!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "That's no way to hold the child."
"Oh, indeed!" said the Duchess, sort of sniffing proud like. "Then if
you know so much about holding babies, take this one. I have to go make
a rice pudding," and before Uncle Wiggily could stop her she tossed the
baby to him as if it were a ball and ran away, crying:
"Rice! Rice! Who has the rice pudding?"
"Oh, my!" Uncle Wiggily started to say, but that was all he had time
for, as he had to catch Baby, which he managed to do right side up. This
was a good thing, I think.
"You poor little dear!" cried the bunny uncle as he smoothed out the
Baby's clothes and looked around for a nursing bottle or a rattle box.
And, as he was doing this, and while the Baby was trying to close its
lips, which it had opened to cry with when it found itself skedaddling
through the air--while this was going on, some one gave a loud laugh,
and Uncle Wiggily, looking around in surprise, saw Alice from
Wonderland.
"Well!" said the bunny. "I'm glad to see you, but what is there to laugh
at?"
"The--the baby!" said Alice, sort of choking like, for she was trying to
talk and laugh at the same time.
"Why should you laugh at a poor baby, whom no one seems to know how to
care for?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "Why, I ask you?"
"Oh! But look what it's turning into!" said Alice, pointing.
The bunny uncle looked at what he held in his paws. It was wiggling,
twisting and squirming in such a funny way, squee-geeing its dress all
up around its face that for a moment Uncle Wiggily could not get a good
look, but, when he did, he cried:
"My goodness me sakes alive and some bacon gravy! It's a little pig!"
And so it was! As he held it the baby had turned into a tiny pig, with a
funny nose and half-shut eyes.
"Bless my rheumatism crutch!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "What made it do
that?"
"Because it's that way in the book where I came from," said Alice. "You
read and you'll see that the baby which the Duchess gives me to hold
turns into a little pig."
"But she gave it to ME to hold!" cried Uncle Wiggily.
"It's much the same thing," spoke Alice. "As long as it's a pig it
doesn't matter."
"But dear me hum suz dud!" cried the bunny. "I don't want to be carrying
around a little pig. Of course I like pigs, and I'm very fond of my
friends Curley and Floppy Twisty-tail, the little grunters. But this
baby pig--"
And, just as Uncle Wiggily said that, who should come along but a bad
old skillery-scalery hump-tailed alligator, walking on his hind legs,
with his two front claws stretched out in front of him.
"Ah, ha!" cried the bad alligator, who had promised to be good, but who
had not kept his word. "Ah, ha! At last I have caught you, Uncle
Wiggily, and Wonderland Alice, too!"
He was just going to grab them when the little Baby Pig, who had been
squirming very hard all the while, finally squirmed out of Uncle
Wiggily's paws, fell to the ground, and then, running right between the
legs of the alligator, as pigs always do run, the squealing chap upset
the bad, unpleasant creature, knocking him over in a frontward
somersault and also backward peppersault down the steps.
"Oh, my goodness!" cried the skillery-scalery alligator. "I'm killed!"
Which he wasn't at all, but he thought so, and this frightened him so
much that he ran away and didn't catch Uncle Wiggily or Alice after all,
for which I'm glad.
And if the puppy dog doesn't take all the bark off the sassafras tree
and leave none for the pussy cat to polish her claws on, I'll tell you
next about Uncle Wiggily and the Mock-Turtle.