Part 11

The bunny gentleman was wondering about this, but he could not seem to think of any plan, when, as he was about to hop up his bungalow steps, he saw Billie Wagtail, the goat boy.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" bleated Billie. "See my new horns!"

"Your new horns!" exclaimed Mr. Longears, turning toward the goat chap. "Are you going to blow the New Year in, also?"

"Yes, but not with these horns," went on Billie. "I mean, see the new horns on my head. I was ill, you know, and my old horns dropped off, and now I have these new ones," and he shook his head, on which were two long, curving sharp horns. "I'm going to blow the New Year in," bleated the boy goat, "but not on my head horns; on my Christmas tin horn."

"That's more than one boy whom I know about is going to do," said Uncle Wiggily a little sadly. Then the bunny gentleman had a sudden thought. "Do you s'pose, Billie," he asked the goat boy, "that your old horns could be made into blowing ones for New Year's?"

"Why, yes, I guess so," Billie answered. "But you'd have to saw off one end to make a place to blow in. My horns are partly hollow and if you blew in the little end, after making a hole there, the noise would come out the other end."

"Then I know what I can do!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "Get me your old horns, Billie boy, and I'll fix them up for New Year's blowing. I know how to do it!"

The Wagtail goat chap gave the bunny gentleman the old horns. Uncle Wiggily took them into his bungalow, and he and Nurse Jane washed them clean and polished them. Then, with her sharp teeth, the muskrat lady gnawed a little off the small end of each horn, so they could be blown through.

Uncle Wiggily made two wooden whistles and fastened one in the small end of each horn.

"Now I'll try it, Janie," he said to Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.

Uncle Wiggily blew into the small end of one horn. Out of the other end came a sweet tooting sound.

"Hurray!" cried the bunny gentleman. "These will be just right for New Year's! I'll take one to the poor boy and one to his sister. Then they can celebrate with their friends who have regular tin horns."

"It is very kind of you to be so thoughtful," said Nurse Jane.

"And it was kind of you to help me make the New Year's horns from Billie's old ones," spoke Uncle Wiggily, as he skipped along, for it was getting dark and soon the Old Year would go away--like the hole in the doughnut--and the New Year would come, to bring with it Fourth of July, birthdays and Christmas.

Up the steps of the house of the poor boy and girl who had no New Year's horns to blow hopped Uncle Wiggily. No one saw him in the dusk. He placed the horns on the doormat, tapped three times with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch on the porch, and then hopped away.

"What was that?" asked the girl of the boy.

"I'll go see," he answered.

The boy opened the door and saw, in the light of the moon, which just then came from behind a cloud, the two goat horns made into New Year's "tooters."

"Oh, hurray!" shouted the boy, as he blew on one of the horns. "Now we can send the Old Year on its way and tell the New Year how glad we are to see him. Hurray!"

"And I can blow, too!" laughed the girl. "Hurray!"

Her brother gave her the other horn, and when twelve o'clock midnight came, the children blew on the tooters as loudly as they could. So did all the other boys and girls in the village; and the animal boys and girls in their nest-houses and burrows also blew on horns and wooden whistles to welcome the New Year.

All over the land the bells rang and horns were blown. Uncle Wiggily heard them in his hollow stump bungalow, and so did Nurse Jane.

"Happy New Year!" wished the muskrat lady.

"Happy New Year!" echoed the bunny gentleman.

The boy and girl, blowing Billie Wagtail's old horns, danced around their father and mother, wishing them a Happy New Year also.

"Where did you get the horns?" asked Mother.

"Oh, I guess Santa Claus dropped them, on his way back to the North Pole," answered the boy.

But we know better than that; don't we?

So, after all, everything came out right, and the boy and girl were very happy with their queer New Year's horns.

But if the Jumping Jack doesn't tickle the lollypop with the sharp end of the ice-cream cone, and make it fall off the stick, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily's Thanksgiving.

STORY XXVIII

UNCLE WIGGILY'S THANKSGIVING

There came, one afternoon, a knock at the door of the hollow stump bungalow where Uncle Wiggily Longears lived.

"Do you s'pose that can be the Fuzzy Fox or the Woozie Wolf?" anxiously asked Nurse Jane, the muskrat lady housekeeper.

"No," answered the bunny gentleman. "They would not dare come boldly up to my bungalow, in broad daylight, though if it were night they might come sneaking along, trying to nibble my ears. I suppose this may be Sammie or Susie Littletail, or Johnnie or Billie Bushytail. I'll let them in."

But when Uncle Wiggily opened the door, in came rushing a great big turkey gobbler gentleman. In his bill he carried a basket in which set a dish filled with something red.

"I have it, Uncle Wiggily! I have it!" exclaimed the turkey. "I picked it up and ran away with it! Now they can't have any Thanksgiving and I'll be safe! Shut the door!" he gobbled, and setting the basket on the floor he scuttled behind a chair, while Nurse Jane and Uncle Wiggily were so surprised they hardly knew what to do.

"_What_ in the world have you brought with you, Mr. Gobble Obble?" asked the bunny gentleman. Gobble Obble was the turkey's name.

"The _cranberry sauce_," was the answer. "At our house, where I have been living, they are making a great fuss over Thanksgiving, which will happen in a few days. They have been feeding me up to fatten me, and every day the Man would come out and look at me; though I didn't know what for until I heard the children talking about it."

"Talking about what?" Nurse Jane wanted to know.

"_Thanksgiving_," gobbled the turkey. "This morning I heard the cook say: 'That gobbler is fat enough to roast, now. I think I'll make the cranberry sauce. It will be Thanksgiving soon!'"

"Then," went on the turkey, "I knew why they had been feeding me things to make me fat! You can't imagine how I felt! Well, the cook made the cranberry sauce. She put it in a dish and set it out on the back steps to cool. I watched my chance, picked it up and ran over here. There's the cranberry sauce!" and Mr. Gobble Obble pointed to it with one wing.

"But why in the world did you bring away the cranberry sauce? What good is that going to do you?" asked Uncle Wiggily, very much puzzled by the turkey's queer talk and actions.

"Listen," gobbled the turkey. "I heard one of the children say that Thanksgiving wouldn't be Thanksgiving without _turkey and cranberry sauce_! Then, thinks I to myself, if I run away, and take the cranberry sauce with me, there will be no Thanksgiving, and many poor turkeys will be glad of it."

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, chuckling so hard that his pink nose twinkled like a lightning bug on Fourth of July.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Gobble Obble. "Won't you be good enough to hide me and the cranberry sauce until after Thanksgiving? Then I'll be safe."

"Of course you may stay here," said the bunny gentleman. "But the idea of thinking you can stop Thanksgiving by hiding yourself, or the cranberry sauce!"

"Can't I?" asked Mr. Gobble Obble, doubtful-like.

"Of course you can't!" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "Why, Thanksgiving doesn't mean just feasting on turkey, ice cream and cranberries!"

"It does at the house I ran away from," said Mr. Gobble Obble.

"Yes, and I suppose it does at many other houses," went on the bunny gentleman. "But Thanksgiving is really a time in which to be thankful for the things one has had to eat all the year--for that, and other blessings. The Pilgrim Fathers, who came over to live among the Indians, were thankful for even a little parched corn."

"What are Indians?" asked the turkey, who had never studied history.

"Wild men, who wore feathers such as yours," said Nurse Jane. "They are Indians."

"I'll tell you about the Indians some day," promised Uncle Wiggily. "Now we must talk more about Thanksgiving."

"I don't like to talk about it," sighed Mr. Gobble Obble. "It isn't a happy thing for me even to think about, much less talk about!"

"But you shouldn't have run away with the cranberry sauce," went on the bunny gentleman. "I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to take it back."

"All right--I will," promised Mr. Gobble Obble. "But I'll go after dark, so the cook won't see me. Then I'll come here again and stay with you and Nurse Jane."

"Yes, do," invited the bunny. "Spend Thanksgiving with us."

So when it grew dark Mr. Gobble Obble picked up the basket of cranberry sauce in his bill, and went over the fields and through the woods to the village, where lived the real boys and girls and their fathers and mothers. Softly and silently, like the shadow of a feathered Indian, the turkey made his way to the back stoop. There he set down the cranberry sauce and scuttled over to Uncle Wiggily's hollow stump bungalow again.

Days and nights came and went, and then it was Thanksgiving.

"Very lucky am I to live to see this day," gobbled the turkey as he ate breakfast with Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane. "If I hadn't run away with the cranberry sauce I'd be roasting in the oven now!"

"Well, I'm glad you aren't," spoke the bunny. "Though of course it wasn't right for you to take the cranberry sauce."

"They'll have that for Thanksgiving, anyhow," remarked Nurse Jane. "But now, Wiggy," she went on, "if I get the baskets ready, will you start out with them?"

"Yes, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy," answered the bunny gentleman, twinkling his pink nose.

"What baskets are you speaking of?" asked Mr. Gobble Obble, as he saw the muskrat lady putting carrot cakes, turnip flopovers and lettuce sandwiches up in little bundles.

"These are for the poor folk of animal land," answered Uncle Wiggily. "Each year, at Thanksgiving, Nurse Jane puts up a good dinner for them, and I take the baskets around in my automobile."

"How nice!" gobbled the turkey. "May I help? I'm so thankful for not being in the oven, that I'd like to make some one else thankful too, if I could."

"That's the idea!" cried the bunny. "Yes, come along, Mr. Gobble Obble!"

Soon the bunny gentleman had filled his automobile with baskets of good things packed by Nurse Jane. Over the fields and through the woods rode Uncle Wiggily and the turkey gentleman, and many a poor animal family was the happier for Uncle Wiggily's visit.

And at last, when the final basket had been left, and Uncle Wiggily and the turkey were on their way back to the bungalow, out from behind a bush jumped the bad old Fuzzy Fox.

"I want to nibble Uncle Wiggily's ears for my Thanksgiving dinner!" howled the Fox. "I want ears to nibble!"

"Well, you can't--not to-day!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, and he made the auto go so fast that the Fox was left far, far behind.

"Oh, ho!" gobbled the turkey as they came within sight of the stump bungalow. "This ride will give us a good appetite for the Thanksgiving dinner."

"Indeed it will!" laughed the bunny.

But when they went inside, and met Nurse Jane, the muskrat lady looked at them in such a queer way that Uncle Wiggily asked:

"What is the matter, Miss Fuzz Wuzz?" (He sometimes called her that in fun.) "Has anything happened?" "Yes, Uncle Wiggily, there has," sadly answered the muskrat lady housekeeper. "I will not keep it from you!"

"Have--have they come after me?" asked the turkey in a faint and far-off voice. "Have they?"

"Oh, no," said Nurse Jane. "But by mistake I packed up everything in the house to eat in those Thanksgiving baskets, Uncle Wiggily! I didn't save out a thing for ourselves, and what to do about your Thanksgiving dinner I don't know! I'm so sorry----"

"Tut! Tut! Never mind," broke in Uncle Wiggily kindly. "I dare say we shall find something to nibble on. A couple of carrots will do me."

"Well, I have _those_," Nurse Jane said, "and a little corn."

"I love corn!" gobbled the turkey.

"I can eat it myself," the muskrat lady declared. "So if you can put up with that for Thanksgiving, we'll eat!"

Then they sat down to the corn and carrots, and Uncle Wiggily said:

"I'm thankful I could make the auto go so fast that we ran away from the fox."

"So am I," agreed the gobbler. "And I'm thankful I'm here sitting up to the dining table, instead of being nicely roasted on _top_ of it! And I'm thankful I could help you feed the poor animal families."

"I'm thankful," spoke Nurse Jane, "because you two gentlemen didn't scold and make a fuss when you found what a mistake I'd made about the dinner."

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "Then we are _all_ thankful, and there could not possibly be a better Thanksgiving than this!"

So they ate the corn and carrots and were very happy. And if the jumping jack doesn't waggle his tail like a skyrocket and knock over the milk bottles so they think they're roller skates and slide down the back stoop, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the circus.

STORY XXIX

UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE CIRCUS

Jackie Bow Wow, the little puppy dog boy, came running up to Uncle Wiggily one morning, so excited that he barked three times and fell down twice, stubbing his toe over a lollypop stick on the path.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" barked Jackie. "What you think? There's pictures of elephants, and tigers and lions and camels! There's a man putting up a big tent! There are red wagons and golden chariots, and blue wagons and one that plays funny tunes!"

"And there's a man with his face all painted red, white and blue, just like your rheumatism crutch!" barked Peetie Bow Wow, the other little puppy dog chap, as he ran up wagging his tail. "And there's popcorn, peanuts and pink lemonade! Wuff! Wuff!"

"What's it all about?" asked the bunny rabbit gentleman, as he sat down on the steps of his hollow stump bungalow, while the puppy dog boys caught their breaths, which had nearly run away from them.

"It's a circus!" cried Jackie and Peetie just like twins, which they almost were. "A real circus!"

"A circus!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "That's nice! Do you mean it is the kind you animal boys sometimes get up; where you charge two pins to get in and three pins for a seat?"

"Oh, no! It's a regular man-circus, that real boys and girls go to see!" barked Jackie.

"It's like the kind we once ran away and joined, where we learned to do jumping, to turn somersaults and other tricks," explained Peetie.

"Well, if it's that kind of a circus," spoke Uncle Wiggily, "we needn't bother our heads about it. We animal folk can't go to any real circus, you know!"

"Oh, but that's what we came to see you for!" whined Jackie. "We want you to take us to the circus!"

"Take you to the circus!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Why, the very idea! How would an old rabbit gentleman and two funny puppy dog boys look walking into a real circus? The men would think we belonged to it, and had somehow gotten out of our cages. They'd shut us up behind the iron bars, as the lions and tigers are kept. Take you two to the circus! Oh, no! It couldn't be thought of!"

"Oh, dear!" sighed Jackie.

"We told the others that you'd take us," softly barked Peetie.

"What others?" Uncle Wiggily wanted to know, curious like.

"Oh, Sammie and Susie Littletail, Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, and a lot of the animal boys and girls," went on Peetie. "We were over on the edge of the woods, looking at the circus men put up the tent and the colored posters, and we all thought you'd take us."

"Baby Bunty will be so disappointed!" said Jackie.

Uncle Wiggily twinkled his pink nose serious like and thoughtful.

"Hum! Circus!" murmured the old rabbit gentleman. "So Baby Bunty wants to go, does she? Well, she never saw a circus, not even a make-believe one, such as you boys get up. Now I don't care for a circus _myself_--I've seen too many of 'em. But I'll go--just to take Baby Bunty!"

"And may we come?" asked Jackie, eagerly.

"Oh, well, yes, I s'pose so!" slowly answered Mr. Longears. "Nurse Jane will say I'm queer; but what matter? A circus comes but once a year! Now run along, doggie boys. I'll have to think up some way of getting all of you into the circus tent, for we can't buy tickets and go in the regular way. The circus men wouldn't understand."

Jackie and Peetie were so delighted that they turned somersaults all the way across the field as they ran to tell the other animal boys and girls. Meanwhile Uncle Wiggily hopped along on his red, white and blue twinkling nose----Oh, listen to me, would you! I mean his rheumatism crutch. I guess I'm getting excited about the circus.

Anyhow Uncle Wiggily hopped across the field to the edge of the forest where Jackie and Peetie had said the big show was going to be given that afternoon. Surely enough there was the large white tent, much larger than the one the camping boys had used the time Uncle Wiggily helped dig a rain-water canal for the lads, so they would have dry beds to sleep in.

There was the circus tent!

And there were red, green, yellow, blue and purple posters showing pictures of lions, tigers, camels, elephants and all such wild animals.

"It's a regular circus surely enough," said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "But how am I going to get in with the animal boys and girls? I can't go up to the wagon and buy tickets, much as I'd like to. I can't speak man-talk, though I can understand it. How can I get in?"

Just then Uncle Wiggily saw two real boys slowly walking around outside the big tent. They seemed to be looking for something.

"I hope they haven't lost their ticket money," thought the bunny. One boy said to the other:

"Here's a good place to get in!"

"All right! Crawl under!" exclaimed the other.

Then those two boys suddenly crawled under the circus tent, because they had no money to buy tickets. Uncle Wiggily watched them.

"Why! The idea!" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "What a way to get in! Why--I have it! That's how I can get in with the animal children! I can crawl under the tent! Of course I wouldn't do it that way if I could buy them tickets, and get in the regular way. But I can't--the ticket man wouldn't understand if I hopped up with green or yellow leaf money. Crawling under the tent is the only way."

Uncle Wiggily hopped back to the woods where he had built his hollow stump bungalow. The animal children were gathered about waiting for him.

"Come on. It's time to start!" said Susie Littletail, who had on her best hat made of green ferns.

"Where are you going, Wiggy?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as she saw the bunny gentleman starting off at the head of the procession of animal boys and girls.

"Oh, I'm just going to take Baby Bunty to the circus," said Mr. Longears, holding the littlest rabbit girl by her paw.

"Are you sure you aren't going for _yourself_?" asked Nurse Jane with a laugh.

"Of course not!" exclaimed the bunny. "The idea!"

On he hopped with the animal children, and when they came near to the edge of the woods, where the circus tent gleamed white amid the green trees, Uncle Wiggily said:

"Wait here, children, until I hop ahead and see if everything is all right."

The bunny, hiding behind a bush, looked across a little field at the tent. He saw two more boys walk softly up and try to crawl under the white canvas, but all at once a man with a big club rushed up, drove away the boys, and cried:

"No, you don't! You can't get in this circus that way!"

"Oh, dear!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "If men are on guard to keep boys from crawling under the tent, they won't let me in with the animal children! What can I do? Baby Bunty will be so disappointed! Ha! I know! I'll start here in this field, and dig a burrow, or tunnel under ground. I'll slant it down until I'm beneath the tent, and then I'll slant it up, so when we come out we'll be inside the tent. In that way the men with clubs will not see us!"

Uncle Wiggily hopped back to the waiting animal children.

"I'll have to dig a tunnel-burrow to get you into the circus," said the bunny. "Stay here and keep quiet!"

Starting in the field, behind the bushes and a little way from the circus tent, Uncle Wiggily began to dig. He was a fast worker, and soon he had dug the burrow all the way through.

He came out inside the circus tent, beneath the rows of seats on which were perched many boys, girls and grown folk watching the funny clowns, listening to the band, seeing the men on the high trapeze bars and looking at the horses.

"Ha! The circus is just beginning!" said Uncle Wiggily to himself, as the big bass drum boomed out: "Zoom! Zoom!"

He crawled back through the burrow and got the animal children in line.

"Forward march!" cried Uncle Wiggily, and through the underground burrow crawled the rabbits, squirrels, puppy dogs, pussy cats, chickens, ducks, guinea pigs and all the smaller animal friends of the rabbit gentleman.

They were not seen by the men with clubs, because they crawled beneath the tent far below the ground. Then they came up inside the circus, under the high tier of seats.

"Oh, isn't it wonderful!" cried Baby Bunty, keeping hold of Uncle Wiggily's paw.

"Hush!" whispered the rabbit gentleman. "Don't let the people up above know we're down here or they might chase us out!"

So there sat Mr. Longears and his little friends, having a fine view of the circus almost from start to finish. And the people sitting on the seats above dropped peanuts and kernels of popcorn which the animal children picked up and ate. The only thing they didn't have was pink lemonade, but perhaps that was not good for them.

And at last, when the band began to play like anything, and the horses and elephants raced around the big ring, Uncle Wiggily said:

"Come, now. The circus is ended. We had better get out before the crowd starts or we may be stepped on. Did you like it, Baby Bunty?"

"Oh, it was the most wonderful thing I ever saw!" sighed the little rabbit girl. "Thank you, ever so much!"

"Yes, and we thank you also, Uncle Wiggily," called the other animal children.

Then they crawled down through the burrow again, outside the tent and came into the woods, through which they scampered to their different homes. But they had been to the circus!

And if the window curtain doesn't roll up so fast that it flies to the top of the ceiling, taking the gold fish with it, you shall next hear about Uncle Wiggily and the lion.

STORY XXX

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LION

Once upon a time, as Uncle Wiggily was hopping through the woods, he heard a roaring sound, coming, it seemed, from a distant clump of trees.

"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the bunny rabbit gentleman. "That's thunder! I suppose we are going to have a storm. I didn't bring my umbrella, but I can find a large toadstool, or mushroom. That will do as well."

The animal folk often use toadstools for umbrellas, you know, and Uncle Wiggily had done this more than once. The bunny hopped on a little farther, and the roaring, rumbling sound boomed out again.

"The thunder is coming nearer," thought Mr. Longears. "I had better hurry if I am going to pick a toadstool umbrella!"

He limped on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch over toward a large mushroom (which, of course, isn't the same as a toadstool, though they look alike), and Uncle Wiggily was just breaking off the stem, so he would not get wet in the thunder shower, when, all of a sudden, a loud voice asked:

"Can you please tell me where the circus went to?"

Uncle Wiggily turned so quickly that he nearly lost the twinkle from the end of his pink nose. For the voice that spoke was almost as loud as thunder.