Chapter 5

So they hunted up the hot-peanut-man, and bought all the rest of his peanuts, besides paying for those the elephant had eaten to make himself get well.

"Good luck to you!" cried the peanut man, as he wheeled away his empty wagon, "I wish I had elephants for customers every day, then I would soon get rich," and away he went singing:

"I sell peanuts good and hot, Five cents buys you quite a lot. Get your money and come here, Buy my peanuts, children dear.

"My peanuts are hot and brown, Finest ones in all the town. Nice and juicy--good to chew, I have some for all of you."

"Well, come on," said the elephant to Uncle Wiggily, "put some peanuts in your valise, and I will carry the rest."

"How; in your trunk?" asked the rabbit.

"No, I'm going to wrap them up in a bundle, and tie them on my back. I want my trunk to squirt water through when it gets hot, as I think the sun is going to be very scorchy to-day."

So he tied the bundle of peanuts on his back, and then the two friends journeyed on together. Well, it did get very hot, and it kept on getting hotter, and there wasn't much shade.

"Oh my, I wish it would rain a little shower!" said Uncle Wiggily, as he wiped his ears with his handkerchief. "I am as hot as an oven."

"I can soon fix that part of it," said the elephant. And pretty soon he came to a spring of cold water, and he sucked a lot of it up in his hollow trunk, and then he squirted a nice cool, fine spray of it over the rabbit, just as if it came out of a hose with which papa waters the garden or lawn.

"My! That feels fine!" said the rabbit. Then the elephant squirted some water on himself, and they went on, feeling much better.

But still they were warm again in a short time, and then the elephant said:

"I know what I am going to do. I am going to get some more ice cream cones. They will cool us off better than anything else. I'll go for them and bring back some big ones. You stay here in the shade, Uncle Wiggily, but don't walk on ahead, or you may tumble into the water again."

"I'll not," promised the rabbit. "I'll wait right here for you."

Off the elephant started to get the ice cream cones and pretty soon he came to the store where the man sold them.

"I want two of your very coldest cones," said the elephant to the man, for sometimes, in stories, you know, elephants can talk to people. "I want a big strawberry cone for myself," the elephant went on, "and a smaller one for my friend, Uncle Wiggily, the rabbit."

"Very well," said the man, "but you will have to wait until I make a large cone for you."

So that man took seventeen thousand, six hundred and eighty-seven little cones and made them into one big one for the elephant. Then he took eighteen thousand, two hundred and ninety-one quarts of strawberry ice cream, and an extra pint, and put it into the big cone. Then he made a rabbit-sized ice cream cone for Uncle Wiggily and gave them both to the elephant, who carried them in his trunk so they wouldn't melt.

But I must tell you what was happening to Uncle Wiggily all this while. As he sat there in the shade of the apple tree, thinking, about his fortune and whether he would ever find it, all of a sudden he saw something round and squirming sticking itself toward him through the bushes.

"Ha! the elephant has come back so quietly that I didn't hear him," thought the rabbit. "That is his trunk he is sticking out at me. I guess he thinks I don't see him, and he is going to tickle me. I hope he has those ice cream cones."

Well, the crawly, squirming, round thing, which was like the small end of an elephant's trunk, kept coming closer and closer to the rabbit.

"Now, I'll play a trick on that elephant--I'll tickle his trunk for him, and he'll think it's a mosquito!" said Uncle Wiggily to himself.

He was just about to do this, when suddenly the crawly thing made a sort of jump toward him, and before the rabbit could move he found himself grasped by a big, ugly snake, who wrapped himself around the rabbit just as ladies wrap their fur around their necks in the winter. It wasn't the elephant's trunk at all, but a bad snake.

"Now, I have you!" hissed the snake like a steam radiator in Uncle Wiggily's left ear. "I'm going to squeeze you to death and then eat you," and he began to squeeze that poor rabbit just like the wash-lady squeezes clothes in the wringer.

"Oh, my breath! You are crushing all the breath out of me!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Please let go of me!"

"No!" hissed the snake, and he squeezed harder than ever.

"Oh, this is the end of me!" gasped the rabbit, when all of a sudden he heard a great crashing in the bushes. Then a voice cried:

"Here, you bad snake, let go of Uncle Wiggily."

And bless my hat! If the elephant didn't rush up, just in time, and he grabbed hold of that snake's tail in his trunk, and unwound the snake from around the rabbit, and then the elephant with a long swing of his trunk threw the snake so high up in the air that I guess he hasn't yet come down.

"I was just in time to save you!" said the elephant to Uncle Wiggily. "Here, eat this ice cream cone and you'll feel better."

So the rabbit did this, and his breath came back and he was all right again, but he made up his mind never to try to tickle a crawly thing again until he was sure it wasn't a snake.

So that's all for the present, if you please, but in case my fur hat doesn't sleep out in the hammock all night, and catch cold in the head so that it sneezes and wakes up the alarm clock, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the water lilies.

STORY XVI

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE WATER LILIES

Uncle Wiggily was hopping along through the woods one day, and pretty soon, as he went past a cute little house, made out of corncobs, he heard some one calling to him.

"Oh, Mr. Rabbit," a voice said, "have you seen anything of my little girl?" And there stood a nice mamma cat, looking anxiously about.

"I don't know," answered Uncle Wiggily, as he stopped in the shade of a tree, and set down his valise. "Was your little girl named Sarah, Mrs. Cat?"

"Oh, indeed, my little girl is not named Sarah," said Mrs. Cat. "She is called Snowball, and she is just as cute as she can be. She is all white, like a ball of snow, and so we call her Snowball. But she is lost, and I'm afraid I'll never find her again," and the kittie's mamma began to cry, and she wiped her tears on her apron.

"Oh, don't worry. Never mind. I'll find her for you," said the kind old gentleman rabbit.

"I can't find my fortune but I believe I can find Snowball. Now, tell me which way she went away, and I'll go search for her."

"I didn't see her go out of the house," said Mrs. Cat, "because I was making a cherry pie, and I was very busy. Snowball was playing on the floor, with a ball of soft yarn, and it rolled out of doors. She raced out after it, and I thought she would soon be back. I put the cherry pie in the oven and then when I went to look for her she was gone. Oh, dear! I just know some horrid dog has hurt her."

"Please don't worry," said Uncle Wiggily. "I'll find her for you. I'll start right off, and if I can't find her I'll get a policeman, and he can, for the police always find lost children."

So Uncle Wiggily started off, leaving his valise with Mrs. Cat, but taking his crutch with him, for he thought he might need it to beat off any bad dogs if they chased after Snowball.

First the old gentleman rabbit looked carefully all along the road, but he couldn't see anything of the lost pussy cat.

"Perhaps she may be up a tree," he said to himself. "If a dog chased her she would climb up one, and perhaps she is afraid to come down."

So he looked up into all the trees, and he even shook some of them in order to see up them better, but he did not discover the pussy cat. Then he called:

"Snowball! Snowball! Snowball! Where are you?"

But there was no answer.

"Oh, if there was only some bird who could call 'Snowball' I would get them to call for the lost pussy," thought Uncle Wiggily.

Then he looked up and he saw a big black bird sitting on a tree.

"Can you call 'Snowball' for me?" asked the rabbit, politely. "She is lost and her mamma wants her very much. Just call 'Snowball' as loudly as you can."

"I can't," said the big black bird. "All I can cry is 'Caw! Caw! Caw!' I am a crow, you see."

"That is too bad," said the rabbit. "Then I will have to keep on searching by myself," so he did, and the crow flew away to look for a cornfield that had no scarecrow in it to frighten him.

Well, Uncle Wiggily looked in all the places he could think of, but still there was no pussy to be seen, and he was just thinking he had better go for a policeman. But he thought he would try just one more place, so he looked down a hollow stump, but Snowball was not there.

"I'll have to get a policeman after all," said the rabbit, so he told a policeman cat about the lost pussy, and the policeman cat searched for Snowball, but he couldn't find her, either.

"I guess she is gone," said the policeman. "You had better go back and tell her mamma that she hasn't any little pussy girl any more."

"Oh, how sad it will be to do that!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I just can't bear to."

But he started back to the corncob house to tell Mrs. Cat that he couldn't find her Snowball. And all the while he kept feeling more and more sad, until he was almost ready to cry.

"But I must be brave," said the old gentleman rabbit, and just then he came to a pond where a whole lot of beautiful, white water lilies were growing. Oh, they are a lovely flower, with such a sweet, spicy smell. As soon as Uncle Wiggily saw them he said:

"I'll pick some and take them home to Mrs. Cat. Perhaps they will make her feel a little happy, even if her Snowball is gone forever."

So with his long crutch Uncle Wiggily pulled toward shore some of the water lilies, until he could pick them on their slender stems. Some of the flowers were wide open, and some were closed, like rosebuds.

He took both kinds home to Mrs. Cat, and when he told her he couldn't find Snowball she was very sorrowful and she cried. But she loved the flowers very much, and put them in a bowl of water.

"I'll stay here to-night," said the rabbit, "and in the morning I'll look for Snowball again. I'm sure I'll find her."

"Oh, you are very kind," said Mrs. Cat, as she wiped away her tears.

Well, the next morning Uncle Wiggily got up real early, and the first thing he saw was the bowl of water lilies on the parlor table. They had all closed up like buds in the night, but in the sunlight they all opened again into beautiful flowers.

And, would you believe me, right in the middle of one of the flowers something white moved and wiggled. Then it gave a little "Mew!" and then Uncle Wiggily cried:

"Oh, Mrs. Cat, come here quickly! Here is Snowball! She was asleep inside of one of the water lilies!"

And, surely enough, there was the little lost kittie, just awakening in one of the flowers, and she was exactly the color of it. And, oh, how glad she was to see her mamma again, and how her mamma did hug her!

"How did you get in that flower?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"Oh, when I went after my ball a big dog chased me," said Snowball, "so I jumped into one of the lilies and I fell asleep, and the flower went shut and I stayed there. But now I'm home, and I'm glad of it," and she just kissed Uncle Wiggily on the tip end of his nose, that twinkled like a star on a frosty night.

So that's how Snowball was lost and found, and I'm going to tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the sunflower, that is if the sunfish doesn't spread the butter too thick on the baby's bread with his tail and make her slide out of her high chair.

STORY XVII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SUNFLOWER

Mrs. Cat and her daughter Snowball liked Uncle Wiggily so much that they wanted him to stay with them a long time.

"You can build yourself a nice little corncob house next to ours," said Snowball, "and live in it; and you can tell me a story every night."

"Oh, but rabbits live underground, and not in corncob houses, though such houses are very nice," said Uncle Wiggily. "I guess I'll have to be traveling on."

"If you stay, I'll bake you a cherry pie every day," said Mrs. Cat. "And you can help find Snowball when she gets lost again."

"Cherry pie is very good, and you are very kind," said the rabbit politely, "but I have my fortune to find."

"Well, if you can't stay you can't, I s'pose," said Snowball; "but I'm never going to get lost again," and she put her little nose down deep inside a water lily and smelled it, and oh, how sweet and spicy it smelled!

So Uncle Wiggily got ready to start off on his travels again, and in his satchel he put a whole cherry pie that Mrs. Cat had baked for him.

"It will taste good when you are hungry," she said.

"Indeed it will," agreed Uncle Wiggily, and he wished he was hungry then and there, because he just loved cherry pie.

He was walking on through the woods, when, all at once, he heard some music playing, and the name of the song was "Never Take Your Ice Cream Cone and Drop it in the Mud."

"Ha! I believe that is the funny monkey and one of his hand organs!" exclaimed the rabbit. "I shall be glad to see him again."

So he looked through the trees, and there, surely enough, was the monkey, and he was playing the organ with his tail, and in one paw he held a cocoanut and in the other paw an orange, and first he would take a bite of the orange, and then a bite of the cocoanut.

"I always like music when I eat," said the monkey as he threw a bit of orange skin over his left shoulder.

"How comes it that you are away off here," asked the rabbit.

"Oh! I got tired of staying home," said the monkey. "I thought I would go out and see if I could make a few pennies by playing music." Then he played another tune called, "Don't Sit Down When You Stand Up."

Well, Uncle Wiggily listened to the music, which he liked very much, and he began to feel hungry. Then he thought of the cherry pie, that the cat lady had put in his valise.

"I guess I'll eat some of that and give the monkey a bit," he said, and he did so.

"Oh, this is most delicious and scrumptious!" cried the monkey, as he and Uncle Wiggily sat there eating the pie, and wiping off the juice with green leaves, so as not to soil their clothing.

"Indeed, it is very delectable," said the rabbit, hungry-like. "Have another piece."

Well, he was just cutting it off, when, all of a sudden, before you could say "Boo!" to an elephant, a terrible voice cried:

"Here! Give me that pie! I must have cherry pie!" and before the monkey or Uncle Wiggily knew what was happening, out from behind the bushes jumped the skillery-scallery-tailery alligator, gnashing his teeth.

"Give me that pie!" he cried again, opening his mouth wide enough to swallow a cake as big as a wash-tub.

"No, you cannot have it," said Uncle Wiggily, and, as quick as a wink, he popped the pie into his valise and closed it up. "Now you can't get it!" the rabbit said.

"Then I'll get you and the monkey!" cried the alligator, as he made a dash for both of them.

"Not me! You can't catch me!" exclaimed the monkey, as he skipped up into the top of a tall tree. Then, of course, as the alligator couldn't climb a tree he couldn't get the monkey. The skillery-scallery creature tried to eat the hand organ, and he tried to play it, but he could do neither. Then he got real angry.

"I'll chase after Uncle Wiggily and eat him!" he cried out, for by this time the rabbit was hopping along down the road. After him went the 'gator, coming nearer and nearer.

"Stop! Stop! I want you!" cried the alligator to the rabbit.

"I know you do, but you can't have me!" replied the rabbit. "I don't want to be eaten up!"

So he ran on as fast as he could, but still the alligator came on after him, and the savage beast was almost up to Uncle Wiggily.

"Oh, if I only had some place to hide!" panted the poor rabbit. "Then maybe the alligator would pass me by."

So he looked around for a place in which to hide, but just then he found himself in a field, and all that he could see were a whole lot of sunflowers growing near a fence.

"Oh, I can't hide behind those flowers because the stems are so small around," thought Uncle Wiggily. "And I can't climb up them, and sit on the big flower, because I can't climb, and besides the stems are too slender to hold me up. Oh, what shall I do?"

Well, the alligator was coming nearer and nearer, and the rabbit could hear the gnashing of his teeth, when, all at once one of the sunflowers called out.

"Gnaw through my stem, and cut me down, Uncle Wiggily. Then you can hold my big blossom up in front of you and the alligator can't see you."

"But won't it hurt you to cut you down?" asked the rabbit.

"No, for I will grow up again next year," said the big sunflower. "Hurry and cut me down, and hide behind me, and I'll shine in the eyes of the alligator and blind him."

So Uncle Wiggily quickly gnawed through the sunflower stalk with his sharp teeth, and down the flower came. Then the rabbit held the blossom up in front of himself, and hid behind it, and the yellow flower, which is round, just like the sun, shone so brightly into the alligator's face that he couldn't look out of his eyes, and so he was partly blinded, and he couldn't see to catch Uncle Wiggily, and he had to crawl away without eating the rabbit.

Then Uncle Wiggily thanked the sunflower, and laid it gently down, and hopped on his way again to seek his fortune.

And the story after this, in case the washbowl and pitcher don't do a funny dance in the middle of the night and wake up my puppy dog, I'll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the lightning bugs.

STORY XVIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LIGHTNING BUG

It was a very warm day, and as Uncle Wiggily walked along, carrying his satchel, and sort of leaning on his crutch, for his rheumatism hurt him a bit, he said:

"It is very hard to have to look for your fortune on a hot day, I wish it was nice and cool, and then I would feel better."

"I can tell you where there is a cool place," said a little yellow bird, as she flew along in the air over the head of the old gentleman rabbit.

"Do you mean in an icehouse?" asked the traveling rabbit as he took off his hat to see if the sun had burned it any.

"No, but of course that is a cold place," said the bird, as she sang a funny little song about a curly-headed dog who hadn't any nose and every time he walked along he stepped upon his toes. "But I don't mean an icehouse," went on the bird, as she turned her head to one side. "However, I know a nice cool place in the woods where you can lie down and have a little sleep. By that time the hot sun will go down behind the clouds, and then you can travel on in comfort."

"I believe that will be a good plan," spoke the rabbit. "I'll do it. Please show me the way to the cool place."

So the bird flew on ahead, and Uncle Wiggily hopped on behind, and pretty soon he came to a place in the woods where there was a little babbling brook, flowing over mossy green stones, and telling them secrets about the fishes that swam in the cool water. Then there were long, green ferns leaning over, and nodding their heads as they dipped down to take a drink out of the brook. There was also a nice little cave, made of stones, and that was almost as cool as an icehouse.

"Oh, this will be just fine for me!" exclaimed the rabbit, as he hopped inside the stone cave. "I'll go to sleep here."

So he stretched out on a pile of leaves, and the little yellow bird began to sing a sleepy song. This is how it went, to the tune "Lum-tum-tum tiddily-iddily-um:"

"Sleep, Uncle Wiggily, sleep. Don't open your eyes to peep. I'll sing you a song, That's not very long. It's not sad, so please do not weep."

Well, as true as I'm telling you, before she had sung more than forty-'leven verses the old gentleman rabbit was fast, fast asleep, and, no matter how hot the sun shone down, Uncle Wiggily was nice and cool.

Well, pretty soon, in a little while, a savage, bad hawk-bird flew down from high in the air, where he had seen the little yellow bird sitting on the tree, near the cave, where the rabbit was sleeping. And the hawk made a dash for the yellow bird, and would have eaten her up only the bird flew quickly away and hid in a hollow stump, and that hawk was so mad that he bit a leaf off a tree and tore it into three pieces--the leaf, I mean, not the tree.

Well, after that the yellow bird didn't dare stay near the cave, for the hawk was on the watch to catch her, and, of course, Uncle Wiggily had no one to awaken him when it was cool enough for him to travel on and seek his fortune.

He slept and he slept, and then he slept a little more, and all of a sudden he awakened and it was nearly night. My! how he did jump up then and rub his eyes with his paws, and he couldn't think, for a minute or so, just where he was.

"Oh, now I remember!" he exclaimed. "I'm in the cave. Oh, dear me! but it's coming on night. The yellow bird must have forgotten to wake me up. I wonder what I shall do?"

So he went out of the cave to look for the bird, but he couldn't find her. The savage hawk was there, however, but when he saw Uncle Wiggily and noted how brave he was, even if he did have the rheumatism, that hawk just gnashed his beak and flew away.

Then it got darker and darker, and poor Uncle Wiggily didn't know what to do, for he didn't know whether or not it would be safe to stay in the cave.

"A bear might come along and eat me," he thought. "This cave might be a bear's den. I guess I will travel ahead and look for some other place where I can spend the night. But I don't like traveling in the dark."

However, there was no help for it, so the old gentleman rabbit, after eating a lettuce sandwich, took up his satchel, grasped his crutch firmly, and started away.

He traveled on through the woods, and it kept getting darker and darker, until at last Uncle Wiggily couldn't see anything in front of him but just blackness.

"Oh, this will never do!" he cried. "I can't go on this way. If I only had a lantern it would be all right."

Then, all at once, he heard a sort of growling noise in the bushes, and then he heard a sniffing-snuffling noise, and pretty soon a voice cried:

"Oh, ha! Oh, hum! I smell fresh rabbit. Now, I will have a good supper!"

"That must be a savage bear or a fox!" cried the rabbit. "I guess this is the last of me!"

Then he saw two round circles shining in the darkness, two flashing, bright, shining things, and he was more frightened than ever.

"Oh, those are the glaring eyes of the fox or bear!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "I'm done for, sure!"

Then something made a jump for him, out of the bushes, but the rabbit crouched down, and the beast jumped over him. Then, would you ever believe it? those two shining things flew nearer, and instead of being the eyes of a fox or bear they were two, good, kind, lightning bugs, who were flitting about.

"Oh, you'll be a lantern for me, won't you?" cried the rabbit, anxiously. "Will you please light me out of these woods, and keep the savage beasts away?"

"Of course, we will!" cried the two lightning bugs. And they flew closer to the rabbit. Then the savage fox, for he it was who had made a jump for Uncle Wiggily, was so afraid of the sparkling lights, that he ran away and hid in the bushes, fearing he would be burned. Then the two bugs called for all of their friends to come and make the woods light so the old gentleman rabbit could see.