you die. I will help you. See, I am going now for Dr. Possum, the
animal gentleman who helps us woodland creatures, and mends broken
wings and legs and everything like that. He will fix your wing for
you, and then as to honey and flowers—well, I can fix that, too. Just
don’t worry any more.”
“Oh, how good you are!” sighed the poor butterfly.
So Uncle Wiggily hurried after Dr. Possum and brought him to the lily
house, and then while the butterfly’s broken wing was being mended,
with rose leaves and marshmallow candy, Uncle Wiggily went to some
kind bees whom he knew, and said:
“Now, dear buzzing bees, a friend of mine—a butterfly—has broken her
wing. She cannot go fluttering around the flowers, sipping honey.
So, until her wing is better, will you not, every day, carry her a
little honey to her home in the white lily?”
“Of course we will!” cried the queen bee. “Gladly will we do that.
Why, my goodness gracious me sakes alive and some apple blossoms! I
should say we would do a kindness like that! Wouldn’t we, bees?”
“Buzz! Buzz!” said all the other bees. “Yes! Yes!”
“Then everything will be all right,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Thank you!”
He hurried back to the butterfly, whose wing Dr. Possum had fixed by
this time, and the rabbit gentleman told the poor creature in the
lily how he had arranged for the bees to bring her honey every day
until her wing was healed.
“Oh, you are so good!” she murmured, as she went to sleep.
“Pray do not mention it,” said Uncle Wiggily, politely, and then he
hurried to the store for the yeast cake.
Now comes a little sad part to this story, but I will not make it any
longer than I can possibly help.
About a week after this, Nurse Jane heard Uncle Wiggily groaning in
his bed, and saying:
“Oh, dear! How ill I am. It’s that old rheumatism pain again! Please
send for Dr. Possum.”
“I will,” said the muskrat lady. And when Dr. Possum came he said:
“Uncle Wiggily, you are very ill indeed. You have rheumatism fever,
and you must take bitter medicine, and, since the weather is so warm,
you must have some one fan you every day with a fan to cool you.”
“But who can do it?” asked the rabbit gentleman. “Nurse Jane Fuzzy
Wuzzy, my muskrat housekeeper, is too busy, all my animal children
friends have to go to school, so they can graduate, and all my other
friends are too busy. No one can come to fan me.”
“What about the electric fan on your airship?” asked Nurse Jane.
“Alas! that is broken,” said Uncle Wiggily, and he felt very ill
indeed. He needed fanning then and there.
“I don’t know what to do,” spoke Dr. Possum. “I would stay and fan
you myself, but I have to call on the sick animals. I don’t know who
can fan you.”
“Oh, please let me!” cried a voice at the window, and in flew the
butterfly, whose broken wing was all well now. “I was coming over to
thank Uncle Wiggily,” she said, “and I heard what you said. I would
just love to perch on his pillow and fan him with my wings.”
“The very thing!” cried Dr. Possum. So the butterfly lady perched
herself on Uncle Wiggily’s pillow, and with her beautiful wings
fluttering up and down, she fanned him, making a lovely cool breeze,
so that he soon fell asleep. And with the gentle fanning, and because
of Dr. Possum’s medicine, the rabbit gentleman was soon all well
again.
So that shows you should always help a butterfly when you can, as you
never can tell when a butterfly might help you.
And that’s all I can tell you to-night, but on the next page, if the
garden rake doesn’t jump over the fence and play tag with the rose
bush and get all scratched, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the
sawdust.
STORY XVII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SAWDUST
“You’re off again, I see,” spoke Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat
lady housekeeper, one day, to Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit
gentleman, for whom she kept house.
“Yes, I thought I would go out for a little ride,” answered Mr.
Longears, as he blew some heated air into the toy circus balloons
of his airship. “It is a lovely day, and perhaps I may meet with an
adventure; who knows?”
“True enough, who knows?” agreed Nurse Jane. “Well, I hope if you do
have an adventure it will be a pleasant one.”
An adventure, you know, children, is something that happens to you,
like falling down stairs. That’s an unpleasant adventure. Finding a
penny rolling up hill is a pleasant adventure. That’s the difference,
you see.
So Uncle Wiggily started off in his airship, which was made from one
of Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy’s old clothes baskets, some toy circus balloons,
a Japanese umbrella and an electric fan.
The old gentleman rabbit had not ridden so very far, sailing above
the tree tops, as he was, before, all of a sudden, he heard a sad
little voice crying:
“Oh, dear! Oh, isn’t that too bad? Oh, my poor Cora Ann
Multiplicationtable!”
“Ha! Some one in trouble!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, looking down. “I
must see if I cannot help them.”
Then he saw Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl, sitting on a stump,
and looking at something in her paws.
“It must be her doll,” thought Uncle Wiggily “For the doll’s name
is Cora Ann Multiplicationtable. I’ll go down and see what is the
trouble.”
Down he went, and he found poor Susie crying sadly.
“What has happened?” asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
“Oh, all the sawdust stuffing has run out of my doll,” said the
little rabbit girl. “I was carrying her out to get the air, for she
has been ill, and all of a sudden, one of her legs caught in a thorn
bush, ripping a hole in the cloth. Out ran the sawdust before I could
stop it. Look!” And Poor Susie held up Cora Ann Multiplicationtable.
The doll was as limp and slimpsy as a sheet of blotting paper after
it has fallen into the ink well.
“Oh, that is too bad,” said Uncle Wiggily, “but perhaps I can help
you. I’ll try.”
“Can you make her well again?” asked Susie, hopefully.
“Why, yes, I think so,” answered the rabbit gentleman. “I will get
some more sawdust, and stuff her with it.”
“Oh, joy!” cried Susie, clapping her paws. “Then I will be happy
again, for I love my doll Cora Ann Multiplicationtable very much. I
hope you can cure her.”
“Well, I’ll go get the sawdust and try,” said Uncle Wiggily.
Into his airship he jumped, and up above the tree tops he went, to
sail about, looking for sawdust. He peered all around, Uncle Wiggily
did, but he saw no sawdust. Sawdust, you know, is little, fine grains
of wood, made when the carpenter saws a board in two pieces to mend
the fence.
“Well, I guess I can’t find any sawdust up here,” said the rabbit
gentleman, “after a while I’ll have to go down to the earth again.”
Down he went, and, though he looked all over, he could find no
sawdust. He thought perhaps he might meet a wagon-load of it, going
to the butcher shop, for butchers put sawdust on their store floors
instead of carpet. But no wagon-loads of sawdust were to be seen.
“Oh, dear!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “No sawdust down here, and none
up in the air. I wonder where I can find any for Susie’s doll? I
know, I’ll take a little trip down to the seashore in my airship.
If I can’t find any sawdust there, perhaps I can bring back some
seashore sand with which to stuff Susie’s doll. Yes, that’s what I’ll
do.”
Up above the tree tops the rabbit gentleman went again in his
airship, and soon he was at the seashore.
Up and down the beach he hopped, looking for sawdust, but he could
see none. If there had ever been any the wind must have blown it away
long ago.
“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “This is too bad! I guess I’ll have
to take back the sand after all.”
“Why, what is the trouble, if I may ask?” inquired a voice out in
the salty sea waves, and Uncle Wiggily looked and saw the queerest
fish he had ever beheld. It had a very long nose, and sticking out on
either side of this nose were sharp teeth. But Uncle Wiggily was not
frightened.
“What is the trouble?” the fish asked again.
“Why, I want some sawdust for Susie’s doll, Cora Ann
Multiplicationtable,” answered the rabbit gentleman, “but I can find
none.”
“Ha! Say no more!” cried the queer fish very politely. “Sawdust! I
will give you all the sawdust you want. Just wait a minute.”
“Ha! How can you give me sawdust, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
cried Uncle Wiggily.
“Why, I am a sawfish,” was the reply. “I can saw sawdust.” Then the
fish gave a flop of his tail and out on the beach he jumped. He soon
found a big log that had been washed up by the waves, and then, with
his long nose covered with teeth, which were just like those of a
saw, the fish sawed back and forth on the log with his nose, and made
a lot of sawdust for Uncle Wiggily.
The rabbit gentleman caught the sawdust in his tall silk hat, and
then thanking the sawfish, who jumped back into the ocean to wash his
face, Uncle Wiggily hurried off in his airship to take the sawdust to
Susie for her doll.
“Oh, how kind you are!” cried the little rabbit girl.
[Illustration: Uncle Wiggily with cat]
“Pray do not mention it,” politely said Uncle Wiggily, as he helped
stuff the sawdust into Cora Ann Multiplicationtable. Soon she was
as plump and fat as ever. So you see a sawfish is of some use in this
world, after all.
And on the page after this, if the little dog’s collar doesn’t go to
the laundry and get all wet in the bluing water, I’ll tell you about
Uncle Wiggily and the dusty carpet.
STORY XVIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE DUSTY CARPET
“Be careful, please! Look out! Kindly wipe your feet!” cried Nurse
Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was going into his hollow stump
bungalow one day, after he had been out riding in his airship.
“Why, what is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Don’t I always wipe
my feet, Nurse Jane?” and this time the rabbit gentleman was very
particular to give them an extra polish, or two, on the door-mat
before entering.
“Oh, yes! as a rule you are very good that way,” said Nurse Jane
politely, as she looked at her tail to see if Sammie Littletail, the
boy rabbit, had tied any knots in it for a joke. But he had not, I am
glad to say.
“Yes, as a rule, you are very careful,” went on Nurse Jane, “but you
see I am house cleaning, and I have just scrubbed the floors, and so
I don’t want a speck of dirt on them.”
“Ah, ha! I see! House cleaning!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “Well, I
suppose it has to be done once in a while, but I do not like it at
all. I think I will go to my room and read, and when supper is ready,
call me, please.”
“I will,” promised Nurse Jane, and then she went on looking for
moth-millers, which eat up your clothes, and she hunted for dust in
all the corners, Nurse Jane did, and she swept and cleaned, and she
had a great old time, she did!
“My, this is awful!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he went inside the
hollow stump bungalow. “Why, there is hardly room to move!”
And well might he say so, for the chairs and tables were all
scattered about, the carpets and rugs were piled in the middle of the
floor, and the whole place seemed very much upset, indeed.
“Well, I suppose it’s always this way when house cleaning has to be
done,” thought Uncle Wiggily, with a sigh. “I must put up with it.”
Then he stumbled over a stool, tripped on a chair, fell over a roll
of carpet, and finally he reached his room, and sat down to read a
book about how to make yellow carrots turn pink by coloring them with
Easter eggs.
By and by after a while, Uncle Wiggily began to feel hungry.
“I wish I had something to eat,” he said, looking in the book at a
large picture of a red, white and blue turnip, with a pink ribbon tied
on it. “I wonder if supper is not nearly ready?”
Uncle Wiggily went to the door of his room and listened. He wanted to
see if he could hear, down in the kitchen, the rattle of dishes and
the clatter of the knives and forks. That would show Nurse Jane was
setting the table, and when she set the table it was, nearly always,
meal time.
But Uncle Wiggily could hear nothing but the moving and scraping of
chairs about on the floor, and the flip-flop of the dusting cloth
as Nurse Jane snapped it here and there, knocking the dust off the
furniture upon the carpet, so she could not see it so plainly.
“Ha! Hum!” murmured Uncle Wiggily. “That doesn’t sound much like
supper. I shall have to wait a bit longer.”
So he waited and waited, but there came no welcome sound of the
rattle of dishes, nor the clatter of knives and forks. Nor was there
any nice smell of ice cream frying on the stove, nor of peanuts
boiling in the tea kettle. Nothing like supper at all.
“Well, this is very strange!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he got up
from his chair about the forty-’leventh time to listen if supper were
ready. “Something must have happened to Nurse Jane. I’ll go look,”
he said.
Putting aside his book, down stairs the rabbit gentleman went, and he
saw the muskrat lady in the yard, stretching a dusty carpet out on
the green grass.
“Ahem! Pray pardon and excuse me, Nurse Jane,” said Uncle Wiggily,
“but may I ask when tea will be ready?” You see he said tea to be
more polite like.
“Tea!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “Why, I can not give you your supper,
Wiggy, until I have beaten all the dust out of this dusty carpet. And
it will take me some time, Wiggy.” You see she called him Wiggy for
short, because she was very busy at house cleaning.
“No supper until that carpet is beaten?” cried Uncle Wiggily, sad and
disappointed like.
“No, indeed,” answered Nurse Jane. Then, with her long tail, which
was like a carpet beater stick, the muskrat lady began to whip the
dust out of the dusty carpet to make it clean.
“Oh, my! That is going to take a long time!” thought the rabbit
gentleman. “I shall be very hungry indeed before I get any supper
this evening, if I can’t get it until that carpet is beaten.”
So he waited and waited, and Nurse Jane kept on beating the dusty
carpet with her long tail, and Uncle Wiggily was getting more and
more hungry, when, all of a sudden, he heard some voices shouting:
“That’s the way to run! Throw the ball! Slide to home base! Put him
out! Over the fence! Hurray! A home run!”
“Ha! Animal boys playing ball!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I have an idea!
I’ll give them five cents each, and get them to beat the dusty carpet
with the baseball bats! Then Nurse Jane will not have to do it and
can get supper for me!”
Out he went to the vacant lot where the animal boys were playing
ball. Charlie, the chicken chap, was at the bat.
“Boys, will you beat a dusty carpet for Nurse Jane?” asked Uncle
Wiggily. “I would do it myself, only my rheumatism is so bad that I
can’t!”
“Surely, we will beat it!” cried Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck. So
the animal boys soon beat the dusty carpet with their baseball bats,
and Uncle Wiggily gave them five cents each for ice cream cones.
And, shortly after that, Nurse Jane made ready the rabbit gentleman’s
supper, and everybody was happy, and when the carpet was no longer
dusty, house cleaning time was over, and Uncle Wiggily could live in
peace and quietness and he was glad.
And that’s the end of this story, but if the ivy vine doesn’t climb
up in my window and pull the clothes off the rubber doll’s bed I’ll
tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the little lamb.
STORY XIX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LITTLE LAMB
Uncle Wiggily, the old gentleman rabbit, was out in the yard of his
hollow stump bungalow one morning, putting a new hair ribbon on his
airship, so that it might flutter in the wind and look pretty. All of
a sudden Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the nice muskrat lady housekeeper,
called to him.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily, would you mind going to the store for me?” she
asked.
“Not at all,” answered the rabbit gentleman politely. “What is it you
wish?” And he took off his tall silk hat and bowed.
“I need a loaf of bread, some sugar and a bottle of milk,” answered
the muskrat lady.
“Say no more!” Uncle Wiggily exclaimed, with another polite bow. “You
shall have them at once. I will go to the store right away in my
airship.”
“Here is the money,” went on Nurse Jane. “Be careful not to lose it.”
“I’ll try,” answered Uncle Wiggily with a laugh.
Off he started for the store, sailing above the tops of the trees
in his airship, which was made from one of Nurse Jane’s old clothes
baskets, some toy circus balloons to lift it in the air, a Japanese
umbrella to keep off the rain, and an electric fan, that went around
whizzie-izzie. The electric fan pushed the airship along through the
air, you see.
Well, Uncle Wiggily had not gone very far before, all of a sudden,
something happened to his airship. The electric fan became all
twisted up in the balloons, and the sofa cushions, which were in
the clothes basket, to make a soft place for Uncle Wiggily to fall
out on, in case of accidents—these sofa cushions began turning
somersaults, and the first thing the rabbit gentleman knew he
himself, was falling down.
Down and down he went, faster and faster. The sofa cushions toppled
out of the basket, by themselves, and Uncle Wiggily said:
“Well, I think I myself am to be bumped very hard this time!”
But he was not. Just then, down below on the ground, there came along
a wagon with a lot of sheep’s fleeces in it. Sheep’s fleeces are
wool, you know. Men cut the wool, or the long, fluffy hair, off the
backs of sheep, and it is woven into cloth and made into clothes. It
does not hurt the sheep to cut off the wool, any more than it hurts
to cut your hair.
So Uncle Wiggily fell out of his airship on top of this load of wool,
which was not yet woven into cloth, and he was not hurt a bit, for he
bounced up and down (like the circus man in the net) on the fluffy
wool.
“Ha! That was very kind of you to come along just when you did to
catch me as I fell,” said Uncle Wiggily to the man who drove the wool
wagon.
“Oh, do not thank me,” spoke the man. “Thank those sheep over there.
The wool was sheared off their backs, and when the nicest sheep lady
of them all saw you falling just now she told me to drive over here
quickly as I could so that I might be ready for you to fall on.”
“Ah, then it is you I have to thank,” said Uncle Wiggily to the
sheep, with a low, polite bow. “You have done me a great favor.
Perhaps, some day, I may be able to do you one.”
“Pray do not mention it,” said the sheep, also politely.
Then Uncle Wiggily mended his airship, sailed on to the store in it,
and bought the things Nurse Jane wanted. On his way home, as he was
flying over a green field, he heard a sad voice down below crying:
“Oh, my little lamb is lost! Oh, where can he be! Oh, isn’t this too
bad!”
“Ha! That is my friend, the sheep lady, on whose wool I fell,” said
Uncle Wiggily. “Now is my chance to do her a favor.”
Down he went in his airship, and he asked:
“What has happened, Mrs. Sheep? You seem to be in trouble.”
“I am in trouble,” sadly answered the mamma sheep. “My little lamb
baby has strayed away, and is lost, I fear. Oh, I am so sorry!”
“Never fear!” said Uncle Wiggily, bravely. “I will go look for your
little lost lamb in my airship. You were kind to me, and I am only
too glad to be kind to you.”
“That is very good of you,” said the mamma sheep.
Up in the air went Uncle Wiggily. He sailed around and around,
looking down on the ground for the little lost lamb, but all the
rabbit gentleman could see were trees, woods and green fields.
“I wonder if I can ever find that little lost lamb for the mamma
sheep whose wool saved me from a bad fall?” thought Uncle Wiggily. “I
must try my best.”
So he looked and he looked again, and, all of a sudden, he heard a
little voice crying:
“Baa! Baa! Baa!”
“Ha! There is the little lost lamb crying for its mamma,” said Uncle
Wiggily. He looked down over the side of his clothes basket airship,
and there, on the earth below, he saw the little lamb, caught fast in
a prickly briar bush. The thorns and stickers of the bush had become
entangled in the lamb’s wool, and it could not get loose, no matter
how it tried.
“Baa! Baa! Baa! I shall never see my mamma again!” cried the poor
little lamb, who had wandered away and become lost in the bushes.
“Oh, where is my mamma?”
“Ha! I will take you to her!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. Down, again,
he went in his airship, and, with a pair of scissors he had in his
pocket, Uncle Wiggily soon cut off the briars from the bramble bush
so he could loosen the little lamb. Then, in his paws, Uncle Wiggily
carried the lamb to the airship, and put it on the soft sofa cushions.
“Oh, I am so hungry!” bleated the little lamb.
“And I have just the things for you to eat!” cried Uncle Wiggily.
Then he gave the little lamb some of the bread, milk and sugar, he
had bought at the store, and soon they were at the field where the
lamb lived with its mamma.
And, Oh! how glad the mamma sheep was to see her lamb again! She
thanked Uncle Wiggily again and again, and Uncle Wiggily blushed
behind his ears, he was so bashful-like. So you see it is sometimes a
good thing to fall out of an airship upon a load of wool.
And very soon, if the trolley car doesn’t slip off the track, and run
over the wax doll’s rubber ball, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily
and the soap bubbles.
STORY XX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SOAP BUBBLES
“Well, do you think anything will happen to you this morning?” asked
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, of Uncle Wiggily Longears,
the rabbit gentleman, as she saw him starting off for a ride in his
airship one day.
“You never can tell,” he answered. “I may have the most wonderful
adventure, and again I may just sail around, and come back again,
with nothing more than a yeast cake.”
“Speaking of yeast cakes, one would be very good for you to carry
along with you in your airship,” said Nurse Jane.
“Why?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.
“Because yeast makes the bread rise, and it might make your airship
rise, in case your circus balloons were to burst, and let you down,”
the muskrat lady replied.
“I am very glad you mentioned it,” said Uncle Wiggily, making his
most polite bow. “I shall get a yeast cake the very first chance I
have.”
Then he went out sailing in his airship, but he had not gone very far
above the tree tops before he heard, down below him, a voice saying:
“Oh, dear! I wish I had something to do!”
“Ha! Somebody else in trouble!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “I must go
down and see if I cannot help them.”
So down he went in his airship, and whom do you suppose it was he
found? Why, Arabella, the little chicken girl, was sitting on the
doorstep of the hencoop, crying as hard as she could cry.
“Oh, what is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily kindly.
“I have no one to play with!” sobbed Arabella. “You see I am just
getting over the mumps, and none of the other animal children, who
have not had the mumps, want to play with me. And nobody but I has
had the mumps!” she sobbed.
“That is too bad!” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “But perhaps I can
make up a little fun for you. Do you like to blow soap bubbles?”
“Oh, indeed I do!” cried Arabella, making her wing feathers wiggle.
“I just love to do it! But I have no soap suds, and no pipe with
which to blow the bubbles.”
“Say no more!” cried Uncle Wiggily in a jolly voice. “I will get
everything you need.”
Off he went in his airship to the soap bubble store. There he bought
a pipe, and a nice cake of scented soap, that smelled like a barber
shop. Coming back to where Arabella still sat, all alone on the
doorstep of the chicken coop, Uncle Wiggily made her a nice bowl full
of soapy suds.
“Now you may blow some nice bubbles, Arabella,” spoke the rabbit
gentleman. “I will watch you for a while, and then I will ride along
in my airship, and look for an adventure.”
“Aren’t you afraid of catching my mumps?” asked Arabella with a laugh.
“Oh, bless your hair ribbon! I’ve had ’em!” cried the old rabbit
gentleman, jolly like.
Then he watched Arabella blow the bubbles. And what large ones the
little chicken girl blew from the bowl of the pipe! The bubbles were
red, and green and blue and yellow and purple in color. They floated
up in the air like balloons.
“My, you are certainly a fine bubble-blower!” exclaimed Uncle
Wiggily. “But I must go now.”
“Thank you, for making some fun for me,” spoke Arabella most politely.
Then she blew bubbles by herself, as Uncle Wiggily sailed away in his
airship. He had not gone very far before, all of a sudden, out of a
tree flew a bad wasp, with a stinger in the end of his tail. Oh, this
wasp-bee was very angry! I think perhaps he had had no honey that
day, for his breakfast.
“What do you mean, by flying over my tree?” asked the wasp of Uncle
Wiggily, saucy like.
“Excuse me,” spoke the rabbit gentleman, “but I did not harm your
tree, just sailing over it in my airship.”
“Yes you did!” buzzed the wasp. “You made the leaves flutter with
your electric fan. Now I am going to sting your balloons.”