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[Illustration: Uncle Wiggily in airship]
_BEDTIME STORIES_
UNCLE WIGGILY’S
AIRSHIP
BY
HOWARD R. GARIS
Author of “Sammie and Susie Littletail,” “Nannie and Billie
Wagtail,” “Uncle Wiggily at the Seashore,” “The Daddy Series,”
“The Island Boys Series,” Etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY LOUIS WISA
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS - - NEW YORK
Books by Howard R. Garis
THE UNCLE WIGGILY BOOKS
Cloth, Decorated Cover, Eight Colored Illustrations
Price 75 Cents Each
Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures
Uncle Wiggily’s Airship
Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty
Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard
Uncle Wiggily at the Seashore
Uncle Wiggily’s Automobile
Uncle Wiggily and Buddy and Brighteyes Pigg
Uncle Wiggily and Bully and Bawly No-Tail
Uncle Wiggily and Charlie and Arabella Chick
Uncle Wiggily and Curly and Floppy Twisty-Tail
Uncle Wiggily and Dickie and Nellie Fliptail
Uncle Wiggily and Dottie and Willie Flufftail
Uncle Wiggily’s Fortune
Uncle Wiggily in Fairyland
Uncle Wiggily in the Country
Uncle Wiggily in the Woods
Uncle Wiggily in Wonderland
Uncle Wiggily and Jackie and Pettie Bow-Wow
Uncle Wiggily and Jacko and Jurapo Kinkytail
Uncle Wiggily and Johnny and Billy Bushytail
Uncle Wiggily and Joie, Tommy and Kittie Kat
Uncle Wiggily and Jollie and Jillie Longtail
Uncle Wiggily’s Journey
Uncle Wiggily and Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble
Uncle Wiggily and Nannie and Billie Wagtail
Uncle Wiggily and Neddie and Beckie Stubtail
Uncle Wiggily on the Farm
Uncle Wiggily’s Rheumatism
Uncle Wiggily and Sammie and Susie Littletail
Uncle Wiggily and Toodle and Noodle Flattail
Uncle Wiggily’s Travels
Uncle Wiggily and Woodie and Waddie Chuck
Uncle Wiggily and the Ringtails
Uncle Wiggily in Magic Land
THE DADDY BOOKS
Nature Stories for Children. Cloth Bound, Colored and Black and White
Pictures. Price 50 Cents Each
Daddy Takes Us Camping
Daddy Takes Us Fishing
Daddy Takes Us to the Circus
Daddy Takes Us Skating
Daddy Takes Us Coasting
Daddy Takes Us Hunting Birds
Daddy Takes Us Hunting Flowers
Daddy Takes Us to the Woods
Daddy Takes Us to the Farm
Daddy Takes Us to the Garden
Copyright, 1915, by
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
UNCLE WIGGILY’S AIRSHIP
The stories herein contained appeared originally in the Evening News,
of Newark, N. J., where (so many children and their parents were
kind enough to say) they gave pleasure to a number of little folks
and grown-ups also. Permission to issue the stories in book form was
kindly granted by the publisher and editor of the News, to whom the
author extends his thanks.
CONTENTS
STORY PAGE
I. Uncle Wiggily and Mother Goose 9
II. Uncle Wiggily Up a Tree 16
III. Uncle Wiggily and the Little Birds 23
IV. Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey 29
V. Uncle Wiggily and the Fire 35
VI. Uncle Wiggily Helps Dr. Possum 40
VII. Uncle Wiggily and the Moth Balls 47
VIII. Uncle Wiggily and the Dentist 53
IX. Uncle Wiggily and the Grocery Cat 59
X. Uncle Wiggily and the Smoky Chimney 65
XI. Uncle Wiggily and the Church Bell 72
XII. Uncle Wiggily and the Doll House 78
XIII. Uncle Wiggily and the Bird Seed 84
XIV. Uncle Wiggily and the Baby Rabbit 90
XV. Uncle Wiggily and the Popgun 96
XVI. Uncle Wiggily and the Butterfly 102
XVII. Uncle Wiggily and the Sawdust 108
XVIII. Uncle Wiggily and the Dusty Carpet 114
XIX. Uncle Wiggily and the Little Lamb 120
XX. Uncle Wiggily and the Soap Bubbles 126
XXI. Uncle Wiggily and the Cake of Ice 132
XXII. Uncle Wiggily and Charlie Chick 138
XXIII. Uncle Wiggily and Lulu Wibblewobble 144
XXIV. Uncle Wiggily and the Lemonade Stand 150
XXV. Uncle Wiggily and the Watering Hose 156
XXVI. Uncle Wiggily and the Thunder Storm 162
XXVII. Uncle Wiggily and the Trunk 168
XXVIII. Uncle Wiggily Goes to School 174
XXIX. Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane 180
XXX. Uncle Wiggily and the Moo-Cow 186
XXXI. Uncle Wiggily and the Sheep 192
Uncle Wiggily’s Airship
STORY I
UNCLE WIGGILY AND MOTHER GOOSE
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, sat in his
burrow-house reading the morning paper. It was after breakfast, on
a nice, sunny May day, and outside the flowers were blossoming and
making perfume and honey for the bees as they nodded their heads in
the air. I mean the flowers nodded their heads—not the bees. The bees
were far too busy to do that.
“Yes,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself, “I think I must get one. They
are getting very fashionable and stylish. I certainly must get one
for myself,” and he let the paper slip down to the floor, and he sat
there in his easy chair, sort of thinking to himself, and nodding his
head every now and then, as he said, over and over again:
“Yes, I must get one. It will do me more good than riding around in
my automobile or going to the seashore.”
“My gracious me sakes alive and some horseradish apple pie!”
exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady who kept house for
Uncle Wiggily. She was out in the kitchen, doing up the dishes, and
she heard what the old rabbit gentleman had said, though he did not
think she had.
“I wonder what it is he is going to do now?” Nurse Jane said to
herself. “He’s been so funny lately—doing those queer new dances—the
corn meal flop, the apple dumpling dip and the machoo-choo slide. I
hope he isn’t going to do anything more foolish. I wonder what it is?”
But Uncle Wiggily didn’t tell Nurse Jane—at least just then. He got
up, put on his fur coat—oh, listen to me, would you! A fur coat in
May! I mean Uncle Wiggily put on his light coat, and without wearing
a hat, which he never did in the summer, out he went, leaving Nurse
Jane to wonder what it was he was going to do.
Uncle Wiggily went to a store where they sold toy circus balloons,
and of the monkey gentleman who kept the store he asked:
“Have you any flying machines?”
“What do you mean—flying machines?” asked the monkey gentleman. “Do
you mean birds?”
“Well, birds are flying machines, of course,” the rabbit gentleman
said. “But I mean a sort of airship that I could go up in as if I
were in a balloon, and fly around in the clouds. I am going to get
one of those airships for a change.”
“Ha!” exclaimed the monkey gentleman. “You certainly are a queer one,
Uncle Wiggily, to want to do that. But I am sorry to say I have no
airships.”
“Then I will have to make one,” said the rabbit. “Please give me some
of your balloons.”
Uncle Wiggily took some red balloons, two blue ones, a green one, a
pink one and one colored skilligimink, which is a very funny color.
It was like the Easter egg dye color into which Sammie Littletail,
the rabbit boy, once fell, getting all splashed up.
“I don’t see how you are going to make an airship out of those toy
balloons,” said the monkey gentleman.
“I’ll show you,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “I next need a clothes basket.
I’ll leave my balloons here until I get that. You see,” the old
rabbit gentleman went on, “I want to surprise my housekeeper, Nurse
Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy. She doesn’t know I’m going to have an airship,” and
Uncle Wiggily winked both eyes, sort of comical like, and twinkled
his nose as if he were going to sneeze.
He went off to get the clothes basket, and when he had it he fastened
the toy balloons to it by strings tied to the handles.
“There!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “You see, the toy balloons will
lift up the clothes basket and me in it. That will be an airship.”
“But will it sail in the air?” asked the monkey gentleman.
“To be sure it will,” Uncle Wiggily said. “To make it go forward I
am going to put an electric fan in the back of the clothes basket.
The fan will whizz around and push the air away, and when the air is
pushed out of the way I can shoot ahead, and I’ll be sailing. Now you
watch me, if you please.”
So the rabbit gentleman tied the balloons to the clothes basket, and
he made the basket fast to the ground with some clothes-pins, so it
wouldn’t go up before he was ready for it. Next he got an electric
fan, which goes around whizzie-izzie and makes the air cool on a hot
day, and the rabbit gentleman fastened this fan on the back of his
clothes basket.
“Now I have my airship,” Uncle Wiggily said to the monkey gentleman.
“I shall go up and sail to my burrow. I think Nurse Jane will be
surprised.”
Uncle Wiggily started to climb into the basket.
“Wait! Wait!” called the monkey gentleman, who had sold him the toy
balloons.
“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“You had better take some soft sofa cushions in with you,” spoke the
monkey gentleman. “You—you might fall in your airship, you know,” he
whispered, sort of bashful like, “and the cushions would be a good
thing to fall on.”
“I believe you are right,” Uncle Wiggily answered. “Thank you! I’ll
take a few.”
So he put some sofa cushions in the clothes basket.
“Now I am ready!” he called. “Please take off the clothes-pins and I
will go up. I am going to sail like the airship-birdmen I read of in
the newspaper this morning.”
The monkey gentleman took the clothes-pins off the ropes that held
down Uncle Wiggily’s airship and pop-up it went, lifted by the toy
balloons—red, green, blue, orange and skilligimink color.
“Now, here I go!” cried the rabbit gentleman, as he started the
electric fan. And, surely enough, through the air he sailed, as
nicely as you please, right above the tree tops, in his new airship
he flew.
“Oh, this is great!” cried Uncle Wiggily. Pretty soon he was right
over his house. “I’m always going to travel this way, from now on,”
he said. “Airships are fine.”
And then, all of a sudden, something happened. Mother Goose, who
happened to be flying through the air on a broomstick, that day,
accidentally dropped a paper of pins she had just bought. They fell
down with their sharp points on Uncle Wiggily’s balloons, that were
fastened to the clothes-basket. The balloons burst, “Pop! Pop!
Poppity! Pop! Pop!” and down fell the clothes-basket airship, Uncle
Wiggily and all.
“Oh dear!” cried Mother Goose.
Right down in front of his own door Uncle Wiggily fell and only for
the soft cushions he might have been hurt. As it was, his rheumatism
was jarred up a little.
“Oh, my!” cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, rushing out of the house.
“What is this? What has happened, Wiggy?”
“Why, this is my new airship,” answered the rabbit gentleman, sort of
dazed and puzzled like. “I just made it and I came along to surprise
you.”
“Well, you surprised me all right,” said Nurse Jane. “Now, come in
the house and I’ll rub your back with witch hazel. You must be all
bruised! You had better leave airships alone after this.”
“I guess I had,” said Uncle Wiggily sadly.
But do you s’pose he did? Not a bit of it. He was right at it again
next day, and in the story after this, if the rose bush doesn’t
scratch the eyes out of the potato salad, I’ll tell you about Uncle
Wiggily up a tree.
STORY II
UNCLE WIGGILY UP A TREE
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, walked out in front
of his burrow house one morning, and looked at his new airship. He
limped a little, for you know he had had a fall the day before,
tumbling down almost out of the clouds. But he fell on some sofa
cushions, that the monkey gentleman had put in the clothes basket
part of the airship, so Mr. Longears was not much hurt—only his
rheumatism was sort of twisted.
I guess I told you, did I not, how Uncle Wiggily made himself an
airship out of some toy balloons, a clothes basket, and an electric
fan? He thought he would fly through the air for a while, instead of
riding around in his automobile.
But Mother Goose had accidentally dropped a lot of pins on the toy
balloons that lifted up the airship, and when the balloons burst,
with loud “pops,” the airship came down “ker-floppo!”—if you will
kindly excuse me for saying so.
So Uncle Wiggily walked out in front of his burrow, or underground
house, and looked at his broken airship.
“I’m afraid it will never sail again!” said Uncle Wiggily, sadly, as
he noticed the burst balloons and the clothes basket, which had quite
a dent in one of the handles. The electric fan was not hurt at all, I
am glad to say, only it had stopped whizzing around, of course.
“It’s too bad!” Uncle Wiggily went on. “My nice airship, that I
thought would take me sailing all over, is broken. I can’t go riding
in it again.”
“What!” cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept
house for the rabbit gentleman. “You don’t mean to tell me that you
would ever go sailing again in an airship, after what happened; would
you?”
“I certainly would,” answered Uncle Wiggily, as he combed out his
whiskers with a shoestring. “I would love to go airshipping again.”
“Well, well!” cried Nurse Jane. “This is worse than dancing the clam
chowder clip! I am certainly surprised at you.”
“But you don’t need to worry,” said Uncle Wiggily. “My airship is
broken, so there is not much danger of me going sailing again.”
“I am glad of it,” said Nurse Jane, “for your sake.”
“Oh, ho!” exclaimed a voice from behind the ice cream freezer,
“something broken, eh? Well, perhaps I can fix it,” and out stepped
Dr. Possum, with his satchel of red, white and blue pills. “What is
broken?” he asked. “Anybody’s legs or arms?”
“My airship,” replied Uncle Wiggily. “The balloons that lift it up
into the air are all burst from Mother Goose’s pins.”
“Ha! Buy new balloons!” cried Dr. Possum. “That’s easy!”
“The very thing!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “I never thought of that.
But the clothes basket has a dent in it.”
“Oh, as to that, I can easily fix the dent,” said Dr. Possum. “I am
used to fixing dents. I can do harder things than that. You go get
some more new toy balloons, and I’ll fix the basket. You shall have
your airship again.”
“Oh, dear me and some molasses pancakes!” cried Nurse Jane. “I can
see a lot more trouble ahead for Uncle Wiggily if he is going around
in an airship. I had better buy some court-plaster at the five and
six cent store, for he will need it. He is sure to fall again, and
get all cut and bruised.”
So Nurse Jane kindly went to the store for the court-plaster. Dr.
Possum mended the dent in the clothes basket, and Uncle Wiggily
went after the toy balloons. He got some red, green, yellow and
sky-blue-pink ones, and soon his airship was made over as good as
ever again.
“Now watch me sail in it!” the rabbit gentleman cried, as he got
into the clothes basket, to which the balloons and electric fan were
fastened. “I’m going away up to the clouds this time.”
“Well, I only hope you don’t fall,” said Nurse Jane, sort of anxious
like.
“I’ve got the soft sofa cushions under me, if I do,” answered Uncle
Wiggily, with a laugh.
Up he went, high in the air, the electric fan going whizzie-izzie,
and the balloons lifting the clothes basket off the ground.
Well, Uncle Wiggily in his airship, sailed on and on, and pretty
soon, all of a sudden, quick-like, it began to hail. There was a hard
hail storm. And hail, you know, is frozen rain. Down pelted the round
hail stones on Uncle Wiggily and his airship.
“Oh, me! Oh, my, and some lolly-pops!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I think
something is going to happen.” And just then a hail stone hit on the
end of his twinkling nose, making him sneeze—“ker-cher! Ker-choo!”
Then something else happened. More hail stones came down, and “Pop!
Pop! Pop!” went the toy balloons, bursting one after another, as the
hard hail hit them, just as when the Mother Goose pins had pricked
them.
“Oh, dear! I’m going to fall again!” cried the rabbit gentleman, for
he knew when the balloons burst there would be nothing to hold him
and his clothesbasket airship up above the earth.
And, surely enough, he began to fall. Down and down he went, with the
hail falling all around him.
“My! I hope the sofa cushions don’t fall out of my clothes basket!”
thought the rabbit gentleman, “for if they do I will get a very hard
bump.”
But, as it happened, he did not need the soft cushions, for, all of
a sudden, his airship turned over, and he fell into a tree, spilling
right out, and landing in the branches. Luckily, there were green
leaves on them, and they made a soft place on which Uncle Wiggily
fell. He was scratched some, but Nurse Jane’s court plaster would fix
that. The airship, however, kept on falling until it landed on the
ground at the foot of the tree.
“Oh, I wonder how I am to get down?” said Uncle Wiggily. “It is very
far from the top of this tree to the earth, and I cannot climb, as
the Bushytail squirrel boys, or as Kittie Kat can. What shall I do?
Oh, dear!”
And just then along came Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, himself.
“I’ll help you get down!” called Johnnie to Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll get
a rope, and climb up with it to you. Then you can make a rope ladder,
fasten one end to a limb of the tree, and climb down that.”
“Fine!” cried Uncle Wiggily. The little squirrel boy found a grape
vine rope, and up the tree he scrambled, carrying one end of it up to
Uncle Wiggily, who soon made a rope ladder, such as sailors use. Then
the rabbit gentleman came down on that as nicely as you please.
“Well, my airship is badly broken,” he said, as he looked at the
burst balloons and the bent and twisted clothes basket. “I shall have
to fix it before I can sail again.”
“Do you mean to tell me you are going up in that dangerous thing
again?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as she stuck a piece of red,
white and blue court plaster on Uncle Wiggily’s nose, where the hail
stone had hit him.
“I am going to try,” he said, modest like, and shy.
“Oh, dear me, and some popcorn cakes!” cried Nurse Jane. “I never
saw such a rabbit—never!”
Then Uncle Wiggily got old dog Percival, with the express wagon, to
cart home the broken airship. And in the story after this, if the
ice cream cone doesn’t jump up and down on the tablecloth, and poke
holes in the loaf of bread, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the
little birds.
STORY III
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LITTLE BIRDS
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old rabbit gentleman, was out in his yard
one day, whistling away, hammering and sawing and making his funny
nose twinkle like a star on a frosty night in June. He could not
twinkle his nose so very well because it had on it a piece of red,
white and blue court plaster. And the reason he had the plaster there
was because the last time he was out in his airship, he had had an
accident, and a hailstone had struck him on the nose, as I have told
you.
You just try to make your nose twinkle with a piece of court plaster
on it, and see how hard it is. It’s almost as hard as it is to stand
on your head and peel a basket of soap bubbles.
But still Uncle Wiggily was doing the best he could, and, as I have
said, he was whistling and hammering and sawing.
“What in the world are you doing?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the
muskrat lady, who kept house for Uncle Wiggily.
“I am fixing my airship,” he said. You know he had one, made of a
clothes basket, with an electric fan to send it along through the air
whizzy-izzie-like, and to lift the airship Uncle Wiggily used a lot
of toy circus balloons, tied together.
“Going up in your airship!” cried Nurse Jane. “Why, you were out
in it the other day, and look what a terrible fall you had. The
hailstones burst your balloons and down you came in a tree. And
Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel, had to get you a wild grape vine
rope so you could climb down.”
“I know he did,” said Uncle Wiggily, cheerful-like. “And I am very
thankful to him.”
“And still, and with all that happened to you, getting your nose
scratched and all that, are you again going up in your airship?”
Nurse Jane wanted to know.
“I am going up,” said Uncle Wiggily bravely. “I want to learn how to
sail all over the world in my airship.”
“But suppose another hailstorm comes and smashes your balloons?”
asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy. “You will fall again, and you may be
hurt worse next time.”
“No more hailstones can bother me!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “See,
I am going to fasten an umbrella over my toy balloons, and then no
hailstones can hit them.” And he whistled more cheerfully than before.
“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “You are surely odd!”
Uncle Wiggily really was fastening a Japanese umbrella over his funny
clothes basket airship.
“The umbrella will keep off the sun as well as the rain and hail,” he
said happy-like.
Well, the old gentleman rabbit was just getting ready to go up in his
airship again, when, from among the leaves of a tree that grew in his
garden, he heard a voice saying:
“Now, birdies, it is time you learned to fly. Stand on the limb,
where our nest is built, flutter your wings as I do, and jump off.
Keep your wings fluttering and you will be flying.”
“Oh, but we are afraid!” cried several tiny chirping voices.
“Ha! That is a mother bird teaching her little ones to fly,” said
Uncle Wiggily, as he looked up. “I must watch this. I love little
birds.”
“Don’t be afraid,” said the mamma bird to the children birds. “You
will not fall. When I was a little bird I was afraid, too, but
nothing happened to me and I have been flying ever since. Come now,
jump off the tree branch into the air.”
“Oh, we’re afraid!” cried the littlest of the birdies.
“Our wings might come off, and then we’d drop to the ground,” said
another little bird, as it fluttered back into the nest.
“Nonsense!” cried the mamma bird. “Your wings will not drop off and
you will not fall. You must learn to fly now. You are getting old
enough to fly for yourselves. Come, Pickie!” she called to the one
who had gone back in the nest, “stand in line with the others and
learn to fly.”
“Oh, mamma! I can’t! Really I can’t!” cried Pickie, who was given
that name because he had such a sharp little bill for picking up
bread crumbs.
“You must learn to fly,” said the mamma bird. “Your papa will soon be
home, and think how proud he will be if you can fly to meet him!”
“Oh, we are afraid,” said the little birds.
It is just like when baby first learns to walk. At the beginning he
is afraid to take a step alone, but soon he grows braver and toddles
all over.
“Come! Fly!” called the mamma bird.
“We are afraid—afraid!” chirped the little birdies.
“Ha! I think I can help the mamma bird give them their flying
lesson,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I will go up in my airship and float
slowly along. I will keep right under the little birds, and I’ll tell
them that if their wings give out, and if they fall, they will land
on my umbrella and not get hurt at all.”
So away he went in his airship, and when he got near the top of the
tree, with the electric fan buzzing and the toy balloons lifting him
up, the rabbit gentleman called:
“See me, birdies! I am flying, and you know a rabbit has no wings.
Look!”
“Exactly,” said the mamma bird. “See, little ones! If Uncle Wiggily
is not afraid to fly, you should not be, for you were made on purpose
for sailing through the air, and he was not.”
“And I’ll keep right under you with my airship, to catch you if you
fall,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Don’t be afraid, birdies!”
“All right! Here we come!” cried Pickie, getting brave all of a
sudden. Off the limb he fluttered, and his brothers and sisters
fluttered after him, flapping their wings.
“Oh, we are flying!” they cried joyfully. “We can fly!”
“I knew you could,” called their mamma, soaring on her wings after
them. “And how proud your papa will be! Thank you so much, Uncle
Wiggily, for making my birdies brave enough to fly.”
“Pray do not mention it,” answered the rabbit gentleman politely, as
he sailed about in his airship.
He kept under the little birds for a while, in case they might fall,
but none of them did, and soon they fluttered back to the nest for
supper. They had learned to fly and were not afraid any more. Wasn’t
that good?
And in the next story, if the dish doesn’t run away with the spoon
and go to the moving picture show in our back yard, I’ll tell you
about Uncle Wiggily and Grandfather Goosey Gander.
STORY IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND GRANDPA GOOSEY
“Well, where are you going to-day?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the
muskrat lady, of Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as she
saw him putting on his red necktie and starting out toward the barn
where he kept his airship.
“Where am I going?” he repeated. “Well, to tell you the truth, Nurse
Jane, I hardly know.”
“Out in your airship, I suppose,” she said, as she looked in the
bread box to see if there was any rice pudding for the pussy cat to
play store with.
“Oh, yes, I am going to fly about a bit,” said the rabbit gentleman.
“Perhaps I may have an adventure; who knows?”
“Well, I know one thing you will have if you go flying around in that
airship of yours,” said Nurse Jane, putting on her apron to peel the
oranges for the clam chowder. “You’ll have a fall; that’s what you’ll
have. And you’ll skin your nose and stub your toes and maybe rub off
the fur from your ears for all I know.”
“Oh, I trust not! I trust not!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily quickly,
holding up his paws. “I hope nothing like that will happen. The last
time I rode in my airship I did not fall—when I helped to teach the
little birds to fly.”
“Well, I’m sure you’ll fall this time,” spoke Nurse Jane.
“You are not very cheerful this morning,” laughed Uncle Wiggily.
“Have no fear; I will come back safe and sound.”
“Well, all the same, you had better take some court-plaster along in
case you scratch your twinkling nose on a bramble briar bush,” said
the muskrat lady. So Uncle Wiggily took the court-plaster with him.
Then he went for a ride in his queer airship. I call it queer because
it was very odd. The old rabbit gentleman’s airship was made of a
clothes basket, with a lot of toy circus balloons tied to it to make
it rise up. In back there was a whizzy electric fan to make the
airship go along like an automobile, and there was a baby carriage
wheel to steer it by. On top of all this was a big Japanese umbrella
fastened over the balloons, to keep hail stones from pelting holes in
them and making them burst.
That happened once, and Uncle Wiggily and his airship had a dreadful
fall, just like Humpty-Dumpty.
“But I’ll not fall to-day,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he got in the
clothes basket and sat on the sofa cushions.
He had taken the airship outside the barn, and as he loosed the
string that held it fast, up it shot into the air, just like a
balloon. Then Uncle Wiggily started the electric fan, and away he
went as nicely as you please.
“Oh, there he goes!” cried Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit
children, as they stood on the ground below, and watched him. “Please
take us for a ride, Uncle Wiggily!” they begged.
“Not now, my dears,” he said kindly. “Some other time I will. You
must go to school now.”
So Sammie and Susie hopped on to school, and Uncle Wiggily traveled
along in his airship.
“I wonder what sort of an adventure I will have?” he said. “Ha! I
have it! I will go call on Grandfather Goosey Gander. I will take him
for a ride.”
He went to the old goose gentleman’s pen, but when he got there, and
invited Grandpa Goosey to get into the clothes basket, Grandpa Goosey
said:
“What! Trust myself in an airship, high above the ground? No,
indeed, thank you, Uncle Wiggily. I have no use for airships. They
are too dangerous! They are no good!”
“I am sorry you think so, and will not come with me,” said Uncle
Wiggily, sort of sadly like. “I think airships are fine. I am going
off looking for an adventure.”
“And I am going to the woods to gather acorns for my kitchen fire,”
said the goose gentleman. “But I am going to walk. It is safer, by
far. Airships are not good for animals like us.”
“Well, I think they are,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, as he rose in the air
again.
The rabbit gentleman circled around, flying along in his clothes
basket airship, and he was having a fine ride. But no adventure
happened to him. By and by, after a while, not so very long, Uncle
Wiggily found himself flying over a big woods.
“I wonder if this is the forest where Grandfather Goosey went to
gather acorns?” thought Uncle Wiggily. “If it is, maybe he will be
so tired, if he is here, that he will be glad to ride home in my
airship.”
Pretty soon the old rabbit gentleman heard a loud quacking noise.
[Illustration: Goose looking at airship]
He looked down, and what do you think he saw? Why, the old goose
gentleman was caught fast in a trap by both legs. Some hunter had set
a trap to catch a fox, and poor Grandfather Goosey Gander had stepped
into it by mistake. There he was, held fast.
“Oh, dear!” cried Grandpa Goosey. “What shall I do? I have tried to
get out and I can’t. I have called for help, but no one comes to me.
I am away off in the woods alone, and here I must die in the trap.
Oh, I wish I had even gone in Uncle Wiggily’s airship! Oh, will no
one help me?”
“Yes, I will help you!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “Here I am,
Grandpa Goosey!” And wasn’t the goose gentleman surprised, when he
looked up and saw his rabbit friend in the airship over his head? Oh,
he certainly was surprised.
Uncle Wiggily made his airship go down, and then he soon helped
Grandpa Goosey out of the fox trap. He put some court-plaster on the
goose gentleman’s scratched legs and asked:
“Now will you ride home in my airship?”
“Indeed I will,” said Grandpa Goosey. “Airships are good after all. I
am sorry I said they were not.”
“Pray do not mention such a thing. I knew you didn’t mean it,” Uncle
Wiggily said. Then he and Grandpa Goosey rode safely home through
the air, and, if the blackbird on our fence doesn’t pick all the
clothes pins off the chocolate cake, I’ll tell you next about Uncle
Wiggily and the fire.
STORY V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE FIRE
“What do you think, mamma!” cried Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy,
as he came running in the house after school one fine day. “Oh, what
do you think?”
“Why, I’m sure I don’t know, Sammie, my dear,” said Mrs. Littletail,
smiling at him. “I think of a great many things, of course.”
“Oh, he means what do you think teacher told us!” cried Sammie’s
sister Susie, as she came in more slowly, for girl rabbits cannot run
quite as fast as can rabbit boys.
“Did your teacher say you were good little animal children to-day,
and that you had your lessons well?” Mrs. Littletail wanted to know.
“Well, she did say that,” spoke Sammie, sort of bashful like and shy,
“but I think you can’t guess what I mean. She said we ought to make a
little garden, each for ourselves, and grow things to eat in it. The
one who has the best garden will get a prize.”
“And I’m going to have a garden and raise lettuce!” cried Susie.
“And I’m going to have one and plant carrots. And I’m going to give
Uncle Wiggily some!” added Sammie.
“It will be very nice for each of you to make a garden,” said the
rabbit children’s mamma. “You may each have a little part of our big
garden for yourselves.”
“And we are to do all the work, too,” explained Sammie. “We must
clear off the ground, spade it up, rake it smooth, put in the seeds
and water them when they come up.”
“Oh, of course, if it’s your garden, you must look after it
yourselves,” said Mrs. Littletail.
So Sammie and Susie began to make their garden. First they raked away
the brush, sticks and leaves from the ground that was to be dug up.
This brush they piled in a big heap in the large garden.
“That pile of brush does not look very nice there,” said their mamma.
“Oh, we are going to burn it when we get through,” said Sammie.
“Teacher said we were to burn up all trash and rubbish, for the ashes
were good to mix with the garden dirt. I don’t know why, but ashes
make the ground better.”
“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Littletail, “but you had better let your papa
burn the brush. He will have more brush when he rakes up the ground
for his garden. Animal or real children should not play with fire,”
said the mamma rabbit.
So Sammie and Susie Littletail went on making their garden, and in it
they planted cabbage, radishes, lettuce and carrots—all things that
rabbits love to eat. A few days later their papa, Mr. Littletail,
the rabbit gentleman, made his garden, and he raked up a big pile of
brush. When the garden was all nice and smooth Mr. Littletail said:
“Now I will burn that brush.”
“And may we watch you?” asked Sammie.
“Yes, if you do not come too close,” his papa said.
Mr. Littletail set fire to the big pile of dried brush, sticks and
leaves, and my goodness me sakes alive and some peanut pancakes! How
it did blaze up! It crackled like the Fourth of July, and the heat
was so great that Mr. Littletail had to jump back very quickly.
“Oh, what a fine fire!” cried Susie.
“We could roast potatoes in it if it were not so large,” spoke
Sammie. “But it is too hot now.”
“Indeed it is,” his father said. “Keep back.”
Hotter and hotter grew the brush fire. The blaze leaped up, and
then every one had to run far away. The fire grew so hot that the
Littletail house began to smoke and scorch.
“Oh, our house will catch fire from the brush!” cried Sammie.
“Yes, I am afraid it will!” exclaimed Mr. Littletail. “I must get
some pails of water and throw on the brush fire.”
But, by this time, the fire was so hot that, when Mr. Littletail had
the water, he could not get near enough to toss it on the blaze.
“Oh, what shall we do!” cried his wife. “Our house will burn down!
Oh, I must save what I can!”
So she threw the clock and a lot of her best dishes out of the
window, and they were broken, I am sorry to say. Then Mrs. Littletail
carefully carried out the feather bed. You see she was so excited
that she did things backwards. She should have thrown the feather bed
out of the window, for that would not break. And she ought to have
carried the clock and dishes down stairs in her apron.
Hotter and hotter grew the fire, and the rabbit house was beginning
to smoke and blaze.
“Call out the water bug fire department!” shouted Grandfather Goosey
Gander. But the water bugs had gone away on an excursion, and could
not come.
“Oh, my lovely house will burn!” cried Mrs. Littletail.
“No, I know how to save it!” shouted Sammie. “I’ll go get Uncle
Wiggily Longears in his airship. We can go up in the air over the
fire and spill a pail of water on it. He won’t be burned as he will
be so high up, but the water will put out the fire.”
“Go and get him quickly then!” shouted Mr. Littletail hopping up and
down on his big ears.
Uncle Wiggily came sailing along in his airship right away when
Sammie called him. The rabbit gentleman took up with him many pails
of water, and when he had steered his airship high up over the fire,
where he was out of danger, Uncle Wiggily spilled down the water,
just like rain from the clouds, and the fire hissed like a snake, and
went out.
The brush was all burned up, of course, and the Littletail house was
scorched on the roof, but not very much. Uncle Wiggily had put it out
just in time.
“But if it hadn’t been for your airship I don’t know what we would
have done!” cried Mr. Littletail. “Thank you so much!”
“Pray do not mention it,” said Uncle Wiggily politely, as he wagged
his tail up and down as well as sideways.
Then the rabbit gentleman helped pick up the broken dishes, and he
mended the broken clock and all was well. And Mr. Littletail did not
make such a big brush fire again.
And on the next page, if the carpenter man doesn’t take our bathtub
away to slide his little puppy dog down hill in, I’ll tell you about
Uncle Wiggily and Dr. Possum.
STORY VI
UNCLE WIGGILY HELPS DR. POSSUM
“Off again, I see!” Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady,
exclaimed one morning to Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit
gentleman, for whom she kept house. “Off again, Wiggy!”
You see she called him Wiggy as a sort of pet name.
“Yes, I am off again,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, as he put some extra soft
cushions in his clothes basket airship. “I am going on a long trip
this time.”
“Pray, where are you going?” asked the muskrat lady. “That is, if you
do not mind me asking,” she said quickly.
“Oh, not at all. I don’t mind telling you,” Uncle Wiggily answered.
“I am going to see if I can find an adventure.”
“Oh, such a queer old rabbit gentleman as you are, Wiggy,” said Nurse
Jane with a laugh. “Instead of sitting quietly at home here, making
a garden, or reading, you go chasing off across the country in that
funny airship of yours. Something is sure to happen to you!”
“Well, the things that happen are adventures,” said Uncle Wiggily.
“And I like the nice ones. Of course I do not like to fall out of
my airship, as I sometimes do, but that cannot be helped. I always
have a little red white and blue court-plaster with me to put on any
scratches I may get.
“And now, Nurse Jane, I’ll say good-by. I am going to look for an
adventure.”
Into his airship, made of a clothes basket, some toy balloons, a
Japanese umbrella and an electric fan, Uncle Wiggily placed himself.
Then he sailed up in the air, farther and farther, until he was
higher than the birds.
All of a sudden, as he was riding along, thinking what fun it was
to have an airship, the rabbit gentleman heard some one down on the
ground below crying:
“Oh dear! Oh, who will help me?”
“Ha! I wonder who that is,” said Uncle Wiggily. So he looked over the
edge of the clothes basket and he saw Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck
lady, running up and down in front of her pen-house, flapping her
wings, all excited-like.
“Ha! Trouble!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll go down and see what it
is.” Down he went in his airship.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Mrs. Wibblewobble. “My boy, Jimmie, is
very ill, and I have no one to send for Dr. Possum. Will you go?”
“Indeed I will!” the rabbit gentleman said. “I’ll make him come right
back with me and cure Jimmie.”
Off Uncle Wiggily sailed again in his airship, but when he got to Dr.
Possum’s office the old gentleman animal physician made the same fuss
about an airship as Grandfather Goosey Gander, the goose gentleman,
did at first.
“If you’ll get in with me I’ll ride you straight to the Wibblewobble
duck house, and you can cure Jimmie,” said the rabbit gentleman.
“What! Trust myself in a clothes basket away up in the air? Never;
thank you just the same!” cried Dr. Possum. “I’ll come along, as I
always do, on my own legs.”
“Well, if you won’t come with me, I suppose you won’t,” Uncle Wiggily
said. “But I’ll ride on ahead and tell them you are on the way.”
“All right, only I am sure I will get there before you,” spoke Dr.
Possum. “I do not think much of airships.”
“Neither did Grandpa Goosey Gander, at first,” said the rabbit
gentleman with a laugh.
Off started Dr. Possum through the woods, carrying his bag of
medicine on his tail. Overhead Uncle Wiggily started in his airship.
And of course Uncle Wiggily reached the Wibblewobble house first, for
airships can go very fast, you know.
“Where is Dr. Possum?” asked Mrs. Wibblewobble, who was waiting
outside. “My little duck boy is very ill.”
“The doctor is coming,” said Uncle Wiggily. “He would not ride with
me; he walked.” Well, they waited and they waited, but no Dr. Possum
came. Meanwhile Jimmie was getting worse. He had cocoanut-cake-fever,
which is very bad.
“I guess I’ll sail back in my airship and see what keeps Dr. Possum,”
Uncle Wiggily said. “Perhaps something has happened to him.”
And there had! Just think of it. I’ll tell you how it was.
“I’ll show Uncle Wiggily that I can go faster than his airship!”
laughed Dr. Possum to himself, as he started out from his office.
“I’ll take a short cut through the woods and get there first, airship
or no airship.”
Well, he took the short cut all right, but when he came to a mud
puddle and tried to jump over, he slipped, and down he came in it
with both hind feet.
And the mud was so sticky that Dr. Possum was stuck there. No matter
how he pulled he could not pull himself loose.
“Oh, this is terrible!” he cried. “I may have to stay here all night,
and I can’t cure poor, sick Jimmie. This is very sad!”
And it was there, stuck in the mud puddle, that Uncle Wiggily found
Dr. Possum.
“Oh, ho!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “So there you are!” and he
looked down on the animal docter from overhead in his airship.
“Oh, please help me out!” cried Dr. Possum.
“Of course I will,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll drop you a piece of
clothesline. Fasten it about your waist and I’ll tie one end up here
on the clothesbasket and pull you out by my airship.”
When the clothesline was fast around Dr. Possum, Uncle Wiggily made
the electric fan wheel of the airship go very fast and hard. And
then slowly at first, but soon faster and faster, out of the mud Dr.
Possum was pulled by the clothesline.
“Now I guess I’d better take you the rest of the way to the
Wibblewobble house in this airship, then you won’t get stuck in the
mud again,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
“I guess so,” said Dr. Possum. And when he reached Jimmie’s house he
soon cured the duck boy. Then Mrs. Wibblewobble helped wash the mud
off the animal physician, and Dr. Possum rode home again in Uncle
Wiggily’s airship.
“Airships are better and more useful than I thought,” said Dr.
Possum, as he got out.
“You are just like Grandfather Goosey Gander,” said Uncle Wiggily
with a laugh. “You have changed your mind.”
So that’s how the rabbit gentleman helped his friend, and on the
next page, if the man beating rugs in our back yard doesn’t put the
clothes post in his pocket and take it away for an umbrella handle,
I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the moth balls.
STORY VII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MOTH BALLS
“There it goes! Get it!” suddenly cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the
muskrat lady, one night, making a jump up from the rocking chair
where she was sitting, sewing up the holes in the coffee strainer.
“My goodness me sakes alive and some cheese pudding!” cried Uncle
Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, who was reading the evening
paper in his hollow stump bungalow near the underground house. “Have
you dropped your ball of yarn, Nurse Jane, or did you see Jilly
Longtail, the mousie?”
“Neither one,” answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, who kept house for Uncle
Wiggily. “Oh, there’s another! Hit it quick before it gets upstairs!”
she cried, making a grab for something in the air.
“Well, this is certainly surprising!” Uncle Wiggily exclaimed. “I see
nothing!”
He looked at Nurse Jane, who was making funny motions in the air,
waving her paws about and clapping them together.
“You don’t see anything?” the muskrat lady cried. “Why, the place is
full of moths. They will eat everything up!”
“Will they eat up my turnip sandwich?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.
“Oh, not that,” replied Nurse Jane. “They are not like foxes,
or bears. Moths are little things that first flit about like
butterflies. Then they find a nice, cosy, soft bed in your fur coat,
or your flannel shirts, and they lay eggs. Then out of the egg comes
a little insect that eats up the fur and flannel. They even eat
pianos!”
“My gracious!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “They must be regular giants to
eat pianos! I never heard of such a thing!”
“Well, of course they don’t exactly eat the whole piano,” said Nurse
Jane, as she made another grab in the air, trying to catch the
moth-butterfly. But she missed it and knocked off Uncle Wiggily’s
spectacles. Very luckily, however, the glasses fell on the soft back
of Kittie Kat, who had come over to Uncle Wiggily’s house to borrow
a cup of flour to make a bouquet for her school teacher, and so the
glasses were not broken.
“Moths must be terrible things!” said Uncle Wiggily, as he put on his
spectacles again. “Fancy, now; eating pianos!”
“Well, I mean they eat the felt cloth inside the pianos, and so spoil
them for playing,” went on Nurse Jane. “But we must get busy, Uncle
Wiggily. To-morrow you must go up in your airship and buy me some
moth balls.”
“I didn’t know moths played ball,” said the rabbit gentleman. “They
certainly are strange creatures, to eat pianos and play ball!”
“Oh, of course, moths don’t play ball!” Nurse Jane said. “How silly
you are, Wiggily. Moth balls are white balls that smell very strongly
of camphor and other things that moths do not like. If you put moth
balls in your fur and flannels the moths will go away.”
“Where will they go?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“I don’t know. Please don’t ask so many questions,” Nurse Jane
answered, as she tried to catch another moth. And this time she
stepped on Kittie’s tail and the little cat girl meaowed: said:
“Oh, dear! I guess I had better go home.”
“Oh, please excuse me!” begged Nurse Jane. “But I must get these
moths out of the way.”
“I’ll get the moth balls to-morrow,” Uncle Wiggily promised, “and if
there are any balls left over I will give them to Sammie Littletail
to play marbles with.”
“Well, the next day the old rabbit gentleman started off in his
airship to get the moth balls for Nurse Jane. He found them in a drug
store, and the monkey gentleman who kept the place put the white
balls in a box for Uncle Wiggily, so he could easily carry them.
“I hope you have no trouble, going back in your airship,” said the
monkey gentleman, politely.
“Thank you,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I think I shall be all right.” Then
he sailed back toward his house with the moth balls, and on the way
he heard down below him some voices saying:
“Oh, dear! Isn’t it too bad?”
“Yes, if we only had some marbles we could have a nice game!”
“But we haven’t any!” cried a third voice, sadly.
Uncle Wiggily looked down, and in the schoolyard, over which he was
flying in his airship, he saw Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy,
Bully and Bawly No-Tail, the frogs, Jackie and Peetie Bow-Wow, the
puppies, and many other animal friends. They wanted to have a game of
marbles, but could not.
“I’ll just drop them down a few of the moth balls; I have plenty,”
said Uncle Wiggily. So he did, taking care not to let any of the
balls fall on the animal boys.
“Oh joy!” the little chaps cried, when they saw the white balls.
“These will make fine marbles!” And they had a great game.
A little farther along Uncle Wiggily saw some toy wooden soldiers who
were going to shoot their pop guns at a mark for practice, so that
they might become good marksmen in time of war.
“Oh, but alas and alack!” cried the captain. “I forgot to bring any
bullets. What shall I do?”
“Ha! Perhaps these will answer!” cried Uncle Wiggily, and the rabbit
gentleman dropped down some more moth balls from his airship.
“Oh, how kind are you!” cried the soldier captain. Then his soldiers
loaded their guns with the white moth ball bullets and shot at the
mosquito targets as much as they pleased.
Then, a little farther on, Uncle Wiggily saw a bad old lion chasing
after a poor little dog. And the lion was going to pull the doggie’s
tail, for all I know. Mind, I’m not saying for sure, but maybe.
“Ha! This will never do!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “I must stop
that lion.”
So he threw the rest of the moth balls out of his airship at the
lion. And the balls hit the bad creature on the nose and the lion
cried, “Wow! Wow! Wow!” three times, just like that, and then he had
to go to the dentist’s to have his nose fixed. So he didn’t chase the
doggie any more.
“But where are the moth balls?” asked Nurse Jane, when Uncle Wiggily
reached home in his airship. And when he told her what he had done
with them she said: “Well, you were very kind, of course, but I guess
I had better get the moth balls myself next time.”
And she did, and she put Uncle Wiggily’s fur coat away in them, and
no moths tried to eat it at all. And, in the next story, if the
stovepipe takes the refrigerator out to see the circus elephant
jump over the back fence, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the
dentist.
STORY VIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE DENTIST
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, was out taking a
sail among the clouds in his airship, made from a clothes basket,
some toy circus balloons, a Japanese umbrella and an electric fan,
that went whizzie-izzie.
“Well, I wonder what will happen to me to-day?” Uncle Wiggily said
to himself, as he steered out of the way of a thunderstorm that was
having a race with a black cloud. “I suppose I shall have some sort
of an adventure.”
And, surely enough he did, and I am going to have the pleasure of
telling you all about it; that is, if you care to listen, as the
telephone girl says.
Uncle Wiggily was sailing along, flying over the tops of the houses
and the trees in animal land, when, all at once, as he fluttered
in his airship above the burrow, or underground house where Sammie
Littletail, the rabbit boy lived, Mr. Longears heard a voice crying:
“Oh, mamma! But I don’t want to go! I can’t go! I know it will hurt
too much!”
“Silly boy!” said Mrs. Longtail, the rabbit lady. “Would you rather
have the toothache than go to the dentist’s and have him take it
away?”
“Do you mean take the toothache away or the tooth, mamma?” asked
Sammie, curious like.
“Both,” answered Mrs. Littletail, with a smile.
“Oh, I’m not going!” yelled Sammie.
“Ha! There is trouble down there,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he listened
to this talk. “I guess perhaps I had better go down and see what I
can do.”
So down he went in his airship to the home of the Littletail
rabbit family, and there, indeed, he found trouble. Sammie had the
toothache, from eating too many carrot ice cream cones, and as the
tooth was an old one, with a big hole in it, that tooth needed to be
pulled.