UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LOOKING GLASS
"A package came for you while you were out adventuring today," said
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, to Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, as he hopped down the stairs of
the hollow stump bungalow to breakfast one morning.
"I wonder what's in it?" asked the bunny as he put a slice of carrot jam
on his bread and held it over the lettuce coffee to have it flavored.
"I don't know. You'll have to open it to find out," answered Nurse Jane.
"It is marked 'Glass. With Care.'"
Uncle Wiggily was so eager and excited like that he could not wait to
finish his breakfast, but quickly opened the package which Mr.
Hummingbird, the lightning express messenger, had left at the bungalow
early that morning.
"It's a looking glass!" exclaimed the bunny uncle when he saw what it
was. "And it's from Alice in Wonderland--at least she used to live in
Wonderland before she came to Woodland to have adventures with me."
"And there's a note with it," spoke Nurse Jane, as she saw a piece of
white birch bark, with writing on it; the letters having been made with
a burned stick which marks black like a lead pencil.
"Yes, it's a little letter," said Uncle Wiggily as he read it. "And it's
from Alice. It says: 'Dear Uncle Wiggily: I send you the Looking Glass I
once went through, and on the other side I had many adventures. I wish
you the same!'"
"That's queer," said the bunny, as he turned the glass over and looked
at the back. "I don't see any hole where Alice went through."
"Maybe it closed up after her, the same as fairy doors always close once
you pass through," explained Nurse Jane.
"I believe you are right," said Uncle Wiggily. "But this is a very small
glass for a girl like Alice to get through," and indeed the glass was
one of the kind you hold in your hand.
"Maybe the glass was larger when Alice went through it," said Nurse
Jane, "or else perhaps she had taken some drops from the magic bottle
and grew small like a rubber doll."
"I guess that was it," agreed Uncle Wiggily. "Anyhow, it is very kind of
her to send me the looking glass. I may have an adventure with it. I'll
take it out on the front steps and then we'll see what happens next."
So, having finished his breakfast, the bunny went out on the bungalow
porch and sat with the looking glass in his paw, waiting for something
to happen.
He sat there and sat there and sat there and he was just beginning to
wonder if anything would happen, when, all of a sudden, there was a
rustling in the bushes, and up on the porch popped a bad old
skillery-scalery alligator, with bumps all down the middle of his back
like the buttons on a lady's dress.
"Ah, ha! I am just in time, I see!" exclaimed the 'gator.
"For what?" asked Uncle Wiggily, suddenly awakening, for he had fallen
into a little sleep while he waited for an adventure to happen with the
looking glass. "In time for what?"
"To go away with you," answered the alligator.
"But I am not going away," said the bunny. "At least I did not know I
was going," and he looked around rather sad and lonesome, for he did not
like the bad alligator, and he wanted to see, Uncle Wiggily did, if
brave Nurse Jane Fuzzy would not come out and throw cold water on
him--on the alligator, I mean--to drive him away. But the muskrat lady
had gone to the store to get some cheese for supper.
"I am not going away," said Uncle Wiggily again.
"Oh, yes you are!" exclaimed the alligator, and he smiled in such a way
that it seemed as though the whole top of his head would pop off, so
large was the smile. "You may not know it, but you are going away,
Uncle Wiggily."
"With whom?" asked the bunny.
"With me," answered the 'gator. "We are going away together. I came on
purpose to fetch you. Come along," and with that the bad alligator wound
his double-jointed tail around the bunny uncle's ears, lifted him out of
the rocking chair and started to walk off the bungalow porch with him.
"Oh, stop it!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Let me go! Let me go!"
"No! No!" barked the alligator, like a dog. "I'll not let you go, now I
have you!" and he started to drag the bunny uncle off to the dark, damp,
dismal swamp, where the mosquitoes lived with the tent caterpillars.
"Oh, please don't take me away!" begged the bunny. "I wish some one
would help me!" and as he said that the alligator gave him a sudden
twist and the looking glass, which Uncle Wiggily still held in his paw,
came around in front of the alligator's face.
And, no sooner had the 'gator looked in the glass than he gave a loud
cry, and, unwinding his tail from Uncle Wiggily, away the bad creature
scurried, leaving the bunny alone and safe. And the alligator cried:
"Oh, excuse me! I didn't mean anything! I'll be good! I won't hurt Uncle
Wiggily!"
"Well, I wonder what frightened him away?" asked Uncle Wiggily, out
loud.
"Seeing himself in the looking glass," was the answer, and there stood
Alice from Wonderland. "That is a magical mirror I sent you, Uncle
Wiggily," she explained. "It shows the reflection of anything and
anybody just as they are and not as they'd like to be.
"And the alligator is such a mean-looking and ugly chap, that, never
before having seen himself, this time when he did, in the looking glass,
he was frightened, seeing himself as others see him. He thought he was
looking at a Chinese dragon who would bite him. So he ran away, leaving
you alone."
"And I'm so glad he did," said Uncle Wiggily. "It's a good thing I had
your looking glass."
Then Alice and Uncle Wiggily had a good time, and if the clothes pin
doesn't pinch the pillow case so hard that it tickles the bedspread and
makes it sneeze all the feathers out, I'll tell you next about Uncle
Wiggily and the White Queen.