Part 1

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_BEDTIME STORIES_

UNCLE WIGGILY’S AIRSHIP

BY

HOWARD R. GARIS

Author of “Sammie and Susie Littletail,” “Nannie and Billie Wagtail,” “Uncle Wiggily at the Seashore,” “The Daddy Series,” “The Island Boys Series,” Etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY LOUIS WISA

A. L. BURT COMPANY PUBLISHERS - - NEW YORK

Books by Howard R. Garis

THE UNCLE WIGGILY BOOKS

Cloth, Decorated Cover, Eight Colored Illustrations Price 75 Cents Each

Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures Uncle Wiggily’s Airship Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard Uncle Wiggily at the Seashore Uncle Wiggily’s Automobile Uncle Wiggily and Buddy and Brighteyes Pigg Uncle Wiggily and Bully and Bawly No-Tail Uncle Wiggily and Charlie and Arabella Chick Uncle Wiggily and Curly and Floppy Twisty-Tail Uncle Wiggily and Dickie and Nellie Fliptail Uncle Wiggily and Dottie and Willie Flufftail Uncle Wiggily’s Fortune Uncle Wiggily in Fairyland Uncle Wiggily in the Country Uncle Wiggily in the Woods Uncle Wiggily in Wonderland Uncle Wiggily and Jackie and Pettie Bow-Wow Uncle Wiggily and Jacko and Jurapo Kinkytail Uncle Wiggily and Johnny and Billy Bushytail Uncle Wiggily and Joie, Tommy and Kittie Kat Uncle Wiggily and Jollie and Jillie Longtail Uncle Wiggily’s Journey Uncle Wiggily and Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble Uncle Wiggily and Nannie and Billie Wagtail Uncle Wiggily and Neddie and Beckie Stubtail Uncle Wiggily on the Farm Uncle Wiggily’s Rheumatism Uncle Wiggily and Sammie and Susie Littletail Uncle Wiggily and Toodle and Noodle Flattail Uncle Wiggily’s Travels Uncle Wiggily and Woodie and Waddie Chuck Uncle Wiggily and the Ringtails Uncle Wiggily in Magic Land

THE DADDY BOOKS

Nature Stories for Children. Cloth Bound, Colored and Black and White Pictures. Price 50 Cents Each

Daddy Takes Us Camping Daddy Takes Us Fishing Daddy Takes Us to the Circus Daddy Takes Us Skating Daddy Takes Us Coasting Daddy Takes Us Hunting Birds Daddy Takes Us Hunting Flowers Daddy Takes Us to the Woods Daddy Takes Us to the Farm Daddy Takes Us to the Garden

Copyright, 1915, by R. F. FENNO & COMPANY

UNCLE WIGGILY’S AIRSHIP

The stories herein contained appeared originally in the Evening News, of Newark, N. J., where (so many children and their parents were kind enough to say) they gave pleasure to a number of little folks and grown-ups also. Permission to issue the stories in book form was kindly granted by the publisher and editor of the News, to whom the author extends his thanks.

CONTENTS

STORY PAGE

I. Uncle Wiggily and Mother Goose 9

II. Uncle Wiggily Up a Tree 16

III. Uncle Wiggily and the Little Birds 23

IV. Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey 29

V. Uncle Wiggily and the Fire 35

VI. Uncle Wiggily Helps Dr. Possum 40

VII. Uncle Wiggily and the Moth Balls 47

VIII. Uncle Wiggily and the Dentist 53

IX. Uncle Wiggily and the Grocery Cat 59

X. Uncle Wiggily and the Smoky Chimney 65

XI. Uncle Wiggily and the Church Bell 72

XII. Uncle Wiggily and the Doll House 78

XIII. Uncle Wiggily and the Bird Seed 84

XIV. Uncle Wiggily and the Baby Rabbit 90

XV. Uncle Wiggily and the Popgun 96

XVI. Uncle Wiggily and the Butterfly 102

XVII. Uncle Wiggily and the Sawdust 108

XVIII. Uncle Wiggily and the Dusty Carpet 114

XIX. Uncle Wiggily and the Little Lamb 120

XX. Uncle Wiggily and the Soap Bubbles 126

XXI. Uncle Wiggily and the Cake of Ice 132

XXII. Uncle Wiggily and Charlie Chick 138

XXIII. Uncle Wiggily and Lulu Wibblewobble 144

XXIV. Uncle Wiggily and the Lemonade Stand 150

XXV. Uncle Wiggily and the Watering Hose 156

XXVI. Uncle Wiggily and the Thunder Storm 162

XXVII. Uncle Wiggily and the Trunk 168

XXVIII. Uncle Wiggily Goes to School 174

XXIX. Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane 180

XXX. Uncle Wiggily and the Moo-Cow 186

XXXI. Uncle Wiggily and the Sheep 192

Uncle Wiggily’s Airship

STORY I

UNCLE WIGGILY AND MOTHER GOOSE

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, sat in his burrow-house reading the morning paper. It was after breakfast, on a nice, sunny May day, and outside the flowers were blossoming and making perfume and honey for the bees as they nodded their heads in the air. I mean the flowers nodded their heads—not the bees. The bees were far too busy to do that.

“Yes,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself, “I think I must get one. They are getting very fashionable and stylish. I certainly must get one for myself,” and he let the paper slip down to the floor, and he sat there in his easy chair, sort of thinking to himself, and nodding his head every now and then, as he said, over and over again:

“Yes, I must get one. It will do me more good than riding around in my automobile or going to the seashore.”

“My gracious me sakes alive and some horseradish apple pie!” exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady who kept house for Uncle Wiggily. She was out in the kitchen, doing up the dishes, and she heard what the old rabbit gentleman had said, though he did not think she had.

“I wonder what it is he is going to do now?” Nurse Jane said to herself. “He’s been so funny lately—doing those queer new dances—the corn meal flop, the apple dumpling dip and the machoo-choo slide. I hope he isn’t going to do anything more foolish. I wonder what it is?”

But Uncle Wiggily didn’t tell Nurse Jane—at least just then. He got up, put on his fur coat—oh, listen to me, would you! A fur coat in May! I mean Uncle Wiggily put on his light coat, and without wearing a hat, which he never did in the summer, out he went, leaving Nurse Jane to wonder what it was he was going to do.

Uncle Wiggily went to a store where they sold toy circus balloons, and of the monkey gentleman who kept the store he asked:

“Have you any flying machines?”

“What do you mean—flying machines?” asked the monkey gentleman. “Do you mean birds?”

“Well, birds are flying machines, of course,” the rabbit gentleman said. “But I mean a sort of airship that I could go up in as if I were in a balloon, and fly around in the clouds. I am going to get one of those airships for a change.”

“Ha!” exclaimed the monkey gentleman. “You certainly are a queer one, Uncle Wiggily, to want to do that. But I am sorry to say I have no airships.”

“Then I will have to make one,” said the rabbit. “Please give me some of your balloons.”

Uncle Wiggily took some red balloons, two blue ones, a green one, a pink one and one colored skilligimink, which is a very funny color. It was like the Easter egg dye color into which Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, once fell, getting all splashed up.

“I don’t see how you are going to make an airship out of those toy balloons,” said the monkey gentleman.

“I’ll show you,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “I next need a clothes basket. I’ll leave my balloons here until I get that. You see,” the old rabbit gentleman went on, “I want to surprise my housekeeper, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy. She doesn’t know I’m going to have an airship,” and Uncle Wiggily winked both eyes, sort of comical like, and twinkled his nose as if he were going to sneeze.

He went off to get the clothes basket, and when he had it he fastened the toy balloons to it by strings tied to the handles.

“There!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “You see, the toy balloons will lift up the clothes basket and me in it. That will be an airship.”

“But will it sail in the air?” asked the monkey gentleman.

“To be sure it will,” Uncle Wiggily said. “To make it go forward I am going to put an electric fan in the back of the clothes basket. The fan will whizz around and push the air away, and when the air is pushed out of the way I can shoot ahead, and I’ll be sailing. Now you watch me, if you please.”

So the rabbit gentleman tied the balloons to the clothes basket, and he made the basket fast to the ground with some clothes-pins, so it wouldn’t go up before he was ready for it. Next he got an electric fan, which goes around whizzie-izzie and makes the air cool on a hot day, and the rabbit gentleman fastened this fan on the back of his clothes basket.

“Now I have my airship,” Uncle Wiggily said to the monkey gentleman. “I shall go up and sail to my burrow. I think Nurse Jane will be surprised.”

Uncle Wiggily started to climb into the basket.

“Wait! Wait!” called the monkey gentleman, who had sold him the toy balloons.

“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

“You had better take some soft sofa cushions in with you,” spoke the monkey gentleman. “You—you might fall in your airship, you know,” he whispered, sort of bashful like, “and the cushions would be a good thing to fall on.”

“I believe you are right,” Uncle Wiggily answered. “Thank you! I’ll take a few.”

So he put some sofa cushions in the clothes basket.

“Now I am ready!” he called. “Please take off the clothes-pins and I will go up. I am going to sail like the airship-birdmen I read of in the newspaper this morning.”

The monkey gentleman took the clothes-pins off the ropes that held down Uncle Wiggily’s airship and pop-up it went, lifted by the toy balloons—red, green, blue, orange and skilligimink color.

“Now, here I go!” cried the rabbit gentleman, as he started the electric fan. And, surely enough, through the air he sailed, as nicely as you please, right above the tree tops, in his new airship he flew.

“Oh, this is great!” cried Uncle Wiggily. Pretty soon he was right over his house. “I’m always going to travel this way, from now on,” he said. “Airships are fine.”

And then, all of a sudden, something happened. Mother Goose, who happened to be flying through the air on a broomstick, that day, accidentally dropped a paper of pins she had just bought. They fell down with their sharp points on Uncle Wiggily’s balloons, that were fastened to the clothes-basket. The balloons burst, “Pop! Pop! Poppity! Pop! Pop!” and down fell the clothes-basket airship, Uncle Wiggily and all.

“Oh dear!” cried Mother Goose.

Right down in front of his own door Uncle Wiggily fell and only for the soft cushions he might have been hurt. As it was, his rheumatism was jarred up a little.

“Oh, my!” cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, rushing out of the house. “What is this? What has happened, Wiggy?”

“Why, this is my new airship,” answered the rabbit gentleman, sort of dazed and puzzled like. “I just made it and I came along to surprise you.”

“Well, you surprised me all right,” said Nurse Jane. “Now, come in the house and I’ll rub your back with witch hazel. You must be all bruised! You had better leave airships alone after this.”

“I guess I had,” said Uncle Wiggily sadly.

But do you s’pose he did? Not a bit of it. He was right at it again next day, and in the story after this, if the rose bush doesn’t scratch the eyes out of the potato salad, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily up a tree.

STORY II

UNCLE WIGGILY UP A TREE

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, walked out in front of his burrow house one morning, and looked at his new airship. He limped a little, for you know he had had a fall the day before, tumbling down almost out of the clouds. But he fell on some sofa cushions, that the monkey gentleman had put in the clothes basket part of the airship, so Mr. Longears was not much hurt—only his rheumatism was sort of twisted.

I guess I told you, did I not, how Uncle Wiggily made himself an airship out of some toy balloons, a clothes basket, and an electric fan? He thought he would fly through the air for a while, instead of riding around in his automobile.

But Mother Goose had accidentally dropped a lot of pins on the toy balloons that lifted up the airship, and when the balloons burst, with loud “pops,” the airship came down “ker-floppo!”—if you will kindly excuse me for saying so.

So Uncle Wiggily walked out in front of his burrow, or underground house, and looked at his broken airship.

“I’m afraid it will never sail again!” said Uncle Wiggily, sadly, as he noticed the burst balloons and the clothes basket, which had quite a dent in one of the handles. The electric fan was not hurt at all, I am glad to say, only it had stopped whizzing around, of course.

“It’s too bad!” Uncle Wiggily went on. “My nice airship, that I thought would take me sailing all over, is broken. I can’t go riding in it again.”

“What!” cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept house for the rabbit gentleman. “You don’t mean to tell me that you would ever go sailing again in an airship, after what happened; would you?”

“I certainly would,” answered Uncle Wiggily, as he combed out his whiskers with a shoestring. “I would love to go airshipping again.”

“Well, well!” cried Nurse Jane. “This is worse than dancing the clam chowder clip! I am certainly surprised at you.”

“But you don’t need to worry,” said Uncle Wiggily. “My airship is broken, so there is not much danger of me going sailing again.”

“I am glad of it,” said Nurse Jane, “for your sake.”

“Oh, ho!” exclaimed a voice from behind the ice cream freezer, “something broken, eh? Well, perhaps I can fix it,” and out stepped Dr. Possum, with his satchel of red, white and blue pills. “What is broken?” he asked. “Anybody’s legs or arms?”

“My airship,” replied Uncle Wiggily. “The balloons that lift it up into the air are all burst from Mother Goose’s pins.”

“Ha! Buy new balloons!” cried Dr. Possum. “That’s easy!”

“The very thing!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “I never thought of that. But the clothes basket has a dent in it.”

“Oh, as to that, I can easily fix the dent,” said Dr. Possum. “I am used to fixing dents. I can do harder things than that. You go get some more new toy balloons, and I’ll fix the basket. You shall have your airship again.”

“Oh, dear me and some molasses pancakes!” cried Nurse Jane. “I can see a lot more trouble ahead for Uncle Wiggily if he is going around in an airship. I had better buy some court-plaster at the five and six cent store, for he will need it. He is sure to fall again, and get all cut and bruised.”

So Nurse Jane kindly went to the store for the court-plaster. Dr. Possum mended the dent in the clothes basket, and Uncle Wiggily went after the toy balloons. He got some red, green, yellow and sky-blue-pink ones, and soon his airship was made over as good as ever again.

“Now watch me sail in it!” the rabbit gentleman cried, as he got into the clothes basket, to which the balloons and electric fan were fastened. “I’m going away up to the clouds this time.”

“Well, I only hope you don’t fall,” said Nurse Jane, sort of anxious like.

“I’ve got the soft sofa cushions under me, if I do,” answered Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh.

Up he went, high in the air, the electric fan going whizzie-izzie, and the balloons lifting the clothes basket off the ground.

Well, Uncle Wiggily in his airship, sailed on and on, and pretty soon, all of a sudden, quick-like, it began to hail. There was a hard hail storm. And hail, you know, is frozen rain. Down pelted the round hail stones on Uncle Wiggily and his airship.

“Oh, me! Oh, my, and some lolly-pops!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I think something is going to happen.” And just then a hail stone hit on the end of his twinkling nose, making him sneeze—“ker-cher! Ker-choo!”

Then something else happened. More hail stones came down, and “Pop! Pop! Pop!” went the toy balloons, bursting one after another, as the hard hail hit them, just as when the Mother Goose pins had pricked them.

“Oh, dear! I’m going to fall again!” cried the rabbit gentleman, for he knew when the balloons burst there would be nothing to hold him and his clothesbasket airship up above the earth.

And, surely enough, he began to fall. Down and down he went, with the hail falling all around him.

“My! I hope the sofa cushions don’t fall out of my clothes basket!” thought the rabbit gentleman, “for if they do I will get a very hard bump.”

But, as it happened, he did not need the soft cushions, for, all of a sudden, his airship turned over, and he fell into a tree, spilling right out, and landing in the branches. Luckily, there were green leaves on them, and they made a soft place on which Uncle Wiggily fell. He was scratched some, but Nurse Jane’s court plaster would fix that. The airship, however, kept on falling until it landed on the ground at the foot of the tree.

“Oh, I wonder how I am to get down?” said Uncle Wiggily. “It is very far from the top of this tree to the earth, and I cannot climb, as the Bushytail squirrel boys, or as Kittie Kat can. What shall I do? Oh, dear!”

And just then along came Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, himself.

“I’ll help you get down!” called Johnnie to Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll get a rope, and climb up with it to you. Then you can make a rope ladder, fasten one end to a limb of the tree, and climb down that.”

“Fine!” cried Uncle Wiggily. The little squirrel boy found a grape vine rope, and up the tree he scrambled, carrying one end of it up to Uncle Wiggily, who soon made a rope ladder, such as sailors use. Then the rabbit gentleman came down on that as nicely as you please.

“Well, my airship is badly broken,” he said, as he looked at the burst balloons and the bent and twisted clothes basket. “I shall have to fix it before I can sail again.”

“Do you mean to tell me you are going up in that dangerous thing again?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as she stuck a piece of red, white and blue court plaster on Uncle Wiggily’s nose, where the hail stone had hit him.

“I am going to try,” he said, modest like, and shy.

“Oh, dear me, and some popcorn cakes!” cried Nurse Jane. “I never saw such a rabbit—never!”

Then Uncle Wiggily got old dog Percival, with the express wagon, to cart home the broken airship. And in the story after this, if the ice cream cone doesn’t jump up and down on the tablecloth, and poke holes in the loaf of bread, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the little birds.

STORY III

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LITTLE BIRDS

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old rabbit gentleman, was out in his yard one day, whistling away, hammering and sawing and making his funny nose twinkle like a star on a frosty night in June. He could not twinkle his nose so very well because it had on it a piece of red, white and blue court plaster. And the reason he had the plaster there was because the last time he was out in his airship, he had had an accident, and a hailstone had struck him on the nose, as I have told you.

You just try to make your nose twinkle with a piece of court plaster on it, and see how hard it is. It’s almost as hard as it is to stand on your head and peel a basket of soap bubbles.

But still Uncle Wiggily was doing the best he could, and, as I have said, he was whistling and hammering and sawing.

“What in the world are you doing?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept house for Uncle Wiggily.

“I am fixing my airship,” he said. You know he had one, made of a clothes basket, with an electric fan to send it along through the air whizzy-izzie-like, and to lift the airship Uncle Wiggily used a lot of toy circus balloons, tied together.

“Going up in your airship!” cried Nurse Jane. “Why, you were out in it the other day, and look what a terrible fall you had. The hailstones burst your balloons and down you came in a tree. And Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel, had to get you a wild grape vine rope so you could climb down.”

“I know he did,” said Uncle Wiggily, cheerful-like. “And I am very thankful to him.”

“And still, and with all that happened to you, getting your nose scratched and all that, are you again going up in your airship?” Nurse Jane wanted to know.

“I am going up,” said Uncle Wiggily bravely. “I want to learn how to sail all over the world in my airship.”

“But suppose another hailstorm comes and smashes your balloons?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy. “You will fall again, and you may be hurt worse next time.”

“No more hailstones can bother me!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “See, I am going to fasten an umbrella over my toy balloons, and then no hailstones can hit them.” And he whistled more cheerfully than before.

“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “You are surely odd!”

Uncle Wiggily really was fastening a Japanese umbrella over his funny clothes basket airship.

“The umbrella will keep off the sun as well as the rain and hail,” he said happy-like.

Well, the old gentleman rabbit was just getting ready to go up in his airship again, when, from among the leaves of a tree that grew in his garden, he heard a voice saying:

“Now, birdies, it is time you learned to fly. Stand on the limb, where our nest is built, flutter your wings as I do, and jump off. Keep your wings fluttering and you will be flying.”

“Oh, but we are afraid!” cried several tiny chirping voices.

“Ha! That is a mother bird teaching her little ones to fly,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he looked up. “I must watch this. I love little birds.”

“Don’t be afraid,” said the mamma bird to the children birds. “You will not fall. When I was a little bird I was afraid, too, but nothing happened to me and I have been flying ever since. Come now, jump off the tree branch into the air.”

“Oh, we’re afraid!” cried the littlest of the birdies.

“Our wings might come off, and then we’d drop to the ground,” said another little bird, as it fluttered back into the nest.

“Nonsense!” cried the mamma bird. “Your wings will not drop off and you will not fall. You must learn to fly now. You are getting old enough to fly for yourselves. Come, Pickie!” she called to the one who had gone back in the nest, “stand in line with the others and learn to fly.”

“Oh, mamma! I can’t! Really I can’t!” cried Pickie, who was given that name because he had such a sharp little bill for picking up bread crumbs.

“You must learn to fly,” said the mamma bird. “Your papa will soon be home, and think how proud he will be if you can fly to meet him!”

“Oh, we are afraid,” said the little birds.

It is just like when baby first learns to walk. At the beginning he is afraid to take a step alone, but soon he grows braver and toddles all over.

“Come! Fly!” called the mamma bird.

“We are afraid—afraid!” chirped the little birdies.

“Ha! I think I can help the mamma bird give them their flying lesson,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I will go up in my airship and float slowly along. I will keep right under the little birds, and I’ll tell them that if their wings give out, and if they fall, they will land on my umbrella and not get hurt at all.”

So away he went in his airship, and when he got near the top of the tree, with the electric fan buzzing and the toy balloons lifting him up, the rabbit gentleman called:

“See me, birdies! I am flying, and you know a rabbit has no wings. Look!”

“Exactly,” said the mamma bird. “See, little ones! If Uncle Wiggily is not afraid to fly, you should not be, for you were made on purpose for sailing through the air, and he was not.”