Chapter 4

"The very thing!" cried Uncle Wiggily. Then he fastened some woodland ferns together and easily made himself a hat that would keep off the sun, if it would not keep off the rain. But then it wasn't raining.

"There you are, Uncle Wiggily!" called the tailor bird at last. "Your silk hat is ready to wear again."

"Thank you," spoke the bunny uncle, as he laid aside the ferns, also thanking them. "Now I am like myself again," and he hopped on through the woods, wondering whether or not he was to have any more adventures that day.

Mr. Longears had not gone on very much farther before he heard a rustling in the bushes, and then a sad little voice said:

"Oh, dear! How sad! I don't believe I'll go to the party now! All the others would make fun of me! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"

"Ha! That sounds like trouble!" said the bunny uncle. "I must see what it means."

He looked through the bushes and there, sitting on a log, he saw Lulu Wibblewobble, the little duck girl, who was crying very hard, the tears rolling down her yellow bill.

"Why, Lulu! What's the matter?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"Oh, dear!" answered the little quack-quack child. "I can't go to the party; that's what's the matter."

"Why can't you go?" Uncle Wiggily wanted to know. "I saw your mother a little while ago, and she said you were going."

"I know I was going," spoke Lulu, "but I'm not now, for the wind blew my nice new hat into the puddle of muddy water, and now look at it!" and she held up a very much beraggled and debraggled hat of lace and straw and ribbons and flowers.

"Oh, dear! That hat is in a bad state, to be sure," said Uncle Wiggily. "But don't cry, Lulu. Almost the same thing happened to me and the tailor bird made my hat as good as ever. Mine was all mud, too, like yours. Come, I'll take you to the tailor bird."

"You are very kind, Uncle Wiggily," spoke Lulu, "but if I go there I may not get back in time for the party, and I want to wear my new hat to it, very much."

"Ha! I see!" cried the bunny uncle. "You want to look nice at the party. Well, that's right, of course. And I don't believe the tailor bird could clean your hat in time, for it is so fancy he would have to be very careful of it.

"But you can do as I did, make a hat out of ferns, and wear that to Nannie Wagtail's party. I'll help you."

"Oh, how kind you are!" cried the little duck girl.

So she went along with Uncle Wiggily to where the ferns grew in the wood, leaving her regular hat at the tailor bird's nest to be cleaned and pressed.

Uncle Wiggily made Lulu the cutest hat out of fern leaves. Oh, I wish you could have seen it. There wasn't one like it even in the five and ten-cent store.

"Wear that to Nannie's party, Lulu," said the rabbit gentleman, and Lulu did, the hat being fastened to her feathers with a long pin made from the stem of a fern. And when Lulu reached the party all the animal girls cried out:

"Oh, what a sweet, lovely, cute, dear, cunning, swell and stylish hat! Where did you get it?"

"Uncle Wiggily made it," answered Lulu, and all the girls said they were going to get one just like it. And they did, so that fern hats became very fashionable and stylish in Woodland, and Lulu had a fine time at the party.

So this teaches us that even a mud puddle is of some use, and if the rubber plant doesn't stretch too far, and tickle the gold fish under the chin making it sneeze, the next story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the snow drops.

STORY XII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SNOW DROPS

"Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Will you come with me?" called a voice under the window of the hollow stump bungalow, where the old gentleman rabbit was sitting, half asleep, one nice, warm afternoon.

"Ha! Come with you? Who is it wants me to come with them?" asked the bunny gentleman. "I hope it isn't the bad fox, or the skillery-scalery alligator with humps on his tail that is calling. They're always wanting me to go with them."

The rabbit looked out of the window and he heard some one laughing.

"That doesn't sound like a bad fox, nor yet an unpleasant alligator," said Mr. Longears. "Who is it wants me to come with them?"

"It is I--Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl," was the answer.

"And where do you want me to come?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"To the woods, to pick some flowers," answered Susie. "The lady mouse teacher wants me to see how many kinds I can find. You know so much about the woods, Uncle Wiggily, that I wish you'd come with me."

"I will," said the nice rabbit gentleman. "Wait until I get my tall silk hat and my red, white and blue striped barber pole rheumatism crutch."

And, when he had them, off he started, holding Susie's paw in his, and limping along under the green trees and over the carpet of green moss.

Uncle Wiggily and the little rabbit girl found many kinds of flowers in the woods. There were violets, some white, some yellow and some purple, with others blue, like the ones Uncle Wiggily used to make blueing water for Nurse Jane's clothes. And there were red flowers and yellow ones, and some Jacks-in-their-pulpits, which are very queer flowers indeed.

"Here, Susie, is a new kind of blossom. Maybe you would like some of these," said Uncle Wiggily, pointing to a bush that was covered with little round, white balls.

"Oh, I didn't know the snow had lasted this long!" Susie cried. "I thought it had melted long ago."

"I don't see any snow," said Uncle Wiggily, looking around.

"On that bush," said Susie, pointing to the white one.

"Oh!" laughed the bunny uncle. "That does look like snow, to be sure. But it isn't, though the name of the flowers is snowdrop."

"Flowers! I don't call them flowers!" said Susie. "They are only white balls."

"Don't you want to pick any?" asked the rabbit.

"Thank you, no," Susie said. "I like prettier colored flowers than those, which are just plain white."

"Well, I like them, and I'll take some to Nurse Jane," spoke the bunny uncle. So he picked a bunch of the snowdrops and carried them in his paws, while Susie gathered the brighter flowers.

"I think those will be all teacher will want," said the little rabbit girl at last.

"Yes, we had better be getting home," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "Nurse Jane will soon have supper ready. Won't you come and eat with me, Susie?"

"Thank you, I will, Uncle Wiggily," and the little bunny girl clapped her paws; that is, as well as she could, on account of holding her flowers, for she loved to eat at Uncle Wiggily's hollow stump bungalow, as did all the animal children.

Well, Uncle Wiggily and Susie were going along and along through the woods, when, all of a sudden, as they passed a high rock, out from behind it jumped the bad old tail-pulling monkey.

"Ah, ha!" chattered the monkey chap. "I am just in time, I see."

"Time for what?" asked Uncle Wiggily, suspicious like.

"To pull your tails," answered the monkey. "I haven't had any tails to pull in a long while, and I must pull some. So, though you rabbits haven't very good tails, for pulling, I must do the best I can. Now come to me and have your tails pulled. Come on!"

"Oh, dear!" cried Susie. "I don't want my tail pulled, even if it is very short."

"Nor I mine," Uncle Wiggily said.

"That makes no manner of difference to me," chattered the monkey. "I'm a tail-pulling chap, and tails I must pull. So you might as well have it over with, now as later." And he spoke just like a dentist who wants to take your lolly-pop away from you.

"Pull our tails! Well, I guess you won't!" cried Uncle Wiggily suddenly. "Come on, Susie! Let's run away!"

Before the monkey could grab them Uncle Wiggily and Susie started to run. But soon the monkey was running after them, crying:

"Stop! Stop! I must pull your tails!"

"But we don't want you to," answered Susie.

"Oh, but you must let me!" cried the monkey. Then he gave a great big, long, strong and double-jointed jump, like a circus clown going over the backs of fourteen elephants, and part of another one, and the monkey grabbed Uncle Wiggily by his ears.

"Oh, let go of me, if you please!" begged the bunny. "I thought you said you pulled tails and not ears."

"I do pull tails when I can get hold of them," said the malicious monkey. "But as I can't easily get hold of your tail, and as your ears are so large that I can easily grab them, I'll pull them instead. All ready now, a long pull, a strong pull and a pull altogether!"

"Stop!" cried the bunny uncle, just as the monkey was going to give the three kinds of pull at once. "Stop!"

"No!" answered the monkey. "No! No!"

"Yes! Yes!" cried the bunny uncle. "If you don't stop pulling my ears you'll freeze!" and with that the bunny uncle pulled out from behind him, where he had kept them hidden, the bunch of white snowdrops.

"Ah, ha!" cried Mr. Longears to the monkey. "You come from a warm country, where there is no snow or snowdrops. Now when you see these snow drops, shiver and shake--see how cold it is! Shiver and shake! Shake and shiver! Burr-r-r-r-r!"

Uncle Wiggily made believe the flowers were real snow, sort of shivering himself (pretend like) and the tail-pulling chap, who was very much afraid of cold and snow and ice, chattered and said:

"Oh, dear! Oh, how cold I am! Oh, I'm freezing. I am going back to my warm nest in the tree and not pull any tails until next summer!"

And then the monkey ran away, thinking the snowdrops Uncle Wiggily had picked were bits of real snow.

"I'm sorry I said the snowdrops weren't nice," spoke Susie, as she and Uncle Wiggily went safely home. "They are very nice. Only for them the monkey would have pulled our tails."

But he didn't, you see, and if the hookworm doesn't go to the moving pictures with the gold fish and forget to come back to play tag with the toy piano, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the horse chestnut tree.

STORY XIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE HORSE CHESTNUT

"Bang! Bango! Bunko! Bunk! Slam!"

Something made a big noise on the front porch of the hollow stump bungalow, where, in the woods, lived Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman.

"My goodness!" cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. "I hope nothing has happened!"

"Well, from what I heard I should say it is quite certain that SOMETHING has happened," spoke the bunny uncle, sort of twisting his ears very anxious like.

"I only hope the chimney hasn't turned a somersault, and that the roof is not trying to play tag with the back steps," went on Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, a bit scared like.

"I'll go see what it is," offered Uncle Wiggily, and as he went to the front door there, on the piazza, he saw Billie Wagtail, the little goat boy.

"Oh, good morning, Uncle Wiggily," spoke Billie, politely. "Here's a note for you. I just brought it."

"And did you bring all that noise with you?" Mr. Longears wanted to know.

"Well, yes, I guess I did," Billie said, sort of bashful like and shy as he wiggled his horns. "I was seeing how fast I could run, and I ran down hill and got going so lickity-split like that I couldn't stop. I fell right up your front steps, rattle-te-bang!"

"I should say it was rattle-te-bang!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "But please don't do it again, Billie."

"I won't," promised the goat boy. "Grandpa Goosey Gander gave me that note to leave for you on my way to the store for my mother. And now I must hurry on," and Billie jumped off the porch and skipped along through the Woodland trees as happy as a huckleberry pie and a piece of cheese.

"What was it all about?" asked Nurse Jane, when Uncle Wiggily came in.

"Oh, just Billie Wagtail," answered the bunny uncle. "He brought a note from Grandpa Goosey, who wants me to come over and see him. I'll go. He has the epizootic, and can't get out, so he wants some one to talk to and to play checkers with him."

Off through the woods went Uncle Wiggily and he was almost at Grandpa Goosey's house when he heard some voices talking. One voice said:

"Oh, dear! How thirsty I am!"

"And so am I!" said another.

"Well, children, I am sorry," spoke a third voice, "but I cannot give you any water. I am thirsty myself, but we cannot drink until it rains, and it has not rained in a long, long time."

"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried the other voices again. "How thirsty we are!"

"That's too bad," thought Uncle Wiggily. "I would not wish even the bad fox to be thirsty. I must see if I can not be of some help."

So he peeked through the bushes and saw some trees.

"Was it you who were talking about being thirsty?" asked the rabbit gentleman, curious like.

"Yes," answered the big voice. "I am a horse chestnut tree, and these are my children," and the large tree waved some branches, like fingers, at some small trees growing under her.

"And they, I suppose, are pony chestnut trees," said Uncle Wiggily.

"That's what we are!" cried the little trees, "and we are very thirsty."

"Indeed they are," said the mother tree. "You see we are not like you animals. We cannot walk to a spring or well to get a drink when we are thirsty. We have to stay, rooted in one place, and wait for the rain, or until some one waters us."

"Well, some one is going to water you right away!" cried Uncle Wiggily in his jolly voice. "I'll bring you some water from the duck pond, which is near by."

Then, borrowing a pail from Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, Uncle Wiggily poured water all around the dry earth, in which grew the horse chestnut tree and the little pony trees.

"Oh! How fine that is!" cried the thirsty trees. "It is almost as nice as rain. You are very good, Uncle Wiggily," said the mother tree, "and if ever we can do you a favor we will."

"Thank you," spoke Uncle Wiggily, making a low bow with his tall silk hat. Then he went on to Grandpa Goosey's where he visited with his epizootic friend and played checkers.

On his way home through the woods, Uncle Wiggily was unpleasantly surprised when, all of a sudden out from behind a stone jumped a bad bear. He wasn't at all a good, nice bear like Beckie or Neddie Stubtail.

"Bur-r-r-r-r!" growled the bear at Uncle Wiggily. "I guess I'll scratch you."

"Oh, please don't," begged the bunny uncle.

"Yes, I shall!" grumbled the bear. "And I'll hug you, too!"

"Oh, no! I'd rather you wouldn't!" said the bunny uncle. For well he knew that a bear doesn't hug for love. It's more of a hard, rib-cracking squeeze than a hug. If ever a bear wants to hug you, just don't you let him. Of course if daddy or mother wants to hug, why, that's all right.

"Yes, I'm going to scratch you and hug you," went on the bad bear, "and after that--well, after that I guess I'll take you off to my den."

"Oh, please don't!" begged Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his nose and thinking that he might make the bear laugh. For if ever you can get a bear to laugh he won't hurt you a bit. Just remember that. Tickle him, or do anything to get him to laugh. But this bear wouldn't even smile. He just growled again and said:

"Well, here I come, Uncle Wiggily, to hug you!"

"Oh, no you don't!" all of a sudden cried a voice in the air.

"Ha! Who says I don't?" grumbled the bear, impolite like.

"I do," went on the voice. And the bear saw some trees waving their branches at him.

"Pooh! I'm not afraid of you!" growled the bear, and he made a rush for the bunny. "I'm not afraid of trees."

"Not afraid of us, eh? Well, you'd better be!" said the mother tree. "I'm a strong horse chestnut and these are my strong little ponies. Come on, children, we won't let the bear get Uncle Wiggily." Then the strong horse chestnut tree and the pony trees reached down with their powerful branches and, catching hold of the bear, they tossed him up in the air, far away over in the woods, at the same time pelting him with green, prickly horse chestnuts, and the bear came down ker-bunko in a bramble brier bush.

"Oh, wow!" cried the bear, as he felt his soft and tender nose being scratched. "I'll be good! I'll be good!"

And he was, for a little while, anyhow. So this shows you how a horse chestnut tree saved the bunny gentleman, and if the postman doesn't stick a stamp on our cat's nose so it can't eat molasses cake when it goes to the puppy dog's party, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the pine tree.

STORY XIV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PINE TREE

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, put on his tall silk hat, polished his glasses with the tip of his tail, to make them shiny so he could see better through them, and then, taking his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch down off the mantel, he started out of his hollow stump bungalow one day.

"Better take an umbrella, hadn't you?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. "It looks as though we might have an April shower."

"An umbrella? Yes, I think I will take one," spoke the bunny uncle, as he saw some dark clouds in the sky. "They look as though they might have rain in them."

"Are you going anywhere in particular?" asked the muskrat lady, as she tied her tail in a soft knot.

"No, not special," Uncle Wiggily answered. "May I have the pleasure of doing something for you?" he asked with a polite bow, like a little girl speaking a piece in school on Friday afternoon.

"Well," said Nurse Jane, "I have baked some apple dumplings with oranges inside, and I thought perhaps you might like to take one to Grandfather Goosey Gander to cheer him up."

"The very thing!" cried Uncle Wiggily, jolly-like. "I'll do it, Nurse Jane."

So with an apple dumpling carefully wrapped up in a napkin and put in a basket, Uncle Wiggily started off through the woods and over the fields to Grandpa Goosey's house.

"I wonder if I shall have an adventure today?" thought the rabbit gentleman as he waved his ears to and fro like the pendulum of a clock. "I think I would like one to give me an appetite for supper. I must watch for something to happen."

He looked all around the woods, but all he could see were some trees.

"I can't have any adventures with them," said the bunny uncle, "though the horse chestnut tree did help me the other day by tossing the bad bear over into the briar bush. But these trees are not like that."

Still Uncle Wiggily was to have an adventure with one of the trees very soon. Just you wait, now, and you shall hear about it.

Uncle Wiggily walked on a little farther and he heard a funny tapping noise in the woods.

"Tap! Tap! Tap! Tappity-tap-tap!" it sounded.

"My! Some one is knocking on a door trying to get in," thought the bunny. "I wonder who it can be?"

Just then he saw a big bird perched on the side of a pine tree, tapping with his bill.

"Tap! Tap! Tap!" went the bird.

"Excuse me," said the bunny uncle, "but you are making a mistake. No one lives in that tree."

"Oh, thank you, Uncle Wiggily. I know that no one lives here," said the bird. "But you see I am a woodpecker, and I am pecking holes in the tree to get some of the sweet juice, or sap. The sap is running in the trees now, for it is Spring. Later on I will tap holes in the bark to get at bugs and worms, when there is no more sap for me to eat."

And the woodpecker went on tapping, tapping, tapping.

"My! That is a funny way to get something to eat," said the bunny gentleman to himself. He watched the bird until it flew away, and then Uncle Wiggily was about to hop on to Grandpa Goosey's house when, all of a sudden, before he could run away, out popped the bad old bear once more.

"Ah, ha! We meet again, I see," growled the bear. "I was not looking for you, Mr. Longears, but all the same I am glad to meet you, for I want to eat you."

"Well," said Uncle Wiggily, sort of scratching his pink, twinkling nose with his ear, surprised like. "I can't exactly say I'm glad to see you, good Mr. Bear."

"No, I s'pose not," agreed the fuzzy creature. "But you are mistaken. I am the Bad Mr. Bear, not the Good."

"Oh, excuse me," said Uncle Wiggily. All the while he knew the bear was bad, but he hoped by calling him good, to make him so.

"I'm very bad!" growled the bear, "and I'm going to take you off to my den with me. Come along!"

"Oh, I don't want to," said the bunny uncle, shivering his tail.

"But you must!" growled the bear. "Come on, now!"

"Oh, dear!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Will you let me go if I give you what's in my basket?" he asked, and he held up the basket with the nice orange apple turnover in it. "Let me go if I give you this," begged the bunny uncle.

"Maybe I will, and maybe I won't," said the bear, cunning like. "Let me see what it is."

He took the basket from Uncle Wiggily, and looking in, said:

"Ah, ha! An apple turnover-dumpling with oranges in it! I just love them! Ah, ha!"

"Oh," thought Uncle Wiggily. "I hope he eats it, for then maybe I can get away when he doesn't notice me. I hope he eats it!"

And the bear, leaning his back against the pine tree in which the woodpecker had been boring holes, began to take bites out of the apple dumpling which Nurse Jane had baked for Grandpa Goosey.

"Now's my chance to get away!" thought the bunny gentleman. But when he tried to hop softly off, as the bear was eating the sweet stuff, the bad creature saw him and cried:

"Ah, ha! No you don't! Come hack here!" and with his claws he pulled Uncle Wiggily close to him again.

Then the bunny uncle noticed that some sweet, sticky juice or gum, like that on fly paper, was running down the trunk of the tree from the holes the woodpecker had drilled in it.

"Oh, if the bear only leans back hard enough and long enough against that sticky pine tree," thought Mr. Longears, "he'll be stuck fast by his furry hair and he can't get me. I hope he sticks!"

And that is just what happened. The bear enjoyed eating the apple dumpling so much that he leaned back harder and harder against the sticky tree. His fur stuck fast in the gum that ran out. Finally the bear ate the last crumb of the dumpling.

"And now I'll get you!" he cried to the bunny uncle; "I'll get you!"

But did the bear get Uncle Wiggily? He did not. The bear tried to jump toward the rabbit, but could not. He was stuck fast to the sticky pine tree and Uncle Wiggily could now run safely back to his hollow stump bungalow to get another dumpling for Grandpa Goosey.

So the bear had no rabbit, after all, and all he did was to stay stuck fast to the pine tree until a big fox came along and helped him to get loose, and the bear cried "Wouch!" because his fur was pulled.

So Uncle Wiggily was all right, you see, after all, and very thankful he was to the pine tree for holding fast to the bear.

And in the next story, if our cat doesn't go hunting for the poll parrot's cracker in the gold fish bowl and get his whiskers all wet, I'll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the green rushes.

STORY XV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE GREEN RUSHES

Once upon a time Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, was taking a walk in the woods, looking for an adventure, as he often did, when, as he happened to go past the hollow tree, where Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, the two squirrel boys lived, he saw them just poking their noses out of the front door, which was a knot-hole.

"Hello, boys!" called Uncle Wiggily. "Why haven't you gone to school today? It is time, I'm sure."

"Oh, we don't have to go today," answered Billie, as he looked at his tail to see if any chestnut burrs were sticking in it. But none was, I am glad to say.

"Don't have to go to school? Why not?" Uncle Wiggily wanted to know. "This isn't Saturday, is it?"

"No," spoke Johnnie. "But you see, Sister Sallie, our little squirrel sister, has the measles, and we can't go to school until she gets over them."