Transcriber’s Note:
New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.
Uncle Wiggily
[TRADE MARK REGISTERED]
AND
BABY BUNTY
by
HOWARD R. GARIS
Author of “UNCLE WIGGILY BEDTIME STORIES”, “UNCLE WIGGILY’S PICTURE BOOK”, “UNCLE WIGGILY’S STORY BOOK”, Etc.
Illustrated by
LOUIS WISA
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
UNCLE WIGGILY BOOKS
(TRADE MARK REGISTERED)
by
HOWARD R. GARIS
BEDTIME STORIES
UNCLE WIGGILY and CHARLIE and ARABELLA CHICK
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE RINGTAILS
UNCLE WIGGILY ON SUGAR ISLAND
UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY
UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE COUNTRY
UNCLE WIGGILY’S PUZZLE BOOK
UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS
UNCLE WIGGILY’S ADVENTURES
UNCLE WIGGILY’S AUTOMOBILE
UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FARM
UNCLE WIGGILY’S BUNGALOW
UNCLE WIGGILY’S FORTUNE
UNCLE WIGGILY’S TRAVELS
UNCLE WIGGILY’S AIRSHIP
Larger Uncle Wiggily Volumes
UNCLE WIGGILY’S PICTURE BOOK
33 full colored illustrations and 32 in black and white
UNCLE WIGGILY’S STORY BOOK
16 full colored illustrations and 29 in black and white
Copyright 1920 by
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY
Printed in the United States of America
STORY I
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY
“Ouch! Oh, dear! My! My!”
That was what Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy heard one day in the hollow stump bungalow. She was just getting breakfast for Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny gentleman.
“My goodness me sakes alive and a basket of potato chips!” cried Nurse Jane, accidentally dropping a stewed carrot into the turnip marmalade. “I hope the Skeezicks, or the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon hasn’t caught Mr. Longears!”
She looked in the dining room. The uncle bunny had just come downstairs to his breakfast.
“Ouch! Oh, me! Oh, my!” groaned Uncle Wiggily as he sat down in his chair, which was gnawed out of a grape vine root.
“Why, no one is biting him,” said Nurse Jane, as she looked all around. “Whatever in the world is the matter, Wiggy?” she asked, bringing in his breakfast turnip.
“Oh, I’m getting old, I guess,” he answered. “My joints are stiff, and it isn’t all rheumatism, either. I can’t move around as spry as I’d like to. Every time I bend over, or stoop, or try to hurry I get aches and pains and——”
“Oh, nonsense!” laughed Nurse Jane. “You only imagine it. You’re as young as ever! What you need is some one lively around the house. Some one to chase you, to tag you and make you spry. I can’t do it, because I have the housework to look after. But if you could get some bright, frisky, lively little chap—why, you’d be a different rabbit.”
“I s’pose I would,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Do you mean to get Johnnie or Billie Bushytail, one of the squirrel boys? They’re lively enough.”
“Yes, they’re lively enough,” said Nurse Jane, “but they have to frisk around their own home nest. You want some one to stay here with you a long time.”
“All right,” said Uncle Wiggily, sad like and not very hopeful. “After breakfast I’ll go to the five and six cent store and see if I can get a lively little chap to cheer me up.”
“You won’t find any at the five and six, nor even at the ten and eleven cent store,” said Nurse Jane. “True, the little mousie girl clerks are lively enough, but they have to work. You need a—well, a sort of companion. I’m getting too old for you.”
“Nonsense!” scoffed Uncle Wiggily.
But, as he hopped over the fields and through the woods after breakfast the more he thought of what Nurse Jane had said the more he knew she was right.
“I need some one lively to make me jump around,” thought the bunny. “If only I could get a——”
Just then he heard a little voice calling:
“Let me out! Let me out.”
“Ha! Where does that voice come from?” asked the bunny. “Where are you, whoever you are?”
“In this hollow stump, right behind you!” answered the voice. “Oh, I hate being cooped up here! I want to get out and jump around and chase my shadow and jump over moonbeams and all things like that.”
“Are you—are you a fairy?” asked Uncle Wiggily sort of hopeful like. “If I help you out of the hollow stump, could you make me feel younger and more lively?”
“Of course I could; but I’m not a fairy,” was the answer, given with a jolly laugh.
“You must be a fairy or else you couldn’t take away my old-age aches and pains,” said the bunny. “Well, as long as you aren’t the skillery-scalery alligator, or the Pipsisewah, I’ll let you out. But how did you get in?”
“Let me out and I’ll tell you,” said the voice.
The hollow stump was partly filled with old dried leaves, broken sticks and bits of bark. Uncle Wiggily scraped all this away with his paws, and out popped the dearest little girl rabbit you ever saw.
“Oh, who are you?” asked Uncle Wiggily in surprise.
“I am Baby Bunty,” was the answer. “I was going through the woods with my papa and mamma a while ago, but a bad fox caught them, and I was left all alone. So I hid in the hollow stump, the birds piled leaves and bits of bark over me to cover me, but when it rained it was packed down so hard that I couldn’t get out. So I had to cry for help.”
“Well, I’m glad I helped you,” said the bunny. “But how are you going to make me feel young again——”
“Tag! You’re it!” suddenly cried Baby Bunty, tapping Uncle Wiggily with her paw. “Now you have to chase me!” and away she hopped through the woods.
“My goodness! If she goes along like that, all alone, the fox will catch her!” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll have to run after her! But my aches—my pains—oh dear!”
Away hopped the rabbit gentleman, after Baby Bunty. She ran fast and so did Uncle Wiggily, and when they reached his hollow stump bungalow he was so warm and excited and so anxious about Baby Bunty—why, he wasn’t lame or stiff a bit! Can you imagine?
“I told you so!” laughed Nurse Jane, when she saw the baby rabbit, which Mr. Longears said he would keep in his bungalow. “Now that you have some one young around you’ll get younger yourself.”
And Mr. Longears did. And if the top of the house doesn’t go down cellar to see why the laundry tubs can’t wash the coal white, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s skates.
STORY II
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S SKATES
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, was asleep in his hollow stump bungalow one morning, when he heard, as if in a dream, Nurse Jane Fuzzy ring the breakfast bell.
“Oh! Um! Ah! I don’t hardly believe I’ll get up this morning!” said Uncle Wiggily, sort of stretchy like. “You may keep breakfast for me, Nurse Jane.”
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! You must get up! You must get up! You must get up! Oh, Uncle Wiggily, you must get up! You must get up today! Right away!” sang a jolly little voice.
Uncle Wiggily gave a sudden start. All his aches and pains seemed to go away at once, and he felt as spry as a new grasshopper.
“Hello! Who’s down there?” he called from the top of the stairs, for the voice seemed to come from the dining room, down below. “Who wants me to get up?”
“It’s Baby Bunty!” said Nurse Jane. “Have you forgotten that you brought her home from a hollow stump yesterday, and that she’s going to live here?”
“Oh, I did forget!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Is she still here?”
“Well, you’d better come down here and look after her while I get breakfast!” said Nurse Jane. “I never saw such a lively little rabbit before! She nearly jumped over the milk bottle while I had my back turned!”
Uncle Wiggily smiled until his pink nose twinkled on both sides at once.
“So Baby Bunty is lively, is she?” said the bunny gentleman. “Well, that’s just what I need to keep me from getting old and stiff.”
“Hurry, Uncle Wiggily! Hurry!” called Baby Bunty.
“What’s the hurry?” asked Mr. Longears, as he smoothed out his fur with a pine tree cone for a brush.
“Why, this is the first of May!” went on the little rabbit girl, who was going to live with Uncle Wiggily. “It’s the first of May and we’re going out and gather flowers today, tra-la!”
“Who’s going?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as he came downstairs to breakfast.
“You and I are going to gather flowers. We’ll have fun, many joyful hours!” sang Baby Bunty, as she danced about the breakfast room like a sunbeam playing tag with a pussy cat.
“Oh, oh! We’ll see about that!” said Uncle Wiggily. “Now you run out and play while I eat, and then we’ll see what happens. Did you have your breakfast?”
“Oh, yes, Baby Bunty was up as soon as I was,” said Nurse Jane.
Uncle Wiggily ate his breakfast slowly and carefully. He didn’t like to hurry except when the Pipsisewah was chasing him. And after he had eaten some carrot pancakes, Uncle Wiggily felt sort of lazy like and comfortable.
“I’ll play a little trick on Baby Bunty,” he thought. “I don’t believe it will do my old bones good to go off in the damp woods so early in the morning to gather flowers. I’ll wait until the sun is warmer. I’ll just stay here and go to sleep. She’ll forget all about me.”
So Uncle Wiggily curled up in the easy chair, thinking how good it felt to rest his tired bones and joints. But, all of a sudden, as he was sort of dozing off to sleep, he heard Nurse Jane cry:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Come here! Come quickly! There goes Baby Bunty off on her skates.”
“Baby Bunty? Going off on her skates! Why, she hasn’t any skates!” cried the rabbit gentleman, suddenly waking up! “She’s too little to have roller skates, and it isn’t the time of year for ice skates. How you talk, Nurse Jane!”
“Well, there she goes, anyhow!” said the muskrat lady. “She’s a lively little tyke, is Baby Bunty. She made herself a pair of roller skates out of some old round clothespins, and there she goes on them, skating down the woodland path. You’d better run after her, Uncle Wiggily, or a bad fox may catch her!”
“That’s so!” cried Uncle Wiggily. Then he forgot all about his stiff joints, and how he used to have rheumatism and all that. Away he hopped and ran and leaped and jumped after Baby Bunty. And away the little Bunty went on her clothespin roller skates.
“Come on, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried to him. “See if you can catch me!”
Well, Uncle Wiggily finally did, but it was hard work, and he was so out of breath when he finally ran and caught up to Baby Bunty that he could hardly twinkle his pink nose at all.
“Isn’t this jolly!” laughed the little bunny girl tyke. “Now we can get May flowers! I wanted you to be lively and come, and you did. You came right after me!”
“Yes, but you led me quite a chase!” panted Uncle Wiggily. “However, I guess I feel better after it. I’m not stiff, now!” And he wasn’t a bit, and he and Baby Bunty gathered a fine bouquet of May blossoms. And if the molasses jug doesn’t get stuck in the alley when it’s trying to run through and tag the sugar cookie, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s ride.
STORY III
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S RIDE
Out in front of the hollow stump bungalow sat Uncle Wiggily’s automobile. He had put on it a new turnip steering wheel, and he was thinking of going for a ride, when Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy came out on the front stoop and said:
“Here’s the pepper caster, Mr. Longears.”
“Pepper caster? What do I want of that when I’m going for a ride in my auto?” asked the bunny, in surprise. “I don’t need it!”
“Why, yes, you do,” spoke Nurse Jane. “Don’t you remember? You always sprinkle pepper on the sausage tires of your auto, when you want to go fast. And you might want to go fast today.”
“So I might,” said Uncle Wiggily, reflective like, and slow. “So I might. Thank you, Nurse Jane.”
The bunny rabbit gentleman took the pepper caster from the muskrat lady, but still he did not get in his auto and take a ride. Instead he sat down on a bench in front of his bungalow, and he let the sun shine through his whiskers and on his pink, twinkling nose.
“I think I’ll sit here and take a rest,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “I did have it in mind to go for a ride, but it is very nice here. It does my old rheumatic joints good to let the sun soak in. I’ll just be lazy and comfortable like today.”
So he took some soft cushions out of the Sunday parlor part of his auto, made himself a little bed on the bench at the sunny side of his machine, and snuggled down.
“Oh, what a funny looking rabbit you are!” cried a jolly little voice all of a sudden. “Come on and play with me, Uncle Wiggily!”
“No, Baby Bunty! Not today!” answered Mr. Longears, not even bothering to open his eyes, he was so lazy like and self-contained. But even if he did not see her, he knew it was Baby Bunty speaking. She was the lively little rabbit girl he had found in a hollow stump, and had brought home to live with him.
“Oh, come and play tag!” begged Bunty.
“No! Nope! Nopey!” said Mr. Longears slowly. “I just want to sit and rest. My joints are too stiff to play tag!”
Then everything grew quiet and peaceful, and Uncle Wiggily thought Baby Bunty had gone away so he could go to sleep. Baby Bunty had gone away, but in a very queer way.
All of a sudden Uncle Wiggily was awakened by hearing Nurse Jane call out:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Baby Bunty is having a ride.”
“Is she?” asked the bunny slowly. “That’s good! I hope she has a nice one!”
“Oh, but listen!” cried the muskrat lady. “Baby Bunty jumped in your auto while you were asleep, and she sprinkled some pepper on the bologna sausage tires, and now she’s riding away! Run after her! Hop after her and catch her in the auto, or she may be hurt!”
“Oh, my! Oh, my goodness!” cried Uncle Wiggily. He was wide awake now, and he forgot all about his stiff joints and wanting to rest.
On through the woods he hopped. Faster and faster rode Baby Bunty in the runaway auto. Faster and faster hopped Uncle Wiggily. Quicker and quicker went Baby Bunty in the skippily auto. Quicker and quicker hopped Uncle Wiggily after her.
“Stop! Stop!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “What are you trying to do?”
“Oh! I wanted to have some fun, and make you chase me,” said Baby Bunty. “But I didn’t mean to go so fast, and now I can’t stop! Save me! Save me!”
“I will if I can!” panted Uncle Wiggily. He wasn’t a bit lazy or sleepy now. Nor were his joints stiff! He was as lively as a cricket.
Suddenly, just as Baby Bunty, not knowing much about automobiles, was going to run into a tree, Uncle Wiggily gave a big skip and a hop and caught up to her. In he jumped, shut off the gasolene, put on the brakes and saved Bunty. Then the little rabbit girl smiled sweetly and said:
“Thank you, Uncle Wiggily. I thought I could make you come and have a ride with me.”
“Well—dont—do—it—again!” said the rabbit gentleman, all out of breath like. “You are getting too lively for me, Baby Bunty! Altogether too lively!”
Still he liked her, and if the can opener doesn’t take the top off the powdered sugar basin and make the goldfish sneeze, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s balloon.
STORY IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S BALLOON
“Is she here?” whispered Uncle Wiggily to his muskrat lady housekeeper, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as he hopped into his hollow stump bungalow one day.
“Do you mean Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, who was just here calling on me?” asked Nurse Jane. “If you mean her, she has gone.”
“No, I mean Baby Bunty. Is she here?” asked Uncle Wiggily, still whispering and looking all around the bungalow, while he twinkled his pink nose expectant like.
“Baby Bunty isn’t here,” said Nurse Jane. “I gave her a penny a while ago and she said she was going down to the one-cent store and buy a toy balloon.”
“Ah! Then I can come in and have a rest,” said the rabbit gentleman. “Baby Bunty is good to keep an old rabbit man’s joints from getting stiff,” he said, as he stretched out in his easy chair, “but too much of it is quite enough. I’ll be glad of a little rest.”
Baby Bunty, you know, was a cute little rabbit girl, whose father and mother had been taken away by a fox. Uncle Wiggily found Baby Bunty in the woods in a hollow stump, and brought her home with him.
“She’s so lively she’ll keep you from getting old and stiff,” said Nurse Jane. And Baby Bunty was very lively like and always doing something.
“But now, since she has gone down the woodland path to buy a toy balloon, I’ll sit here and rest,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll take a nap until it’s time to eat dinner.”
Uncle Wiggily stretched out in his easy chair. Soon his pink, twinkly nose was still and quiet. Mr. Longears was asleep.
The bunny rabbit gentleman was just dreaming he was chasing Baby Bunty through the woods in his automobile when, all of a sudden, in came running Billie Wagtail, the goat boy.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily!” bleated Billie. “You ought to see her!”
“See whom?” asked Mr. Longears, waking up so suddenly that his nose twinkled twice as fast as it ought. “See whom?”
“Baby Bunty!” answered the goat boy. “She’s away up in the air sailing over the treetops!”
“She is?” cried the bunny gentleman. “Oh, dear! Some more of her tricks to keep me from getting old and stiff, I suppose. Did she take my airship out, as she ran away in my auto yesterday?” he asked Nurse Jane.
“I think not,” answered the muskrat lady. “Your airship is still in the stable. And are you sure you saw her up above the trees, Billie?”
“Oh, yes’m! And here comes Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel! He saw her, too!” bleated the goat boy.
“What’s the matter with Baby Bunty?” asked Uncle Wiggily of the chattery chap.
“Oh, I don’t know,” answered Johnnie. “But she’s sailing around just like an airship—over the tops of the trees. Come out and see!”
Out rushed Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane and Billie, the goat, and Johnnie, the squirrel. Surely enough, up above their heads, was Baby Bunty floating along like a cloud.
“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily; “that little rabbit girl is always doing something. But I must chase after her! I must get her down!
“Quick, Nurse Jane. Bring out my flying suit of leather! Billie, you and Johnnie run my airship out of the barn! I’ll have to sail up in my airship and bring down Baby Bunty, but I don’t see how she got up there!”
Uncle Wiggily was soon seated on the sofa cushions of his airship, which had toy circus balloons to raise it up and an electric fan that went whizzieizzie to speed it along. Soon he was sailing over the tree tops, up near where Baby Bunty was floating.
“Oh, dear! How did you ever get up here?” asked the rabbit gentleman.
“Oh, I didn’t mean to! Really I didn’t!” said Baby Bunty, half crying. “But I’m glad you came after me, for it will keep you from getting old and stiff!”
“Yes, I s’pose it will!” said Uncle Wiggily, as he sailed close to the little bunny girl and took her into the clothes basket part of his airship. “Ah! Ha! I see how you came to rise off the earth!” he said. “You blew your penny toy balloon up so big that it swelled and raised you up; didn’t you?”
“Yes,” said Baby Bunty, “I did. But I didn’t mean to. I just blew and blew into my toy balloon and it got bigger and bigger, and then I couldn’t get the air out, and the balloon began to go up and I began to go up, and—well, I’m glad you came and got me!” she finished.
“Yes,” said Uncle Wiggily, “I s’pose you are. But don’t do it again.” Then he let the air out of the toy balloon that Baby Bunty had blown too big for herself, and Mr. Longears took the little rabbit girl down to earth in his airship. And everybody said:
“Isn’t Baby Bunty cute!”
“Yes,” said Mr. Longears, “she is. No one would get stiff joints with her around.” And if the box of talcum powder doesn’t blow smoke in the eyes of the potatoes and make them blink, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s doll.
STORY V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S DOLL
“Where is Bunty?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one morning, as he came down to breakfast in his hollow stump bungalow.
“Oh, Bunty has gone out to play, long ago!” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.
“Well, I’m glad of that,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, with a sigh, sort of restful like and ample. “It’s a good thing to have Bunty go out and play.”
“Do you mean it’s good for her?” asked Nurse Jane, as she sliced some carrots for the bunny’s breakfast and poured maple sugar sauce over them.
“It’s restful for Bunty and restful for me,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Do you know, Nurse Jane,” he went on, “since I found Baby Bunty, that cute little rabbit girl, in a hollow stump and brought her home to live with us, she certainly has kept me going. Yes, sir!” exclaimed Mr. Longears, explosive like and inflammatory, at the same time documentary, “she certainly has kept me busy!”
“But it’s good for you,” said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. “You haven’t looked so well in months. Baby Bunty, by being lively, and making you chase her every once in a while, keeps you from getting stiff.”
“Well, yes, perhaps,” admitted the bunny rabbit. “But, at the same time I am glad she has gone out to play this morning. Now, after breakfast, I can sit and read my paper in peace and restfulness.”
And, when he had finished eating his turnip turnovers, with lettuce frosting on, Uncle Wiggily sat down in his easy chair in the sunshine, and began to look over the Cabbage Leaf Gazette, which is the newspaper of the animal people of Woodland, near the Orange Ice Mountains.
But just as Uncle Wiggily was reading how Grandfather Goosey Gander had a cold in his bill and couldn’t quack very well, Nurse Jane suddenly cried:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Come here as quickly as you can. Hurry!”
“What’s the matter now?” asked the rabbit gentleman, as he dropped his paper and gave three hops, a jump and part of a skip to the window, out of which Nurse Jane was looking. “What’s the matter?”
“See! There goes Baby Bunty’s doll!” said the muskrat lady. “It’s skidding along over the ground as fast as the skillery-scalery alligator can crawl. Baby Bunty’s doll is running away, and she’ll feel so badly!”
“Baby Bunty’s doll running away? Impossible!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “The doll isn’t alive—it can’t run away!”
“But it is!” said Nurse Jane. “See it skiddle along!”
And, as true as I’m telling you, there was Baby Bunty’s doll, moving along the woodland path, over the green moss, over the green grass, over the brown leaves in and out among the green ferns. The doll was sliding along the ground, but no one was dragging her or pulling her or pushing her—that is as far as Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane could see.
“Did you ever? Can you imagine it!” cried the muskrat lady.
“I can see it!” said the bunny, rubbing his eyes, and his pink, twinkling nose, to make sure he was awake.
“I can see it!” said Uncle Wiggily. “I don’t have to imagine it. But what makes that doll go I don’t know. Some dolls can walk and talk, but I never saw one slide along all by herself before.”
“Run after it, quickly!” cried Nurse Jane. “Baby Bunty will feel very badly if her doll is lost! Run after it for her!”
“I will,” said the rabbit gentleman. Not stopping to put on his tall, silk hat, and forgetting all about his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, out of his hollow stump bungalow rushed Uncle Wiggily. After the doll he hopped.
But as fast as he hopped the doll skiddled along just as fast, always keeping ahead of Mr. Longears.
“Oh, ho! I’ll get you yet!” cried the bunny. And he hopped faster and faster. But the doll skiddled along even more quickly. Uncle Wiggily was hopping as he had never hopped before.
“What makes that doll skiddle along?” panted the bunny, all out of breath. “I cannot see any one pulling or pushing her. It can’t be a trick of the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon, for I can see neither of those bad chaps. What makes the doll move along? I must find out, but first I must get hold of it!”
So the bunny hopped along faster and faster, and the doll skiddled along until, all of a sudden, Baby Bunty’s play-toy caught on a twisted tree root, was held fast, and Uncle Wiggily, making a big jump, grabbed it. Then he saw that a thin, black but very strong thread was tied around the doll.
“Ha! Some one was pulling that doll along by this black string, and I couldn’t see it,” said the rabbit gentleman. “I wonder who did it?”
“I did!” cried a jolly voice, and out from behind a bush jumped Baby Bunty. “I tied the long thread to my doll, and then I hopped ahead and pulled the doll after me!” said Baby Bunty. “I wanted you to hop along fast, and not get stiff, Uncle Wiggily, and you did! Ho! Ho! Ha! Ha!”
Uncle Wiggily rubbed his pink nose. He shook his paw at Baby Bunty, but he couldn’t help laughing.
“I’m not stiff now,” he said, “but I may be tomorrow.”
“Oh, no you won’t!” laughed Baby Bunty! And if the bath tub doesn’t sprinkle paregoric perfume on the wash rag, thinking it’s a handkerchief, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s medicine.
STORY VI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S MEDICINE
“Oh, Baby Bunty! Baby Bunty!” called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, to the little rabbit girl, who had been found in a hollow stump by Uncle Wiggily Longears. “Ho, Baby Bunty! Come here, quickly!” called the muskrat lady housekeeper of the rabbit’s bungalow.
“Does Uncle Wiggily want to play tag with me, or hide-and-go-seek?” asked Baby Bunty, as she came running in from the front yard. She had been playing dolls with Susie Littletail, the big rabbit girl, and with Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girls. “Does Uncle Wiggily want to chase me?” asked Baby Bunty.
“No, indeed!” answered Nurse Jane. “You are altogether too lively for Uncle Wiggily, I’m afraid. He is so stiff and lame, from having chased your doll yesterday, as you were pulling it along through the wood by a string—Uncle Wiggily is so lame from his fast hopping that you’ll have to go get Dr. Possum.”
“What for?” asked Baby Bunty, who was, indeed, a lively little rabbit girl, always wanting the bunny gentleman to play with her and chase her. She said it kept him lively. Well, it did to a certain extent. “Why does Unk Wig want Dr. Possum?” asked Baby Bunty, giving Mr. Longears one of his pet names.
“Because he is ill,” said Nurse Jane. “He is so lame and stiff that he just sits in an easy chair and grunts. Dr. Possum will come and give Uncle Wiggily some medicine and then he’ll be better.”
“All right! I’ll go!” said Baby Bunty, and pretty soon she came riding back with the animal doctor in his automobile.
“My! But you came quickly!” said Nurse Jane, as Dr. Possum stopped his car amid a shower of leaves, in front of Uncle Wiggily’s hollow stump bungalow.
“I just had to!” said Dr. Possum, getting out and curling his long tail around his satchel of pink, blue, red, yellow and skilligimink colored pills. “Baby Bunty said if I didn’t ride here as fast as I could make the auto go, maybe Uncle Wiggily would never get better.”
“Oh, I think it isn’t quite as bad as that,” said Nurse Jane. “Still Uncle Wiggily is very lame and stiff. He says he can’t move, from having hopped too lively yesterday.”
“Hum! Anybody would be lively where Baby Bunty was,” spoke Dr. Possum. “Now, I’ll have a look at my Uncle Wiggily friend.”
Well, Dr. Possum gave Mr. Longears red pills and pink pills and yellow pills and brown pills, but still, all that day, the rabbit gentleman sat in his chair and grunted and groaned and said he was so stiff he couldn’t move. Dr. Possum shook his head.
“I can’t understand it,” he said. “There doesn’t seem to be much the matter with Uncle Wiggily, but yet he won’t get up and move about. Suppose you make him some sassafras tea,” he said to Nurse Jane.
“I will,” she promised. So Dr. Possum went away, and Nurse Jane went out in the woods to dig up some sassafras roots, and Baby Bunty was left home with Uncle Wiggily. The rabbit gentleman sat in his easy chair, with his eyes shut and his pink nose twinkled hardly any.
“How do you feel now?” asked Baby Bunty.
“Oh, perhaps if I read the paper I’d feel better,” said Mr. Longears.
Baby Bunty handed it to him.
“Now, if you’ll give me my glasses, my dear,” went on Uncle Wiggily, “I’ll sit here and read until Nurse Jane comes back.”
A queer look came over Baby Bunty’s face.
“Where are your glasses?” she asked.
“On the mantel,” said the rabbit gentleman. Baby Bunty looked.
“I don’t see them,” she answered.
“Oh, maybe they’re on the clock shelf,” spoke Mr. Longears.
“No, they aren’t there,” said Baby Bunty. “I guess you’ll have to get up and help me hunt for them, Uncle Wiggily.”
“Oh, dear! I suppose I must,” groaned the bunny. Slowly, and with much groaning, he got out of his chair. He looked in several places for his glasses so he could read. But he could not find them.
“Maybe they’re behind the piano,” said Baby Bunty. Uncle Wiggily looked there, but no glasses were to be found. “Maybe they’re over here under the couch!” cried Baby Bunty, hopping across the room. Uncle Wiggily followed her. The glasses were not there. “Maybe they’re out in the kitchen. Come on, run out there with me and look,” cried Baby Bunty.
Uncle Wiggily did. And then such a chase, all over the hollow stump bungalow, as Baby Bunty led Uncle Wiggily looking for his glasses! Up stairs and down stairs he hopped, getting more and more lively all the while.
Finally, when Uncle Wiggily was trying to jump up on top of the picture moulding, since Baby Bunty said his glasses might be there, in came Nurse Jane with the sassafras.
“Why, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried. “What’s the matter? You must be all better by the lively way you hop about! What’s the matter?”
“I’m looking for my glasses, and Baby Bunty is helping me,” answered Mr. Longears.
“Why, how forgetful you are, Wiggily! There are your glasses, on top of your head, where you so often put them!” said Nurse Jane. “Didn’t you know they were there?”
“No,” said Mr. Longears, “I didn’t.”
“I did—all the while!” laughed Baby Bunty. “But I just wanted you to hop around lively and hunt for them. You aren’t stiff now, are you, Mr. Longears?” she asked, formal like.
“No,” said Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his pink nose, “I am not at all stiff! Yours was the best medicine, Baby Bunty!”
And if the mince pie doesn’t dream that it’s a trolley car and try to run a race with the rag doll’s automobile, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s picnic.
STORY VII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S PICNIC
“What are you going to do today, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Baby Bunty, as she saw the rabbit gentleman sitting in the sun on a bench at the side of his hollow stump bungalow one morning.
“Oh! I’m going to take a little hop through the woods, and perhaps call on Grandfather Goosey Gander, to see if he is well again, after having had a cold in his bill,” spoke Mr. Longears.
“Oh, dear!” sighed Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl, who was hidden in a hollow stump until Uncle Wiggily found her.
“What’s the matter?” asked the rabbit gentleman. “Didn’t I hop around enough to suit you when I was looking for my glasses and they were on top of my head all the while!”
“Oh! you hopped enough, and you cured your stiffness,” said Baby Bunty. “But if you are going to the woods,” said the little tot, “can’t you take me for a picnic? I haven’t had a picnic in ever so long.”
“Oh, ho! So you want a picnic!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “Well, I guess we might have one. Tell Nurse Jane to make some carrot sandwiches, and some turnip flopovers, and a few lettuce ice cream cones, and we’ll go in the woods and have a picnic.”
“Oh, goodie! Oh, joy!” cried Baby Bunty, and she clapped her paws together and tried to make her teeny weeny pink nose twinkle as Uncle Wiggily made his. But, of course, it wasn’t the same.
In a little while Nurse Jane had put up a nice lunch in a birch bark basket, and Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty started to hop through the woods.
“Oh! there goes Billie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, and his brother Johnnie is with him,” suddenly called the baby rabbit after a while. “May they come to our picnic?”
“Surely,” answered Uncle Wiggily. And after that he and Baby Bunty saw Lulu, Jimmie and Alice Wibblewobble, the ducks, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys, and Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goats.
“Bring them all to our picnic!” invited Uncle Wiggily. “We have lunch enough for all.” So all the animal children went to Baby Bunty’s picnic.
Under a tree, on a carpet of green moss, with a fringe of ferns about it, and using toadstools for seats, the rabbit gentleman and Baby Bunty and their friends started the picnic. They had carrot sandwiches, lettuce cakes, turnip jump-arounds and cabbage cookies.
“This is a jolly picnic!” said everybody.
“I’m glad you like it,” spoke Baby Bunty.
And then, all of a sudden, Jackie Bow Wow gave a soft little bark, and said to Baby Bunty:
“Look! Uncle Wiggily is going to sleep. We can’t have any fun at this picnic if he goes to sleep! He ought to play games with us, make whistles from the willow tree and all things like that.”
“Yes,” said Baby Bunty, “so he ought. Oh, dear! I wish Uncle Wiggily wouldn’t go to sleep after he eats! But he almost always does, of late, even at home. I guess he is getting old and stiff.”
“Can’t you make him wake up and be more lively?” asked Lulu Wibblewobble, as she helped a little ant lady lift some carrot bread crumbs over a fallen leaf.
“I’ll try,” said Baby Bunty. “A picnic isn’t any fun unless you play games. And if Uncle Wiggily is going to sleep all the while we can’t play games with him. Now just watch me!”
Baby Bunty slipped up behind Uncle Wiggily, and, taking a long green fern leaf, she softly tickled the bunny rabbit on one of his ears.
“A-ker-choo! Goo-zeesium!” suddenly sneezed the bunny.
“Oh! He’s waking up!” quacked Jimmie the duck.
“Hush!” whispered Baby Bunty. Then she tickled the rabbit gentleman on his other ear.
“Wa-hoo! Zoop! Zing!” gargled Uncle Wiggily.
“Oh, he’s getting real excited like!” barked Peetie Bow Wow.
“Wait a minute!” begged Baby Bunty, keeping out of sight.
Then she took a soft piece of grass and she let it flicker gently over Uncle Wiggily’s pink nose, which never twinkled when he was asleep. All of a sudden the bunny rabbit gentleman cried:
“Oh zip! Doodle-de-oodle! Gurr! Wafty-zup!” And he sneezed and opened his eyes and sat up and said: “Is anything the matter?”
“Oh, no!” answered Baby Bunty sweetly. “We just want you to play some games with us; that’s all.”
“Play games! Of course I’ll play games. I always do at a picnic,” laughed the rabbit gentleman. “I declare! I must have been asleep!” he said. “And I dreamed that a ladybug tickled me!”
“Oh, no! Nothing like that! Can you imagine!” laughed Baby Bunty. And all the other animal children laughed, too. Then Uncle Wiggily played “Hop Over the Stump” and all such fashion games with them, and they had a fine time at the picnic. And if the pumpkin pie doesn’t take the chocolate cake out in the dark and lose it, so there aren’t any cookies for the goldfish, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s bouquet.
STORY VIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S BOUQUET
“Will you do me just a little favor, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Baby Bunty one day, as she came home from school, and saw the dear old rabbit gentleman sitting in the sun outside his hollow stump bungalow.
“Do you a favor? Why, of course, I will, Baby Bunty,” said Mr. Longears to the little rabbit girl he had found in the woods. “But I hope it is a favor that will not make me hop around. I am a bit stiff from having gone on the picnic with you yesterday. Though I had a good time, after all,” he said.
“I’m glad you did,” said Baby Bunty. “This favor is a very easy one. You can sit there and do it. All I want you to do is to tell me what kind of woodland flowers to pick for a bouquet for the lady mouse teacher in the hollow stump school.”
“Oh, ho!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “So your lady mouse teacher wants a bouquet, does she?”
“Yes,” answered Baby Bunty. “She told each one of us to bring wild flowers to school tomorrow. Sammie and Susie Littletail, and Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, and Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble—they all know where to look in the woods for the blossoms. But I’m such a little rabbit girl I don’t know. So if you’ll tell me about the flowers, I’ll go pick them before supper, and have them ready for tomorrow.”
“Well,” said Uncle Wiggily, slowly like and disengaged, as he tilted back on his easy chair, “there are red flowers and blue ones, and golden yellow ones, and some of purple. They will make a nice bouquet when you pick them. Now run off in the woods, Baby Bunty, and pick some flowers. Then you’ll have pretty posies for your teacher.”
Uncle Wiggily closed his eyes, gave his pink nose a soft little twinkle and was dozing off again into a little before-supper sleep. Baby Bunty shook her little head.
“This will never do,” she thought. “Uncle Wiggily will get old and stiff, and he’ll think his rheumatism is worse and all things like that if I let him keep so quiet. I must rouse him up. I haven’t time to make him chase me, as I want to gather flowers. What shall I do? Oh, I know!”
Softly Baby Bunty hopped off on her tippy tip-paws. Into the woods, not far from the hollow stump bungalow, she went, and there she saw some red flowers. She began to pick them, looking back, now and then, through the trees to where Uncle Wiggily was asleep against the side of his hollow stump bungalow.
“I must rouse him up and make him more lively!” thought Baby Bunty. Then, all of a sudden, as she was picking pink flowers she gave a little scream and cried:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Come quick! Here’s a big snake after me!”
“What’s that! A snake! A snake after Baby Bunty when she’s picking a flower bouquet for teacher?” cried the rabbit gentleman, suddenly waking up. “That must never be!”
Quickly he sprang from the bark bench on which he had been sitting. Over to the edge of the woods he ran, where Baby Bunty was picking a bouquet.
“Where’s the snake?” asked Uncle Wiggily, all ready to kindly ask the crawly creature to go away and not hurt the little rabbit girl. “Where’s the snake?”
“There!” cried Baby Bunty, pointing to something squirming on the ground.
“That? Why that is only an angle worm!” said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. “He won’t hurt you, Baby Bunty.”
“Oh! Only an angle worm!” said the little rabbit girl, innocent-like and dissembling. “Why, I thought it was a snake!”
The angle worm crawled away, laughing to himself. Uncle Wiggily went back to sleep and Baby Bunty went on picking her bouquet. She glanced back to where Mr. Longears was having a nap. Then Baby Bunty suddenly cried again:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! There’s a big beast in an aeroplane airship flying after me! Come quick and drive him away! Oh! Oh!”
“A big beast in an airship!” exclaimed the rabbit gentleman, suddenly waking up. “Oh, ho! I’ll soon drive him away!” He ran to Baby Bunty.
“There it is!” she said, pointing her paw to something fluttering in the air.
“That? Why, that’s only a dragon fly!” said Uncle Wiggily. “He will never hurt you. All he does is to eat mosquitoes.” And back the bunny went to sleep, while the dragon fly flew on, laughing to himself.
Pretty soon Baby Bunty, who now had some red, white and blue flowers for her bouquet, called:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! There’s a big, wild, spotted leopard after me! Come quick!”
Uncle Wiggily jumped up so quickly from his sleep that he upset the bark bench.
“Where’s the spotted leopard?” he cried.
“There!” said Baby Bunty, pointing.
“That! Why, that’s only Billy No-Tail, the spotted frog boy!” said Uncle Wiggily. “He won’t hurt you!”
“Oh!” said Baby Bunty softly, “I thought he was a green and yellow spotted leopard. Well, as long as I have roused you up so often, Uncle Wiggily, don’t you think you’d better stay awake now, and help me pick teacher’s bouquet? It will keep you from getting stiff.”
“I suppose so,” said the rabbit gentleman, sort of sighing resigned like. And as he helped pick the flowers he heard Baby Bunty laugh softly every now and then.
“I wonder,” thought Uncle Wiggily, “if she knew, all the while, that it was only an angle worm, a dragon fly and the frog boy? I wonder?”
And so do I. And if the Thanksgiving Fourth of July pinwheel doesn’t scratch the baby’s rattle box and make it squeak like a tin horn I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s hat.
STORY IX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S HAT
Once upon a time Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy promised Baby Bunty, the little rabbit girl, who lived with Uncle Wiggily, to take her down to the fifteen and sixteen cent store to buy a new hat.
But at the last minute Nurse Jane had to go over to help Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, make sugar cookies.
“I’ll take Baby Bunty to the five and ten cent store myself,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll help her get a new hat.”
“Oh, joy!” cried Baby Bunty. “I love to go shopping with you, Uncle Wiggily. Only we’ll go to the nineteen and twenty cent store. They have lovely hats there! Why, some have grass-colored ribbons and one has real cabbage leaf trimmings.”
“That will be fine!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “When you are hungry you can eat part of your hat, Bunty.”
“Oh, I’ll never do that!” said the little rabbit girl, who had been found in a hollow stump.
So Nurse Jane went over to Mrs. Wibblewobble’s and Uncle Wiggily started for the three and four cent store—no, I’m wrong—it was the nineteen and twenty. Baby Bunty skipped on ahead, running two and fro, jumping over bushes and snuggling down in clumps of ferns, as though playing hide and seek. Uncle Wiggily went more slowly and rheumatic like.