Part 7

“Will you please fix my sofa cushions for me, by stuffing them with new feathers?” he asked the duck lady.

“To be sure I will,” answered Mrs. Wibblewobble, with a polite quack. “Give them to me.”

Uncle Wiggily took the sofa cushions out of his clothes basket airship, and Mrs. Wibblewobble began filling them with some of her old feathers she did not need any more. All of a sudden, along came Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” Lulu cried, “while you are waiting, please give me a ride in your airship!”

“Oh, no, I am afraid I cannot,” he answered. “You see the sofa cushions are being stuffed by your mother.”

“Oh, well, I don’t mind that. Give me a ride without them!” cried Lulu. “We had examinations in school to-day, and now I want a little fun.”

“What examination did you have?” asked the rabbit gentleman.

“An examination in quacking and in wing flapping,” answered Lulu. “I think I passed, too. Teacher said I flapped my wings better than any other duck girl in the class.”

“Oh, but I am glad to hear that!” Uncle Wiggily cried, for he liked his little duck niece very much. “And, since you have been such a good pupil, I will take you up in my airship,” he said. “Oh, joy!” cried Lulu, flapping her wings and quacking as she had done in the examinations.

“But we will not go up very high.” Uncle Wiggily went on. “Since we have not the sofa cushions with us, we might get hurt if we had an accident and fell. So I will only take you up a little way, Lulu.”

“Oh, even a little ride will be lovely!” quacked the duck girl. She and Uncle Wiggily got in the airship, and away they went, about as high as a jumping rope.

“Oh, this is lovely!” cried Lulu. “Thank you so much, Uncle Wiggily! It is very good of you.”

“Pray do not say so,” spoke the old gentleman rabbit. And then, all at once, something went wrong with the airship, and it shot up, away above the trees. Higher and higher it went before the rabbit gentleman could stop it.

“Oh, if we ever fall now—without our sofa cushions!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, “something sure will happen!” And then, all of a sudden, a bad bumble-bee came along, and, with his sharp stinger, he made holes in the toy balloons of Uncle Wiggily’s airship, just as a bad wasp once did. Down the airship began to fall, faster and faster.

“Oh, if we hit the ground now, with no soft sofa cushions to sit on, we shall surely be hurt!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What shall I do?”

“I know,” cried Lulu Wibblewobble, the brave duck girl. “I will flap my wings very hard, just as I did in my school examinations to-day, and that will make us fall more slowly, so we will not strike the ground so hard.”

“Please do!” cried Uncle Wiggily. And Lulu did. Faster and faster she flapped her wings, beating the air with them, and this kept up the airship, just as a bird keeps itself up, and made it fall more and more slowly and gently.

“Look out!” cried the rabbit gentleman, peeping over the side of the clothes basket. “We are going to bump!”

But they did not bump very hard. For, just as they came down to the ground, Mrs. Wibblewobble had finished stuffing the sofa cushions. She ran out, and tossed them under Uncle Wiggily’s airship, and he and Lulu came down on them as lightly as a feather. But, after all, had it not been for the duck girl’s wing-flapping, I do not know what would have happened.

So this is all now, if you please, but if the tomato doesn’t jump out of the coffee can, and kiss the cucumber salad in the olive oil, I’ll tell you next, about Uncle Wiggily and the lemonade stand.

STORY XXIV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LEMONADE STAND

“My, but it certainly is a warm day!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, the old gentleman rabbit, as he unbuttoned his fur coat and fanned his ears with a horse chestnut leaf. “I don’t know when I have been so warm!”

“It is very hot!” agreed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, as she peeled some eggs for dinner. “I think I would not go up in my airship to-day, if I were you, Mr. Longears.”

“Oh, the heat makes no difference to me if I want to take a ride,” the rabbit gentleman answered. “Besides, you forget that I have the big Japanese umbrella over the top of my airship to keep off the hot sun. Yes, I will take a ride, and perhaps I may have an adventure; who knows?”

“True enough—who knows?” repeated Nurse Jane. “Well, if you will go, Wiggy, I suppose you will. And, since you are going, would you mind stopping at the store and bringing me home some honey for supper?”

“It will give me the greatest pleasure in the world to bring you some honey, sweetness,” said Uncle Wiggily, politely. Sometimes he called Nurse Jane “sweetness” just for a joke.

Well off the old gentleman started in his clothes basket airship. It had been all mended since the time he and Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl, rode in it, when the bumble bee stung the balloons.

“And the sofa cushions, since Mrs. Wibblewobble put new feathers in them, are better than ever,” said Uncle Wiggily. He had the sofa cushions to fall on, you know.

Well, it kept on getting hotter and hotter that day, and, not long after Uncle Wiggily had set off to get the honey for Nurse Jane, Billie Bushytail, the little squirrel boy, said to his brother Johnnie:

“I’ll tell you what let’s do! Let’s set up a lemonade stand along the street and sell the nice, cold, sweet lemonade for five cents a glass.”

“All right!” cried Johnnie. “We’ll do it!”

So they got some old boxes—squirrel size, of course—and their mamma gave them an old tablecloth to spread over the top to make the stand look nice. Then she let the two squirrel boys take the proper things to make the lemonade—the lemons, the sugar, a pitcher, some glasses and a small piece of ice.

“We’ll make a lot of money, and buy ice cream cones!” cried Billie.

“That’s what we will!” shouted Johnnie, as he gnawed the shell off a hickory nut.

Then the squirrel boys squeezed the juice from the lemons, poured in the water and stirred it up in the pitcher.

“Say!” exclaimed Billie at that point, “we ought to have an umbrella over our stand to make it shady. There’s an old one in the house. Let’s put it up.”

“All right!” agreed Johnnie, “we will!” They both ran in the house to get the sun umbrella, and, while they were gone, a bad monkey chap, with a very large sweet tooth, sneaked up to the lemonade stand and took all the sugar. You see it had not yet been put into the lemonade pitcher. Yes, sir, the monkey took all the sugar.

And when Billie and Johnnie Bushytail had fastened the umbrella up over their stand, and went to look for the sugar to put in the cool lemonade, why, the sugar was not there! You know who had it, though Billie and Johnnie did not.

“Oh, what are we going to do?” cried Billie.

“We’ll have to get more sugar!” exclaimed Johnnie.

But alas! Likewise sorrowfulness! After giving the squirrel boys the things for the lemonade, Mrs. Bushytail had gone down to the ten and five cent store to buy a new dishpan, and had locked up the squirrel house. For she thought her boys would not want to go in again until she came back.

“We can’t get any sugar, and we can’t make any lemonade!” cried Billie, sadly.

“Oh, yes we can,” said his brother. “Let’s make it sour—without sugar. Perhaps the folks who buy it won’t mind.”

“All right,” agreed Billie. So they made sour lemonade.

Then Billie and Johnnie took their places behind the stand, and cried:

“Here you are! Nice, cold lemonade! Only five cents a glass!”

You notice they were very careful not to say “sweet lemonade,” for that would not have been true.

“Ha! Lemonade!” cried Grandfather Goosey Gander, coming along just then. “I’ll take a glass,” and he laid five cents down on the box. Billie filled a glass for him.

“Whew! Ha! Oh, mercy me! Why it’s sour!” cried Grandfather Goosey Gander, making a lot of funny faces as soon as he had sipped the lemonade.

“Yes,” said Billie sadly, “it is sour. Some one took our sugar.”

“Well, I can’t drink sour lemonade,” spoke the duck gentleman, and he took back his five cents.

“Oh, dear!” said Johnnie, sadly.

And that’s the way it was. All the animal folk who came along to drink the cold lemonade wouldn’t take it when they found it was sour. They just wrinkled up their noses and took back their money.

“Here comes Uncle Wiggily in his airship!” said Billie, after a while. “Maybe he likes sour lemonade.” So they called to him to come down and buy some. The rabbit gentleman, sailing down, laid his nickel on the box. He sipped the lemonade.

“Oh me! Oh my! and some soda crackers!” he cried, making his nose twinkle like a star on a frosty night. “That is too sour!”

“Yes,” said Billie, sadly. “Some one took our sugar, and we can’t sell any sweet lemonade, and get any money for ice cream cones, and our mamma isn’t home and——”

“Stop! Say no more! You have troubles enough!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I will sweeten your lemonade for you,” and with that he put into the pitcher some of the nice sweet honey he had brought from the store in his airship.

“Oh, joy!” cried Billie and Johnnie, tasting the lemonade which now was sweet enough for even Grandfather Goosey Gander. And the squirrel boys sold one pitcherful and part of another one. The honey was better than sugar for sweetening.

They made enough money to buy several ice cream cones, and they sent Uncle Wiggily one for giving them the honey, which made their sour lemonade sweet.

And pretty soon, if the coal man doesn’t slide a watermelon down the ironing board into the the refrigerator, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the watering hose.

STORY XXV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE WATERING HOSE

Oh, but it was hot in animal land! It was hot and dry and dusty, for there had been no rain in a long time, and the sun shone brightly, making the leaves on the trees curl up in the heat, and wilting the pretty flowers.

“Well, if we don’t get some rain pretty soon,” spoke Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, “the garden will be spoiled, and we can have no strawberry shortcake.”

“No strawberry shortcake!” cried Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman for whom Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy kept house. “That will be too bad! But, pray tell me, what has rain to do with strawberry shortcake, if you please, Nurse Jane?”

“Rain has everything to do with it, Uncle Wiggily,” said she. “For if it does not rain, the strawberries will not grow, and if we do not have strawberries we can have no shortcake. That is, unless I put in lemons instead of strawberries.”

“Oh, no! That would never do at all!” exclaimed Mr. Longears. “We must have strawberries. I will see what I can do about making it rain.”

“How can you?” asked Nurse Jane.

“I will go up near the clouds, in my airship,” spoke the old gentleman rabbit, “and I will see if there is in them any rain that is ready to fall down, and wet the thirsty ground. And, maybe, if there is rain in the clouds I can squeeze a little out, as you squeeze water from the sponge in the bath tub.”

“I hope you can,” said Nurse Jane, as she went out into the garden to pull up some weeds.

Off the old gentleman rabbit started in his clothes basket airship, on and on, up to the clouds. But when he got there he saw no rain in them. The clouds were as dry as a piece of cheese.

“No, there is no rain here,” said Uncle Wiggily, sadly. “I wonder what I can do? I would not like Nurse Jane’s garden to dry up, for I am very fond of strawberry shortcake. I wonder what I can do?”

Uncle Wiggily in his airship rode on a little farther, and pretty soon, looking down toward the earth, over the edge of the clothes basket, he saw, far below him, some water spurting and spraying in a beautiful shower.

“Ha! There is rain down there!” the rabbit gentleman cried. “I wonder why there is none over at our place? I must go down and see.”

So down he went, and there he saw Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the two puppy dog boys, squirting water with a hose, which was fastened to the faucet of the kitchen sink.

“Now it’s my turn to squirt!” cried Jackie, as Uncle Wiggily jumped out of his airship, which had reached the ground.

“No, let me squirt just a little bit more!” begged Peetie, and his brother very kindly did.

“Ha! What have you there?” asked the old gentleman rabbit, as he went toward the puppy dog boys.

“A watering hose,” said Jackie. “You see it hasn’t rained for so long that our garden is all dried up. So papa got this hose. See, this is how it squirts.”

And just then Peetie accidentally moved the end of the hose too much, and a shower of water went all over Uncle Wiggily.

“Oh!” cried Peetie, “I didn’t mean to do that.”

“I’ll forgive you!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “It is so warm that it feels fine to have a hose squirted on you so I don’t care. I must get one for Nurse Jane.”

Then it was Jackie’s turn to squirt the hose, and when Peetie handed it to him, the end slipped again, and Grandfather Goosey Gander, who came along just then, was sprayed with a shower of water.

“Oh dear! I’m so sorry!” cried Jackie.

“It doesn’t matter at all!” cried the old gentleman goose. “I just love water!” And the drops rolled off his back, not wetting him at all, for a goose gentleman’s feathers are made to shed water, just as an umbrella does, you know.

“Let me try the hose,” begged Uncle Wiggily, and Jackie did so. “Yes, I really must get Nurse Jane one,” said the rabbit gentleman. “It is as good as a rain shower,” and he sprinkled water all over the dog-garden.

Then off he went in his airship to get a watering hose for his garden, leaving Peetie and Jackie to sprinkle theirs, sometimes wetting the sidewalk and sometimes spraying the animal people who went past, just as puppy dog boys will, you know.

“Ha! Now we won’t mind whether or not it rains!” cried Uncle Wiggily, when he reached his hollow stump bungalow again.

“Why not?” asked Nurse Jane, fanning herself with the dishpan. “It is hotter than ever. We need rain very badly.”

“And we shall have it!” exclaimed the old gentleman rabbit. “See, I have a watering hose,” and he took one from his airship. He had bought it at the rubber store.

Soon the hose was attached to the kitchen faucet, and Uncle Wiggily watered the garden. And how the flowers and the lima beans and the strawberry plants lifted up their tired, dusty hot leaves, and drank the cool water that was showered on them.

And then, when the garden was nicely watered, Uncle Wiggily heard a noise out in the street, and a tired voice said:

“Oh dear! How hot I am! Oh dear!”

“Ha! Some one in trouble!” remarked Uncle Wiggily. “I must see if I cannot help them.” He went out in front, and there he saw a poor, tired, dusty ice-wagon horse, who could hardly hold up his head.

“I will water you with the hose,” said the rabbit gentleman. “That will cool you off, and rest you.”

“Please do,” begged the ice-wagon horse, and Uncle Wiggily did. And when the cool water sprayed on the hot and tired horse he felt so much better that he laughed, and held up his head, and he gave Uncle Wiggily a big cake of ice, like the one Mr. Whitewash, the Polar bear gentleman, sits on, and the ice made the hollow stump bungalow so cool that Uncle Wiggily had a fine sleep that night.

And the next day it rained, so Uncle Wiggily did not have to water with the hose. And this shows that you should always be kind to an ice-wagon horse when you can.

So if the popcorn ball doesn’t play lawn tennis with the refrigerator and get all melted up, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the thunder storm.

STORY XXVI

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE THUNDER STORM

“Well, how is your garden coming on these days?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, of Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept house for him. “It isn’t drying up any more; is it?”

“Oh, no,” she answered, as she tied her long tail in a double knot to keep it from dragging in the dust. “Since you so kindly bought me the watering hose, I can wet the garden whether it rains or not. And that will make everything grow.”

“Strawberries too? Will it make them grow?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know. He was thinking of strawberry shortcake, I guess, for he was very fond of it.

“Oh, yes, the strawberries are growing very nicely,” said Nurse Jane, as she looked for the red berries under the green leaves.

“And I think you will not have to water with the hose for several days now,” the muskrat lady went on, as she glanced up at the sky.

“Why not?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.

“Because we are going to have a thunder shower,” said the muskrat lady. “And I think it will be quite a hard one. But it is always cooler after a thunder shower and I like them very much.”

“So do I,” agreed Uncle Wiggily. “But if it is going to rain and thunder and lighten I had better go for a ride in my airship as soon as possible. Much as I like storms, I do not want to be caught out in one up in the sky, in my airship.”

“Yes, if you are going, you had better go, and hurry back,” advised Nurse Jane.

So the old gentleman rabbit went out in the woodshed where he kept his airship, and after shaking up the sofa cushions in the clothes basket, so they would be soft and fluffy for him to fall on, in case of any accident, Uncle Wiggily blew some hot air into the toy circus balloons that raised his airship from the ground and then, starting the electric fan, that went around whizzie-izzie, up he rose into the air.

“Yes, I really think there will be a thunder storm soon,” said the old rabbit to himself, as he looked at the clouds, which were getting more and more black. “I am glad I brought along an umbrella,” for he had one, you see, in addition to the Japanese sun parasol that was over the top of the red, white and blue toy circus balloons.

Well, Uncle Wiggily was sailing around and around, looking for an adventure, when all at once he saw, a little distance away, the spire of a church steeple.

“I’ll sail over as far as that steeple,” said the old gentleman rabbit to himself, “and then I’ll go back home. Nurse Jane may get nervous if I stay away too long, with a thunder storm coming up.”

Uncle Wiggily was almost at the church steeple, when he saw a big robin red-breast flying through the air. And, just as the bird was near the church spire, there came a strong blast of wind from the storm, dashing poor robin against the hard steeple, which had an arrow on top to tell the way the wind was blowing.

“Oh dear!” cried the robin. “My wing is broken and I cannot fly any more, I will fall to the ground, and die!”

“Oh, no you will not,” said Uncle Wiggily kindly. “I will catch you on the soft sofa cushions of my airship.” Then the rabbit gentleman sent his airship right under the falling birdie, and caught it just before it struck the ground.

“Oh, thank you!” cried robin red-breast. “You have saved my life, but my wing is broken!”

“Never mind. We will have Dr. Possum mend that,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll take you to the animal doctor.” He started off in the airship again, but, before he had gone very far, there was a rumble in the sky. Then came a flash of lightning and a big boom, like that of a Fourth of July cannon. And then it began to rain very hard.

“Ha! Here is the thunder storm!” cried Uncle Wiggily, “and I am far from home and Nurse Jane. We had better go down and stay in one of these houses, until the storm is over, Mr. Bird.”

“Yes,” said the robin with a broken wing, “I think perhaps we had better do that.”

Down went Uncle Wiggily in his airship. It was raining very hard now, and the lightning flashed, and the thunder rolled and rumbled very loudly indeed.

“There is a good house near that pond and barn, for us to go in out of the storm!” cried the rabbit gentleman, pointing with one ear down below, for he needed both paws with which to steer. “It is the duck pen where my friends, the Wibblewobbles, live. I’ll go there,” Uncle Wiggily said.

Down went the airship, close to the barn, where Gup, the kind horse lived.

“You hurry right into the duck pen!” cried Gup to Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll take your airship in my stable until the storm is over.”

So Uncle Wiggily hurried into the duck pen, taking the poor robin with him, and, no sooner was the rabbit gentleman inside, than he heard Lulu and Alice, the duck girls, crying as hard as they could cry.

“What is the matter with them?” he asked of Mrs. Wibblewobble.

“They are afraid of the thunder storm,” said the duck lady. And Lulu and Alice were lying in a dark room, with pillows over their heads so as not to see the lightning, and hear the thunder. As for Jimmie, the boy duck, of course he was not afraid. Boys, whether they are ducks or not, are never afraid of thunder storms.

“You mustn’t mind the thunder storm,” said Uncle Wiggily, to Lulu and Alice. “It will not hurt you. Just pretend that the thunder is only the noise of a big circus wagon going over a bridge, and the lightning is only electric flashes from a trolley car. Then you will not mind it so much.”

So Lulu and Alice pretended that way, and the robin with the broken wing sang for them, and soon the thunder storm was over, and never after that were the duck girls frightened. For whenever it thundered, Lulu would say:

“Ha! That is only a circus wagon going over a bridge.”

And when it lightened, Alice would say:

“That is only a trolley car going up hill.”

Then, when the rain had stopped, Uncle Wiggily went sailing on in his airship, taking the poor robin to Dr. Possum, who soon mended the bird’s broken wing.

So you see it is sometimes good to have a thunder storm, after all, and in the following story, if the hoptoad in our back yard doesn’t jump over the fence and tickle the pansy’s face, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the trunk.

STORY XXVII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE TRUNK

“Are you going to do very much to-day?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, of Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, who was reading the fly paper out on the front porch one morning. He wanted to read the fly paper because it told about how to get rid of biting mosquitoes.

“Am I going to do very much?” Uncle Wiggily repeated after Nurse Jane. “Well, I was going out for a little trip in my airship, but if there is anything you would like me to do, why, I can just as well do it as not,” he said, most politely. “I can go airshipping later.”

“Then, if you will be so kind,” spoke Nurse Jane, “will you get a trunk for me out of the attic?”

“Certainly I’ll do that for you,” Uncle Wiggily promised. “Do you want an elephant’s trunk?” he asked with a funny little twinkle of his nose, “or will you have the trunk of a tree?”

“Oh, there you go! Joking again!” cried Nurse Jane. “What would I do with an elephant’s trunk?”

“Why, I didn’t know but what you might be going to give a circus,” said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh, “and they always have an elephant’s trunk in the circus.”

“Well, I’m not going to have a circus,” declared Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. “And what, pray, would I want with the trunk of a tree?”

“Why, I thought perhaps you might want to have me split it up for kindling wood, for the fire,” went on Uncle Wiggily, as he stuck the sticky fly paper on the porch screen, so it would not blow away.

“Enough of your jokes!” cried Nurse Jane, as she put her long tail up in curl papers, so she would look nice if any one asked her to go to a party. “The trunk I want is an empty one from the attic. I need it to pack away some of your suits, to keep the moths from eating them this summer. Just get down one of the clothes trunks, Wiggy. Put it in your room, and I’ll pack away the things you will not need until next winter.”

“Very well, I’ll do that,” the rabbit gentleman said kindly, and then he went up in the attic of the hollow stump bungalow.

The attic was rather a dark and dusty place; and, as it was near the top of the house, where the sun shone on it as hard as it could, it was quite warm up there.