Chapter 7

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, was walking along in the woods one day, sort of hopping and leaning on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and he was wondering whether or not he would have an adventure, when, all at once, he heard a little voice crying:

"Oh, dear! I never can get up! I never can get up! Oh, dear!"

"Ha! that sounds like some one who can't get out of bed," exclaimed the bunny uncle. "I wonder who it can be? Perhaps I can help them."

So he looked carefully around, but he saw no one, and he was just about to hop along, thinking perhaps he had made a mistake, and had not heard anything after all, when, suddenly, the voice sounded again, and called out:

"Oh, I can't get up! I can't get up! Can't you shine on me this way?"

"No, I am sorry to say I cannot," answered another voice. "But try to push your way through, and then I can shine on you, and make you grow."

There was silence for a minute, and then the first voice said again:

"Oh, it's no use! I can't push the stone from over my head. Oh, such trouble as I have!"

"Trouble, eh?" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Here is where I come in. Who are you, and what is the trouble?" he asked, looking all around, and seeing nothing but the shining sun.

"Here I am, down in the ground near your left hind leg," was the answer. "I am a woodland flower and I have just started to grow. But when I tried to put my head up out of the ground, to get air, and drink the rain water, I find I cannot do it. A big stone is in the way, right over my head, and I cannot push it aside to get up. Oh, dear!" sighed the Woodland flower.

"Oh, don't worry about that!" cried Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice. "I'll lift the stone off your head for you," and he did, just as he once had helped a Jack-in-the-pulpit flower to grow up, as I have told you in another story. Under the stone were two little pale green leaves on a stem that was just cracking its way up through the brown earth.

"There you are!" cried the bunny uncle. "But you don't look much like a flower."

"Oh! I have only just begun to grow," was the answer. "And I never would have been a flower if you had not taken the stone from me. You see, when I was a baby flower, or seed, I was covered up in my warm bed of earth. Then came the cold winter, and I went to sleep. When spring came I awakened and began to grow, but in the meanwhile this stone was put over me. I don't know by whom. But it held me down.

"But now I am free, and my pale green leaves will turn to dark green, and soon I will blossom out into a flower."

"How will all that happen?" Uncle Wiggily asked.

"When the sunbeam shines on me," answered the blossom. "That is why I wanted to get above the stone--so the sunbeam could shine on me and warm me."

"And I will begin to do it right now!" exclaimed the sunbeam, who had been playing about on the leaves of the trees, waiting for a chance to shine on the green plant and turn it into a beautiful flower. "Thank you, Uncle Wiggily, for taking the stone off the leaves so I could shine on them," went on the sunbeam, who had known Uncle Wiggily for some time. "Though I am strong I am not strong enough to lift stones, nor was the flower. But now I can do my work. I thank you, and I hope I may do you a favor some time."

"Thank you," Uncle Wiggily said, with a low bow, raising his tall silk hat. "I suppose you sunbeams are kept very busy shining on, and warming, all the plants and trees in the woods?"

"Yes, indeed!" answered the yellow sunbeam, who was a long, straight chap. "We have lots of work to do, but we are never too busy to shine for our friends."

Then the sunbeam played about the little green plant, turning the pale leaves a darker color and swelling out the tiny buds. Uncle Wiggily walked on through the woods, glad that he had had even this little adventure.

It was a day or so after this that the bunny uncle went to the store for Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept his hollow stump bungalow so nice and tidy.

"I want a loaf of bread, a yeast cake and three pounds of sugar," said Nurse Jane.

"It will give me great pleasure to get them for you," answered the rabbit gentleman politely. On his way home from the store with the sugar, bread and yeast cake, Uncle Wiggily thought he would hop past the place where he had lifted the stone off the head of the plant, to see how it was growing. And, as he stood there, looking at the flower, which was much taller than when the bunny uncle had last seen it, all of a sudden there was a rustling in the bushes, and out jumped a bad old fox.

"Ah, ha!" barked the fox, like a dog. "You are just the one I want to see!"

"You want to see me?" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I think you must be mistaken," he went on politely.

"Oh, no, not at all!" barked the fox. "You have there some sugar, some bread and a yeast cake; have you not?"

"I have," answered Uncle Wiggily.

"Well, then, you may give me the bread and sugar and after I eat them I will start in on you. I will take you off to my den, to my dear little foxes. Eight, Nine and Ten. They have numbers instead of names, you see."

"But I don't want to give you Nurse Jane's sugar and bread, and go with you to your den," said the rabbit gentleman. "I don't want to! I don't like it!"

"You can't always do as you like," barked the fox. "Quick now--the sugar and bread!"

"What about the yeast cake?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as he held it out, all wrapped in shiny tinfoil, like a looking-glass. "What about the yeast cake?"

"Oh, throw it away!" growled the fox.

"No, don't you do it!" whispered a voice in Uncle Wiggily's ear, and there was the sunbeam he had met the other day. "Hold out the yeast cake and I will shine on it very brightly, and then I'll slant, or bounce off from it, into the eyes of the fox," said the sunbeam. "And when I shine in his eyes I'll tickle him, and he'll sneeze, and you can run away."

So Uncle Wiggily held out the bright yeast cake. Quick as a flash the sunbeam glittered on it, and then reflected itself into the eyes of the fox.

"Ker-chool!" he sneezed. "Ker-chooaker-choo!" and tears came into the fox's eyes, so he could not see Uncle Wiggily, who, after thanking the sunbeam, hurried safely back to his bungalow with the things for Nurse Jane.

So the fox got nothing at all but a sneeze, you see, and when he had cleared the tears out of his eyes Uncle Wiggily was gone. So the sunbeam did the bunny gentleman a favor after all, and if the coal man doesn't put oranges in our cellar, in mistake for apples when he brings a barrel of wood, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the puff ball.

STORY XXIV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PUFF BALL

"Are you going for a walk to-day, as you nearly always do, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, of the rabbit gentleman, as he got up from the breakfast table in the hollow stump bungalow one morning.

"Why, yes, Janie, I am going for a walk in the woods very soon," answered Uncle Wiggily. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"There is," said the muskrat lady. "Something for yourself, also."

"What is it?" Uncle Wiggily wanted to know, sort of making his pink nose turn orange color by looking up at the sun and sneezing. "What is it that I can do for myself as well as for you, Janie?"

"Cream puffs," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.

"Cream puffs?" cried the bunny uncle, hardly knowing whether his housekeeper was fooling or in earnest.

"Yes, I want some cream puffs for supper, and if you stop at the baker's and get them you will be doing yourself a favor as well as me, for we will both eat them."

"Right gladly will I do it," Uncle Wiggily made answer. "Cream puffs I shall bring from the baker's," and then, whistling a funny little tune, away he hopped to the woods.

It did not take him long to get to the place where the baker had his shop. And in a few minutes Uncle Wiggily was on his way back with some delicious cream puffs in a basket.

"I'll take them home to Nurse Jane for supper," thought the bunny uncle, "and then I can keep on with my walk, looking for an adventure."

You know what cream puffs are, I dare say. They are little, round, puffy balls made of something like piecrust, and they are hollow. The inside is filled with something like corn-starch pudding, only nicer.

Uncle Wiggily was going along with the cream puffs in his basket when, coming to a nice place in the woods, where the sun shone on a green, mossy log, the bunny uncle said:

"I will sit down here a minute and rest."

So he did, but he rested longer than he meant to, for, before he knew it, he fell asleep. And while he slept, along came a bad old weasel, who is as sly as a fox. And the weasel, smelling the cream puffs in the basket, slyly lifted the cover and took every one out, eating them one after the other.

"Now to play a trick on Uncle Wiggily," said the weasel in a whisper, for the bunny uncle was still sleeping. So the bad creature found a lot of puff balls in the woods, and put them in the basket in place of the cream puffs.

Puff balls grow on little plants. They are brown and round and hollow, and, so far, they are like cream puffs, except that inside they have a brown, fluffy powder that flies all over when you break the puff ball. And, if you are not careful, it gets in your eyes and nose and makes you sneeze.

"I should like to see what Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane do when they open the basket, and find puff balls instead of cream puffs," snickered the weasel as he went off, licking his chops, where the cornstarch pudding stuff was stuck on his whiskers. "It will be a great joke on them!"

But let us see what happens.

Uncle Wiggily awakened from his sleep in the woods, and started off toward his hollow stump bungalow.

"I declare!" he cried. "That sleep made me hungry. I shall be glad to eat some of the cream puffs I have in my basket."

"What's that?" asked a sharp voice in the bushes. "What did you say you had in the basket?"

"Cream puffs," answered Uncle Wiggily, without thinking, and then, all of a sudden, out jumped the bad old skillery-scalery alligator with the humps on his tail.

"Ha! Cream puffs!" cried the 'gator, as I call him for short, though he was rather long. "Cream puffs! If there is one thing I like more than another it is cream puffs! It is lucky you brought them with you, or I would have nothing for dessert when I have you for supper."

"Are you--are you going to have me for supper?" asked Uncle Wiggily, sort of anxious like.

"I am!" cried the alligator, positively. "But I will eat the dessert first. Give me those cream puffs!" he cried and he made a grab for the bunny's basket, and, reaching in, scooped out the puff balls, thinking they were cream puffs. The 'gator, without looking, took one bite and a chew and then----

"Oh, my! Ker-sneezio! Ker-snitzio! Ker-choo!" he sneezed as the powder from the puff balls went up his nose and into his eyes. "Oh, what funny cream puffs! Wow!" And, not stopping to so much as nibble at Uncle Wiggily, away ran the alligator to get a drink of lemonade.

So you see, after all, the weasel's trick saved Uncle Wiggily, who soon went back to the store for more cream puffs--real ones this time, and he got safely home with them.

And nothing else happened that day. But if the trolley car stops running down the street to play with the jitney bus, so the pussy cat can have a ride when it wants to go shopping in the three and four-cent store, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the May flowers.

STORY XXV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MAY FLOWERS

"Rat-a-tat!" came a knock on the door of the hollow stump bungalow, where Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, lived in the woods with Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, his muskrat lady housekeeper.

"My! Some one is calling early to-day!" said the bunny uncle.

"Sit still and eat your breakfast," spoke Nurse Jane. "I'll see who it is."

When she opened the door there stood Jimmie Wibblewobble, the boy duck.

"Why where are you going so early this morning, Jimmie?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"I'm going to school," answered the Wibblewobble chap, who was named that because his tail did wibble and wobble from side to side when he walked.

"Aren't you a bit early?" asked Mr. Longears.

"I came early to get you," said Jimmie. "Will you come for a walk with me, Uncle Wiggily? We can walk toward the hollow stump school, where the lady mouse teaches us our lessons."

"Why, it's so very early," Uncle Wiggily went on. "I have hardly had my breakfast. Why so early, Jimmie?"

The duck boy whispered in Uncle Wiggily's ear:

"I want to go early so I can gather some May flowers for the teacher. This is the first day of May, you know, and the flowers that have been wet by the April showers ought to be blossoming now."

"So they had!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I'll hurry with my breakfast, Jimmie, and we'll go gathering May flowers in the woods."

Soon the bunny uncle and the boy duck were walking along where the green trees grew up out of the carpet of soft green moss.

"Oh, here are some yellow violets!" cried Jimmie, as he saw some near an old stump.

"Yes, and I see some white ones!" cried the bunny uncle, as he picked them, while Jimmie plucked the yellow violets with his strong bill, which was also yellow in color.

Then they went on a little farther and saw some bluebells growing, and the bluebell flowers were tinkling a pretty little tinkle tune.

The bluebells even kept on tinkling after Jimmie had picked them for his bouquet. The boy duck waddled on a little farther and all of a sudden, he cried:

"Oh, what a funny flower this is, Uncle Wiggily. It's just like the little ice cream cones that come on Christmas trees, only it's covered with a flap, like a leaf, and under the flap is a little green thing, standing up. What is it?"

"That is a Jack-in-the-pulpit," answered the bunny uncle, "and the Jack is the funny green thing. Jack preaches sermons to the other flowers, telling them how to be beautiful and make sweet perfume."

"I'm going to put a Jack in the bouquet for the lady mouse teacher," said Jimmie, and he did.

Then he and Uncle Wiggily went farther and farther on in the woods, picking May flowers, and they were almost at the hollow stump school when, all at once, from behind a big stone popped the bad ear-scratching cat.

"Ah, ha!" howled the cat. "I am just in time I see. I haven't scratched any ears in ever and ever so long. And you have such nice, big ears, Uncle Wiggily, that it is a real pleasure to scratch them!"

"Do you mean it is a pleasure for me, or for you?" asked the bunny uncle, softly like.

"For me, of course!" meaouwed the cat. "Get ready now for the ear-scratching! Here I come!"

"Oh, please don't scratch my ears!" begged Uncle Wiggily. "Please don't!"

"Yes, I shall!" said the bad cat, stretching out his claws.

"Would you mind scratching my ears, instead of Uncle Wiggily's?" asked Jimmie. "I'll let you scratch mine all you want to."

"I don't want to," spoke the cat. "Your ears are so small that it is no pleasure for me to scratch them--none at all."

"It was very kind of you to offer your ears in place of mine," said Uncle Wiggily to the duck boy. "But I can't let you do that. Go on, bad cat, if you are going to scratch my ears, please do it and have it over with."

"All right!" snarled the cat. "I'll scratch your ears!" She was just going to do it, when Jimmie suddenly picked up a new flower, and holding it toward the cat cried:

"No, you can't scratch Uncle Wiggily's ears! This is a dog-tooth violet I have just picked, and if you harm Uncle Wiggily I'll make the dog-tooth violet bite you!"

And then the big violet went: "Bow! Wow! Wow!" just like a dog, and the cat thinking a dog was after him, meaouwed:

"Oh, my! Oh, dear! This is no place for me!" and away he ran, not scratching Uncle Wiggily at all.

Then Jimmie put the dog-tooth violet (which did not bark any more) in his bouquet and the lady mouse teacher liked the May flowers very much. Uncle Wiggily took his flowers to Nurse Jane.

And if the umbrella doesn't turn inside out, so its ribs get all wet and sneeze the handle off, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the beech tree.

STORY XXVI

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BEECH TREE

"Will you go to the store for me, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, of the rabbit gentleman one day, as he sat out on the porch of his hollow stump bungalow in the woods.

"Indeed I will, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy," said Mr. Longears, most politely. "What is it you want?"

"A loaf of bread and a pound of sugar," she answered, and Uncle Wiggily started off.

"Better take your umbrella," Nurse Jane called after him. "All the April showers are not yet over, even if it is May."

So the rabbit gentleman took his umbrella.

On his way to the store through the woods, the bunny uncle came to a big beech tree, which had nice, shiny white bark on it, and, to his surprise the rabbit gentleman saw a big black bear, standing up on his hind legs and scratching at the tree bark as hard as he could.

"Ha! That is not the right thing to do," said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "If that bear scratches too much of the bark from the tree the tree will die, for the bark of a tree is just like my skin is to me. I must drive the bear away."

The bear, scratching the bark with his sharp claws, stood with his back to Uncle Wiggily, and the rabbit gentleman thought he could scare the big creature away.

So Uncle Wiggily picked up a stone, and throwing it at the bear, hit him on the back, where the skin was so thick it hurt hardly at all.

And as soon as he had thrown the stone Uncle Wiggily in his loudest voice shouted:

"Bang! Bang! Bungity-bang-bung!"

"Oh, my goodness!" cried the bear, not turning around. "The hunter man with his gun must be after me. He has shot me once, but the bullet did not hurt. I had better run away before he shoots me again!"

And the bear ran away, never once looking around, for he thought the stone Mr. Longears threw was a bullet from a gun, you see, and he thought when Uncle Wiggily said "Bang!" that it was a gun going off. So the bunny gentleman scared the bear away.

"Thank you, Uncle Wiggily," said the beech tree. "You saved my life by not letting the bear scratch off all my bark."

"I am glad I did," spoke the rabbit, making a polite bow with his tall silk hat, for Mr. Longears was polite, even to a tree.

"The bear would not stop scratching my bark when I asked him to," went on the beech tree, "so I am glad you came along, and scared him. You did me a great favor and I will do you one if I ever can."

"Thank you," spoke Uncle Wiggily, and then he hopped on to the store to get the loaf of bread and the pound of sugar for Nurse Jane.

It was on the way back from the store that an adventure happened to Uncle Wiggily. He came to the place where his friend the beech tree was standing up in the woods, and a balsam tree, next door to it, was putting some salve, or balsam, on the places where the bear had scratched off the bark, to make the cuts heal.

Then, all of a sudden, out from behind a bush jumped the same bad bear that had done the scratching.

"Ah, ha!" growled the bear, as soon as he saw Uncle Wiggily, "you can't fool me again, making believe a stone is a bullet, and that your 'Bang!' is a gun! You can't fool me! I know all about the trick you played on me. A little bird, sitting up in a tree, saw it and told me!"

"Well," said Uncle Wiggily slowly, "I'm sorry I had to fool you, but it was all for the best. I wanted to save the beech tree."

"Oh, I don't care!" cried the bear, saucy like and impolitely. "I'm going to scratch as much as I like!"

"My goodness! You're almost as bad as the ear-scratching cat!" said Uncle Wiggily. "I guess I'd better run home to my hollow stump bungalow."

"No, you don't!" cried the bear, and, reaching out his claws, he caught hold of Uncle Wiggily, who, with his umbrella, and the bread and sugar, was standing under the beech tree. "You can't get away from me like that," and the bear held tightly to the bunny uncle.

"Oh, dear! What are you going to do to me?" asked the rabbit gentleman.

"First, I'll bite you," said the bear. "No, I guess I'll first scratch you. No, I won't either. I'll scrite you; that's what I'll do. I'll scrite you!"

"What's scrite?" asked Uncle Wiggily, curious like.

"It's a scratch and a bite made into one," said the bear, "and now I'm going to do it."

"Oh, ho! No, you aren't!" suddenly cried the beech tree, who had been thinking of a way to save Uncle Wiggily. "No, you don't scrite my friend!" And with that the brave tree gave itself a shiver and shake, and shook down on the bear a lot of sharp, three-cornered beech nuts. They fell on the bear's soft and tender nose and the sharp edges hurt him so that he cried:

"Wow! Ouch! I guess I made a mistake! I must run away!"

And away he ran from the shower of sharp beech nuts which didn't hurt Uncle Wiggily at all because he raised his umbrella and kept them off. Then he thanked the tree for having saved him from the bear and went safely home. And if the cow bell doesn't moo in its sleep, and wake up the milkman before it's time to bring the molasses for breakfast, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the bitter medicine.

STORY XXVII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BITTER MEDICINE

"How is Jackie this morning, Mrs. Bow Wow?" asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one day, as he stopped at the kennel where the dog lady lived with her two little boys, Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppies. "How is Jackie?"

"Jackie is not so well, I'm sorry to say," answered Mrs. Bow Wow, as she looked carefully along the back fence to see if there were any bad cats there who might meaouw, and try to scratch the puppies.

"Not so well? I am sorry to hear that," spoke the bunny uncle. "What's seems to be the matter?"

"Oh, you know Jackie and Peetie both had the measles," went on Mrs. Bow Wow. "They seemed to get over them nicely, at least Peetie did, but then Jackie caught the epizootic, and he has to stay in bed a week longer, and take bitter medicine."

"Bitter medicine, eh?" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I am sorry to hear that, for I don't like bitter medicine myself."

"Neither does Jackie," continued Mrs. Bow Wow. "In fact, he really doesn't know whether he likes this bitter medicine or not."

"Why, not?" asked the rabbit gentleman.

"Because we can't get him to take a drop," said the puppy dog boy's mother. "Not a drop will he take, though I have fixed it up for him with orange juice and sugar and even put it in a lollypop. But he won't take it, and Dr. Possum says he won't get well unless he takes the bitter medicine."

"Well, Dr. Possum ought to know," said Uncle Wiggily. "But why don't you ask him a good way to give the medicine to Jackie?"

"That's what I'm waiting out here for now," said Mrs. Bow Wow. "I want to catch Dr. Possum when he comes past, and ask him to come in and give Jackie the medicine. The poor boy really needs it to make him well."

"Of course he does," agreed Uncle Wiggily. "And while you are waiting for Dr. Possum I'll see what I can do."

"What are you going to do?" asked Mrs. Bow Wow, as the bunny uncle started for the dog kennel.

"I'm going to try to make Jackie take his bitter medicine. You just stay out here a little while."