Chapter 2

"Oh, what a lovely slide!" cried Squeaky. "You try it, Jillie." And the little mouse girl did.

"Who would think," she said, "that you could slide down a slippery elm tree? But you can."

Then she and Squeaky took turns sliding down hill, even though there was no snow, and the slippery elm tree didn't mind it a bit, but rather liked it.

And if the coal man doesn't take away our gas shovel to shoot some tooth powder into the wax doll's pop gun, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the sassafras.

STORY IV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SASSAFRAS

"Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Get up!" called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she stood at the foot of the stairs of the hollow stump bungalow and called up to the rabbit gentleman one morning.

"Hurry down, Mr. Longears," she went on. "This is the last day I am going to bake buckwheat cakes, and if you want some nice hot ones, with maple sugar sauce on, you'd better hurry."

No answer came from the bunny uncle.

"Why, this is strange," said Nurse Jane to herself. "I wonder if anything can have happened to him? Did he have an adventure in the night? Did the bad skillery-scalery alligator, with humps on its tail, carry him off?"

Then she called again:

"Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Aren't you going to get up? Come down to breakfast. Aren't you going to get up and come down?"

"No, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy," replied the bunny uncle, "not to give you a short answer, I am not going to get up, or come down or eat breakfast or do anything," and Mr. Longears spoke as though his head was hidden under the bed clothes, which it was.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily, whatever is the matter?" asked Nurse Jane, surprised like and anxious.

"I don't feel at all well," was the answer. "I think I have the epizootic, and I don't want any breakfast."

"Oh, dear!" cried Nurse Jane. "And all the nice cakes I have baked. I know what I'll do," she said to herself. "I'll call in Dr. Possum. Perhaps Uncle Wiggily needs some of the roots and herbs that grow in the woods--wintergreen, slippery elm or something like that. I'll call Dr. Possum."

And when the animal doctor came he looked at the bunny uncle's tongue, felt of his ears, and said:

"Ha! Hum! You have the Spring fever, Uncle Wiggily. What you need is sassafras."

"Nurse Jane has some in the bungalow," spoke Mr. Longears. "Tell her to make me some tea from that."

"No, what is needed is fresh sassafras," said Dr. Possum. "And, what is more, you must go out in the woods and dig it yourself. That will be almost as good for your Spring fever as the sassafras itself. So hop out, and dig some of the roots."

"Oh, dear!" cried Uncle Wiggily, fussy like. "I don't want to. I'd rather stay here in bed."

"But you can't!" cried Dr. Possum in his jolly voice. "Out with you!" and he pulled the bed clothes off the bunny uncle so he had to get up to keep warm.

"Well, I'll just go out and dig a little sassafras root to please him," thought Uncle Wiggily to himself, "and then I'll come back and stay in bed as long as I please. It's all nonsense thinking I have to have fresh root--the old is good enough."

"I do feel quite wretched and lazy like," said Uncle Wiggily to himself, as he limped along on his red, white and blue-striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a cornstalk. "As soon as I find some sassafras I'll pull up a bit of the root and hurry back home and to bed."

Pretty soon the bunny uncle saw where some of the sassafras roots were growing, with their queer three-pointed leaves, like a mitten, with a place for your finger and thumb.

"Now to pull up the root," said the bunny uncle, as he dug down in the ground a little way with his paws, to get a better hold.

But pulling up sassafras roots is not as easy as it sounds, as you know if you have ever tried it. The roots go away down in the earth, and they are very strong.

Uncle Wiggily pulled and tugged and twisted and turned, but he could break off only little bits of the underground stalk.

"This won't do!" he said to himself. "If I don't get a big root Dr. Possum will, perhaps, send me hack for more. I'll try again."

He got his paws under a nice, big root, and he was straining his back to pull it up, when, all of a sudden, he heard a voice saying:

"How do you do?"

"Oh, hello!" exclaimed the bunny, looking up quickly, and expecting to see some friend of his, like Grandpa Goosey Gander, or Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy. But, instead, he saw the bad old fox, who had, so many times, tried to catch the rabbit gentleman.

"Oh!" said Uncle Wiggily, astonished like. And again he said: "Oh!"

"Surprised, are you?" asked the fox, sort of curling his whiskers around his tongue, sarcastic fashion.

"A little--yes," answered Uncle Wiggily. "I didn't expect to see you."

"But I've been expecting you a long time," said the fox, grinning most impolitely. "In fact, I've been waiting for you. Just as soon as you have pulled up that sassafras root you may come with me. I'll take you off to my den, to my dear little foxes Eight, Nine and Ten. Those are their numbers. It's easier to number them than name them."

"Oh, indeed?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as politely as he could, considering everything. "And so you won't take me until I pull this sassafras root?"

"No, I'll wait until you have finished," spoke the fox. "I like you better, anyhow, flavored with sassafras. So pull away."

Uncle Wiggily tried to pull up the root, but he did not pull very hard.

"For," he thought, "as soon as I pull it up then the fox will take me, but if I don't pull it he may not."

"What's the matter? Can't you get that root up?" asked the fox, after a while. "I can't wait all day."

"Then perhaps you will kindly pull it up for me," said the bunny uncle. "I can't seem to do it."

"All right, I will," the fox said. Uncle Wiggily hopped to one side. The fox put his paws under the sassafras root. And he pulled and he pulled and he pulled, and finally, with a double extra strong pull, he pulled up the root. But it came up so suddenly, just as when you break the point off your pencil, that the fox keeled over backward in a peppersault and somersault also.

"Oh, wow!" cried the fox, as he bumped his nose. "What happened?" But Uncle Wiggily did not stay to tell. Away ran the bunny through the woods, as fast as he could go, forgetting all about his Spring fever. He was all over it.

"I thought the sassafras would cure you," said Dr. Possum, when Uncle Wiggily was safely home once more.

"The fox helped some," said the bunny uncle, with a laugh.

And if the black cat doesn't cover himself with talcum powder and make believe he's a white kid glove going to a dance, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Jack-in-the-Pulpit.

STORY V

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PULPIT-JACK

"Well, how are you feeling today, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit gentleman taking his tall silk hat down off the china closet, getting ready to go for a walk in the woods one morning.

"Why, I'm feeling pretty fine, Nurse Jane," answered the bunny uncle. "Since I ran home to get away from the fox, after he turned a peppersault from pulling too strong to get up the sassafras root, I feel much better, thank you."

"Good!" cried Nurse Jane. "Then perhaps you would not mind going to the store for me."

"Certainly not," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "What do you wish?"

"A loaf of bread," replied Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, "also a box of matches and some sugar and crackers. But don't forget the matches whatever you do."

"I won't," promised the bunny uncle, and soon he was hopping along through the woods wondering what sort of an adventure he would have this day.

As he was going along keeping a sharp look-out for the bad fox, or the skillery-scalery alligator with the double jointed tail. Uncle Wiggily heard a voice saying:

"Oh, dear! I'll never be able to get out from under the stone and grow tall as I ought. I've pushed and pushed on it, but I can't raise it. Oh, dear; what a heavy stone!"

"Ha! Some one under a stone!" said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "That certainly is bad trouble. I wonder if I cannot help?"

The bunny uncle looked all around and down on the ground he saw a flat stone. Underneath it something green and brown was peeping out.

"Was that you who called?" asked Mr. Longears.

"It was," came the answer. "I am a Jack-in-the-Pulpit plant, you see, and I started to grow up, as all plants and flowers do when summer comes. But when I had raised my head out of the earth I found a big stone over me, and now I can grow no more. I've pushed and pushed until my back aches, and I can't lift the stone."

"I'll do it for you," said Uncle Wiggily kindly, and he did, taking it off the Pulpit-Jack.

Then the Jack began growing up, and he had been held down so long that he grew quite quickly, so that even while Uncle Wiggily was watching, the Jack and his pulpit were almost regular size.

A Jack-in-the-Pulpit, you know, is a queer flower that grows in our woods. Sometimes it is called an Indian turnip, but don't eat it, for it is very biting. The Jack is a tall green chap, who stands in the middle of his pulpit, which is like a little pitcher, with a curved top to it. A pulpit, you know, is where some one preaches on Sunday.

"Thank you very much for lifting the stone off me so I could grow," said the Jack to Uncle Wiggily. "If ever I can do you a favor I will."

"Oh, pray don't mention it," replied the rabbit gentleman, with a low bow. "It was a mere pleasure, I assure you."

Then the rabbit gentleman hopped on to the store, to get the matches, the crackers, the bread and other things for Nurse Jane.

"And I must be sure not to forget the matches," Uncle Wiggily said to himself. "If I did Nurse Jane could not make a fire to cook supper."

There was an April shower while Uncle Wiggily was in the store, and he waited for the rain to stop falling before he started back to his hollow stump bungalow. Then the sun came out very hot and strong and shone down through the wet leaves of the trees in the woods.

Along hopped the bunny uncle, and he was wondering what he would have for supper that night.

"I hope it's something good," he said, "to make up for not having an adventure."

"Don't you call that an adventure--lifting the stone off the Jack-in-the-Pulpit so he could grow?" asked a bird, sitting up in a tree.

"Well, that was a little adventure." said Uncle Wiggily. "But I want one more exciting; a big one."

And he is going to have one in about a minute. Just you wait and you'll hear all about it.

The sun was shining hotter and hotter, and Uncle Wiggily was thinking that it was about time to get out his extra-thin fur coat when, all of a sudden, he felt something very hot behind him.

"Why, that sun is really burning!" cried the bunny. Then he heard a little ant boy, who was crawling on the ground, cry out:

"Fire! Fire! Fire! Uncle Wiggily's bundle of groceries is on fire! Fire! Fire!"

"Oh, my!" cried the bunny uncle, as he felt hotter and hotter, "The sun must have set fire to the box of matches. Oh, what shall I do?" He dropped his bundle of groceries, and looking around at them he saw, surely enough, the matches were on fire. They were all blazing.

"Call the fire department! Get out the water bugs!" cried the little ant boy. "Fire! Water! Water! Fire!"

"That's what I want--water," cried the bunny uncle. "Oh, if I could find a spring of water. I could put the blazing matches, save some of them, perhaps, and surely save the bread and crackers. Oh, for some water!"

Uncle Wiggily and the ant boy ran here and there in the woods looking for a spring of water. But they could find none, and the bread and crackers were just beginning to burn when a voice cried:

"Here is water, Uncle Wiggily!"

"Where? Where?" asked the rabbit gentleman, all excited like. "Where?"

"Inside my pulpit," was the answer, and Uncle Wiggily saw, not far away, the Jack-plant he had helped from under the stone.

"When it rained a while ago, my pitcher-pulpit became filled with water," went on Jack. "If you will just tip me over, sideways, I'll splash the water on the blazing matches and put them out."

"I'll do it!" cried Uncle Wiggily, and he quickly did. The pulpit held water as good as a milk pitcher could, and when the water splashed on the fire that fire gave one hiss, like a goose, and went out.

"Oh, you certainly did me a favor, Mr. Pulpit-Jack," said Uncle Wiggily. "Though the matches are burned, the bread and crackers are saved, and I can get more matches." Which he did, so Nurse Jane could make a fire in the stove.

So you see Uncle Wiggily had an adventure after all, and quite an exciting one, too, and if the lemon drop doesn't fall on the stick of peppermint candy and make it sneeze when it goes to the moving pictures, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the violets.

STORY VI

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE VIOLETS

Down in the kitchen of the hollow stump bungalow there was a great clattering of pots and pans. Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman who lived in the bungalow, sat up in bed, having been awakened by the noise, and he said:

"Well, I wonder what Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy is doing now? She certainly is busy at something, and it can't be making the breakfast buckwheat cakes, either, for she has stopped baking them."

"I say, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, what's going on down in your kitchen?" called the rabbit gentleman out loud.

"I'm washing," answered the muskrat lady.

"Washing what; the dishes?" the bunny uncle wanted to know. "If you wash them as hard as it sounds, there won't be any of them left for dinner, and I haven't had my breakfast yet."

"No, I'm getting ready to wash the clothes, and I wish you'd come down and eat, so I can clear away the table things!" called the muskrat lady.

"Oh, dear! Clothes-washing!" cried Uncle Wiggily, making his pink nose twinkle in a funny way. "I don't like to be around the bungalow when that is being done. I guess I'll get my breakfast and go for a walk. Clothes have to be washed, I suppose," went on the rabbit gentleman, "and when Nurse Jane has been ill I have washed them myself, but I do not like it. I'll go off in the woods."

And so, having had his breakfast of carrot pudding, with turnip sauce sprinkled over the top, Uncle Wiggily took his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and hopped along.

The woods were getting more and more beautiful every day as the weather grew warmer. The leaves on the trees were larger, and here and there, down in the green moss, that was like a carpet on the ground, could be seen wild flowers growing up.

"I wonder what sort of an adventure I will have today?" thought the bunny uncle as he went on and on. "A nice one, I hope."

And, as he said this, Uncle Wiggily heard some voices speaking.

"Oh, dear!" exclaimed a sad little voice, "no one will ever see us here! Of what use are we in the world? We are so small that we cannot be noticed. We are not brightly colored, like the red rose, and all that will happen to us will be that a cow will come along and eat us, or step on us with her big foot."

"Hush! You musn't talk that way," said another voice. "You were put here to grow, and do the best you know how. Don't be finding fault."

"I wonder who can be talking?" said Uncle Wiggily. "I must look around." So he looked up in the air, but though he heard the leaves whispering he knew they had not spoken. Then he looked to the right, to the left, in front and behind, but he saw no one. Then he looked down, and right at his feet was a clump of blue violet flowers.

"Did you speak?" asked Uncle Wiggily of the violets.

"Yes," answered one who had been finding fault. "I was telling my sisters and brothers that we are of no use in the world. We just grow up here in the woods, where no one sees us, and we never can have any fun. I want to be a big, red rose and grow in a garden."

"Oh, my!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I never heard of a violet turning into a rose." Then the mother violet spoke and said:

"I tell my little girl-flower that she ought to be happy to grow here in the nice woods, in the green moss, where it is so cool and moist. But she does not seem to be happy, nor are some of the other violets."

"Well, that isn't right," Uncle Wiggily said, kindly. "I am sure you violets can do some good in this world. You are pretty to look at, and nice to smell, and that is more than can be said of some things."

"Oh, I want to do something big!" said the fault-finding violet. "I want to go out in the world and see things."

"So do I! And I! And I!" cried other violets.

Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute, and then he said:

"I'll do this. I'll dig up a bunch of you violets, who want a change, and take you with me for a walk. I will leave some earth on your roots so you won't die, and we shall see what happens."

"Oh, goodie!" cried the violets. So Uncle Wiggily dug them up with his paws, putting some cool moss around their roots, and when they had said good-by to the mother violet away they went traveling with the bunny uncle.

"Oh, this is fine!" cried the first violet, nodding her head in the breeze. "It is very kind of you, Uncle Wiggily to take us with you. I wish we could do you a kindness."

And then a bad old fox jumped out from behind a stump, and started to grab the rabbit gentleman. But when the fox saw the pretty violets and smelled their sweetness, the fox felt sorry at having been bad and said:

"Excuse me, Uncle Wiggily. I'm sorry I tried to bite you. The sight of those pretty violets makes me feel happier than I did. I am going to try to be good."

"I am glad of it," said Mr. Longears, as he hopped on through the woods. "You see, you have already done some good in this world, even if you are only tiny flowers," he said to the violets.

Then Uncle Wiggily went on to his hollow stump bungalow, and, reaching there, he heard Nurse Jane saying:

"Oh, dear! This is terrible. Here I have the clothes almost washed, and not a bit of bluing to rinse them in. Oh, why didn't I tell Wiggy to bring me some blueing from the store? Oh, dear!"

"Ha! Perhaps these will do to make blue water," said the bunny uncle, holding out the bunch of violets. "Would you like to help Nurse Jane?" he asked the flowers.

"Oh, yes, very much!" cried the violets.

Then Uncle Wiggily dipped their blue heads in the clean rinsing water--just a little dip so as not to make them catch cold--and enough color came out of the violets to make the water properly blue for Nurse Jane's clothes, so she could finish the washing.

"So you see you have done more good in the world," said Uncle Wiggily to the flowers. Then he took them back and planted them in the woods where they lived, and very glad they were to return, too.

"We have seen enough of the world," they said, and thereafter they were glad enough to live down in the moss with the mother violet. And if the umbrella doesn't turn inside out so the handle tickles its ribs and makes it laugh in school, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the high tree.

STORY VII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE HIGH TREE

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, stood in front of the looking glass trying on a new tall silk hat he had just bought ready for Easter Sunday, which would happen in about a week or two.

"Do you think it looks well on me, Nurse Jane?" asked the bunny uncle, of the muskrat lady housekeeper, who came in from the kitchen of the hollow stump bungalow, having just finished washing the dishes.

"Why, yes, I think your new hat is very nice," she said.

"Do you think I ought to have the holes for my ears cut a little larger?" asked the bunny uncle. "I mean the holes cut, not my ears."

"Well, just a little larger wouldn't hurt any," replied Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "I'll cut them for you," and she did, with her scissors. For Uncle Wiggily had to wear his tall silk hat with his ears sticking up through holes cut in it. His ears were too large to go under the hat, and he could not very well fold them down.

"There, now I guess I'm all right to go for a walk in the woods," said the rabbit gentleman, taking another look at himself in the glass. It was not a proud look, you understand. Uncle Wiggily just wanted to look right and proper, and he wasn't at all stuck up, even if his ears were, but he couldn't help that.

So off he started, wondering what sort of an adventure he would have that day. He passed the place where the blue violets were growing in the green moss--the same violets he had used to make Nurse Jane's blueing water for her clothes the other day, as I told you. And the violets were glad to see the bunny uncle.

Then Uncle Wiggily met Grandfather Goosey Gander, the nice old goose gentleman, and the two friends walked on together, talking about how much cornmeal you could buy with a lollypop, and all about the best way to eat fried ice cream carrots.

"That's a very nice hat you have on, Uncle Wiggily," said Grandpa Goosey, after a bit.

"Glad you like it," answered the bunny uncle. "It's for Easter."

"I think I'll get one for myself," went on Mr. Gander. "Do you think I would look well in it?"

"Try on mine and see," offered Uncle Wiggily most kindly. So he took his new, tall silk hat off his head, pulling his ears out of the holes Nurse Jane had cut for them, and handed it to Grandfather Goosey Gander--handed the hat, I mean, not his ears, though of course the holes went with the hat.

"There, how do I look?" asked the goose gentleman.

"Quite stylish and proper," replied Mr. Longears.

"I'd like to see myself before I buy a hat like this," went on Grandpa Goosey. "I hope it doesn't make me look too tall."

"Here's a spring of water over by this old stump," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "You can see yourself in that, for it is just like a looking glass."

Grandpa Goosey leaned over to see how Uncle Wiggily's tall, silk hat looked, when, all of a sudden, along came a puff of wind, caught the hat under the brim, and as Grandpa Goosey had no ears to hold it on his head (as the bunny uncle had) away sailed the hat up in the air, and it landed right in the top of a big, high tree.

"Oh, dear!" cried Uncle Wiggily.

"Oh, dear!" said Grandpa Goosey. "I'm very sorry that happened. Oh, dear!"

"It wasn't your fault at all," spoke Uncle Wiggily kindly. "It was the wind."

"But with your nice, new tall silk hat up in that high tree, how are we ever going to get it down," asked the goose gentleman.

"I don't know," answered Uncle Wiggily. "Let me think."

So he thought for a minute or two, and then he said:

"There are three ways by which we may get the hat down. One is to ask the wind to blow it back to us, another is to climb up the tree and get the hat ourselves, and the third is to ask the tree to shake it down to us. We'll try the wind first."

So Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey asked the wind that had blown the hat up in the top of the high tree to kindly blow it back again. But the wind had gone far out to sea, and would not be back for a week. So that way of getting the hat was of no use.

"Mr. High Tree, will you kindly shake my hat down to me?" begged Uncle Wiggily next.

"I would like to, very much," the tree answered politely, "but I cannot shake when there is no wind to blow me. We trees cannot shake ourselves, you know. We can only shake when the wind blows us, and until the wind comes back I cannot shake."

"Too bad!" said Uncle Wiggily. "Then the only way left for us to do, Grandpa Goosey, is to climb the tree."