Chapter 2

So Uncle Wiggily did this, and as soon as the birds had their hungry little mouths filled, sound to sleep they went. And in a little while Mrs. Wren came back from the store with her basket filled, and Mr. Wren flew home to say that he had a nice position in a feather factory, and how he did admire his birdies! He hugged and kissed them like anything.

Then the two wrens both thanked Uncle Wiggily for taking care of their children, and the rabbit said good-by and hopped on again to seek his fortune. And if the trolley car conductor gives me a red, white and blue transfer, for the pin cushion to go to sleep on, I'll tell you in the following story about Uncle Wiggily and the yellow bird.

STORY IV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE YELLOW BIRD

Once upon a time, when Johnnie Bushytail was going along the road to school, he met a fox--oh, just listen to me, would you! This story isn't about the squirrel boy at all. It's about Uncle Wiggily Longears to be sure, and the yellow bird, so I must begin all over again.

The day after the old gentleman rabbit had helped Mrs. Wren feed her little birdies he found himself traveling along a lonely road through a big forest of tall trees. Oh, it was a very lonesome place, and not even an automobile was to be seen, and there wasn't the smell of gasoline, and no "honk-honks" to waken the baby from her sleep.

"Hum, I don't believe I'll find any fortune along here," thought Uncle Wiggily as he tramped on. "I haven't met even so much as a red ant, or even a black one, or a grasshopper. I wonder if I can be lost?"

So he looked all around to see if he might be lost in the woods. But you know how it is, sometimes you're lost when you least expect it, and again you think you are lost, but you're right near home all the while.

That's the way it was with Uncle Wiggily, he didn't know whether or not he was lost, so he thought he'd sit down on a flat stone and eat his lunch. The reason he sat on a flat stone instead of a round one was because he had some hard boiled eggs for his lunch, and you know if you put an egg on a round stone it's bound to roll off and crack right in the middle.

"And I don't like cracked eggs," said the rabbit. So he laid the eggs he had on the flat stone, and put little sticks in front of them and behind them, so they couldn't even roll off the flat stone if they wanted to. Then he ate his lunch.

"I guess it doesn't much matter if I am lost," said the traveling fortune-hunting rabbit a little later. "I'll go on and perhaps I may meet with an adventure." So on he hopped, and pretty soon he came to a place where the leaves and the dirt were all torn up, just as if some boys had been playing a baseball game, or leap-frog, or something like that.

"My, I must look out that I don't tumble down any holes here," thought Uncle Wiggily, "for maybe some bad men have been setting traps to catch us rabbits."

Well, he turned to one side, to get out of the way of some sharp thorns, and, my goodness! if there weren't more sharp thorns on the ground on the other side of the path. "I guess I'll have to keep straight ahead!" thought our Uncle Wiggily. "I never saw so many thorns before in all my life. I'll have to look out or I'll be stuck."

So he kept straight on, and all of a sudden he felt himself going down into a big hole.

"Oh! Oh dear! Oh me! Oh my!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I've fallen into a trap! That's what those thorns were for--so I would have to walk toward the trap instead of going to one side."

But, very luckily for Uncle Wiggily, his crutch happened to catch across the hole, and so he didn't go all the way down, but hung on. But his valise fell to the bottom. However, he managed to pull himself up on the ground, though his rheumatism hurt him, and soon he was safe once more.

"Oh, my valise, with all my clothes in it!" he cried, as he looked down into the hole, which had been covered over with loose leaves and dirt so he couldn't see it before falling in. "I wonder how I can get my things back again?" he went on.

Then he looked up, and in a tree, not far from him, he saw something bright and yellow, shining like gold.

"Ah, ha!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "At last I have found the pot of gold, even if the rainbow isn't here. That is yellow, and yellow is the color of gold. Now my fortune is made. I will get that gold and go back home."

So, not worrying any more about his valise down the trap-hole, Uncle Wiggily hopped over to the tree to get what he thought was a big bunch of yellow gold. But as he came closer, he saw that the gold was moving about and fluttering, though not going very far away.

"That is queer gold," thought the old gentleman rabbit. "I never saw moving gold before. I wonder if it is a good kind."

Then he went a little closer and he heard a voice crying.

"Why, that is crying gold, too," he said. "This is very strange."

Then he heard some one calling:

"Oh, help! Will some one please help me?"

"Why, this is most strange of all!" the rabbit cried. "It is talking gold. Perhaps there is a fairy about."

"Oh, I only wish there was one!" cried the yellow object in the tree. "If I saw a fairy I'd ask her to set me free."

"What's that? Who are you?" asked the rabbit.

"Oh, I'm a poor little yellow bird," was the answer, "and I'm caught in a string-trap that some boys set in this tree. There is a string around my legs and I can't fly home to see my little ones. I got into the trap by mistake. Oh! can't you help me? Climb up into the tree, Uncle Wiggily, and help me!"

"How did you know my name was Uncle Wiggily?" asked the rabbit.

"I could tell it by your ears--your wiggling ears," was the answer. "But please climb up and help me."

"Rabbits can't climb trees," said Uncle Wiggily. "But I will tell you what I'll do. I'll gnaw the tree down with my sharp teeth, for they are sharp, even if I am a little old. Then, when it falls, I can reach the string, untie it, and you will be free."

So Uncle Wiggily did this, and soon the tree fell down, but the golden yellow bird was on a top branch and didn't get hurt. Then the old gentleman rabbit quickly untied the string and the bird was out of the trap.

"I cannot thank you enough!" she said to the rabbit. "Is there anything I can do for you to pay you?"

"Well, my valise is down a hole," said Uncle Wiggily, "but I don't see how you can get it up. I need it, though."

"I can fly down, tie the string to the satchel and you can pull it up," said the birdie. And she did so, and the rabbit pulled up his valise as nicely as a bucket of water is hoisted up from the well. Then some bad boys and a man came along to see if there was anything in the hole-trap, or the string-trap they had made; but when they saw the bird flying away and the rabbit hopping away through the woods they were very angry. But Uncle Wiggily and the yellow bird were safe from harm, I'm glad to say.

And the rabbit had another adventure soon after that, and what it was I'll tell you soon, when the story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the skyrockets. It will be a Fourth of July story, if you please; that is if the bean bag doesn't fall down the coal hole and catch a mosquito.

STORY V

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SKY-CRACKER

Let me see, I think I promised to tell you a story about Uncle Wiggily and the skyrocket, didn't I? Or was it to be about a firecracker, seeing that it soon may be the Fourth of July? What's that--a firecracker--no? A skyrocket? Oh, I'm all puzzled up about it, so I guess I'll make it a sky-cracker, a sort of half-firecracker and half-skyrocket, and that will do.

Well, after Uncle Wiggily had gotten the little yellow bird, that looked like gold, out from the string-trap in the tree, the old gentleman rabbit spent two nights visiting a second cousin of Grandfather Prickly Porcupine, who lived in the woods. Then Uncle Wiggily got up one morning, dressed himself very carefully, combed out his whiskers, and said:

"Well, I'm off again to seek my fortune."

"It's too bad you can't seem able to find it," said the second cousin to Grandfather Prickly Porcupine, "but perhaps you will have good luck to-day. Only you want to be very careful."

"Why?" asked the old gentleman rabbit.

"Well, because you know it will soon be the Fourth of July, and some boys may tie a firecracker or a skyrocket to your tail," said the porcupine.

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "They will have a hard time doing that, for my tail is so short that the boys would burn their fingers if they tried to tie a firecracker to it."

"Then look out that they don't fasten a skyrocket to your long ears," said the second cousin to Grandfather Prickly Porcupine, as he wrapped up some lettuce and carrot sandwiches for Uncle Wiggily to take with him.

The old gentleman rabbit said he would watch out, and away he started, going up hill and down hill with his barber-pole crutch as easily as if he was being wheeled in a baby carriage.

"Well, I don't seem to find any fortune," he said to himself as he walked along, and, just as he said that he saw something sparkling in the grass beside the path in the woods. "What's that?" he cried. "Perhaps it is a diamond. If it is I can sell it and get rich." Then he happened to think what the second cousin of Grandfather Prickly Porcupine had told him about Fourth of July coming, and Uncle Wiggily said:

"Ha! I had better be careful. Perhaps that sparkling thing is a spark on a firecracker. Ah, ha!"

So he looked more carefully, and the bright object sparkled more and more, and it didn't seem to be fire, so the old gentleman rabbit went up close, and what do you suppose it was?

Why, it was a great big dewdrop, right in the middle of a purple violet, that was growing underneath a shady fern. Oh, how beautiful it was in the sunlight, and Uncle Wiggily was glad he had looked at it. And pretty soon, as he was still looking, a big, buzzing bumble bee buzzed along and stopped to take a sip of the dewdrop.

"Ha! That is a regular violet ice cream soda for me!" said the bee to Uncle Wiggily. And just as he was taking another drink a big, ugly snake made a spring and tried to eat the bee, but Uncle Wiggily hit the snake with his crutch and the snake crawled away very much surprised.

"Thank you very much," said the bee to the rabbit. "You saved my life, and if ever I can do you a favor I will," and with that he buzzed away.

Well, pretty soon, not so very long, in a little while, Uncle Wiggily came to a place in the woods where there were a whole lot of packages done up in paper lying on the ground. And there was a tent near them, and it looked as if people lived in the white tent, only no one was there just then.

"I guess I'd better keep away," thought the old gentleman rabbit, "or they may catch me." And just then he saw something like a long, straight stick, standing up against a tree. "Ha, that will be a good stick to take along to chase the bears away with," he thought. "I think no one wants it, so I'll take it."

Well, he walked up and took hold of it in his paws, but, mind you, he didn't notice that on one end of the stick was a piece of powder string, like the string of a firecracker, sticking down, and this string was burning. No, the poor old gentleman, rabbit never noticed that at all. He started to take the stick away with him when, all of a sudden, something dreadful happened.

With a whizz and a rush and a roar that stick shot into the air, carrying Uncle Wiggily with it, just like a balloon, for he hadn't time to let go of it.

Up and up he went, with a roar and a swoop, and just then he saw a whole lot of boys rushing out of the woods toward the white tent. And one boy cried:

"Oh, fellows, look! A rabbit has hold of our sky-cracker and it's on fire and has gone off and taken him with it! Oh the poor rabbit! Because when the sky-cracker gets high enough in the air the firecracker part of it will go off with a bang, and he'll be killed. Oh, how sorry I am. The hot sun must have set fire to the powder string."

You see those boys had come out in the woods to have their Fourth of July, where the noise wouldn't make any one's head ache.

Well, Uncle Wiggily went on, up and up, with the sky-cracker, and he felt very much afraid for he had heard what the boys said.

"Oh, this is the end of me!" he cried, as he held fast to the sky-cracker. "I'll never live to find my fortune now. When this thing explodes, I'll be dashed to the ground and killed."

The sky-cracker was whizzing and roaring, and black smoke was pouring out of one end, and Uncle Wiggily thought of all his friends whom he feared he would never see again, when all of a sudden along came flying the buzzing bumble bee, high in the air. He was much surprised to see Uncle Wiggily skimming along on the tail of a sky-cracker.

"Oh, can't you save me?" cried the rabbit.

"Indeed I will, if I can," said the bee, "because you were so kind to me. You are too heavy, or I would fly down to earth with you myself, but I'll do the next best thing. I'll fly off and get Dickie and Nellie Chip-Chip, the sparrow children, and they'll come with a big basket and catch you so you won't fall."

No sooner said than done. Off flew the bee. Quickly he found Dickie and Nellie and told them the danger Uncle Wiggily was in.

"Quick," called Dickie to Nellie. "We must save him."

Off they flew like the wind, carrying a grocery basket between them. Right under Uncle Wiggily they flew, and just as the sky-cracker was going to burst with a "slam-bang!" the old gentleman rabbit let go, and into the basket he safely fell and the sparrow children flew to earth with him. Then the sky-cracker burst all to pieces for Fourth of July, but Uncle Wiggily wasn't on it to be hurt, I'm glad to say.

He spent the Fourth visiting the Bumble bee's family, and had ice cream and cake and lemonade for supper, and at night he heard the band play, and he gave Nellie and Dickie ten cents for ice cream sodas, and that's all to this story.

But on the next page, if the baker man brings me a pound of soap bubbles with candy in the middle for Cora Janet's doll, I'll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the buttercup.

STORY VI

UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUTTERCUP

I hope none of you were burned by a sky-cracker or a Roman candle stick when you had your Fourth of July celebration, but if you were I hope you will soon be better, and perhaps if I tell you a story it will make you forget the pain. So here we go, all about Uncle Wiggily and the buttercup.

The old gentleman rabbit spent a few days in an old burrow next to the bumble bee's house, and then one morning, when the sun was shining brightly, he started off again to seek his fortune.

"I never can thank you enough," he said to the bee, "for going after the sparrow children and saving me from the exploding sky-cracker. If ever I find my fortune I will give you some of it."

"Thank you very kindly," said the bee, as she looked in the pantry, "and here are some sweet honey sandwiches for you to eat on your travels. This is some honey that I made myself."

"Then it must be very good," said the old gentleman rabbit politely, as he put the sandwiches in his valise and started off down the dusty road.

Well, he hopped on and on, sometimes in the woods where it was cool and green and shady, and sometimes out in the hot sun, and every minute or so he would stop and look around to see if he could find his fortune.

"For, who knows?" he said, "perhaps I may pick up a bag of gold, or some diamonds at almost any minute. Then I could go back home and buy an automobile for myself to ride around in, and my travels would be over. I have certainly been on the go a long time, but my health is much better than it was."

So he kept on, looking under all the big leaves and clumps of ferns for his fortune. But he didn't find it, and pretty soon he came to a hole in the ground. And in front of this hole was a little sign, printed on a piece of paper, and it read:

"COME IN! EVERYBODY WELCOME."

"Humph! I wonder if that means me?" thought the old gentleman rabbit. "Let's see, gold grows under ground, in mines, and perhaps this is a gold mine. I'm going down. I'm sure there is a fortune waiting for me. Yes, I'll go down."

So he laid aside his valise and barber-pole crutch and got ready to go down in the hole, which wasn't very big.

"But I can scratch it bigger if I need to," said Uncle Wiggily.

Well, he had no sooner gotten his front feet and part of his nose down the hole, but his ears were still sticking out, when he heard a voice calling:

"Here! Where are you going?"

"Down this hole after gold," replied Uncle Wiggily.

"You mustn't go down there," went on the voice, and pulling out his nose and looking about him, the old gentleman rabbit saw a white pussy cat sitting on a stump. And the pussy cat was washing his face with his paws, taking care not to let the claws stick out for fear of scratching his eyes.

"Why can't I go down this hole, Pussy?" asked the rabbit. "Do you have charge of it?"

"No, indeed," was the answer, "but there is a bad snake who lives down there, and he puts up that sign so the animals will come down, and then he eats them. That's the reason he says they are welcome. No, indeed, I wouldn't want to see you go down there!"

"Ha! Hum! I wouldn't like to see myself!" spoke Uncle Wiggily, and he crawled away from the hole just in time, for the snake stuck out his ugly head and was about to bite the rabbit. It was the same snake that had nearly caught the bumble bee.

"Say!" cried the snake, quite angry like, to the pussy cat, "I wish you would get away from here! You are always spoiling my plans. I thought I was going to have a nice rabbit dinner, and now look at what you have done," and that snake was so angry that he hissed like a boiling teakettle.

"I will never let you eat up Uncle Wiggily!" cried the pussy. "Now look out for yourself, Mr. Snake!" and with that the pussy made his back round like a hoop, and he swelled up his tail like a bologna sausage, and he showed his teeth and claws to the snake, and that snake popped down the hole again very quickly, I can tell you, taking his tail with him. Oh, my, yes, and a bucket of sawdust soup besides.

"I thank you very much for telling me about that snake, little pussy cat," said Uncle Wiggily. "Well, I am disappointed about my fortune again. I shall never be rich I fear. But I almost forgot that I have some fine honey sandwiches and I will give you some, for you must be hungry. I know I am."

"I am, too," said the pussy. So Uncle Wiggily opened his valise and took out the honey sandwiches which the bee had given him, but when he went to eat them he found that the bee had forgotten to butter the bread.

"Oh, that is too bad!" cried the pussy, when Uncle Wiggily spoke of it. "Still they will do very well without butter."

"No, we must have some," said the rabbit. "I wonder how I can get butter in the woods?" So he looked all around and the first thing he saw was a yellow buttercup flower. You know the kind I mean. You hold them under your chin to see if you like butter, and the shine of the flower makes your chin yellow.

"Ha!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "Now we will have butter."

"But you are not going to eat the flower, are you?" asked the pussy.

"No, indeed!" cried the rabbit, "I'll show you."

Now there was a cow in the field a short distance away, and Uncle Wiggily went over and got some milk from the cow in a little tin cup. "Butter is made from milk," said the rabbit to the pussy. "So I will just pour some milk in the buttercup flower, and shake it just as if it was a churn, and then we'll have butter for our honey sandwiches."

So he did this. Into the buttercup he poured the milk, and it became yellow like butter at once. But Uncle Wiggily did not have to shake the flower, for a little wind came along just then and shook it for him.

And pretty soon, in a little while, the milk in the buttercup was churned into lovely sweet butter, and the rabbit and pussy spread it on their honey sandwiches, and what a fine feast they had. Just as they were eating it the bad alligator came along, and wanted to take the honey away from them, but the pussy scratched the end of the savage beast's tail with his claws, and the bad alligator ran away as fast as he could.

Then Uncle Wiggily and the pussy traveled on together and the next day they had quite an adventure. What it was I'll tell you in the next story when, in case the steamboat stops at our house for a little girl wearing a green sunbonnet, with horse chestnuts on it, I'll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the July bug.

STORY VII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE JULY BUG

"Well, what shall we do to-day?" asked the white pussy of Uncle Wiggily, as they traveled on together, the next day after the adventure at the snake hole. They had slept that night in a nice hollow stump.

"Hum! I hardly know what to do," replied the old gentleman rabbit. "Of course I must be on the watch for my fortune, but, as I don't seem to be finding it very fast, what do you say to having a picnic to-day?"

"The very thing!" cried pussy. "We will get some lunch, and go off in the woods and eat it. Only we ought to have a lot more people. Two are hardly enough for a picnic."

"I would like some of my friends to come to it," spoke Uncle Wiggily, "but I am afraid they are too far off."

"Couldn't you send them word by telephone?" inquired the pussy. "I'm sure I would like to meet them, for I have heard so much about Sammie and Susie Littletail, and Johnnie and Billie Bushytail."

"There is no telephone in these woods," replied Uncle Wiggily, "and we haven't time to send them postcards. I wish I could get word to them, however, but I don't s'pose I can."

"Yes, you can!" suddenly cried a voice down in the grass. "I'll tell all your friends to come to the picnic if you like."

"Indeed, I would like it," said the rabbit, "but who are you, if I may be so bold as to ask? I can't see you."

"There he is--it's a big June bug!" exclaimed the pussy.

"I beg your pardon," spoke the bug quickly, as he crawled out from under a leaf and sat on a toadstool. "But I am not a June bug, if you please."

"You look like one," said Uncle Wiggily politely.

"I am a July bug," went on the funny little creature. "I was intended for a June bug, but there was some mistake made, and I didn't come out of my shell until July. So you see I'm a July bug, and at first I thought it would be jolly fun, to hear all the firecrackers and skyrockets go off."

"It isn't so much fun as you imagine," said Uncle Wiggily, as he thought of the time he went sailing into the air on the sky-cracker. "But don't you like being a July bug?"

"Not very much. You see I'm the only one there is, and all the others are June bugs. The June bugs won't speak to me, nor let me play with them, so I'm very lonesome. I heard you talking about a picnic you were going to have, and so I offered to call all your friends to it. I thought perhaps if I did that you would let me come to it also."

"To be sure!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "You may gladly come, but how are you going to send word to all of my friends?"

"I will fly through the air and tell them to come," was the answer. "I am a very swift flyer. Watch me," and then and there the July bug buzzed around so fast that Uncle Wiggily and the pussy couldn't see his wings go flip-flop-flap.

Well, they decided it would be a good plan to have the July bug act as a postman, so Uncle Wiggily wrote out the invitations on little pieces of white birch bark, and gave them to the bug. Off he flew into the air waving one leg at Uncle Wiggily and the pussy.

"Well, now we must get ready for the picnic--get the things to eat--for that bug flies so fast that soon all my friends will be here," said the rabbit, so he and the pussy began to get the lunch ready.