Part 7

So this teaches us that sometimes a rain storm is good for letting you find out new ways of having fun. And if the looking-glass doesn't make funny faces at the rag doll, when she's trying to see if her hair ribbon is on backward, on the next page you may read about Uncle Wiggily and the mumps.

+Note+

Uncle Wiggily specially requests that the following story will NOT be read to children who have the mumps. Please wait until they are better.

STORY XVII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MUMPS

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, was hopping through the woods one day, and he was thinking of making his way over to the other side of the forest, where the real boys and girls lived, hoping he might have an adventure, when, all at once, Mr. Longears heard some voices talking behind a mulberry bush.

"I know what we can do," said the voice of a boy, as Uncle Wiggily could tell, for he had learned to know the talk of boys and girls.

"What can we do?" asked the voice of another boy.

"We can pick up a lot of stones," went on the first boy, "and we can make believe we're hunters, and we can walk through the woods and throw stones at the birds, and squirrels, and rabbits! Come on! Let's do it!"

"Oh, no! I don't want to do _that_," said the second boy. "It isn't any fun to throw stones at birds and bunnies. If you hit a mother bird, and break her wing, she can't take anything to eat to the little birds, and they'll starve."

"Pooh! That's nothing!" exclaimed the first boy, and Uncle Wiggily peeked over the top of the bush to see what manner of boys these were. But the bunny rabbit gentleman kept himself well hidden.

"I don't want any stones thrown at me," he thought.

"And," went on the second boy, who seemed rather kind, "if you throw a stone at a rabbit you might break its leg, and then it couldn't hop home to the baby rabbits."

"That is very true!" thought Uncle Wiggily, who was listening to all that went on. "I wish there were more boys like this kind one."

"Well, I don't care!" grumbled the first boy. "I'm going off and throw stones at birds and rabbits and squirrels!"

"And I'm going home," said the second boy. "I don't feel very good. I have a pain in my cheek and maybe I'm going to have the toothache."

"Goodness me, sakes alive! I hope nothing like _that_ happens to such a kind boy," thought Uncle Wiggily. "And as for that other chap, I'll run ahead of him, through the woods, and tell my friends to hide so he can't throw stones at them."

So, while one boy went home and the other picked up some stones, Uncle Wiggily skipped along through the woods, calling, in his animal talk, to his friends to hide themselves.

"For a boy is coming to stone you!" exclaimed the bunny rabbit gentleman. "Hide! Hide away from the stone-throwing boy!"

And so it happened that when the unkind chap came tramping through the woods, the only bird he saw to stone was an old black crow, as black as black could be.

"I'll hit you!" cried the boy, as he threw a stone.

But the crow was a wise old bird, and wastn't even afraid of the scary, stuffed men that farmers put in their cornfields. So the crow dodged the stone and then he laughed at the boy.

"Haw! Haw! Haw!" laughed the old black crow. "Haw! Haw! Haw!"

The boy grew very cross at this, and threw more stones, and some fell among the flower bushes where some bees were gathering the sweet juices of flowers to make into honey. One stone knocked a bee off a blossom, and spilled the honey it was gathering.

"Just for that I'm going to sting that boy!" buzzed the bee. Out it flittered, making such a zipping sound around that boy's head as to cause the bad chap to drop his stones and run away. So the bee did not have to sting him after all.

"Boys are no good!" buzzed the bee to Uncle Wiggily, as the honey chap flew back to the flowers.

"Oh, _some_ boys are good," said the bunny gentleman. "The boy who was with this bad chap was good, and kind to animals. And that reminds me; this boy said he didn't feel very well. I must hop over to-morrow, and take a look at his house. I know where he lives. I hope he isn't going to have the toothache."

But the kind boy, as I call him just for fun, you know, had something worse than the toothache. His neck and jaws began to swell in the night, and he could hardly swallow a drink of water which his mother gave him when she heard him tossing in bed.

"What you s'pose is the matter of me, Mother?" asked the boy.

"Well," said Mother, as she smoothed his pillow, "perhaps you caught cold in the woods to-day."

But it was worse than that. When the Doctor came in the morning, and looked at the boy, and gently felt of his neck (even which gentle touch made the boy want to cry) the Doctor said:

"Hum! Mumps!"

"Did you say 'bumps,' Doctor?" asked the boy's mother. "Did he fall down and bump himself?"

"No, I said _mumps_!" exclaimed the doctor. "That's a swelling inside his neck, and it will hurt him a lot. But if you keep him in bed, and warm, and give him easy things to eat, he'll soon be all right again."

"Poor boy!" murmured Mother. "Well, I suppose _mumps_ are better than _bumps_!"

"I'm not so sure about that," spoke the Doctor as he walked to the door with the boy's mother. "Whatever you do," he said in a whisper, "don't give him anything _sour_--such as lemons or pickles. Sour things make the mumps pain more than ever. Don't even _speak_ of vinegar in front of him, or so much as _whisper_ it!"

"I won't," promised Mother.

But the boy's little sister overheard what Doctor and Mother were saying, and, being a mischievous sort of girl, she decided to have some fun. At least _she_ called it fun.

"I'm going to stand in front of Brother and hold up a pickle so he can see it," said Sister to herself. "I want to see what he'll do!"

So Sister hurried down to the kitchen and brought up a pickle. Then she went in the room where Brother was in bed and, holding the sour pickle in front of him, called:

"Look!"

And, no sooner did the boy look than he felt a sharp pain in his throat, almost as bad as toothache, and he cried:

"Go on away! Stop showing me that--that----" Well, he couldn't even say the word "pickle," for just the thought of anything sour hurts your mumps, you know.

The boy hid his face in his pillow, and when he couldn't see the pickle he felt a little better. But his Sister was still full of mischief.

"Lemons! Lemons! Nice sour lemons!" she called teasingly.

"Stop it! Stop it!" begged the boy. "Oh, how my mumps hurt! Mother, make Sister stop hurting my mumps!"

And when Mother came, and found what Sister was doing, she made the little girl go to bed, even though it was daytime.

"You will, very likely, get the mumps yourself," said Mother. "And I hope no one says anything sour to _you_."

And, later on, Sister did get the mumps, but I'm glad to say her brother did not hold a lemon up in front of her. For, as I told you, even the _thought_ of anything sour hurts the mumps.

Now you know the reason why I didn't want you to read this story when you had the swelling in your neck. It was better to wait until your mumps were gone; wasn't it?

So this boy had the mumps, and he had them on both sides at once, which is the very worst form. He could hardly swallow anything because of the pain, even things that were not sour. Now and then he managed to sip a little hot chocolate.

His mother put a warm flannel bandage around his face, which was much swelled, and, thus wrapped up, the little boy could, now and then, get out of bed.

It was on one of these times, when his jaws were wrapped up, and his face swollen, that Uncle Wiggily happened to hop along through the woods, not far from the Mump Boy's house. And, having very good eyes, Mr. Longears saw the sick lad.

"Poor fellow!" thought the bunny gentleman. "He is ill, just as he thought he was going to be! Toothache it is, too!"

"Who has the toothache!" asked Dr. Possum, for the animal doctor came along just then, with his bag of medicine held fast in the curl of his tail.

"That boy," answered Uncle Wiggily, pointing from the bush, where he and Dr. Possum were hiding, to the window of the boy's home.

"He hasn't the toothache! Those are the mumps!" said Dr. Possum, who knew all about such things.

"Mumps!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "Oh, that's too bad. Why, if that boy is mumpy he must have trouble eating. I wonder if I could leave on his doorstep something he would like--something that he wouldn't have to chew and which would slip down easily?"

"Whatever you leave for him, don't have it _sour_," advised Dr. Possum, as he hurried along to see Curly Twistytail, the piggie boy, who had cut his nose on a piece of glass while digging for wild sunflower roots in the woods.

"Ha! Nothing sour for the Mump Boy!" said Uncle Wiggily to himself, as Dr. Possum hopped away. "Then something sweet will be just the proper thing. Sweet honey! I have it! I'll ask my friends, the bees, for some of their honey. I'll get Nurse Jane to make a little pail of birch bark, and I'll leave the wild honey on the boy's stoop."

Off hopped the bunny gentleman, until he found where the bees had their home in a hollow tree.

"Could you give me some honey for a good boy with bad mumps?" asked the rabbit.

"Some honey for a good boy with the bad mumps?" said the Queen Bee. "Certainly, Uncle Wiggily! As much as you like!"

Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the bunny's muskrat lady housekeeper, made a little box of white bark from the birch tree, and when this pretty box was filled with wild, sweet honey, Uncle Wiggily took it with him one evening.

It was time for the Mump Boy to go to bed, but the pain in his neck was so bad that he cried.

"I'm hungry, too," he said. "Oh, why can't I eat something that won't hurt my mumps?"

"I'll try to think of something for you," said Mother wearily.

Just then Uncle Wiggily hopped to the edge of the forest, close to the Mump Boy's house, and running up, he put the birch box of wild honey on the stoop. Then the bunny threw some little stones at the door and hopped away, hiding in the bushes.

"Wait until I see who's at the door," said Mother, as she smoothed the boy's pillow. "Then I'll get you something."

She looked out on the porch, and saw the little birch bark box.

"It looks like a valentine," she thought, "though this isn't Valentine's Day."

"What is it?" asked the boy. "Is it anything I can eat that won't hurt my mumps?"

"Why, yes, it is!" joyfully said his mother, as she saw what it was. "Sweet, wild honey!"

Even the name, so different from sour pickles or lemons, made the Mumps Boy feel better.

"Please give me some," he begged. "It sounds good!"

The wild sweet honey slipped down as gently as a feather, not hurting the boy's neck at all. And soon after that he went to sleep and in a few days he was better.

Uncle Wiggily saw the boy at the window, the bandage no longer on his face, and he even saw the boy eating the last of the wild honey.

"I guess he liked it," thought the bunny, as he hopped away.

When the boy was all better, and could be out and play, he asked all of his friends which one it was who had left the honey on the porch. One and all answered:

"I didn't do it!"

"I wonder who it was?" said the boy, over and over again.

Well, we know; don't we? But we aren't allowed to tell. And when the Boy's Sister caught the mumps, Uncle Wiggily left her some honey also. Which was very kind of him, I think.

So if the little pussy cat doesn't drop her penny in the snowbank, thinking it will turn into a dollar so she can buy a box of lollypops, you may next hear about Uncle Wiggily and the measles.

STORY XVIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MEASLES

Once upon a time there was a boy who didn't like to go to school. Every chance he had he stayed at home instead of going to his classes to learn his lessons.

Sometimes he would get up in the morning and say:

"Mother, I think I'm going to have the toothache. I guess I better not go to school to-day."

But his mother would laugh and say:

"Oh, run along! If you get the toothache in school the teacher will let you come home."

Then the boy would go to school, though he didn't want to, and he would be thinking up some new excuse for staying home, so really he did not recite his lessons as well as he might.

One day this boy came running in the house, all excited, and called out:

"Oh, Mother! I just know I can't go to school to-morrow!"

"Why not?" asked Mother.

"'Cause I've been playing with the boy across the street, an' he's got the measles, an' I'll catch 'em an' I can't go to school. You ought t' see! He's all covered with red spots!" The boy who didn't like school was much excited. "He's all red spots!" he exclaimed.

"Is he?" asked Mother. "Well, the measles aren't painful, though they are 'catching,' as you children say. However, you can't catch them quite as soon as one day. So you may go to school until you break out with red spots. Then it will be time enough to stay at home."

"Can't I stay home to-morrow?" begged the boy.

"Oh, of course not!" laughed Mother. "I want you to go to school and become a smart man! Time enough to stay home when you get the measles!"

Now, of course, this did not suit that boy at all. When he went to bed he was thinking and thinking of some plan by which he could stay home from school. For there was to be a hard lesson next day, and, though I am sorry to say it, that boy was too lazy to study as he ought.

"If I could only break out with the measles I could stay home," he kept saying over and over again as he lay in bed. Every now and then he would get up, turn on the electric light in his room and look at himself in the glass to see if any red spots were coming. But he could see none.

"What's the matter, Boysie?" his mother called to him from her room. "Why are you so restless?"

"Maybe I'm getting the measles," he hopefully answered.

"Nonsense! Go to sleep!" laughed Daddy.

Finally the boy did go to sleep, but either he dreamed it, or the idea came to him in the night, for, early in the morning, he awakened and, slipping on his bath robe, went into his sister's room.

"Hey, Sis!" he whispered. "Where's your box of paints?"

"What you want 'em for?" asked Sister.

"Oh, I--I'm going to paint something," mumbled the boy. Sister was too sleepy--for it was only early morning as yet--to wonder much about it, so she told her brother where to find the paints, and then she turned over and went to sleep again.

Now what do you suppose that boy did?

Why, he went back to his room, and with his sister's brush and color box he painted red spots on his face, just as he had seen them on the face of the real Measles Boy across the street. Then this boy put the paints away and waited.

After a while Mother called:

"Come, Boysie! Time to get up and go to school!"

"I--I don't guess I'd better go to school this morning," said the boy, trying to make his voice sound weak and ill and faint-like.

"Not go to school! Why not?" cried Mother in surprise.

"I--I'm all red spots," the boy answered. And when his mother went in his room, and saw that he really was spotted, she exclaimed:

"Why, you _have_ the measles! I didn't think they'd break out so _soon_! Well, you must stay in the dark on account of your eyes. I'll bring you in some breakfast, and of course you can't go to school!"

Then that boy had to put the bedquilt over his mouth so he wouldn't laugh. If his room had been light his mother, of course, would have seen that the spots were only red paint. But in the dimness of early morning she didn't see.

"Isn't Brother going to school?" asked Sister as she ate her breakfast.

"He has the measles," said Mother. "I expect you'll come down with them next, and break out in a day or so. But wait until you do."

And if Sister thought anything about her red paint she said nothing. I don't believe she ever imagined her brother would play such a trick.

At first, after his sister had gone to school, and he had been given his breakfast in bed, the boy thought it was going to be lots of fun to pretend to have the measles and stay home from school. But after a while this began to grow tiresome.

It was a beautiful, warm sunshiny day outside, and staying in a dark room wasn't as much fun as that boy had thought. He could hear the bees humming outside his open window, and the birds were singing.

His mother opened the door and spoke to him.

"I'm just going across the street a few minutes," she said. "You'll be all right, won't you?"

"Yes'm," answered the boy. "My measles don't hurt hardly any."

And of course they couldn't, being only painted measles, you know.

When Mother went away, softly closing the door after her, the sound of the buzzing bees and the singing birds came to the boy through his window. He knew it must be lovely outside, and yet he had to stay in bed.

"But I can get up and run out for a little while," he said to himself. "Mother will never know!"

No sooner thought of than done! The boy quickly put on some clothes--not many, for it was summer--and out into the yard he went, his face all red paint spots. He didn't dare wash them off or his mother would have noticed.

Now it happened that Uncle Wiggily, the bunny rabbit gentleman, was out that day, taking a walk with Grandfather Goosey Gander. The two friends passed through the woods, close to the edge of the yard of the house where the make-believe Measles Boy lived. And the boy saw the bunny gentleman, all dressed up as Uncle Wiggily was. Grandpa Goosey, also, had on his coat and trousers. Uncle Wiggily wore his golf suit that day--black and white checkered trousers and a cap.

"Oh, what a funny rabbit! What a funny goose!" cried the boy. "I'm going to catch 'em and have a play circus in my yard!"

Forgetting that he was supposed to be suffering from measles, this boy chased after Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey.

"We'd better run," quacked the goose gentleman. "Boy, you know! Chase us! Throw stones, you know. Better run; what?"

"I believe you!" answered Uncle Wiggily. "Run it is!"

Off hopped the bunny! Off waddled the goose! But the boy was a fast runner, in spite of the red spots on his face and he came nearer and nearer to Uncle Wiggily.

"I'm afraid he's going to catch me, Grandpa!" spoke Mr. Longears in animal talk, of course, which the boy could not hear, much less understand.

"Hop faster!" quacked Grandpa, who was half running and half flying.

On came the boy! Grandpa Goosey, who was ahead, looked back and saw that Uncle Wiggily was soon going to be caught.

"There is only one way to save the bunny," thought Grandpa Goosey. "I'll splash some water in that boy's face and eyes so he can't see for a moment. Then Uncle Wiggily and I can get away!"

Near the path along which the boy was chasing the bunny and goose was a puddle of water. As quick as a wink Grandpa Goosey splashed into this, and, with his wings and webbed feet, he sent such a shower of water into the face of the boy that the bad chap had to stop.

"Oh! Ouch! Stop splashing me!" cried the boy. His face was all wet, but he wiped it off on his sleeve, and with his handkerchief. And when he had cleared his eyes of water he started to run again.

But by this time Uncle Wiggily and Grandpa Goosey were far off, hidden in the forest, and the boy could not find them.

"I guess I'd better go back home and get into bed," thought the boy. "Mother will be looking for me."

He was just going in the house when his mother came up the steps.

"Why, Boysie!" exclaimed Mother. "You shouldn't have gone out with the measles! Why--where _are_ your measles?" she asked, for the spots were gone. "Your face is all red, like a lobster; but you haven't any more measles spots! What happened?"

The boy remembered the water that Grandpa Goosey had splashed up from the puddle. He took out his handkerchief and looked at it. That, too, was red!

"Why, it's _red paint_!" cried Mother. "Oh, Boysie! How could you play such a trick?" and she felt so sad that tears came into her eyes. "What made you do it, Boysie?"

"I--I didn't want to go to school," the boy answered, softly and much ashamed.

"Oh, how foolish of you!" said Mother. "Now I'll have to take you to school myself, but I won't tell teacher what you did--that is, I will not if you study your lessons well."

"I will, Mother! I will!" the make-believe Measles Boy promised. "I'll never want to stay home from school again!"

And he never did--even when he really had the measles which broke out on him about a week later. But he did not have them very hard, though he didn't need any of his sister's paints to make red spots.

And when Grandpa Goosey looked in the window of the boy's house, and saw the little chap with his face all speckled, the goose gentleman said:

"Serves him right for chasing Uncle Wiggily and me!"

Well, perhaps it did. Who knows? Anyhow, if it should happen that the doorknob doesn't turn around and try to crawl through the keyhole when the milk bottle chases the pussy cat off the back stoop, then I may tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the chicken-pox.

STORY XIX

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CHICKEN-POX

One day Charlie and Arabella Chick, the little rooster and hen children of Mrs. Cluck-Cluck, the hen lady, came fluttering over to Uncle Wiggily's hollow stump bungalow.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" cackled Arabella. "What you think has happened?"

"Well, I hardly am able to guess," answered the bunny gentleman. "I do hope, though, that your coop isn't on fire. You seem much excited, my dears!"

"Well, I guess you'd be excited, too, if a boy threw stones at you!" crowed Charlie. "Wouldn't you?"

"Indeed I would," admitted Uncle Wiggily. "Once a boy did stone me and I didn't like it at all."

"We don't like it either," cawed Arabella.

"Isn't there some way you can stop that boy from throwing sticks and stones at us?" Charlie wanted to know.

"Tell me about it," suggested Uncle Wiggily.

"Well, it's this way," began Arabella. "This boy lives on the other side of the Big Forest. Sometimes Charlie and I go over there to pick up beechnuts and other good things to eat, and every time that boy sees us he pegs things at us! Wouldn't you call him a bad boy, Uncle Wiggily?"

"Most surely I would," answered the rabbit gentleman. "But why does he do it? You don't crow over him; do you, Charlie?"

"No, indeed," answered the rooster boy. "I only crow to warn Arabella when I see that fellow coming, to tell her to run and hide under a bush."

"And I don't pick him, or scratch gravel at him or anything like that," cackled the little hen girl. "I wish he'd let us alone, Uncle Wiggily."

"We came over to see if you could think up a way to make him stop," crowed Charlie. "Can you?"

"Hum! I'll try," promised the bunny gentleman, twinkling his pink nose like the frosting on top of an orange shortcake. "Suppose we go look for this boy," went on Uncle Wiggily. "So I'll know him when I see him."

"I can show you his house," offered Charlie. "But we'll have to be careful. For if he sees us he'll peg things at us."

"Let us hope not," murmured Uncle Wiggily.

But it was a vain hope, as they say in fairy books. For after Uncle Wiggily, Charlie and Arabella had gone to the other side of a forest, there, all of a sudden, they saw the boy.

"Hi! There are those funny dressed-up chickens!" shouted the boy, who had red hair, and a face full of freckles. "And there's a rabbit with them, all dressed up in a tall silk hat! Oh, my! What style! I'm going to see if I can knock his hat off with a stone! I'm going to peg rocks at 'em!"

"See! What did I tell you?" cackled Arabella, who could understand boy-talk, as could also Charlie and Uncle Wiggily.

"Bang!" bounced a stone on Uncle Wiggily's tall silk hat, sending it spinning through the air.