Part 2

“And I’ll keep right under you with my airship, to catch you if you fall,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Don’t be afraid, birdies!”

“All right! Here we come!” cried Pickie, getting brave all of a sudden. Off the limb he fluttered, and his brothers and sisters fluttered after him, flapping their wings.

“Oh, we are flying!” they cried joyfully. “We can fly!”

“I knew you could,” called their mamma, soaring on her wings after them. “And how proud your papa will be! Thank you so much, Uncle Wiggily, for making my birdies brave enough to fly.”

“Pray do not mention it,” answered the rabbit gentleman politely, as he sailed about in his airship.

He kept under the little birds for a while, in case they might fall, but none of them did, and soon they fluttered back to the nest for supper. They had learned to fly and were not afraid any more. Wasn’t that good?

And in the next story, if the dish doesn’t run away with the spoon and go to the moving picture show in our back yard, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and Grandfather Goosey Gander.

STORY IV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND GRANDPA GOOSEY

“Well, where are you going to-day?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, of Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as she saw him putting on his red necktie and starting out toward the barn where he kept his airship.

“Where am I going?” he repeated. “Well, to tell you the truth, Nurse Jane, I hardly know.”

“Out in your airship, I suppose,” she said, as she looked in the bread box to see if there was any rice pudding for the pussy cat to play store with.

“Oh, yes, I am going to fly about a bit,” said the rabbit gentleman. “Perhaps I may have an adventure; who knows?”

“Well, I know one thing you will have if you go flying around in that airship of yours,” said Nurse Jane, putting on her apron to peel the oranges for the clam chowder. “You’ll have a fall; that’s what you’ll have. And you’ll skin your nose and stub your toes and maybe rub off the fur from your ears for all I know.”

“Oh, I trust not! I trust not!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily quickly, holding up his paws. “I hope nothing like that will happen. The last time I rode in my airship I did not fall—when I helped to teach the little birds to fly.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll fall this time,” spoke Nurse Jane.

“You are not very cheerful this morning,” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “Have no fear; I will come back safe and sound.”

“Well, all the same, you had better take some court-plaster along in case you scratch your twinkling nose on a bramble briar bush,” said the muskrat lady. So Uncle Wiggily took the court-plaster with him.

Then he went for a ride in his queer airship. I call it queer because it was very odd. The old rabbit gentleman’s airship was made of a clothes basket, with a lot of toy circus balloons tied to it to make it rise up. In back there was a whizzy electric fan to make the airship go along like an automobile, and there was a baby carriage wheel to steer it by. On top of all this was a big Japanese umbrella fastened over the balloons, to keep hail stones from pelting holes in them and making them burst.

That happened once, and Uncle Wiggily and his airship had a dreadful fall, just like Humpty-Dumpty.

“But I’ll not fall to-day,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he got in the clothes basket and sat on the sofa cushions.

He had taken the airship outside the barn, and as he loosed the string that held it fast, up it shot into the air, just like a balloon. Then Uncle Wiggily started the electric fan, and away he went as nicely as you please.

“Oh, there he goes!” cried Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, as they stood on the ground below, and watched him. “Please take us for a ride, Uncle Wiggily!” they begged.

“Not now, my dears,” he said kindly. “Some other time I will. You must go to school now.”

So Sammie and Susie hopped on to school, and Uncle Wiggily traveled along in his airship.

“I wonder what sort of an adventure I will have?” he said. “Ha! I have it! I will go call on Grandfather Goosey Gander. I will take him for a ride.”

He went to the old goose gentleman’s pen, but when he got there, and invited Grandpa Goosey to get into the clothes basket, Grandpa Goosey said:

“What! Trust myself in an airship, high above the ground? No, indeed, thank you, Uncle Wiggily. I have no use for airships. They are too dangerous! They are no good!”

“I am sorry you think so, and will not come with me,” said Uncle Wiggily, sort of sadly like. “I think airships are fine. I am going off looking for an adventure.”

“And I am going to the woods to gather acorns for my kitchen fire,” said the goose gentleman. “But I am going to walk. It is safer, by far. Airships are not good for animals like us.”

“Well, I think they are,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, as he rose in the air again.

The rabbit gentleman circled around, flying along in his clothes basket airship, and he was having a fine ride. But no adventure happened to him. By and by, after a while, not so very long, Uncle Wiggily found himself flying over a big woods.

“I wonder if this is the forest where Grandfather Goosey went to gather acorns?” thought Uncle Wiggily. “If it is, maybe he will be so tired, if he is here, that he will be glad to ride home in my airship.”

Pretty soon the old rabbit gentleman heard a loud quacking noise.

He looked down, and what do you think he saw? Why, the old goose gentleman was caught fast in a trap by both legs. Some hunter had set a trap to catch a fox, and poor Grandfather Goosey Gander had stepped into it by mistake. There he was, held fast.

“Oh, dear!” cried Grandpa Goosey. “What shall I do? I have tried to get out and I can’t. I have called for help, but no one comes to me. I am away off in the woods alone, and here I must die in the trap. Oh, I wish I had even gone in Uncle Wiggily’s airship! Oh, will no one help me?”

“Yes, I will help you!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “Here I am, Grandpa Goosey!” And wasn’t the goose gentleman surprised, when he looked up and saw his rabbit friend in the airship over his head? Oh, he certainly was surprised.

Uncle Wiggily made his airship go down, and then he soon helped Grandpa Goosey out of the fox trap. He put some court-plaster on the goose gentleman’s scratched legs and asked:

“Now will you ride home in my airship?”

“Indeed I will,” said Grandpa Goosey. “Airships are good after all. I am sorry I said they were not.”

“Pray do not mention such a thing. I knew you didn’t mean it,” Uncle Wiggily said. Then he and Grandpa Goosey rode safely home through the air, and, if the blackbird on our fence doesn’t pick all the clothes pins off the chocolate cake, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the fire.

STORY V

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE FIRE

“What do you think, mamma!” cried Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, as he came running in the house after school one fine day. “Oh, what do you think?”

“Why, I’m sure I don’t know, Sammie, my dear,” said Mrs. Littletail, smiling at him. “I think of a great many things, of course.”

“Oh, he means what do you think teacher told us!” cried Sammie’s sister Susie, as she came in more slowly, for girl rabbits cannot run quite as fast as can rabbit boys.

“Did your teacher say you were good little animal children to-day, and that you had your lessons well?” Mrs. Littletail wanted to know.

“Well, she did say that,” spoke Sammie, sort of bashful like and shy, “but I think you can’t guess what I mean. She said we ought to make a little garden, each for ourselves, and grow things to eat in it. The one who has the best garden will get a prize.”

“And I’m going to have a garden and raise lettuce!” cried Susie.

“And I’m going to have one and plant carrots. And I’m going to give Uncle Wiggily some!” added Sammie.

“It will be very nice for each of you to make a garden,” said the rabbit children’s mamma. “You may each have a little part of our big garden for yourselves.”

“And we are to do all the work, too,” explained Sammie. “We must clear off the ground, spade it up, rake it smooth, put in the seeds and water them when they come up.”

“Oh, of course, if it’s your garden, you must look after it yourselves,” said Mrs. Littletail.

So Sammie and Susie began to make their garden. First they raked away the brush, sticks and leaves from the ground that was to be dug up. This brush they piled in a big heap in the large garden.

“That pile of brush does not look very nice there,” said their mamma.

“Oh, we are going to burn it when we get through,” said Sammie. “Teacher said we were to burn up all trash and rubbish, for the ashes were good to mix with the garden dirt. I don’t know why, but ashes make the ground better.”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Littletail, “but you had better let your papa burn the brush. He will have more brush when he rakes up the ground for his garden. Animal or real children should not play with fire,” said the mamma rabbit.

So Sammie and Susie Littletail went on making their garden, and in it they planted cabbage, radishes, lettuce and carrots—all things that rabbits love to eat. A few days later their papa, Mr. Littletail, the rabbit gentleman, made his garden, and he raked up a big pile of brush. When the garden was all nice and smooth Mr. Littletail said:

“Now I will burn that brush.”

“And may we watch you?” asked Sammie.

“Yes, if you do not come too close,” his papa said.

Mr. Littletail set fire to the big pile of dried brush, sticks and leaves, and my goodness me sakes alive and some peanut pancakes! How it did blaze up! It crackled like the Fourth of July, and the heat was so great that Mr. Littletail had to jump back very quickly.

“Oh, what a fine fire!” cried Susie.

“We could roast potatoes in it if it were not so large,” spoke Sammie. “But it is too hot now.”

“Indeed it is,” his father said. “Keep back.”

Hotter and hotter grew the brush fire. The blaze leaped up, and then every one had to run far away. The fire grew so hot that the Littletail house began to smoke and scorch.

“Oh, our house will catch fire from the brush!” cried Sammie.

“Yes, I am afraid it will!” exclaimed Mr. Littletail. “I must get some pails of water and throw on the brush fire.”

But, by this time, the fire was so hot that, when Mr. Littletail had the water, he could not get near enough to toss it on the blaze.

“Oh, what shall we do!” cried his wife. “Our house will burn down! Oh, I must save what I can!”

So she threw the clock and a lot of her best dishes out of the window, and they were broken, I am sorry to say. Then Mrs. Littletail carefully carried out the feather bed. You see she was so excited that she did things backwards. She should have thrown the feather bed out of the window, for that would not break. And she ought to have carried the clock and dishes down stairs in her apron.

Hotter and hotter grew the fire, and the rabbit house was beginning to smoke and blaze.

“Call out the water bug fire department!” shouted Grandfather Goosey Gander. But the water bugs had gone away on an excursion, and could not come.

“Oh, my lovely house will burn!” cried Mrs. Littletail.

“No, I know how to save it!” shouted Sammie. “I’ll go get Uncle Wiggily Longears in his airship. We can go up in the air over the fire and spill a pail of water on it. He won’t be burned as he will be so high up, but the water will put out the fire.”

“Go and get him quickly then!” shouted Mr. Littletail hopping up and down on his big ears.

Uncle Wiggily came sailing along in his airship right away when Sammie called him. The rabbit gentleman took up with him many pails of water, and when he had steered his airship high up over the fire, where he was out of danger, Uncle Wiggily spilled down the water, just like rain from the clouds, and the fire hissed like a snake, and went out.

The brush was all burned up, of course, and the Littletail house was scorched on the roof, but not very much. Uncle Wiggily had put it out just in time.

“But if it hadn’t been for your airship I don’t know what we would have done!” cried Mr. Littletail. “Thank you so much!”

“Pray do not mention it,” said Uncle Wiggily politely, as he wagged his tail up and down as well as sideways.

Then the rabbit gentleman helped pick up the broken dishes, and he mended the broken clock and all was well. And Mr. Littletail did not make such a big brush fire again.

And on the next page, if the carpenter man doesn’t take our bathtub away to slide his little puppy dog down hill in, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and Dr. Possum.

STORY VI

UNCLE WIGGILY HELPS DR. POSSUM

“Off again, I see!” Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, exclaimed one morning to Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, for whom she kept house. “Off again, Wiggy!”

You see she called him Wiggy as a sort of pet name.

“Yes, I am off again,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, as he put some extra soft cushions in his clothes basket airship. “I am going on a long trip this time.”

“Pray, where are you going?” asked the muskrat lady. “That is, if you do not mind me asking,” she said quickly.

“Oh, not at all. I don’t mind telling you,” Uncle Wiggily answered. “I am going to see if I can find an adventure.”

“Oh, such a queer old rabbit gentleman as you are, Wiggy,” said Nurse Jane with a laugh. “Instead of sitting quietly at home here, making a garden, or reading, you go chasing off across the country in that funny airship of yours. Something is sure to happen to you!”

“Well, the things that happen are adventures,” said Uncle Wiggily. “And I like the nice ones. Of course I do not like to fall out of my airship, as I sometimes do, but that cannot be helped. I always have a little red white and blue court-plaster with me to put on any scratches I may get.

“And now, Nurse Jane, I’ll say good-by. I am going to look for an adventure.”

Into his airship, made of a clothes basket, some toy balloons, a Japanese umbrella and an electric fan, Uncle Wiggily placed himself. Then he sailed up in the air, farther and farther, until he was higher than the birds.

All of a sudden, as he was riding along, thinking what fun it was to have an airship, the rabbit gentleman heard some one down on the ground below crying:

“Oh dear! Oh, who will help me?”

“Ha! I wonder who that is,” said Uncle Wiggily. So he looked over the edge of the clothes basket and he saw Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, running up and down in front of her pen-house, flapping her wings, all excited-like.

“Ha! Trouble!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll go down and see what it is.” Down he went in his airship.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Mrs. Wibblewobble. “My boy, Jimmie, is very ill, and I have no one to send for Dr. Possum. Will you go?”

“Indeed I will!” the rabbit gentleman said. “I’ll make him come right back with me and cure Jimmie.”

Off Uncle Wiggily sailed again in his airship, but when he got to Dr. Possum’s office the old gentleman animal physician made the same fuss about an airship as Grandfather Goosey Gander, the goose gentleman, did at first.

“If you’ll get in with me I’ll ride you straight to the Wibblewobble duck house, and you can cure Jimmie,” said the rabbit gentleman.

“What! Trust myself in a clothes basket away up in the air? Never; thank you just the same!” cried Dr. Possum. “I’ll come along, as I always do, on my own legs.”

“Well, if you won’t come with me, I suppose you won’t,” Uncle Wiggily said. “But I’ll ride on ahead and tell them you are on the way.”

“All right, only I am sure I will get there before you,” spoke Dr. Possum. “I do not think much of airships.”

“Neither did Grandpa Goosey Gander, at first,” said the rabbit gentleman with a laugh.

Off started Dr. Possum through the woods, carrying his bag of medicine on his tail. Overhead Uncle Wiggily started in his airship. And of course Uncle Wiggily reached the Wibblewobble house first, for airships can go very fast, you know.

“Where is Dr. Possum?” asked Mrs. Wibblewobble, who was waiting outside. “My little duck boy is very ill.”

“The doctor is coming,” said Uncle Wiggily. “He would not ride with me; he walked.” Well, they waited and they waited, but no Dr. Possum came. Meanwhile Jimmie was getting worse. He had cocoanut-cake-fever, which is very bad.

“I guess I’ll sail back in my airship and see what keeps Dr. Possum,” Uncle Wiggily said. “Perhaps something has happened to him.”

And there had! Just think of it. I’ll tell you how it was.

“I’ll show Uncle Wiggily that I can go faster than his airship!” laughed Dr. Possum to himself, as he started out from his office. “I’ll take a short cut through the woods and get there first, airship or no airship.”

Well, he took the short cut all right, but when he came to a mud puddle and tried to jump over, he slipped, and down he came in it with both hind feet.

And the mud was so sticky that Dr. Possum was stuck there. No matter how he pulled he could not pull himself loose.

“Oh, this is terrible!” he cried. “I may have to stay here all night, and I can’t cure poor, sick Jimmie. This is very sad!”

And it was there, stuck in the mud puddle, that Uncle Wiggily found Dr. Possum.

“Oh, ho!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “So there you are!” and he looked down on the animal docter from overhead in his airship.

“Oh, please help me out!” cried Dr. Possum.

“Of course I will,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll drop you a piece of clothesline. Fasten it about your waist and I’ll tie one end up here on the clothesbasket and pull you out by my airship.”

When the clothesline was fast around Dr. Possum, Uncle Wiggily made the electric fan wheel of the airship go very fast and hard. And then slowly at first, but soon faster and faster, out of the mud Dr. Possum was pulled by the clothesline.

“Now I guess I’d better take you the rest of the way to the Wibblewobble house in this airship, then you won’t get stuck in the mud again,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly.

“I guess so,” said Dr. Possum. And when he reached Jimmie’s house he soon cured the duck boy. Then Mrs. Wibblewobble helped wash the mud off the animal physician, and Dr. Possum rode home again in Uncle Wiggily’s airship.

“Airships are better and more useful than I thought,” said Dr. Possum, as he got out.

“You are just like Grandfather Goosey Gander,” said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. “You have changed your mind.”

So that’s how the rabbit gentleman helped his friend, and on the next page, if the man beating rugs in our back yard doesn’t put the clothes post in his pocket and take it away for an umbrella handle, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the moth balls.

STORY VII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MOTH BALLS

“There it goes! Get it!” suddenly cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, one night, making a jump up from the rocking chair where she was sitting, sewing up the holes in the coffee strainer.

“My goodness me sakes alive and some cheese pudding!” cried Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, who was reading the evening paper in his hollow stump bungalow near the underground house. “Have you dropped your ball of yarn, Nurse Jane, or did you see Jilly Longtail, the mousie?”

“Neither one,” answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, who kept house for Uncle Wiggily. “Oh, there’s another! Hit it quick before it gets upstairs!” she cried, making a grab for something in the air.

“Well, this is certainly surprising!” Uncle Wiggily exclaimed. “I see nothing!”

He looked at Nurse Jane, who was making funny motions in the air, waving her paws about and clapping them together.

“You don’t see anything?” the muskrat lady cried. “Why, the place is full of moths. They will eat everything up!”

“Will they eat up my turnip sandwich?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.

“Oh, not that,” replied Nurse Jane. “They are not like foxes, or bears. Moths are little things that first flit about like butterflies. Then they find a nice, cosy, soft bed in your fur coat, or your flannel shirts, and they lay eggs. Then out of the egg comes a little insect that eats up the fur and flannel. They even eat pianos!”

“My gracious!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “They must be regular giants to eat pianos! I never heard of such a thing!”

“Well, of course they don’t exactly eat the whole piano,” said Nurse Jane, as she made another grab in the air, trying to catch the moth-butterfly. But she missed it and knocked off Uncle Wiggily’s spectacles. Very luckily, however, the glasses fell on the soft back of Kittie Kat, who had come over to Uncle Wiggily’s house to borrow a cup of flour to make a bouquet for her school teacher, and so the glasses were not broken.

“Moths must be terrible things!” said Uncle Wiggily, as he put on his spectacles again. “Fancy, now; eating pianos!”

“Well, I mean they eat the felt cloth inside the pianos, and so spoil them for playing,” went on Nurse Jane. “But we must get busy, Uncle Wiggily. To-morrow you must go up in your airship and buy me some moth balls.”

“I didn’t know moths played ball,” said the rabbit gentleman. “They certainly are strange creatures, to eat pianos and play ball!”

“Oh, of course, moths don’t play ball!” Nurse Jane said. “How silly you are, Wiggily. Moth balls are white balls that smell very strongly of camphor and other things that moths do not like. If you put moth balls in your fur and flannels the moths will go away.”

“Where will they go?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

“I don’t know. Please don’t ask so many questions,” Nurse Jane answered, as she tried to catch another moth. And this time she stepped on Kittie’s tail and the little cat girl meaowed: said:

“Oh, dear! I guess I had better go home.”

“Oh, please excuse me!” begged Nurse Jane. “But I must get these moths out of the way.”

“I’ll get the moth balls to-morrow,” Uncle Wiggily promised, “and if there are any balls left over I will give them to Sammie Littletail to play marbles with.”

“Well, the next day the old rabbit gentleman started off in his airship to get the moth balls for Nurse Jane. He found them in a drug store, and the monkey gentleman who kept the place put the white balls in a box for Uncle Wiggily, so he could easily carry them.

“I hope you have no trouble, going back in your airship,” said the monkey gentleman, politely.

“Thank you,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I think I shall be all right.” Then he sailed back toward his house with the moth balls, and on the way he heard down below him some voices saying:

“Oh, dear! Isn’t it too bad?”

“Yes, if we only had some marbles we could have a nice game!”

“But we haven’t any!” cried a third voice, sadly.

Uncle Wiggily looked down, and in the schoolyard, over which he was flying in his airship, he saw Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, Bully and Bawly No-Tail, the frogs, Jackie and Peetie Bow-Wow, the puppies, and many other animal friends. They wanted to have a game of marbles, but could not.

“I’ll just drop them down a few of the moth balls; I have plenty,” said Uncle Wiggily. So he did, taking care not to let any of the balls fall on the animal boys.

“Oh joy!” the little chaps cried, when they saw the white balls. “These will make fine marbles!” And they had a great game.

A little farther along Uncle Wiggily saw some toy wooden soldiers who were going to shoot their pop guns at a mark for practice, so that they might become good marksmen in time of war.

“Oh, but alas and alack!” cried the captain. “I forgot to bring any bullets. What shall I do?”

“Ha! Perhaps these will answer!” cried Uncle Wiggily, and the rabbit gentleman dropped down some more moth balls from his airship.

“Oh, how kind are you!” cried the soldier captain. Then his soldiers loaded their guns with the white moth ball bullets and shot at the mosquito targets as much as they pleased.

Then, a little farther on, Uncle Wiggily saw a bad old lion chasing after a poor little dog. And the lion was going to pull the doggie’s tail, for all I know. Mind, I’m not saying for sure, but maybe.

“Ha! This will never do!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “I must stop that lion.”