Part 5

So among his friends Uncle Wiggily gathered up bundles of woodland presents. And in the dusk of Christmas eve the black crows fluttered silently in from the forest, gathered up in their claws the presents which the bunny had tied with thread, and away they flapped, not only to the houses of the two boys, but also to the homes of some girls, about whom Uncle Wiggily had heard. Their chimneys, too, it seemed, were choked with soot.

But the crows could be made no blacker, not even if you dusted them with charcoal, so they did not in the least mind fluttering down the sooty chimneys. And so softly did they make their way, that not a boy or girl heard them! As silently and as quietly as Santa Claus himself went the crows!

All during Christmas eve they fluttered down the chimneys at the homes of poor boys and girls, helping St. Nicholas, until all the presents that Uncle Wiggily had gathered from his friends had been put in place.

Then, throughout Woodland, in the homes of Sammie and Susie Littletail the rabbits, of Johnnie and Billie Bushytail the squirrels, Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow the dogs, Curly and Floppy Twistytail the piggie boys--in all the homes of Woodland great changes took place. Firefly lights began to glow on Christmas trees. Mysterious bundles seemed to come from nowhere, and took their places under the trees, in stockings and on chairs or mantels.

And then night came, and all was still, and quiet and dark--as dark as the black crows or the soot in the chimneys.

But in the morning, when the stars had faded, and the moon was pale, the glorious sun came up and made the snow sparkle like ten million billion diamonds.

"Merry Christmas, Uncle Wiggily!" called Nurse Jane. "See what Santa Claus brought me."

"Merry Christmas, Nurse Jane!" answered the bunny. "And what a fine lot of presents St. Nicholas left for me! See them!"

"Oh, isn't he a great old chap!" laughed Nurse Jane, as she smelled a bottle of perfume.

And all over the land voices could be heard saying:

"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!"

Near the hearth in the homes of some boys and girls who had not gone to bed with happy thoughts of the morrow, were some delightful presents. How they opened their eyes and stared--these boys and girls who had expected no Christmas.

"Why! Why!" exclaimed one of the two lads whom Uncle Wiggily had heard talking near the snowbank. "How in the world did Santa Claus get down our black chimney?"

But, of course, they knew nothing of Uncle Wiggily and the crows. And please don't you tell them.

So all over, in the Land of Boys and Girls, as well as in the Snow Forest of the Animal Folk, there echoed the happy calls of:

"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" Once again there was joy in the land.

And if the sunflower doesn't shine in the face of the clock, and make its hands go whizzing around backward, I shall take pleasure, next, in telling you about Uncle Wiggily's Fourth of July.

STORY XII

UNCLE WIGGILY'S FOURTH OF JULY

"You must be extra careful to-morrow, Uncle Wiggily," said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy to the bunny rabbit gentleman one morning, as he stood on the steps of his hollow stump bungalow.

"Why be careful to-morrow, more than on any other day in the year?" asked Mr. Longears. "Is it going to rain or snow?"

"Whoever heard of snow on the Fourth of July?" inquired the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she fastened a fluffy brush to the end of her tail, for she was presently going in the house to dust the furniture.

"Oh, so to-morrow is the Fourth of July!" exclaimed the bunny. "I had forgotten all about it. Yes, indeed, I must be careful! I am living near the real children, now, and some of them might think it fun to explode a torpedo under my pink, twinkling nose, or try to fasten a fire-cracker to my little tail."

"That's what I was thinking of," went on Nurse Jane. For Uncle Wiggily's bungalow, while still in the woods, was near to the homes of some boys and girls. And though only one boy, so far, had been bad to the bunny (and this boy soon turned good), there was no telling what might happen.

So as Uncle Wiggily hopped along the forest path, he took care not to get too far away from the bushes, behind and under which he could hide. For sometimes boys and girls came to the forest, and once a Kite Boy was lost, and the bunny helped him find his way home, you may remember.

"Hello, Uncle Wiggily!" suddenly called a voice, and Mr. Longears quickly jumped around, thinking it might be a real boy or girl. But it was only Neddie Stubtail, the little boy bear.

"I've been buying my fire-crackers," said Neddie to his uncle, the bunny. "I'm going to have lots of fun Fourth of July," and he showed Mr. Longears a bundle of dry sticks, painted red, white and blue like the bunny's rheumatism crutch.

You must know that in Animal Land the boys and girls have the same sort of fun you children do on holidays, but in a different manner. Instead of real fire-crackers, that have to be set off with a match, or piece of punk, with sparks that, perhaps, burn you, the animal children get some dried sticks. These they break, with loud, cracking sounds, but without any fire. And they have lots of fun. After the sticks are broken they can be put in the stove to boil the tea kettle.

"Did you get your sister, Beckie, any Fourth of July things?" asked Uncle Wiggily of the boy bear.

"Oh, yes, I got her some little stick crackers," answered Neddie.

"That's good!" spoke Mr. Longears. Then he went on through the woods, meeting Toddle and Noodle Flat-Tail the beaver boys, Joie, Tommie and Kittie Kat the kittens, Nannie and Billie Wagtail the goats, and many other animal boys and girls. All of them called:

"Hello, Uncle Wiggily! Happy Fourth of July!"

And the bunny answered back:

"Thank you! I wish you the same!"

Thus hopping through the woods, meeting the animal children, and learning of the fun they were to have next day, the bunny rabbit gentleman at length came to the end of the forest. A little farther on were the houses and homes of real boys and girls, some of whom had been helped by Mr. Longears.

"I think this is as far as I had better go, seeing it's so close to the Fourth of July," thought Uncle Wiggily. "If the real children are anything like those of my animal friends who live in the woods, they'll be shooting off their crackers and torpedoes ahead of time."

And, just as he said that, Uncle Wiggily heard a loud:

"Bang! Bang!"

The bunny jumped to one side, and hid under the broad leaf of a burdock plant. Then he laughed.

"I thought that was a hunter-man's gun," whispered Uncle Wiggily. "But I guess it was some boy setting off a fire-cracker. I need not have been afraid."

He was just going to hop along a little farther, before turning back to his hollow stump bungalow when, all at once he saw a hammock swinging between two trees near the edge of the wood.

In the hammock lay a boy with a thin, pale face, and beside him sat a nurse, gently pulling on a rope that caused the little nest-like swinging bed to sway to and fro.

"Oh ho!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "A sick boy! I'm sorry for him! He won't be able to run around and have fun on Fourth of July as Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow will."

And then the bunny heard the boy in the hammock speaking. And, being able, as he was of late, to understand the talk of real persons, Uncle Wiggily heard the boy say:

"Do you think I'll ever be able to run around again, and have fun, and shoot off fire-crackers?"

"Of course you will," the nurse answered cheerfully.

"But I can't have any fire-crackers now, can I?" asked the boy, timidly, as though knowing what the answer would be.

"No, Buddie! You are not quite well enough," the nurse gently replied. "No fire-crackers for you!"

"How about torpedoes?"

"You couldn't have those, either, I'm afraid," and the nurse smiled as she leaned over to give the boy a drink of orange juice.

"Oh, dear!" sighed the boy in the hammock, just like that. "Oh, dear!"

Uncle Wiggily felt very sorry for him.

"I wish I could do something," thought the bunny gentleman. "This boy won't have much fun on the Fourth of July--not even as much fun as Curly and Floppy Twistytail, the piggie chaps, will have throwing corncobs against a tin pan and making believe they are skyrockets."

"Oh, dear!" again sighed the boy in the hammock. "Oh, dear!"

"What's the matter now?" asked his nurse.

"I don't s'pose I could even have a Roman candle, or a pinwheel, could I?" the invalid asked.

"Oh, indeed no!" laughed the nurse. "What a funny chap you are!"

But the boy didn't feel very funny.

Uncle Wiggily twinkled his pink nose. Then he put his tall, silk hat firmly on his head and, tucking under his paw his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, off through the woods hopped the bunny uncle.

"I'm going to get some Fourth of July for that boy," said Mr. Longears. "He simply must have some."

Uncle Wiggily spent some time hopping here and there through the woods, and early the next morning, when the real boys and girls were shooting off real fire-crackers and torpedoes, and when the animal lads and lassies were cracking sticks and making torpedoes from broad, green leaves, Mr. Longears hopped to where the boy was, once more, swinging in his hammock.

The boy's head was turned to one side, and he was looking at some of his friends, over in the vacant lots, setting off fire-crackers. Uncle Wiggily, when the nurse wasn't looking, tossed into the hammock, from the bush behind which the bunny was hidden, a bundle of green things. They fell near the boy's hands.

Hardly knowing what he was doing the sick lad pinched one of the green things between his fingers.

"Pop!" it went.

"What's that?" cried the nurse. "It sounded like a fire-cracker."

The boy pinched another green leaf-like ball between his fingers.

"Pop!" sounded again, as the ball burst.

"Why," cried the nurse. "That's like a torpedo! What have you there, Buddie?"

"I don't know," the boy answered. "But these round, green balls, that burst and pop when I squeeze them, fell into my hammock. There's a lot of 'em! I can pinch them and make a noise for Fourth of July."

"So you can!" exclaimed the nurse, pinching one herself, and jumping when it went "Pop!"

"And they won't hurt me, will they?" asked the boy.

"No," answered the nurse, "they won't hurt you at all. They must have fallen off this tree, but I never knew, before, that such things as green fire-crackers grew on trees!"

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Uncle Wiggily to himself, hidden under a bush. "She doesn't know I brought the puff balls to the boy."

For that is what the bunny had done. In the woods he had found the green puff balls, inside which were the seeds of the plant. Later on, in the fall, the puff balls would be dry, and would crackle when you touched them, opening to scatter the seeds. But now, being green, and filled with air, they burst with a Fourth of July noise when squeezed.

"Oh, now I can have some fun!" laughed the sick boy, as he cracked one puff ball after another. "Hurrah! Now I'm celebrating Fourth of July!"

And he was. Uncle Wiggily had helped him, and the bunny gentleman had brought enough puff balls to last all day.

"Pop! Pop!" That is how they sounded as the boy pinched them in his hammock. Some were large, like big fire-crackers, and others were small, like little torpedoes.

"Oh, what a lovely Fourth of July!" sighed the boy, when evening came to put the sun to bed, and the nurse wheeled the boy into the house.

And then, when it grew dark, Uncle Wiggily called together ten thousand firefly-lightning bugs, and they flittered and fluttered about the porch, on which the boy had been taken after supper. The fireflies made pinwheels of themselves, they went up like skyrockets, they leaped about in bunches like the balls from Roman candles and finally, when it was time to go to bed, they took hold of each others' legs and, clinging together, spelled out:

"Oh, it's just like real fireworks!" cried the happy boy.

"I'm glad he liked it!" said Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped home to his hollow stump bungalow.

So if the pussy cat doesn't claw the tail off the letter Q and make it look like a big, round O, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the little boy's skates.

STORY XIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SKATES

There was once a little boy to whom Santa Claus brought a pair of skates at Christmas. And, of course, that boy, as soon as he saw the shiny, steel runners, wished that the pond would freeze over so that he might try his new playthings.

"When do you s'pose there'll be skating?" he asked his mother again and again, for, as yet, there was only a "skim" of ice on the pond.

"Oh, pretty soon," his mother would answer. "You mustn't go skating when the ice is too thin, you know. If you did you would break through, into the cold water."

"And that would spoil my skates, wouldn't it?" asked the boy.

"Yes, but besides that you might be drowned, or catch cold and be very ill," Mother said. "So keep off the ice with your new skates until the pond has frozen good and thick."

"Yes'm, I will," promised the little boy, and, really, he meant to keep his word. But as the days passed, and the weather was not quite cold enough to freeze thick ice, the little boy became tired of waiting.

Every chance he had, after school, he would go down to the edge of the pond, and throw stones on the ice to see how thick it was. Often the stones would break through, and fall into the cold, black water with a "thump!" Then the boy would know the ice was not thick enough.

"I don't want to fall through like a stone," he would say, and back to his house he would go with his new skates dangling and jingling at his back, over which they were hung by a strap.

But one day, when the boy threw a large stone on the ice of the pond, instead of breaking through, the rock only made a dent and stayed there.

"Oh, hurray!" cried the boy. "I guess it's strong enough to hold me now! I'm going skating!"

However, first he started to walk on the edge of the ice near the shore, and when he did so, and heard cracking sounds, he jumped quickly back.

"I guess I'd better not try it yet," said the boy to himself. "I'll wait a little while until it freezes harder."

So he sat down by the edge of the pond to wait for the ice to freeze harder. But as he sat there, and saw how white and shiny it was, and as he looked at his new skates, which he had only put on in the house, that boy couldn't wait another minute.

He walked along the shore a little farther, to a place where the ice seemed more hard and shiny and there, after throwing some stones, and venturing out a little way, finding that there was no cracking sound, the little boy made up his mind to try to skate. There was no one else on the pond--no other boys and girls, and it was a bit lonesome. But the boy was so eager to try his new skates that he did not think of this.

Down he sat on the ground, and began putting on his Christmas skates. And it was just about this time that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, Uncle Wiggily's muskrat lady housekeeper, happened to look out of the window of the hollow stump bungalow. The bunny's bungalow was so hidden in the woods, near the pond, that few boys or girls ever saw the queer little house. But Uncle Wiggily could see them, as they came to the woods winter and summer, and often he was able to help them.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Nurse Jane, as she looked out of the window a second time.

"What's the matter?" asked Uncle Wiggily, who was just finishing his breakfast of lettuce bread and carrot coffee, with some turnip marmalade.

"Why, there's a boy--a real boy and not one of the animal chaps--getting ready to go skating!" said the muskrat lady, for she could see the boy putting on his skates.

"That ice isn't thick enough for real boys or girls to skate on," the bunny gentleman said. "It would be all right for Sammie Littletail, or Johnnie or Billie Bushytail, but real boys are too heavy--much heavier than my nephew Sammie the rabbit, or than the bushytail squirrel chaps."

"Well, this boy is going on all the same," cried Nurse Jane. "And I know he'll break through, and he'll frighten his mother into a conniption fit!"

"That will be too bad!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he wiped a little of the turnip marmalade off his whiskers, where it had fallen by mistake. "I must try to save him if he does fall in!"

"It would be better to keep him from going on the ice," spoke Nurse Jane. "Safety first, you know!"

"If I could speak boy language I'd hop down there and tell him the ice is too thin," answered Uncle Wiggily. "But though I know what the boys and girls say, I cannot, myself, speak their talk. However, I think I know a way to save this boy, if he happens to break through the ice."

"Well, he's almost sure to break through," declared Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, "so you'd better hurry."

"No sooner said than done!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, and, catching up his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and putting on his fur cap (for the day was cold), away the bunny hopped from his hollow stump bungalow.

Instead of going to the place where the boy, with his skates fastened on his shoes, was about to try the ice, the bunny gentleman went to the house of some friends of his. The house would seem queer to you, for all it looked like was a pile of sticks half buried in the frozen pond.

But in this house lived a family of beavers--queer animals whose fur is so warm and thick that they can swim in ice water and not feel chilly. In fact the beavers had to dive down under the ice and water to get into their winter home.

"Are Toodle and Noodle in the house?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as he reached the stick-house. On shore, not far from it, was Grandpa Whackum, the old beaver gentleman, with his broad, flat tail.

"Why, yes, Toodle and Noodle are inside," answered Grandpa Whackum. "Shall I call them out?"

"If you please," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "I want them to come and help me save a boy who, I think, is going to break through the thin ice with his new skates."

"That will be too bad!" exclaimed Grandpa Whackum. Then with his broad tail he pounded or "whacked" on the ground, and soon up through a hole in the ice came swimming Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail, the two beaver boys.

"Oh, hello, Uncle Wiggily!" they called. "We're glad to see you!"

"Hello!" answered the bunny gentleman. "Will you come with me, and help save a real boy?"

"Of course," said Toodle, shaking off some ice water from his fur coat.

"He won't try to catch us, will he?" asked Noodle.

"I think not," the bunny gentleman replied. "If what I think is going to happen, does really happen, that boy will be too surprised to catch anything but a cold! Come along, beaver chaps!"

So Toodle and Noodle, wet and glistening from having dived out of their house, and down under water to come up through the hole in the ice, followed Uncle Wiggily. The sun and wind soon dried their fur.

"There's the boy," said Uncle Wiggily, as he and the beaver chaps reached the edge of the pond. "He's skating on thin ice. He'll go through in a minute!"

And, surely enough, hardly had the bunny spoken than there was a cracking sound, the ice broke beneath the boy's feet and into the dark, cold water he fell.

"Oh! Oh!" cried the boy. "Help me, somebody! Oh! Oh!"

"Ha! It's a good thing Nurse Jane saw him!" said Uncle Wiggily. "Quick now, Toodle and Noodle! I brought you along because you have such good, sharp teeth--much sharper and better than mine are for gnawing down trees. I can gnaw off the bark, but you can nibble all the way through a tree and make it fall."

"Is that what you want us to do?" asked Toodle.

"Yes," answered Uncle Wiggily. "We'll go close to shore, where the boy has fallen in. Near him is a tree. You'll gnaw that so it will fall outward across the ice, and he can reach up, take hold of it and pull himself out of the hole."

By this time the poor boy was floundering around in the cold water. He tried to get hold of the edges of the ice around the hole through which he had fallen, but the ice broke in his hands.

"Help! Help!" he cried.

"We're going to help you," answered Uncle Wiggily, but, of course, he spoke animal language which the boy did not understand. But Toodle and Noodle understood, and quickly running to the edge of the shore they gnawed and gnawed and gnawed very extra fast at an overhanging tree until it began to bend and break. Uncle Wiggily gnawed a little, also, to help the beaver boys.

Then, just as the real boy was almost ready to sink down under water, the tree fell on the ice, some of its branches close enough so the boy skater could grasp them.

"Oh, now I can pull myself out!" he said. "This tree fell just in time! Now I'll be saved!"

He did not know that Uncle Wiggily and the beaver boys had gnawed the tree down, making it fall just in the right place at the right time. For the boy was so frightened at having broken through the ice, that he never noticed the bunny gentleman and the beaver boys on shore.

He caught hold of the tree branches in his cold fingers, pulled himself up out of the water, that boy did; and to shore. Then as he sat down, all wet and shivering, to take off his skates, so he could run home, Uncle Wiggily called to Toodle and Noodle:

"Come on, beaver boys! Our work is done! We have saved that boy, and I hope he never again tries to skate on thin ice."

Then Uncle Wiggily hopped toward his hollow stump bungalow, and the beaver boys slid on the ice, near shore, toward their own stick-house, for the pond was frozen hard and thick enough to hold them. And the boy ran home as fast as he could, and drank hot lemonade so he wouldn't catch cold.

He did get the snuffles, but of course that couldn't be helped, and it wasn't much for falling through the ice; was it?

"You never should have gone skating until the pond was better frozen," his mother said.

"I know it," the boy answered. "But wasn't it lucky that tree fell when it did?"

"Very lucky!" agreed his mother. And neither the boy nor his mother knew that it was Nurse Jane, Uncle Wiggily and the beaver boys who had caused the tree to topple over just in time.

But that's the way it sometimes is in this world. And if the cow doesn't tickle the man in the moon with her horns, when she jumps over the green cheese, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily going coasting.

STORY XIV

UNCLE WIGGILY GOES COASTING

"Oh, it's stopped snowing! It's stopped snowing! Now we can go coasting; can't we, Mother?"

"And on our new Christmas sleds! Oh, what fun!"

A boy and a girl ran from the window, against which they had been pressing their noses, looking out to see when the white flakes would stop falling from the sky. Now the storm seemed to be over, leaving the ground covered with the sparkling snow crystals.

"Yes, you may go coasting a little while," said Mother. "But don't stay too late. When Daddy comes to supper you must be home."

"We will!" promised the boy and girl, and, laughing in glee, they ran to get on their boots, their mittens and warm coats.

"I want to go coasting! Take me to slide down hill!" cried Bumps, the little sister of the boy and girl. "I want a sleigh ride."

"Oh, Bumps, you're too little!" objected Sister.

"And she'll fall down and bang herself," added Brother. In fact the "littlest girl" did fall down so often that she was called "Bumps" as a pet name.

"I won't fall down!" Bumps promised. "I'll be good! Please take me coasting?"

"I think you might take her," said Mother.

"Yes, we will," spoke Sister. "Come on, Bumps!"

"Well, if she falls off the sled when it's going down hill, and she gets bumped, it won't be my fault!" declared Brother.