Part 3

But there was Uncle Wiggily, behind the bush, scattering the gravel with his paws in a regular shower.

"I wish Nurse Jane could see me now," chuckled the bunny gentleman. "She surely would laugh."

At last so much gravel, sand and little stones showered into the face of the bad boy that he ran away, crying:

"Oh! Oh! Oh! Something terrible must have happened! I guess I'd better not tie any tin cans on dogs' tails any more."

"I guess you'd better not," said the other boy.

"And I say the same," laughed Uncle Wiggily, as he brushed some dust off his tall, silk hat, and straightened his necktie. Then the bunny gentleman watched, while the kind boy went to the hollow tree and patted the poor, frightened little dog. And then this boy hid the tin can where no other boys could find it, and went on to school.

And I think--mind you I'm not sure--but I think that bad boy turned good after that. Anyhow if he didn't he ought to.

"Well, I had quite an adventure," said the bunny rabbit gentleman, as he hopped on to his hollow stump bungalow. "A very good adventure!"

And if the jumping jack doesn't cut a slice off the mud pie with the bread-knife, and tell the rag doll it's a piece of chocolate cake, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily's valentine.

STORY VI

UNCLE WIGGILY'S VALENTINE

Uncle Wiggily quickly hopped across the room and closed the door of his hollow stump bungalow, where he was busy in the sitting room. He heard Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy coming along.

"Well, that's queer!" exclaimed the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she noticed what Uncle Wiggily did. "I wonder what he means? Wiggy," she called, "are you getting ready for some strange, new adventure, such as stopping bad boys from tying tin cans on dogs' tails?"

"Nothing like that now; no, my dear," answered the bunny rabbit, and he quickly pulled the table cover over something he had been looking at. "This is a secret!"

"Oh--a secret!" exclaimed Nurse Jane, puzzled-like.

The muskrat lady looked at a calendar hanging on the wall, and noticed that the day was February 14.

"I think I can guess what your secret is, Uncle Wiggily," she said to herself. "I s'pose it's something for Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, or maybe for Grandpa Goosey Gander. Well, I hope you enjoy it."

Then Nurse Jane went back to the dining room, where she was giving the dishes their morning bath; and Uncle Wiggily began to rustle some paper and tie knots in a piece of gold string, the while murmuring to himself:

"I hope she likes it! Oh, I do hope she likes it. I'll put it on the steps, throw a stone at the door so she thinks someone is knocking, and then I'll run and hide behind a bush and watch how surprised she is when she opens it."

Uncle Wiggily had been very busy all that morning, after having been out in the woods the day before. What he had made I shall tell you about in a little while. Enough now for you to know that the bunny rabbit had something he did not want Nurse Jane to see.

Pretty soon, after opening the door a crack, and listening to Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy wash the face of the clock, Uncle Wiggily hopped softly out and down the front steps, with a box under his paw. His tall silk hat was on rather sideways, and he carried his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch upside down, but when you remember that it was February 14, I think you will kindly excuse the bunny gentleman.

Uncle Wiggily hopped on through the woods, and over the fields. Every now and then he would stop, and, with his crutch, brush to one side the dried leaves and little heaps of snow that were scattered here and there in the forest.

"I hope I may find some," said Mr. Longears to himself. "It won't be half so pretty without them. I hope I find some."

He searched in many places, and at last he found what he was looking for. Carefully he picked something up off the ground, and put it in the box he carried.

"Nurse Jane will surely like this," said the bunny gentleman. He was about to hop on again when, all of a sudden, he heard someone crying in the woods. There was a sobbing sound and, looking around the corner of a tree, Uncle Wiggily saw a little girl, sitting on a log. And she was crying as hard as she could cry!

"That isn't the Freckled Girl," said the bunny gentleman to himself. "She said she wouldn't mind her freckles after she looked at the pretty speckled birds' eggs. It isn't the Freckled Girl. I wonder who she is, and what's the matter?"

And pretty soon Uncle Wiggily found out, for he heard the sobbing girl say:

"Oh, I wish I had money enough to buy one! All the other girls and boys can buy valentines to send teacher, but I can't! And she'll think I don't like her, but I do! Oh, I wish I had a valentine!"

"My goodness me sakes alive and some peanut pudding!" whispered the bunny rabbit gentleman. "That girl is crying because she hasn't a valentine for her teacher!"

Then the bunny gentleman looked down at the box, wrapped in tissue paper, which he carried under his paw--the box in which he had placed something he had found under the leaves and snow of the forest a little while before.

"She wants a valentine," murmured the bunny rabbit gentleman. "And here I have one that I made for Nurse Jane. I was going to leave it on the steps and surprise my muskrat lady housekeeper. But I suppose I could give it to this little girl, and--well, Nurse Jane won't care, when I tell her."

"I'll do it! I'll give this girl my valentine," said Uncle Wiggily so suddenly that his pink nose almost twinkled backward.

He looked over the top of a bush behind which he had sat down to wrap up Nurse Jane's valentine. Then the bunny hopped over to the girl who sat on the log, still sobbing because she had no token for her teacher.

The girl heard the rustling in the leaves, made by Uncle Wiggily's paws as he hopped, and she looked up suddenly. Then she rubbed her eyes, hardly able to believe what she saw.

"Why! Why!" she murmured. "Am I dreaming? Is this a fairy? A rabbit gentleman, dressed in a tall silk hat, and with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch! Oh! Why, it's Uncle Wiggily! It's Uncle Wiggily out of my Bedtime Story Books! Oh, how glad I am to see you, dear Uncle Wiggily! Please come up and sit by me on this log!"

But Uncle Wiggily was not allowed to do this. He put his paw over his lips, to show that though he could hear, and understand what the girl said, he could not talk to her in reply. Then he placed his valentine beside her on the log and quickly hopped away.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Wait a minute! Please wait a minute!" cried the girl, but the bunny gentleman dared not stay.

"I must try and find Nurse Jane another valentine," he said to himself, as he skipped along the woodland paths.

Left alone, the girl on the log opened the box Uncle Wiggily had left. It was made from pieces of white birch bark, such as the Indians used for their canoes. Inside, were some sprigs from an evergreen tree, with some round, brown buttons from the sycamore tree. And in the middle of the evergreen sprigs were some lovely pink and white blossoms of the trailing arbutus--the earliest flower of Spring--growing under the leaves and late snows. It was these arbutus flowers which the bunny had come to the woods to find and complete his valentine. Now he had given it to the girl.

"Oh, how lovely!" she murmured, tears no longer in her eyes. "Won't teacher be surprised when I put this on her desk and tell her Uncle Wiggily gave it to me? Oh, there's a verse, too!"

And there was! Written on a piece of white birch bark, which is what the animal folk use instead of paper, was this little verse:

"These twigs of cedar, like my heart, Are ever green for you. The blossoms whisper that I am Your Valentine so true!"

"I know teacher will just love this!" said the little girl, and she was so excited she could hardly run to school. She had to hop and skip.

"Here's a valentine Uncle Wiggily gave me in the woods," the little girl told her teacher, all excited and out of breath.

"Uncle Wiggily? How strange!" exclaimed the teacher. "I--I hope you didn't dream it," she said to the little girl. "But, at any rate, the valentine is real. And how lovely! It's the very nicest one I ever saw!"

Then you can imagine how pleased the little girl was. Uncle Wiggily, hopping back to his bungalow through the woods, gnawed a piece of white birch bark off a tree, and, with a burned, black stick for a pencil, he scribbled on it:

"Dear Nurse Jane: This is my valentine. I love you!"

"+Uncle Wiggily.+"

And when the muskrat lady found that on the doorstep a little later, she laughed and said it was the nicest valentine she could wish for. And when Uncle Wiggily told about giving the other valentine to the sad little girl, the muskrat lady said:

"You did just right, Wiggy! Now let's go to the movies!"

So they did. And if electric light doesn't cry when it has to go down cellar in the dark, to get a piece of coal for the fire to play with, you shall next hear about Uncle Wiggily and the bad dog.

STORY VII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BAD DOG

Once upon a time, about as many years ago as it takes a lollypop to slide down the back cellar door, there lived in a kennel, not far from Uncle Wiggily's hollow stump bungalow, a bad dog. And the bunny rabbit gentleman, more than once, wished that this dog would always stay in his kennel, or remain chained in front of it so he couldn't get loose.

"For that dog," said Uncle Wiggily to Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, "is the pest of my life! Every time he sees me he chases me. He isn't at all like Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, or Old Dog Percival."

"Why don't you scratch sand and gravel in his eyes as you did in the face of the bad boy?" asked the muskrat lady housekeeper.

"You can't treat dogs as you do boys," replied Uncle Wiggily. "Though, of course, some boys and some dogs are great friends. But this dog seems always to want to chase me."

"Then you must be very careful if you go off in the woods to-day, looking for an adventure," said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.

"I will," promised the bunny rabbit gentleman.

Away he hopped on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and his tall, silk hat. And this time Uncle Wiggily took with him his glasses, which he sometimes wore in order to see better.

"And I want to see the very best I can to-day," said Mr. Longears to himself, as he hopped along. "I want to see that bad, unpleasant dog before he sees me!"

Uncle Wiggily was skipping along, thinking perhaps that he had better pick a bunch of violets and take them to the lady mouse teacher in the hollow stump school, when, all of a sudden, there sounded through the woods a loud:

"Wuff! Wuff!"

"That isn't the Fox, nor yet the Wolf, nor even the Skillery Scallery Alligator," said Uncle Wiggily, looking around the corner of the mulberry bush. "I think it must be that savage dog!"

And, surely enough it was. And a moment later the dog came bursting through the bushes, barking and growling and headed straight for Uncle Wiggily.

"I'll make believe I'm playing baseball and try for a home run!" said the rabbit gentleman to himself, and through the bushes, turning and twisting this way and that, he ran for his hollow stump bungalow.

Uncle Wiggily reached it only just in time, too. For as he hopped up the steps, and closed the door, locking it, the dog jumped over the gate.

"My goodness me sakes alive and a basket of soap bubbles!" cried Nurse Jane. "What's the matter, Wiggy? Is the house on fire?"

"It's that dog--chasing--me!" panted the bunny, for he was quite out of breath.

"The idea! How impolite of him!" exclaimed the muskrat lady, and she shook her broom out of the window at the bad chap.

"Well, you got away from me this time, but the next time I'll get you," growled the dog, as he slunk away.

"Why is he so anxious to catch you?" asked Nurse Jane, as Uncle Wiggily sat down in an easy chair to rest.

"Oh, I guess he'd chase any of the animal folk he saw in the wood," answered the bunny gentleman. "He'd chase Sammie or Susie Littletail the rabbits, Johnnie or Billie Bushytail the squirrels and I'm sure he would make Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children, lose their feathers in trying to flutter away from him."

"It's too bad," said Nurse Jane. "You ought to speak to Old Percival, the Policeman Dog about this bad chap."

"I shall," said Uncle Wiggily. He did, too, but the bad dog was so sly that Old Percival could not catch him. Uncle Wiggily also spoke to the little dog, whom he had saved from having a tin can tied on his tail by a bad boy.

"I'll tell this savage dog to let you alone," the little chap promised.

But all this did no good. Every time the bad dog saw Uncle Wiggily in the woods he chased the rabbit gentleman, and once nearly caught the bunny. I don't know why this dog was so unpleasant and mean toward Uncle Wiggily. I guess maybe the dog didn't know any better. Perhaps he thought Uncle Wiggily didn't like dogs, but Mr. Longears did--especially Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the little puppy chaps.

Well, as it happened, one day the people who owned the big, savage dog, that always chased Uncle Wiggily, went away on a visit. And they went in such a hurry that they left the dog chained to his kennel, and they forgot to leave him any water to drink, or food to eat.

At first the dog was not hungry, but later in the day, when it was time for him to have had a meal, and some water, that dog began to feel very unhappy.

"Bow! Wow! Wow!" he barked, trying to call someone out to feed him, and pour water in the sun-dried pan. But no one came, and the dog grew more hungry, and so thirsty that his tongue hung down out of his mouth.

Just about this time Uncle Wiggily was going through the woods on his way to the six and seven cent store to get Nurse Jane a spool of thread. The bunny rabbit heard the barking of the dog, and started to run, for he knew that voice. But as he paused to listen, and find out from which direction the sound came, so he could run away from it, instead of toward it, Uncle Wiggily heard a voice saying:

"Bow wow! Oh, how hungry I am! How thirsty I am!"

It was the savage dog speaking, and Uncle Wiggily of course understood animal talk, even better than he had learned to know, as he had of late, what boys and girls said.

"Hum! So that dog is hungry and thirsty, is he?" said the bunny to himself. "Well, why doesn't he go and dig up some of the bones he must have buried? And why doesn't he go to the duck pond and get a drink, I wonder?"

Uncle Wiggily thought there was something strange about this, and as the barking and animal-talking voice of the dog did not come any nearer, the bunny hopped over to see what was the matter.

There he saw the savage dog, fastened by a heavy chain to his kennel, with nothing to eat, no water to drink and no one to bring him any.

"Oh, how hungry I am! How thirsty I am!" barked the dog.

"Oh, are you?" politely asked Uncle Wiggily, looking out from behind a stone. He was not afraid to be this near the bad dog, for the savage chap was chained, and could not get loose.

"Yes, I am very thirsty and hungry," whined the dog. "But of course I don't expect you to feed me or give me water. I've been too bad to you--I've chased you too often! I can't ask you to help me!"

"I don't see why not," said Uncle Wiggily politely. "If I were ill in my bungalow, with rheumatism, and Nurse Jane wasn't there to wait on me, and you came along, wouldn't you get me a drink of water?"

The dog thought a moment before answering. Then he sort of drooped his tail, sorry-like and softly said:

"Yes, I believe I would."

"Then," said the bunny gentleman, "I'll bring you a drink, and if you tell me where you have buried some bones, I'll dig them up for you, since I can't loosen your kennel chain to let you dig them yourself."

"Oh, how kind you are!" said the dog. "I--I really don't deserve this."

"Stuff and nonsense!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "We all make mistakes--that's why they put rubbers on the end of lead pencils, as someone has said. I'll help you when you're in trouble."

Then the bunny found a half a cocoanut shell, and dipping this in the nearby brook, brought water to the thirsty dog. And when he had taken a long drink, cooling his parched and hot tongue, the dog pointed to where he had buried some bones, behind the barn.

Uncle Wiggily dug up the bones with his paws, which were just made for such work, and carried them to the dog.

"Oh, I can't thank you enough," said Gurr-Rup, which was the dog's name. "And I promise, Mr. Longears, that I'll never chase you again."

"Thank you!" laughed the bunny, as he hopped on to the three and four cent store. "I hoped you wouldn't."

So this teaches us that it doesn't hurt the needle to put the thread in its eye, and if the apple doesn't jump out of the dumpling, and try to hide in the chocolate cake, when it ought to take the pie to the moving pictures, on the next page you will find a story about Uncle Wiggily and Puss in Boots.

STORY VIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND PUSS IN BOOTS

"Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?" called Nurse Jane Fuzzy one day, as the muskrat lady saw the bunny gentleman hopping away from his hollow stump bungalow.

"I am going to get myself a new pair of rubber boots," said Mr. Longears. "My old ones are wearing out, and they have little holes in, so they leak. We have had so much rain, of late, that I will need a new pair of boots if I am to look for any more adventures. So I am going to the shoemaker's."

"But why are you taking your old boots along?" asked Nurse Jane, for Uncle Wiggily had them under his paw.

"I am taking them to the shoemaker to show him what size I want my new boots," answered the bunny. "Also he may be able to mend these old ones so they will do to wear in the garden."

"That's a good idea," said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "And while you are out I wish you would go to the seven and eight cent store for me. I want some needles and thread, some balls of red yarn and some white flannel."

"My! All that! Are you going to make a bedquilt?" asked the bunny gentleman.

"No," laughed Nurse Jane. "I am going to use the white flannel to make me a new petticoat, the red yarn I am going to use to knit Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, some mittens, and the needle and thread I will use to sew up a hole in the lace curtain."

"Very well," spoke Uncle Wiggily politely, "you shall have all three, and I'll get myself a new pair of boots."

It did not take the bunny rabbit gentleman long to hop to the shop of the Monkey Doodle shoemaker, where Mr. Longears bought himself a new pair of rubber boots.

"As for those old ones," said the Monkey chap, "I can mend them for you, so they will do to wear many times yet."

"Please do so," begged the bunny. And when his old boots were mended he carried them over his shoulder with the new ones, for he was wearing his shoes. Along he hopped to the seven and eight cent store.

Uncle Wiggily bought the needles, thread, white flannel and red yarn for the rabbit children's mittens, and he was hopping back to his hollow stump bungalow, when, all of a sudden, coming from behind a sassafras bush, he heard a voice saying:

"Oh, dear! How sad! Now I suppose they'll take me out of all the story books, and the children will never love me any more!"

"Hum! This is strange," said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "I wonder who it is that can't be in the story books any more? That is very sad! I wouldn't want them to put me out of all the Bedtime Story Books in which I have my adventures."

So the bunny gentleman looked around the corner of a lollypop bush, and there he saw a cat, dressed in a coat, trousers and cap, but without anything on his hind paws, sitting on a stump.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Cat!" politely greeted Uncle Wiggily. "You seem to be in trouble."

"I am," was the answer. "Only my name is Puss, and not Cat, though, of course, that's what I really am. Puss in Boots is my right name, but there is no use trying to keep it any longer."

"Why not?" Uncle Wiggily asked.

"Because I have lost my boots," answered Puss. "A little while ago I met a cross dog who chased me. I ran across a swamp and became stuck in the mud. I managed to pull my paws out of the boots, but the boots themselves remained fast in the mud. Now I have no boots and I can be called Puss in Boots no longer! I shall have to keep out of all the story books!"

"Nonsense!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "Why, I have two pairs of boots here! Take one of them, I can only wear one pair of boots at a time," and very politely Mr. Longears gave his new boots to the cat.

"Oh, but I can't take your new boots!" objected Puss. "The old ones will do me very well."

"No," kindly insisted Uncle Wiggily. "Please take the new ones. Since my old ones were mended they will answer me very well, and they'll be easier on my paws."

So Uncle Wiggily gave Puss the new boots, keeping the old mended ones for himself, and as the cat put the boots on his paws he looked just as he ought to--like his pictures in the story books.

"Now I can keep my place, the children will not miss me. Thank you, Uncle Wiggily," mewed Puss.

"Pray do not mention it," said the bunny. "I am glad I don't have to carry two pairs of boots."

So Mr. Longears hopped on a little farther, and soon he heard some tiny voices saying:

"Oh, Mother dear! Look here! Look here! Our mittens we have lost!"

"Ho! I should know who they are!" said the bunny. "Those must be the three kittens!"

And, surely enough, they were, as the bunny saw a moment later, when he turned around the corner of a mulberry tree. There were three little pussy kittens, holding up their paws for their mother to see, and there wasn't a single mitten on any one of the paws! What do you think of that?

"What, lost your mittens! You careless kittens! Now you can't have any pie!"

Thus sang the mother cat. And when the three little kittens, who had lost their mittens, began to cry, Uncle Wiggily felt so sorry for them that he stepped up and said:

"Excuse me, Mrs. Cat. But I have a lot of red yarn I bought for Nurse Jane to knit mittens for Sammie and Susie Littletail. There is more than Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy needs, I'm sure, so I shall give you some to knit mittens for your pussies."

"Oh, how kind you are!" mewed the mother cat, as Uncle Wiggily gave her three balls of red yarn, still leaving plenty for the rabbit children's mittens. "Now you may have some pie, and I'll give Uncle Wiggily a piece, too," said the cat mother to her kittens.

"You are very kind," remarked Mr. Longears. "But I must hop on with the needle and thread, and the piece of white flannel Nurse Jane is going to use to make herself a new petticoat."

So on hopped the bunny, while the mother cat sat down to knit some new mittens for her kittens. And Uncle Wiggily had not gone very far before, all of a sudden, he heard another sad mewing sound and a voice said:

"Dear me! The hole goes all the way through! I shall never be able to go to see Old Mother Hubbard this way! Oh, what an accident!"

"That sounds like more trouble," thought Uncle Wiggily, and, looking over the top of a stone wall, he saw a pussy cat lady sitting on a stump, sadly looking at her skirt.

"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Longears.

"Oh! How you surprised me!" mewed the cat lady. "But here is the trouble. I'm Pussy Cat Mole. I jumped over a coal, and in my best petticoat burned a great hole!" and she showed the edge of her petticoat where, surely enough, a hole was burned through.

"And I ought to be at Mother Hubbard's now, to go with her to the movies," said Pussy Cat Mole. "But, alas, I can not go!"

"Oh, yes, you can!" said Uncle Wiggily.

"Not with this big burned hole in my petticoat!" mewed the cat.