Part 12

"Was that you making the noise like a storm?" asked the bunny as he saw a large yellow creature, with a great head, surrounded by a fluffy mane, and a tail on the end of which was a bunch of hair.

"It was," answered the big animal. "I'll try to speak more gently if it hurts your ears. But, naturally, I have a loud voice, being a lion, you know."

"Yes, I knew you were a lion. I remember seeing you in the circus," spoke the bunny gentleman, who was not at all afraid. "But tell me, why aren't you with the show now?"

"Because I ran away," the lion answered. "I got tired of being shut up in my cage all the while, and, when the man left the iron door open I slipped out. I've been hiding in the woods ever since; but it is not as much fun as I thought it would be. Now I wish I could go back to the circus. Can you please tell me where it is?"

"I am sorry to say I cannot," Uncle Wiggily answered. "But if you will come with me to my hollow stump bungalow--not that you can get inside, for you are too large--why, perhaps Nurse Jane may know where your circus is. She knows nearly everything."

"Who is Nurse Jane?" asked the lion.

"She is Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper," replied the bunny gentleman.

"A rat, is she?" went on the lion. "I don't know much about rats, but once a mouse gnawed the ropes, when I was caught in a net, and set me free--that was before I joined the circus."

"Well, a muskrat is something like a big mouse," said Uncle Wiggily, "so I think you will like Nurse Jane."

"I'm sure I shall," the lion rumbled, trying to make his voice soft and gentle.

"Well, then," went on Uncle Wiggily, "please come along with me, and I'll try to find the circus for you. Nurse Jane may know where it moved to, or some of the animal boys and girls may tell us."

So Uncle Wiggily hopped through the woods, the lion stalking along beside him, and soon they reached the hollow stump bungalow of the bunny gentleman.

"Nurse Jane! Nurse Jane!" called Mr. Longears. "I have brought home a friend with me!"

"Not to dinner, I hope, Wiggy," remarked Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, from inside the bungalow. "I have a dreadful headache! I haven't been able to wash the breakfast dishes yet, and as for making the beds, and dusting the furniture--it is out of the question! So if you want dinner----"

"Please tell her not to bother," whispered the lion. "I am not hungry and----"

"Is that thunder?" asked the muskrat lady, thrusting her head, tied up in a wet towel, from her bedroom window.

And when the muskrat lady saw the big lion she screamed.

"Pray do not be frightened, my dear Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy," the lion said. "I just came with Uncle Wiggily to inquire where I might find the circus, from which I foolishly ran away. But I'll toddle on, and not bother you, since you are ill."

"Oh, it isn't really any bother," spoke the muskrat lady. "I could get you a cup of tea. It was only your loud voice that startled me."

"I'm sorry," rumbled the lion, as gently as he could. "I'm afraid my voice is rather louder than the purr of a pussy cat. But I can't help it."

"Oh, of course not!" agreed Nurse Jane. "I wish I could ask you in, but our bungalow was not made for lions."

"I'll come in and get him something he can eat outside," offered Uncle Wiggily. "By that time some of the animal boys or girls, who know where the circus went, may come along, since you don't know, Nurse Jane."

"No, I am sorry to say I don't know," spoke the muskrat lady, as she went back to bed with her headache.

Uncle Wiggily took some carrot soup and some lettuce tea out to the lion, but though the tawny creature said he was not hungry, he ate nearly all there was in the bungalow, for his appetite was much larger than that of the muskrat lady or Mr. Longears.

"And now I would like to do you and Nurse Jane a favor," went on the circus chap, licking the soup off his whiskers with his red tongue. "Couldn't I help wash the dishes or make the beds?"

"I'm afraid not!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, thinking how funny it would look to see a lion making a rabbit's bed.

"Yes, I suppose I am too large to get in the bungalow," went on the roaring chap, in as gentle a voice as he could make come from his throat. "But I know one way in which I can help!"

"How?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"With my tail," said the lion. "That isn't too large to put through one of your windows. And on the end of my tail is a tuft of fluffy hair, just like a dusting brush. Please let me stick my tail in through the different windows. Then I can switch it around, and dust the furniture for Nurse Jane."

"Do you think you can?" asked the bunny, doubtful-like.

"Of course!" said the lion. "True, I never before have dusted furniture in a bunny's hollow stump bungalow, but that is no reason for not trying. Please give me a chance!"

So Uncle Wiggily opened all the windows. The lion backed up, and thrust his tail first in one and then in another. When his tail was in the parlor he switched it around--I mean he switched his tail around--and the fluffy tuft of hair on the end knocked all the dust off the chairs, table and piano. Soon the parlor was as nicely dusted as Nurse Jane could have done it herself.

In this way, with his tail, the lion dusted all the rooms in the bungalow, even the one where Nurse Jane was lying down with a headache. And when the muskrat lady saw the lion's fluffy tail switching around on her chairs in such a funny way, she laughed, and then, in a little while, her headache was all better.

"You certainly are a good houseworker," said the muskrat lady as she got up and drank a cup of tea. "And you have done me a great favor."

"Pray do not mention it," spoke the lion politely as he flapped his tail in the air to rid it of dust. "It was a pleasure!"

Then along came Jacko Kinkytail, the monkey boy, and he said the circus had moved on to a town about ten miles away.

"Thank you! I'll travel there and get back in my cage," rumbled the lion. Then, with a polite bow to Nurse Jane and Mr. Longears, the tawny, yellow chap with the big voice walked away through the forest. And every time the muskrat lady thought of the lion thrusting his tail in through the window to dust the furniture she had to laugh.

Now would you like to hear a story about Uncle Wiggily and the tiger? Well, you may if the scrubbing brush doesn't take the cake of soap out to the washrag's party and forget to bring it back for the bathtub to play ball with.

STORY XXXI

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE TIGER

"Uncle Wiggily! Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" called a voice after the rabbit gentleman, as he was hopping away from his hollow stump bungalow one morning.

"What's the matter now?" inquired the bunny, turning around so quickly that his tall silk hat nearly slipped down over his pink, twinkling nose. "Does the Woozie Wolf or the Fuzzy Fox wish to nibble my ears?"

"I hope not!" exclaimed Nurse Jane, the muskrat lady housekeeper, for she it was who had called. "But will you please take my scissors with you, Uncle Wiggily?"

"Take your scissors? What for?" asked Mr. Longears.

"To have them sharpened," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "They are so dull I can hardly cut anything, and I want to cut some linen up into new sheets and pillow cases. Take my scissors along with you, Wiggy dear, and have them made good and sharp."

"I will," promised the bunny rabbit gentleman. Then, wrapping the dull scissors in a grape-vine leaf, Uncle Wiggily put them in the top of his tall silk hat, and set the hat on his head.

"Why do you put them there?" asked Nurse Jane.

"So I'll remember them," the rabbit gentleman answered. "If I put them in my pocket I'd forget them. But now, if I meet Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, or Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, and bow to them, I'll take off my hat. Out will slide the scissors, and then I'll remember that I am to get them sharpened."

"That's a good idea," said Nurse Jane. "Now don't forget to bring them back to me good and sharp. If you don't I can't cut up into sheets and pillow cases the new linen I have bought."

"I'll not forget," promised the bunny gentleman.

He hopped on and on through the woods, and he had not gone very far before, all of a sudden, he heard a growling, rumbling-umbling noise, a little like far-off thunder.

"I wonder if that can be the lion again?" thought Uncle Wiggily. "Perhaps he couldn't find the circus and he has come back to dust more furniture for Nurse Jane with the end of his tail stuck through a window in the bungalow."

Uncle Wiggily looked through the forest, but he saw no tawny lion. Instead he saw, limping toward him, a beast almost as big as the lion, but with a beautiful black and yellow striped coat.

"Oh, ho! Mr. Tiger--the one I saw when I went to the circus with Baby Bunty!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "This is a tiger!"

"Yes, I am the striped tiger," answered the other animal. "And, oh, what trouble I am in!"

"What is the matter?" kindly asked the rabbit gentleman, for he could see that the tiger was limping and in pain.

"I ran a thorn in my foot," went on the black and yellow fellow, "and my eyes are so poor I can't see to pull it out."

"Perhaps I can," Uncle Wiggily said. "I have strong glasses."

So the bunny gentleman looked through his spectacles, and soon saw the thorn that was in the tiger's foot. It did not take Uncle Wiggily long to pull it out.

"Oh, thank you, so much!" growled the tiger, though not in a cross voice. "It serves me right, I suppose, for having run away from the circus."

"Did you run away, too, as the lion did?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"Yes," answered the striped beast, "we ran away together--the lion, some other animals and myself. But now I'd be glad to run back again."

"The lion was," said Uncle Wiggily. "He was very glad to go back."

"Don't tell me you have met _him_!" exclaimed the tiger. "Where is he?"

"He started back yesterday, after stopping at my bungalow and helping Nurse Jane dust the furniture with his tail through the windows," the bunny answered.

"Then I'm going back, too!" declared the tiger. "It isn't as much fun roaming by yourself through the woods as I thought it would be. I'm going back!"

"Before you start," kindly suggested Uncle Wiggily, "please come to my bungalow with me."

"Does more furniture need dusting?" asked the tiger, laughing. "I have no fluffy tuft on the end of my tail, as has the lion."

"It isn't that," the bunny answered. "But I would like to have Nurse Jane put some salve on the place where the thorn ran in your paw, and also wrap it up in a rag."

"That would be very nice," spoke the tiger. "Right gladly will I come with you."

So he limped through the forest with the bunny gentleman, and soon they came to the hollow stump bungalow.

"More company for you, Nurse Jane!" called the jolly rabbit uncle.

"That's nice," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "Oh, you're a tiger, aren't you?" she went on, as she saw the striped beast.

"And he has a sore paw," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "Will you put salve on it for him, Nurse Jane?"

"Of course," answered the muskrat lady. And when the tiger's sore paw was nicely wrapped in a clean rag, he started off through the woods to find the circus.

"Good-bye, and come again," invited Uncle Wiggily, making a low and polite bow with his tall silk hat.

"I will," promised the tiger. And then the bunny suddenly exclaimed:

"Oh, your scissors, Nurse Jane! I forgot all about getting them sharpened," and he picked them up from where they had fallen when he took off his hat.

"Oh, dear! That's too bad!" said the muskrat lady. "And I wanted to cut the linen in strips to make sheets and pillow cases. Now it is so late I'm afraid the sharpening place will be closed."

"Perhaps I can help," said the tiger, turning back.

"Can you sharpen scissors?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"No," was the answer, "but my claws are sharper than any scissors you ever saw. If you and Nurse Jane will hold the cloth, I will cut it into strips for you with my sharp claws. I don't need to use my sore paw. I'll take my other one."

"Oh, that will be very kind of you," said Nurse Jane. "I forgot that tigers have sharp claws."

So the muskrat lady and the rabbit gentleman held the linen cloth in front of the tiger, and with his claws he cut and slashed it into just the shapes Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy needed for making sheets and pillow cases.

"I am very glad I could do you this favor," the tiger said, when all the linen was cut.

"So am I," spoke Uncle Wiggily, "for if you hadn't been here to use your claws, Nurse Jane would not have forgiven me for not remembering to get the scissors sharpened. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!" echoed the tiger, as he walked on to find the circus. And that night he slept in his cage again.

So if the doorknob doesn't try to crawl through the keyhole to play bean bag with the rice pudding in the gas stove oven, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the elephant.

STORY XXXII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE ELEPHANT

"Matches, Uncle Wiggily! Matches!" cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy one morning, as the bunny rabbit gentleman was hopping down the forest path, away from his hollow stump bungalow.

"What's that? Patches?" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "Did I put on my garden trousers that have patches?" and he tried to twist his neck like a corkscrew, so he could look behind him.

"No, I didn't say '_patches_'!" laughed Nurse Jane. "I said _matches_. Don't forget to bring me some matches to light the fire, when you come back from looking for an adventure."

"Oh! Matches!" repeated the bunny. "I'll get some for you, Nurse Jane."

Over the fields and through the woods hopped the bunny rabbit gentleman. He looked here, there and everywhere for an adventure, but could not seem to find one. The Woozie Wolf nor the Fuzzy Fox did not chase him to nibble his ears. Not that Uncle Wiggily wanted them to, but, if they had, that would have been an adventure.

"Well, perhaps I shall find one when I come back," said the bunny gentleman as he hopped along to the seven and eight cent store, where he bought a box of matches.

Carrying these fire-sticks in his paw, Uncle Wiggily was hopping through the forest, on his way back to the hollow stump bungalow when, all at once, the bunny gentleman felt the ground trembling, and he heard a sound like a big horn being blown, and then a loud voice said:

"Oh, dear! I can't get it out!"

"Well, what can this be?" thought Uncle Wiggily. "That horn sounds like the big brass one I heard in the circus. From the way the earth shakes I'd say a big automobile truck was coming along. And as for someone who can't get something out--well, that sounds like trouble! I'd like to help, but first I must see who it is."

Uncle Wiggily looked through the bushes, and at first he thought he saw the side of some big house moving behind the trees. Then he noticed something like a great leaf flapping in the wind, and a moment later something long, like a fire hose, was thrust forward.

"Why, it's an elephant!" exclaimed the bunny, as he caught sight of the big chap.

"An elephant is just who I am," was the answer in a rumbling voice, coming through the rubber hose of a trunk. "I'm from the circus, and I wish I might be back there this minute, eating my hay!"

"Oh, so you have run away from the circus also, like the lion and tiger?" questioned the bunny.

"Yes," answered the elephant, "I did. But what do you know of my friends, the lion and tiger?"

"Oh, I have met them," answered Mr. Longears. "But is that your only sorrow--wishing you were back in the circus?"

"Indeed it is not," the elephant answered. "I have stepped on a loose stone, and it is fast between the toes of my left hind foot. I can't get it loose by stamping on the ground, and I can't reach so far back with my trunk. I'm in great pain and trouble!"

"That is too bad," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "I guess your stamping on the ground is what I thought was an auto truck coming along."

"Perhaps," admitted the big circus elephant. "I wish I could get that stone out from between my toes," he went on, stamping so hard that he shook the very trees, making them rustle as though a wind had blown them.

"Maybe I can help you," said Uncle Wiggily most kindly. "I have with me my red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch. With that I may be able to poke out the stone that hurts you."

"I wish you'd try," begged the elephant.

It did not take the bunny gentleman long to loosen the stone from between the elephant's toes, for the foot of an elephant is not like that of a horse or cow--he really has toes and toe-nails, just as you have, only a little larger, of course. Well, I should say so!

"Ah, I feel much better, Uncle Wiggily! Thank you!" spoke the elephant through his hollow rubber hose-like trunk, and it sounded like a trumpet or brass horn when he talked. "Now that the stone is out of my foot I shall go back to the circus."

"The path to the place where the circus is now showing leads past my bungalow," said the rabbit gentleman. "I'll hop along and point out for you the way. I'd like you to meet Nurse Jane."

"That will give me pleasure, also," remarked the elephant, who was very polite.

So he and Uncle Wiggily went along together, but several times the bunny had to say:

"Please don't go so fast, Mr. Elephant. I can't keep up with you."

"I beg your pardon," spoke the immense chap. "Suppose I lift you upon my back and carry you that way?"

"I should much like that," the rabbit uncle said. So in his trunk the elephant gently lifted up Uncle Wiggily, and set him down on the broad back.

"Ah, this is even better than my auto," laughed Uncle Wiggily, as the elephant crashed his way through the forest. Soon they came to the hollow stump bungalow.

"More company for you, Nurse Jane!" called Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh.

"Eh? What's that? Where are you? I don't see anybody but a big elephant?" cried the muskrat lady, looking up.

"I'm on his back!" answered the bunny. And as the elephant lifted Mr. Longears down in the trunk, Nurse Jane was so surprised that she hardly knew what to say.

"Will you--er--have a cup--I mean a _washtub_ of tea?" the muskrat lady asked, well knowing that so big a creature must drink a lot of everything.

"Some water is all I need, thank you," answered the elephant. "I had something to eat in the forest before I met Uncle Wiggily."

Then the big chap put his trunk down in the brook and sucked up a great quantity of water. Uncle Wiggily put the box of matches down on the bench at the side of the bungalow, where the sun shone bright and hot, and watched the elephant drink.

"Well, now I'll travel along and go back to the circus," said the big chap with the large trunk and little tail. "I'll tell the lion and tiger I met you."

"Please do." begged the bunny, and then, all of a sudden Nurse Jane cried:

"Fire! Fire! Fire! Oh, the sun has set off the box of matches, and the bungalow is burning! Fire! Fire! Fire!"

Surely enough, this had happened. The box of matches, fizzing and spluttering, was burning Uncle Wiggily's bungalow.

"Turn in an alarm; Get the firemen! Call out the water bugs!" cried the bunny gentleman.

"Just a moment! Don't get excited!" spoke the elephant calmly. "I will put out that fire in a second!"

He sucked up more water from the brook in his trunk and squirted it on the blaze. The fire hissed and spluttered and died out in a puff of smoke.

"Oh, you have saved my bungalow!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Thank you ever so much! Only for you I'd be burned out of house and home!"

"Pooh! That wasn't any more than you did for me--taking the stone out of my foot," said the elephant. "With my rubber hose-nose of a trunk, I very often put out little fires."

"Oh, I'm so glad Uncle Wiggily met you!" sighed Nurse Jane. "If he hadn't, our bungalow would have burned down, perhaps, Mr. Elephant!"

"Well, one good turn deserves another," laughed the elephant as he tramped away through the forest to find the circus, and the bunny gentleman and Nurse Jane waved "Good-bye" to the big chap.

So if the wheelbarrow doesn't catch cold when it runs after the train of cars to get a ride around the block, the next adventure will be about Uncle Wiggily and the camel.

STORY XXXIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CAMEL

"What sort of an adventure do you think you will have to-day, Uncle Wiggily?" asked the muskrat lady housekeeper of the bunny rabbit as he hopped away from the hollow stump bungalow one morning.

"Well, Nurse Jane, I hardly know," was the answer. "I may meet with some of those queer circus animals again."

"I hope you do," Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy said, as she tied her whiskers in a bow knot, for she was going to dust the furniture that day. "The circus animals are very kind to you. And it is strange, for some of them are such savage jungle beasts."

"Yes," spoke the bunny gentleman, "I am glad to say the circus animals were kind and gentle. More so than the Pipsisewah or Skeezicks. But then, you see, the circus animals have been taught to be kind and good--that is, most of them."

"I hope you never meet the other sort--the kind that will want to nibble your ears!" exclaimed Nurse Jane as Uncle Wiggily put his tall silk hat on front-side before and started off with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch under his paw.

"I hope nothing happens to him," sighed Nurse Jane as she went in to put the dishes to bed in the china closet.

But something was going to happen to Uncle Wiggily. You shall hear all about it.

On and on through the woods hopped the bunny rabbit gentleman, looking first on one side of the path and then on the other for an adventure. He was beginning to think he would never find one when, all of a sudden, he heard a rustling in the bushes, and a voice said:

"Oh, dear! I can't go a hop farther! I'm so tired, and my bundle is so heavy. I guess I'm getting old!"

"Ha! That sounds like trouble of the old-fashioned sort!" murmured Uncle Wiggily to himself. "I may be able to give some help, as long as it isn't the fox or wolf, and it doesn't sound like them."

The bunny gentleman peered through the trees and, sitting on a flat stump, he saw an old gentleman cat, looking quite sad and forlorn.

"Hello, Mr. Cat!" called Uncle Wiggily, cheerfully, as he hopped over toward the stump. "What's the trouble?"

"Oh, lots of trouble!" mewed the cat. "You see I'm a peddler. I go about from place to place selling pins and needles and things the lady animals need when they sew. Here is my pack," and he pointed to a large bundle on the ground near the stump.

"But what is the matter?" asked the bunny gentleman. "Don't the animal ladies buy your needles, pins and spools of thread? Just step around and see Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper. She is always sewing and mending. She'll buy things from your pack."

"Oh, it isn't _selling_ them that's the trouble," said Mr. Cat. "But I am getting so old and stiff that I can hardly carry the pack on my back any longer. I have to sit down and rest because my back aches so much. Oh, how tired I am! What a weary world this is!"

"Oh, don't say that!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, who felt quite cheerful that morning. "See how the sun shines!"

"It only makes it so much hotter for me to carry the pack on my back," sighed the cat.

"Ha! That is where I can help you!" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "I am quite well and strong, except for a little rheumatism now and then. That, however, doesn't bother me now, so I'll carry your peddler's pack for you."

"Will you? That's very kind!" said the cat. "Perhaps I may be able to do you a favor some day."

"Oh, that will be all right!" laughed the bunny, as he twinkled his pink nose. "Come along, we'll travel together and perhaps find an adventure."