“We’ll have to get more sugar!” exclaimed Johnnie.
But alas! Likewise sorrowfulness! After giving the squirrel boys the
things for the lemonade, Mrs. Bushytail had gone down to the ten and
five cent store to buy a new dishpan, and had locked up the squirrel
house. For she thought her boys would not want to go in again until
she came back.
“We can’t get any sugar, and we can’t make any lemonade!” cried
Billie, sadly.
“Oh, yes we can,” said his brother. “Let’s make it sour—without
sugar. Perhaps the folks who buy it won’t mind.”
“All right,” agreed Billie. So they made sour lemonade.
Then Billie and Johnnie took their places behind the stand, and cried:
“Here you are! Nice, cold lemonade! Only five cents a glass!”
You notice they were very careful not to say “sweet lemonade,” for
that would not have been true.
“Ha! Lemonade!” cried Grandfather Goosey Gander, coming along just
then. “I’ll take a glass,” and he laid five cents down on the box.
Billie filled a glass for him.
“Whew! Ha! Oh, mercy me! Why it’s sour!” cried Grandfather Goosey
Gander, making a lot of funny faces as soon as he had sipped the
lemonade.
“Yes,” said Billie sadly, “it is sour. Some one took our sugar.”
“Well, I can’t drink sour lemonade,” spoke the duck gentleman, and he
took back his five cents.
“Oh, dear!” said Johnnie, sadly.
And that’s the way it was. All the animal folk who came along to
drink the cold lemonade wouldn’t take it when they found it was sour.
They just wrinkled up their noses and took back their money.
“Here comes Uncle Wiggily in his airship!” said Billie, after a
while. “Maybe he likes sour lemonade.” So they called to him to come
down and buy some. The rabbit gentleman, sailing down, laid his
nickel on the box. He sipped the lemonade.
“Oh me! Oh my! and some soda crackers!” he cried, making his nose
twinkle like a star on a frosty night. “That is too sour!”
“Yes,” said Billie, sadly. “Some one took our sugar, and we can’t
sell any sweet lemonade, and get any money for ice cream cones, and
our mamma isn’t home and——”
“Stop! Say no more! You have troubles enough!” cried Uncle Wiggily.
“I will sweeten your lemonade for you,” and with that he put into the
pitcher some of the nice sweet honey he had brought from the store in
his airship.
“Oh, joy!” cried Billie and Johnnie, tasting the lemonade which now
was sweet enough for even Grandfather Goosey Gander. And the squirrel
boys sold one pitcherful and part of another one. The honey was
better than sugar for sweetening.
They made enough money to buy several ice cream cones, and they sent
Uncle Wiggily one for giving them the honey, which made their sour
lemonade sweet.
And pretty soon, if the coal man doesn’t slide a watermelon down the
ironing board into the the refrigerator, I’ll tell you about Uncle
Wiggily and the watering hose.
STORY XXV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE WATERING HOSE
Oh, but it was hot in animal land! It was hot and dry and dusty, for
there had been no rain in a long time, and the sun shone brightly,
making the leaves on the trees curl up in the heat, and wilting the
pretty flowers.
“Well, if we don’t get some rain pretty soon,” spoke Nurse Jane Fuzzy
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, “the garden will be spoiled, and we can have
no strawberry shortcake.”
“No strawberry shortcake!” cried Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit
gentleman for whom Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy kept house. “That will be
too bad! But, pray tell me, what has rain to do with strawberry
shortcake, if you please, Nurse Jane?”
“Rain has everything to do with it, Uncle Wiggily,” said she. “For if
it does not rain, the strawberries will not grow, and if we do not
have strawberries we can have no shortcake. That is, unless I put in
lemons instead of strawberries.”
“Oh, no! That would never do at all!” exclaimed Mr. Longears. “We
must have strawberries. I will see what I can do about making it
rain.”
“How can you?” asked Nurse Jane.
“I will go up near the clouds, in my airship,” spoke the old
gentleman rabbit, “and I will see if there is in them any rain that
is ready to fall down, and wet the thirsty ground. And, maybe, if
there is rain in the clouds I can squeeze a little out, as you
squeeze water from the sponge in the bath tub.”
“I hope you can,” said Nurse Jane, as she went out into the garden to
pull up some weeds.
Off the old gentleman rabbit started in his clothes basket airship,
on and on, up to the clouds. But when he got there he saw no rain in
them. The clouds were as dry as a piece of cheese.
“No, there is no rain here,” said Uncle Wiggily, sadly. “I wonder
what I can do? I would not like Nurse Jane’s garden to dry up, for I
am very fond of strawberry shortcake. I wonder what I can do?”
Uncle Wiggily in his airship rode on a little farther, and pretty
soon, looking down toward the earth, over the edge of the clothes
basket, he saw, far below him, some water spurting and spraying in a
beautiful shower.
“Ha! There is rain down there!” the rabbit gentleman cried. “I wonder
why there is none over at our place? I must go down and see.”
So down he went, and there he saw Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the two
puppy dog boys, squirting water with a hose, which was fastened to
the faucet of the kitchen sink.
“Now it’s my turn to squirt!” cried Jackie, as Uncle Wiggily jumped
out of his airship, which had reached the ground.
“No, let me squirt just a little bit more!” begged Peetie, and his
brother very kindly did.
“Ha! What have you there?” asked the old gentleman rabbit, as he went
toward the puppy dog boys.
“A watering hose,” said Jackie. “You see it hasn’t rained for so long
that our garden is all dried up. So papa got this hose. See, this is
how it squirts.”
And just then Peetie accidentally moved the end of the hose too much,
and a shower of water went all over Uncle Wiggily.
“Oh!” cried Peetie, “I didn’t mean to do that.”
“I’ll forgive you!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “It is so warm that it
feels fine to have a hose squirted on you so I don’t care. I must get
one for Nurse Jane.”
Then it was Jackie’s turn to squirt the hose, and when Peetie handed
it to him, the end slipped again, and Grandfather Goosey Gander, who
came along just then, was sprayed with a shower of water.
“Oh dear! I’m so sorry!” cried Jackie.
“It doesn’t matter at all!” cried the old gentleman goose. “I just
love water!” And the drops rolled off his back, not wetting him at
all, for a goose gentleman’s feathers are made to shed water, just as
an umbrella does, you know.
“Let me try the hose,” begged Uncle Wiggily, and Jackie did so. “Yes,
I really must get Nurse Jane one,” said the rabbit gentleman. “It
is as good as a rain shower,” and he sprinkled water all over the
dog-garden.
Then off he went in his airship to get a watering hose for his
garden, leaving Peetie and Jackie to sprinkle theirs, sometimes
wetting the sidewalk and sometimes spraying the animal people who
went past, just as puppy dog boys will, you know.
“Ha! Now we won’t mind whether or not it rains!” cried Uncle Wiggily,
when he reached his hollow stump bungalow again.
“Why not?” asked Nurse Jane, fanning herself with the dishpan. “It is
hotter than ever. We need rain very badly.”
“And we shall have it!” exclaimed the old gentleman rabbit. “See,
I have a watering hose,” and he took one from his airship. He had
bought it at the rubber store.
Soon the hose was attached to the kitchen faucet, and Uncle Wiggily
watered the garden. And how the flowers and the lima beans and the
strawberry plants lifted up their tired, dusty hot leaves, and drank
the cool water that was showered on them.
And then, when the garden was nicely watered, Uncle Wiggily heard a
noise out in the street, and a tired voice said:
“Oh dear! How hot I am! Oh dear!”
“Ha! Some one in trouble!” remarked Uncle Wiggily. “I must see if I
cannot help them.” He went out in front, and there he saw a poor,
tired, dusty ice-wagon horse, who could hardly hold up his head.
“I will water you with the hose,” said the rabbit gentleman. “That
will cool you off, and rest you.”
[Illustration: Uncle Wiggily getting sprayed with hose]
“Please do,” begged the ice-wagon horse, and Uncle Wiggily did. And
when the cool water sprayed on the hot and tired horse he felt so
much better that he laughed, and held up his head, and he gave
Uncle Wiggily a big cake of ice, like the one Mr. Whitewash, the
Polar bear gentleman, sits on, and the ice made the hollow stump
bungalow so cool that Uncle Wiggily had a fine sleep that night.
And the next day it rained, so Uncle Wiggily did not have to water
with the hose. And this shows that you should always be kind to an
ice-wagon horse when you can.
So if the popcorn ball doesn’t play lawn tennis with the refrigerator
and get all melted up, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the
thunder storm.
STORY XXVI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE THUNDER STORM
“Well, how is your garden coming on these days?” asked Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the rabbit gentleman, of Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the
muskrat lady, who kept house for him. “It isn’t drying up any more;
is it?”
“Oh, no,” she answered, as she tied her long tail in a double knot to
keep it from dragging in the dust. “Since you so kindly bought me the
watering hose, I can wet the garden whether it rains or not. And that
will make everything grow.”
“Strawberries too? Will it make them grow?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to
know. He was thinking of strawberry shortcake, I guess, for he was
very fond of it.
“Oh, yes, the strawberries are growing very nicely,” said Nurse Jane,
as she looked for the red berries under the green leaves.
“And I think you will not have to water with the hose for several
days now,” the muskrat lady went on, as she glanced up at the sky.
“Why not?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.
“Because we are going to have a thunder shower,” said the muskrat
lady. “And I think it will be quite a hard one. But it is always
cooler after a thunder shower and I like them very much.”
“So do I,” agreed Uncle Wiggily. “But if it is going to rain and
thunder and lighten I had better go for a ride in my airship as soon
as possible. Much as I like storms, I do not want to be caught out in
one up in the sky, in my airship.”
“Yes, if you are going, you had better go, and hurry back,” advised
Nurse Jane.
So the old gentleman rabbit went out in the woodshed where he kept
his airship, and after shaking up the sofa cushions in the clothes
basket, so they would be soft and fluffy for him to fall on, in case
of any accident, Uncle Wiggily blew some hot air into the toy circus
balloons that raised his airship from the ground and then, starting
the electric fan, that went around whizzie-izzie, up he rose into the
air.
“Yes, I really think there will be a thunder storm soon,” said the
old rabbit to himself, as he looked at the clouds, which were getting
more and more black. “I am glad I brought along an umbrella,” for he
had one, you see, in addition to the Japanese sun parasol that was
over the top of the red, white and blue toy circus balloons.
Well, Uncle Wiggily was sailing around and around, looking for an
adventure, when all at once he saw, a little distance away, the spire
of a church steeple.
“I’ll sail over as far as that steeple,” said the old gentleman
rabbit to himself, “and then I’ll go back home. Nurse Jane may get
nervous if I stay away too long, with a thunder storm coming up.”
Uncle Wiggily was almost at the church steeple, when he saw a big
robin red-breast flying through the air. And, just as the bird was
near the church spire, there came a strong blast of wind from the
storm, dashing poor robin against the hard steeple, which had an
arrow on top to tell the way the wind was blowing.
“Oh dear!” cried the robin. “My wing is broken and I cannot fly any
more, I will fall to the ground, and die!”
“Oh, no you will not,” said Uncle Wiggily kindly. “I will catch you
on the soft sofa cushions of my airship.” Then the rabbit gentleman
sent his airship right under the falling birdie, and caught it just
before it struck the ground.
“Oh, thank you!” cried robin red-breast. “You have saved my life,
but my wing is broken!”
“Never mind. We will have Dr. Possum mend that,” said Uncle Wiggily.
“I’ll take you to the animal doctor.” He started off in the airship
again, but, before he had gone very far, there was a rumble in the
sky. Then came a flash of lightning and a big boom, like that of a
Fourth of July cannon. And then it began to rain very hard.
“Ha! Here is the thunder storm!” cried Uncle Wiggily, “and I am far
from home and Nurse Jane. We had better go down and stay in one of
these houses, until the storm is over, Mr. Bird.”
“Yes,” said the robin with a broken wing, “I think perhaps we had
better do that.”
Down went Uncle Wiggily in his airship. It was raining very hard now,
and the lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled and rumbled very
loudly indeed.
“There is a good house near that pond and barn, for us to go in out
of the storm!” cried the rabbit gentleman, pointing with one ear down
below, for he needed both paws with which to steer. “It is the duck
pen where my friends, the Wibblewobbles, live. I’ll go there,” Uncle
Wiggily said.
Down went the airship, close to the barn, where Gup, the kind horse
lived.
“You hurry right into the duck pen!” cried Gup to Uncle Wiggily.
“I’ll take your airship in my stable until the storm is over.”
So Uncle Wiggily hurried into the duck pen, taking the poor robin
with him, and, no sooner was the rabbit gentleman inside, than he
heard Lulu and Alice, the duck girls, crying as hard as they could
cry.
“What is the matter with them?” he asked of Mrs. Wibblewobble.
“They are afraid of the thunder storm,” said the duck lady. And Lulu
and Alice were lying in a dark room, with pillows over their heads so
as not to see the lightning, and hear the thunder. As for Jimmie, the
boy duck, of course he was not afraid. Boys, whether they are ducks
or not, are never afraid of thunder storms.
“You mustn’t mind the thunder storm,” said Uncle Wiggily, to Lulu
and Alice. “It will not hurt you. Just pretend that the thunder is
only the noise of a big circus wagon going over a bridge, and the
lightning is only electric flashes from a trolley car. Then you will
not mind it so much.”
So Lulu and Alice pretended that way, and the robin with the broken
wing sang for them, and soon the thunder storm was over, and never
after that were the duck girls frightened. For whenever it thundered,
Lulu would say:
“Ha! That is only a circus wagon going over a bridge.”
And when it lightened, Alice would say:
“That is only a trolley car going up hill.”
Then, when the rain had stopped, Uncle Wiggily went sailing on in his
airship, taking the poor robin to Dr. Possum, who soon mended the
bird’s broken wing.
So you see it is sometimes good to have a thunder storm, after all,
and in the following story, if the hoptoad in our back yard doesn’t
jump over the fence and tickle the pansy’s face, I’ll tell you about
Uncle Wiggily and the trunk.
STORY XXVII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE TRUNK
“Are you going to do very much to-day?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy,
the muskrat lady, of Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman,
who was reading the fly paper out on the front porch one morning. He
wanted to read the fly paper because it told about how to get rid of
biting mosquitoes.
“Am I going to do very much?” Uncle Wiggily repeated after Nurse
Jane. “Well, I was going out for a little trip in my airship, but if
there is anything you would like me to do, why, I can just as well do
it as not,” he said, most politely. “I can go airshipping later.”
“Then, if you will be so kind,” spoke Nurse Jane, “will you get a
trunk for me out of the attic?”
“Certainly I’ll do that for you,” Uncle Wiggily promised. “Do you
want an elephant’s trunk?” he asked with a funny little twinkle of
his nose, “or will you have the trunk of a tree?”
“Oh, there you go! Joking again!” cried Nurse Jane. “What would I do
with an elephant’s trunk?”
“Why, I didn’t know but what you might be going to give a circus,”
said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh, “and they always have an elephant’s
trunk in the circus.”
“Well, I’m not going to have a circus,” declared Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.
“And what, pray, would I want with the trunk of a tree?”
“Why, I thought perhaps you might want to have me split it up for
kindling wood, for the fire,” went on Uncle Wiggily, as he stuck the
sticky fly paper on the porch screen, so it would not blow away.
“Enough of your jokes!” cried Nurse Jane, as she put her long tail up
in curl papers, so she would look nice if any one asked her to go to
a party. “The trunk I want is an empty one from the attic. I need it
to pack away some of your suits, to keep the moths from eating them
this summer. Just get down one of the clothes trunks, Wiggy. Put it
in your room, and I’ll pack away the things you will not need until
next winter.”
“Very well, I’ll do that,” the rabbit gentleman said kindly, and then
he went up in the attic of the hollow stump bungalow.
The attic was rather a dark and dusty place; and, as it was near the
top of the house, where the sun shone on it as hard as it could, it
was quite warm up there.
“Humph! Yes! Bring down a trunk,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself,
looking around. “There are a lot of trunks here. I wonder which one
Nurse Jane meant?”
He glanced at a pile of several trunks, and finally he decided
that the one painted red, white and blue, as was his barber pole
rheumatism crutch, would be the best.
“I’ll take that trunk down for Nurse Jane,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he
lifted it off the pile of others. “My! But it’s heavy!” he exclaimed.
“I must see what’s in it.”
He opened the trunk and in it the old gentleman rabbit saw a number
of play toys he had had when he was a little boy rabbit. There were
baseballs and bats, and toy bows and arrows, and fish poles, and pop
guns, and many other things.
“My! This makes me remember the happy days when I was young!” sighed
Uncle Wiggily. “I certainly used to have fun when I was a boy. I’ll
just take these things out of my trunk, and save them for Sammie
Littletail, the rabbit boy, and for Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the
squirrels. Then I’ll take the empty trunk down to Nurse Jane. Yes,
those were happy days, when I was a young rabbit boy.”
The old gentleman rabbit began emptying the trunk, taking out his old
play toys, and, when he had the trunk emptied he felt rather tired.
It was hot up in the attic, and he felt sleepy, also.
“I think I’ll just lie down on the trunk and take a nap,” Uncle
Wiggily said. “There is really no hurry about taking it downstairs.”
Into the empty trunk he hopped, and for a pillow he took a soft
baseball, which had been batted about so much that it was quite mushy.
Soon, up in the trunk in the warm attic, Uncle Wiggily was fast
asleep.
And then something dreadful happened. A big rat, who had had nothing
to eat in a long time, crawled out of his hole, looking for a piece
of cheese. The rat saw the trunk, with the lid up, and he thought to
himself:
“Maybe there is cheese in there. I’ll take a look.”
He jumped up on the lid of the trunk, and the rat was so heavy that
he accidentally slammed the cover down, shutting Uncle Wiggily inside
the trunk.
“Oh, dear!” cried the rat. “Now I have done it! I’m so sorry!”
“And so am I!” cried Uncle Wiggily from inside the trunk. For the
banging down of the lid had awakened him.
“Can’t you get out?” asked the rat. “Try to lift up the lid. I’ll
help you.”
Uncle Wiggily tried, and so did the hungry rat, but the trunk cover
had locked itself when it fell down, and Uncle Wiggily could not get
out.
“Oh, I shall smother in here!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “Help!
Help!”
“I’ll run downstairs and get the key from Nurse Jane,” the rat said.
“Then I can let you out.” But Nurse Jane had gone to the store, and
the rat could not find the key. Up to the attic he ran again, saying:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily, what shall I do? I can’t get the trunk key to let
you out!”
“Oh, dear!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “I must get out! I am
smothering in here.”
“Ha! I know what I can do!” suddenly cried the rat! “I can gnaw a
hole in the trunk, and you can crawl out that way!”
So the hungry rat, with his strong teeth, quickly gnawed a hole in
the side of the trunk, and Uncle Wiggily hopped out just before he
smothered, so it was all right. Then he took the trunk downstairs,
mended the rat hole in it and gave the kind rat something to eat,
for the rat had not in the least meant to close down the trunk lid,
you see.
Then Nurse Jane came back and packed away Uncle Wiggily’s clothes in
the moth stuff, and the old rabbit gentleman tied up in bundles the
toys he intended giving to the little animal boys, and that’s the
end of this story. But, if the ice water pitcher doesn’t go to sleep
under the gas stove and make the oven sneeze, when the rice pudding
tickles the baked potatoes, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily
going to school.
STORY XXVIII
UNCLE WIGGILY GOES TO SCHOOL
It was a beautiful day in animal land. Uncle Wiggily Longears, the
rabbit gentleman, who was cleaning the mud off his airship (for he
had fallen into a puddle the day before) looked up at the blue sky
and said:
“Ah, it is such a beautiful day that traveling around in my airship
will be a delight. I will sail off and perhaps something may happen
to me. That will be an adventure.”
He kept on cleaning the mud off the clothes basket of his airship,
and then he softly fluffed up the sofa cushions that kept him from
getting hurt when he fell from the clouds.
“Now I am ready to start,” Uncle Wiggily said, as he put a piece of
cherry pie in his vest pocket, to have it ready to eat in case he
became hungry. I mean he was going to eat the cherry pie, not his
vest pocket, you understand.
“Where are you going?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat
lady, coming to the door of the hollow stump bungalow, which she
kept in order for Uncle Wiggily. “Where are you going?” asked Nurse
Jane as she washed and wiped the face of a breakfast plate.
“Oh just to take a little trip, and perhaps have an adventure,” Uncle
Wiggily said.
“Well, please bring home some pickled bananas for breakfast,” went on
Nurse Jane, and Uncle Wiggily promised he would.
Then he started off in his airship, but he had not gone very far
before he saw, down on the ground below him, something red, white and
blue, fluttering in the wind.
“Ha! I wonder if that can be my red, white and blue striped barber
pole rheumatism crutch?” said the rabbit gentleman. “It must have
fallen out of my airship.”
Then he looked among the sofa cushions and went on:
“No, my crutch is here safe and sound. But I wonder what that red,
white and blue is down there? I’m going to see.”
He steered his airship downward, and when he reached the ground Uncle
Wiggily found that what he had seen was a fluttering flag, with red
and white stripes, and white stars on a blue square. And the flag was
on a pole in front of an animal school house.
“Ha! Of course! I might have known!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Well,
since I am so near school, I will go in and see the nice lady mouse
teacher and the animal children.”
Then he tied his airship to a mulberry bush, so it could not run
away, and where it would also have something to eat, and into the
school went the rabbit gentleman.
“Good morning, children,” said Uncle Wiggily.
“Good morning, Uncle Wiggily,” replied the pupils, most politely.
“What is going on here?” asked Uncle Wiggily of the lady mouse school
teacher, for all the animal children were standing up in a row before
her desk. “Have the children not been good?” the rabbit gentleman
wanted to know, looking at Charlie Chick and at Johnnie and Billie
Bushytail.
“Oh, no, indeed! The children are as good as pie!” said the teacher
with a laugh.
“Ha! Speaking of pie, reminds me that I have some,” exclaimed Uncle
Wiggily, as he took the cherry piece out of his vest pocket. “If you
will kindly allow me I will pass it around,” he went on.
“Yes, you may do so,” spoke the teacher. And the piece of cherry
pie Uncle Wiggily had brought with him was so large that there was
enough for each animal pupil to have some as well as Uncle Wiggily
himself, and also the lady mouse school teacher.
“But, tell me, pray, why are your pupils standing in a line this
way?” asked the rabbit gentleman, when the pie was all eaten.
“We are having an examination,” the teacher replied. “It is nearing
the time to close the school for the summer, and I am trying to find
out how much my pupils know, so that if they are smart enough they
can go to a higher class. We are having an examination, you see.”
“An examination in what?” asked Uncle Wiggily.