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UNCLE WIGGILY
AND
OLD MOTHER HUBBARD
UNCLE WIGGILY
AND
OLD MOTHER HUBBARD
Adventures of the Rabbit Gentleman with the
Mother Goose Characters
By
HOWARD R. GARIS
Author of “Uncle Wiggily Bedtime Stories,” “Uncle Wiggily Animal Stories,” “Uncle Wiggily’s Story Book,” “The Daddy Series,” Etc.
Illustrated by
Edward Bloomfield
&
Lansing Campbell
A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
New York
CHILDREN’S BOOKS by Howard R. Garis
UNCLE WIGGILY BEDTIME STORIES
- UNCLE WIGGILY’S ADVENTURES
- UNCLE WIGGILY’S TRAVELS
- UNCLE WIGGILY’S FORTUNE
- UNCLE WIGGILY’S AUTOMOBILE
- UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE
- UNCLE WIGGILY’S AIRSHIP
- UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE COUNTRY
- UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS
- UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FARM
- UNCLE WIGGILY’S JOURNEY
- UNCLE WIGGILY’S RHEUMATISM
- UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY
- UNCLE WIGGILY IN WONDERLAND
- UNCLE WIGGILY IN FAIRYLAND
- UNCLE WIGGILY AND MOTHER HUBBARD
- UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BIRDS
UNCLE WIGGILY ANIMAL STORIES
- SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL
- JOHNNIE AND BILLIE BUSHYTAIL
- LULU, ALICE AND JIMMIE WIBBLEWOBBLE
- JACKIE AND PEETIE BOW-WOW
- BUDDY AND BRIGHTEYES PIGG
- JOIE, TOMMIE AND KITTIE KAT
- CHARLIE AND ARABELLA CHICK
- NEDDIE AND BECKIE STUBTAIL
- BULLY AND BAWLY NO-TAIL
- NANNIE AND BILLIE WAGTAIL
- JOLLIE AND JILLIE LONGTAIL
- JACKO AND JUMPO KINKYTAIL
- CURLY AND FLOPPY TWISTYTAIL
- TOODLE AND NOODLE FLATTAIL
- DOTTIE AND WILLIE FLUFFTAIL
- DICKIE ANP NELLIE FLIPTAIL
- WOODIE AND WADDIE CHUCK
- BOBBY AND BETTY RINGTAIL
SOMETHING NEW!
UNCLE WIGGILY’S STORY BOOK
and
UNCLE WIGGILY’S PICTURE BOOK
Copyright, 1922, by
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY
UNCLE WIGGILY AND OLD MOTHER HUBBARD
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
- [Uncle Wiggily and Mother Goose]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the First Pig]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the Second Pig]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the Third Pig]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Little Boy Blue]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Higgledee Piggledee]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Little Bo-Peep]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Tommie Tucker]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Pussy Cat Mole]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Jack and Jill]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Jack Horner]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Mr. Pop-Goes]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Simple Simon]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the Crumpled-Horn Cow]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Miss Muffet]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the First Kitten]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the Second Kitten]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the Third Kitten]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the Jack Horse]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the Clock-Mouse]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the Late Scholar]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Baa-Baa Black Sheep]
- [Uncle Wiggily and Polly Flinders]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the Garden Maid]
- [Uncle Wiggily and the King]
Uncle Wiggily and
Old Mother Hubbard
CHAPTER I
UNCLE WIGGILY AND MOTHER GOOSE
There once lived in the woods an old rabbit gentleman named Uncle Wiggily Longears, and in the hollow-stump bungalow where he had his home there also lived Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, a muskrat lady housekeeper. Near Uncle Wiggily there were, in hollow trees, or in nests or in burrows under the ground, many animal friends of his—rabbits, squirrels, puppy dogs, pussy cats, frogs, ducks, chickens and others, so that Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane were never lonesome.
Often Sammie or Susie Littletail, a small boy and girl rabbit, would hop over to the hollow-stump bungalow, and call:
“Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Can’t you come out and play with us?”
Then the old rabbit gentleman, who was as fond of fun as a kitten, would put on his tall silk hat, take his red, white and blue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a corn-stalk, and he would go out to play with the rabbit children, about whom I have told you in other books.
Or perhaps Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrel boys, might ask Uncle Wiggily to go after hickory nuts with them, or maybe Lulu, Alice or Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children, would want their bunny uncle to see them go swimming.
So, altogether, Uncle Wiggily had a good time in his hollow-stump bungalow which was built in the woods. When he had nothing else to do Mr. Longears would go for a ride in his airship. This was made of a clothes-basket, with toy circus balloons on it to make it rise up above the trees. Or Uncle Wiggily might take a trip in his automobile, which had big bologna sausages on the wheels for tires. And whenever the rabbit gentleman wanted the automobile wheels to go around faster he sprinkled pepper on the sausages.
One day Uncle Wiggily said to Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy:
“I think I will go for a ride in my airship. Is there anything I can bring from the store for you?”
“Why, you might bring a loaf of bread and a pound of sugar,” answered the muskrat lady.
“Very good,” answered Uncle Wiggily, and then he took some soft cushions out to put in the clothes-basket part of his airship, so, in case the air popped out of the balloons, and he fell, he would land easy like, and soft.
Soon the rabbit gentleman was sailing off through the air, over the tree tops, his paws in nice, warm red mittens that Nurse Jane had knitted for him. For it was winter, you see, and Uncle Wiggily’s paws would have been cold steering his airship, by the baby carriage wheel which guided it, had it not been for the mittens.
It did not take the bunny uncle long to go to the store in his airship, and soon, with the loaf of bread and pound of sugar under the seat, away he started for his hollow-stump bungalow again.
And, as he sailed on and over the tree tops, Uncle Wiggily looked far off, and he saw some black smoke rising in the air.
“Ha! That smoke seems to be near my hollow-stump bungalow,” he said to himself. “I guess Nurse Jane is starting a fire in the kitchen stove to get dinner. I must hurry home.”
Uncle Wiggily made his airship go faster, and then he saw, coming toward him, a big bird, with large wings.
“Why, that looks just like my old friend, Grandfather Goosey Gander,” Uncle Wiggily thought to himself. “I wonder why he is flying so high? He hardly ever goes up so near the clouds.
“And he seems to have some one on his back,” spoke Uncle Wiggily out loud this time, sort of talking to the loaf of bread and the pound of sugar. “A lady, too,” went on the bunny uncle. “A lady with a tall hat on, something like mine, only hers comes to a point on top. And she has a broom with her. I wonder who it can be?”
And when the big white bird came nearer to the airship Uncle Wiggily saw that it was not Grandfather Goosey Gander at all, but another big gander, almost like his friend, whom he often went to see. And then the bunny uncle saw who it was on the bird’s back.
“Why, it’s Mother Goose!” cried Uncle Wiggily Longears. “It’s Mother Goose! She looks just like her pictures in the book, too.”
“Yes, I am Mother Goose,” said the lady who was riding on the back of the big, white gander.
“I am glad to meet you, Mother Goose,” spoke Mr. Longears. “I have often heard about you. I can see, over the tree tops, that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper, is getting dinner ready. I can tell by the smoke. Will you not ride home with me? I will make my airship go slowly, so as not to get ahead of you and your fine gander-goose.”
“Alas, Uncle Wiggily,” said Mother Goose, scratching her chin with the end of the broom handle, “I cannot come home to dinner with you much as I would like it. Alas! Alas!”
“Why not?” asked the bunny uncle.
“Because I have bad news for you,” said Mother Goose. “That smoke, which you saw over the tree tops, was not smoke from your chimney as Nurse Jane was getting dinner.”
“What was it then?” asked Uncle Wiggily, and a cold shiver sort of ran up and down between his ears, even if he did have warm, red mittens on his paws. “What was that smoke?”
“The smoke from your burning bungalow,” went on Mother Goose. “It caught fire, when Nurse Jane was getting dinner, and now——”
“Oh! Don’t tell me Nurse Jane is burned!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Don’t say that!”
“I was not going to,” spoke Mother Goose, kindly. “But I must tell you that your hollow-stump bungalow is burned to the ground. There is nothing left but some ashes,” and she made the gander, on whose back she was riding, fly close alongside of Uncle Wiggily’s airship.
“My nice bungalow burned!” exclaimed the rabbit gentleman. “Well, I am very, very sorry for that. But still it might be worse. Nurse Jane might have been hurt, and that would have been quite too bad. I dare say I can get another bungalow.”
“That is what I came to tell you about,” said Mother Goose. “I was riding past when I saw your Woodland hollow-stump house on fire, and I went down to see if I could help. It was too late to save the bungalow, but I said I would find a place for you and Nurse Jane to stay to-night, or as long as you like, until you can build a new home.”
“That is very kind of you,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I hardly know what to do.”
“I have many friends,” went on Mother Goose. “You may have read about them in the book which tells of me. Any of my friends would be glad to have you come and live with them. There is the Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe, for instance.”
“But hasn’t she so many children she doesn’t know what to do?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as he remembered the story in the book.
“Yes,” answered Mother Goose, “she has. I suppose you would not like it there.”
“Oh, I like children,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But if there are so many that the dear Old Lady doesn’t know what to do, she wouldn’t know what to do with Nurse Jane and me.”
“Well, you might go stay with my friend Old Mother Hubbard,” said Mother Goose.
“But if I went there, would not the cupboard be bare?” asked Uncle Wiggily, “and what would Nurse Jane and I do for something to eat?”
“That’s so,” spoke Mother Goose, as she reached up quite high and brushed a cobweb off the sky with her broom. “That will not do, either. I must see about getting Mother Hubbard and her dog something to eat. You can stay with her later. Oh, I have it!” suddenly cried the lady who was riding on the back of the white gander, “you can go stay with Old King Cole! He’s a jolly old soul!”
Uncle Wiggily shook his head.
“Thank you very much, Mother Goose,” he said, slowly. “But Old King Cole might send for his fiddlers three, and I do not believe I would like to listen to jolly music to-day when my nice bungalow has just burned down.”
“No, perhaps not,” agreed Mother Goose. “Well, if you can find no other place to stay to-night come with me. I have a big house, and with me live Little Bo Peep, Little Boy Blue, who is getting to be quite a big chap now, Little Tommie Tucker and Jack Sprat and his wife. Oh, I have many other friends living with me, and surely we can find room for you.”
“Thank you,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “I will think about it.”
Then he flew down in his airship to the place where the hollow-stump bungalow had been, but it was not there now. Mother Goose flew down with her gander after Uncle Wiggily. They saw a pile of blackened and smoking wood, and near it stood Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, and many other animals who lived in Woodland with Uncle Wiggily.
“Oh, I am so sorry!” cried Nurse Jane. “It is my fault. I was baking a pudding in the oven, Uncle Wiggily. I left it a minute while I ran over to the pen of Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, to ask her about making a new kind of carrot sauce for the pudding, and when I came home the pudding had burned, and the bungalow was on fire.”
“Never mind,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, kindly, “as long as you were not burned yourself, Nurse Jane.”
“But where will you sleep to-night?” asked the muskrat lady, sorrowfully.
“Oh,” began Uncle Wiggily, “I guess I can——”
“Come stay with us!” cried Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children.
“Or with us!” invited Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels.
“And why not with us?” asked Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goat children.
“We’d ask you to come with us,” said Jollie and Jillie Longtail, the mouse children, “only our house is so small.”
Many of Uncle Wiggily’s friends, who had hurried up to see the hollow-stump bungalow burn, while he was at the store, now, in turn, invited him to stay with them.
“I, myself, have asked him to come with me,” said Mother Goose, “or with any of my friends. We all would be glad to have him.”
“It is very kind of you,” said the rabbit gentleman. “And this is what I will do, until I can build me a new bungalow. I will take turns staying at your different hollow-tree homes, your nests or your burrows underground. And I will come and visit you also, Mother Goose, and all of your friends; at least such of them as have room for me.
“Yes, that is what I’ll do. I’ll visit around now that my hollow-stump home is burned. I thank you all. Come, Nurse Jane, we will pay our first visit to Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbits.”
And while the other animals hopped, skipped or flew away through the woods, and as Mother Goose sailed off on the back of her gander, to sweep more cobwebs out of the sky, Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane went to the Littletail burrow, or underground house.
“Good-bye, Uncle Wiggily!” called Mother Goose. “I’ll see you again, soon, sometime. And if ever you meet with any of my friends, Little Jack Horner, Bo Peep, or the three little pigs, about whom you may have read in my book, be kind to them.”
“I will,” promised Uncle Wiggily.
And he did, as you may read in the next chapter, when, if the sugar spoon doesn’t tickle the carving knife and make it dance on the bread board, the story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the first little pig.
CHAPTER II
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE FIRST PIG
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, came out of the underground burrow house of the Littletail family, where he was visiting a while with the bunny children, Sammie and Susie, because his own hollow-stump bungalow had burned down.
“Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, as he strapped his cabbage leaf books together, ready to go to school.
“Oh, I am just going for a little walk,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, asked me to get her some court plaster from the five and six cent store, and on my way there I may have an adventure. Who knows?”
“We are going to school,” said Susie. “Will you walk part of the way with us, Uncle Wiggily?”
“To be sure I will!” crowed the old gentleman rabbit, making believe he was Mr. Cock A. Doodle, the rooster.
So Uncle Wiggily, with Sammie and Susie, started off across the snow-covered fields and through the woods. Pretty soon they came to the path the rabbit children must take to go to the hollow-stump school, where the lady mouse teacher would hear their carrot and turnip gnawing lessons.
“Good-by, Uncle Wiggily!” called Sammie and Susie. “We hope you have a nice adventure,”
“Good-by. Thank you, I hope I do,” he answered.
Then the rabbit gentleman walked on, while Sammie and Susie hurried to school, and pretty soon Mr. Longears heard a queer grunting noise behind some bushes near him.
“Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!” came the sound.
“Hello! Who is there?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“Why, if you please, I am here, and I am the first little pig,” came the answer, and out from behind the bush stepped a cute little piggie boy, with a bundle of straw under his paw.
“So you are the first little pig, eh?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “How many of you are there altogether?”
“Three, if you please,” grunted the first little pig. “I have two brothers, and they are the second and third little pigs. Don’t you remember reading about us in the Mother Goose book?”
“Oh, of course I do!” cried Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his nose. “And so you are the first little pig. But what are you going to do with that bundle of straw?”
“I’m going to build me a house, Uncle Wiggily, of course,” grunted the piggie boy. “Don’t you remember what it says in the book? ‘Once upon a time there were three little pigs, named Grunter, Squeaker and Twisty-Tail.’ Well, I’m Grunter, and I met a man with a load of straw, and I asked him for a bundle to make me a house. He very kindly gave it to me, and now, I’m off to build it.”
“May I come?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll help you put up your house.”
“Of course you may come—glad to have you,” answered the first little pig. “Only you know what happens to me; don’t you?”
“No! What?” asked the rabbit gentleman. “I guess I have forgotten the story.”
“Well, after I build my house of straw, just as it says in the Mother Goose story book, along comes a bad old wolf, and he blows it down,” said the first little pig.
“Oh, how dreadful!” cried Uncle Wiggily, “but maybe he won’t come to-day.”
“Oh, yes, he will,” said the first little pig. “It’s that way in the book, and the wolf has to come.”
“Well, if he does,” said Uncle Wiggily, “maybe I can save you from him.”
“Oh, I hope you can!” grunted Grunter. “It is no fun to be chased by a wolf.”
So the rabbit gentleman and the piggie boy went on and on, until they came to the place where Grunter was to build his house of straw. Uncle Wiggily helped, and soon it was finished.
“Why, it is real nice and cozy in here,” said Uncle Wiggily, when he had made a big pile of snow back of the straw house to keep off the north wind, and had gone in with the little piggie boy.
“Yes, it is cozy enough,” spoke Grunter, “but wait until the bad wolf comes. Oh, dear!”
“Maybe he won’t come,” said the rabbit, hopeful like.
“Yes, he will!” cried Grunter. “Here he comes now.”
And, surely enough, looking out of the window, the piggie boy and Uncle Wiggily saw a bad wolf running over the snow toward them. The wolf knocked on the door of the straw house and cried:
“Little pig! Little pig! Let me come in.”
“No! No! By the hair of my chinny-chin-chin. I will not let you in!” answered Grunter, just like in the book.
“Then I’ll puff and I’ll blow, and I’ll blow your house in!” howled the wolf. Then he puffed and he blew, and, all of a sudden, over went the straw house. But, just as it was falling down, Uncle Wiggily cried:
“Quick, Grunter, come with me! I’ll dig a hole for us in the pile of snow that I made back of your house and in there we’ll hide where the wolf can’t find us!” Then the rabbit gentleman, with his strong paws, just made for digging, burrowed a hole in the snow-bank, and as the straw house toppled down, into this hole he crawled with Grunter.
“Now I’ve got you!” cried the wolf, as he blew down the first little pig’s straw house. But when the wolf looked he couldn’t see Grunter or Uncle Wiggily at all, because they were hiding in the snow-bank.
“Well, well!” howled the wolf. “This isn’t like the book at all! Where is that little pig?”
But the wolf could not find Grunter, and soon the bad creature went away, fearing to catch cold in his eyes. Then Uncle Wiggily and Grunter came out of the snow-bank and were safe, and Uncle Wiggily took Grunter home to the rabbit house to stay until Mother Goose came, some time afterward, to get the first little pig boy.
“Thank you very much, Uncle Wiggily,” said Mother Goose, “for being kind to one of my friends.”
“Pray don’t mention it. I had a fine adventure, besides saving a little pig,” said the rabbit gentleman. “I wonder what will happen to me to-morrow?”
And we shall soon see for, if the snowball doesn’t wrap itself up in the parlor rug to hide away from the jam tart, when it comes home from the moving pictures, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the second little pig.
CHAPTER III
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SECOND PIG
“There! It’s all done!” exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the nice muskrat lady housekeeper, who, with Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was staying in the Littletail rabbit house, since the hollow-stump bungalow had burned down.
“What’s all done?” asked Uncle Wiggily, looking over the tops of his spectacles.
“These jam tarts I baked for Billie and Nannie Wagtail, the goat children,” said Nurse Jane. “Will you take them with you when you go out for a walk, Uncle Wiggily, and leave them at the goat house?”
“I most certainly will,” said the rabbit gentleman, very politely. “Is there anything else I can do for you, Nurse Jane?”
But the muskrat lady wanted nothing more, and, wrapping up the jam tarts in a napkin so they would not catch cold, she gave them to Mr. Longears to take to the two goat children.
Uncle Wiggily was walking along, wondering what sort of an adventure he would have that day, or whether he would meet Mother Goose again, when all at once he heard a voice speaking from behind some bushes.
“Yes, I think I will build my house here,” the voice said. “The wolf is sure to find me anyhow, and I might as well have it over with. I’ll make my house here.”
Uncle Wiggily looked over the bushes, and there he saw a funny little animal boy, with some pieces of wood on his shoulder.
“Hello!” cried Uncle Wiggily, making his nose twinkle in a most jilly-jolly way. “Who are you, and what are you going to do?”
“Why, I am Squeaker, the second little pig, and I am going to make a house of wood,” was the answer. “Don’t you remember how it reads in the Mother Goose book? ‘Once upon a time there were three little pigs, named Grunter, Squeaker and——’”
“Oh, yes, I remember!” Uncle Wiggily said. “I met your brother Grunter yesterday, and helped him build his straw house.”
“Little pig! Little pig!
Let me come in!”
“That was kind of you,” spoke Squeaker. “I suppose the bad old wolf got him, though. Too bad! Well, it can’t be helped, as it is that way in the book.”
Uncle Wiggily didn’t say anything about having saved Grunter, for he wanted to surprise Squeaker, so the rabbit gentleman just twinkled his nose again and asked:
“May I have the pleasure of helping you build your house of wood?”
“Indeed you may, thank you,” said Squeaker. “I suppose the old wolf will be along soon, so we had better hurry to get the house finished.”
Then the second little pig and Uncle Wiggily built the wooden house. When it was almost finished Uncle Wiggily went out near the back door, and began piling up some cakes of ice to make a sort of box.
“What are you doing?” asked Squeaker.
“Oh, I’m just making a place where I can put these jam tarts I have for Nannie and Billie Wagtail,” the rabbit gentleman answered. “I don’t want the wolf to get them when he blows down your house.”
“Oh, dear!” sighed Squeaker. “I rather wish, now, he didn’t have to blow over my nice wooden house, and get me. But he has to, I s’pose, ’cause it’s in the book.”
Still, Uncle Wiggily didn’t say anything, but he just sort of blinked his eyes and twinkled his pink nose, until, all of a sudden, Squeaker looked across the snowy fields, and he cried:
“Here comes the bad old wolf now!”
And, surely enough, along came the growling, howling creature. He ran up to the second little pig’s wooden house, and, rapping on the door with his paw, cried:
“Little pig! Little pig! Let me come in!”
“No, no! By the hair on my chinny-chin-chin I will not let you in,” said the second little pig, bravely.
“Then I’ll puff and I’ll blow, and I’ll puff and I’ll blow, and blow your house in!” howled the wolf.
Then he puffed out his cheeks, and he took a long breath and he blew with all his might and main and suddenly:
“Cracko!”
Down went the wooden house of the second little piggie, and only that Uncle Wiggily and Squeaker jumped to one side they would have been squashed as flat as a pancake, or even two pancakes.
“Quick!” cried the rabbit gentleman in the piggie boy’s ear. “This way! Come with me!”
“Where are we going?” asked Squeaker, as he followed the rabbit gentleman over the cracked and broken boards, which were all that was left of the house.
“We are going to the little cabin that I made out of cakes of ice, behind your wooden house,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I put the jam tarts in it, but there is also room for us, and we can hide there until the bad wolf goes off.”
“Well, that isn’t the way it is in the book,” said the second little pig. “But——”
“No matter!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Hurry!” So he and Squeaker hid in the ice cabin back of the blown-down house, and when the bad wolf came poking along among the broken boards, to get the little pig, he couldn’t find him. For Uncle Wiggily had closed the door of the ice place, and as it was partly covered with snow the wolf could not see through.
“Oh, dear!” howled the wolf. “That’s twice I’ve been fooled by those pigs! It isn’t like the book at all. I wonder where he can have gone?”
But he could not find Squeaker or Uncle Wiggily either, and finally the wolf’s nose became so cold from sniffing the ice that he had to go home to warm it, and so Uncle Wiggily and Squeaker were safe.
“Oh, I don’t know how to thank you,” said the second little piggie boy as the rabbit gentleman took him home to Mother Goose, after having left the jam tarts at the home of the Wagtail goats.
“Pray do not mention it,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, modest like, and shy. “It was just an adventure for me.”
He had another adventure the following day, Uncle Wiggily did. And if the dusting brush doesn’t go swimming in the soap dish, and get all lather so that it looks like a marshmallow cocoanut cake, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the third little pig.
CHAPTER IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE THIRD PIG
Uncle Wiggily Longears sat in the burrow, or house under the ground, where he and Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, lived with the Littletail family of rabbits since the hollow-stump bungalow had burned.
“Oh, dear!” sounded a grunting, woofing sort of voice over near one window.
“Oh, dear!” squealed another voice from under the table.
“Well, well! What is the matter with you two piggie boys?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as he took down from the sideboard his red, white and blue barber-pole striped rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a cornstalk.
“What’s the trouble, Grunter and Squeaker?” asked the rabbit gentleman.
“We are lonesome for our brother,” said the two little piggie boys No. 1 and No. 2. “We want to see Twisty-Tail.”
For the first and second little pigs, after having been saved by Uncle Wiggily, and taken home to Mother Goose, had come back to pay a visit to the bunny gentleman.
“Well, perhaps I may meet Twisty-Tail when I go walking to-day,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “If I do I’ll bring him home with me.”
“Oh, goodie!” cried Grunter and Squeaker. For they were the first and second little pigs, you see. Uncle Wiggily had saved Grunter from the bad wolf when the growling creature blew down Grunter’s straw house. And, in almost the same way, the bunny uncle had saved Squeaker, when his wooden house was blown over by the wolf. But Twisty-Tail, the third little pig, Uncle Wiggily had not yet helped.
“I’ll look for Twisty-Tail to-day,” said the rabbit gentleman as he started off for his adventure walk, which he took every afternoon and morning.
On and on went Uncle Wiggily Longears over the snow-covered fields and through the wood, until just as he was turning around the corner near an old red stump, the rabbit gentleman heard a clinkity-clankity sort of a noise, and the sound of whistling.
“Ha! Some one is happy!” thought the bunny uncle. “That’s a good sign—whistling. I wonder who it is?”
He looked around the stump corner and he saw a little animal chap, with blue rompers on, and a fur cap stuck back of his left ear, and this little animal chap was whistling away as merrily as a butterfly eating butterscotch candy.
“Why, that must be the third little pig!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “Hello!” called the rabbit gentleman. “Are you Twisty-Tail?”
“That’s my name,” answered the little pig, “and, as you see, I am building my house of bricks, just as it tells about in the Mother Goose book.”
And, surely enough, Twisty-Tail was building a little house of red bricks, and it was the tap-tap-tapping of his trowel, or mortar-shovel, that made the clinkity-clankity noise.
“Do you know me, Uncle Wiggily?” asked the piggie boy. “You see I am in a book. ‘Once upon a time there were three little pigs, and——’”
“I know all about you,” interrupted Uncle Wiggily. “I have met Mother Goose, and also your two brothers.”
“They didn’t know how to build the right kind of houses, and so the wolf got them,” said Twisty-Tail. “I am sorry, but it had to happen that way, just as it is in the book.”
Uncle Wiggily smiled, but said nothing.
“I met a man with a load of bricks, and I begged some of them to build my house,” said Twisty-Tail. “No wolf can get me. No, sir-ee! I’ll build my house very strong, not weak like my brothers’. No, indeed!”
“I’ll help you build your house,” offered Uncle Wiggily, kindly, and just as he and Twisty-Tail finished the brick house and put on the roof it began to rain and freeze.
“We are through just in time,” said Twisty-Tail, as he and the rabbit gentleman hurried inside. “I don’t believe the wolf will come out in such weather.”
But just as he said that and looked from the window, the little piggie boy gave a cry, and said:
“Oh, here comes the bad animal now! But he can’t get in my house, or blow it over, ’cause the book says he didn’t.”
The wolf came up through the freezing rain and knocking on the third piggie boy’s brick house, said:
“Little pig! Little pig! Let me come in!”
“No! No! By the hair of my chinny-chin-chin, I will not let you in!” grunted Twisty-Tail.
“Then I’ll puff and I’ll blow, and I’ll blow your house in!” howled the wolf.
“You can’t! The book says so!” laughed the little pig. “My house is a strong, brick one. You can’t get me!”
“Just you wait!” growled the wolf. So he puffed out his cheeks, and he blew and he blew, but he could not blow down the brick house, because it was so strong.
“Well, I’m in no hurry,” the wolf said. “I’ll sit down and wait for you to come out.”
So the wolf sat down on his tail to wait outside the brick house. After a while Twisty-Tail began to get hungry.
“Did you bring anything to eat, Uncle Wiggily?” he asked.
“No, I didn’t,” answered the rabbit gentleman. “But if the old wolf would go away I’d take you where your two brothers are visiting with me in the Littletail family rabbit house and you could have all you want to eat.”
Rut the wolf would not go away, even when Uncle Wiggily asked him to, most politely, making a bow and twinkling his nose.
“I’m going to stay here all night,” the wolf growled. “I am not going away. I am going to get that third little pig!”
“Are you? Well, we’ll see about that!” cried the rabbit gentleman. Then he took a rib out of his umbrella, and with a piece of his shoe lace (that he didn’t need) for a string he made a bow like the Indians used to have.
“If I only had an arrow now I could shoot it from my umbrella-bow, hit the wolf on the nose and make him go away,” said Uncle Wiggily. Then he looked out of the window and saw where the rain, dripping from the roof, had frozen into long, sharp icicles.
“Ha!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “An icicle will make the best kind of an arrow! Now I’ll shoot the wolf, not hard enough to hurt him, but just hard enough to make him run away.”
Reaching out the window Uncle Wiggily broke off a sharp icicle. He put this ice arrow in his bow and, pulling back the shoe string, “twang!” he shot the wolf on the nose.
“Oh, wow! Oh, double-wow! Oh, custard cake!” howled the wolf. “This isn’t in the Mother Goose book at all. Not a single pig did I get! Oh, my nose! Ouch!”
Then he ran away, and Uncle Wiggily and Twisty-Tail could come safely out of the brick house, which they did, hurrying home to the bunny house where Grunter and Squeaker were, to get something to eat. So everything came out right, you see, and Uncle Wiggily saved the three little pigs, one after the other.
And if the canary bird doesn’t go swimming in the rice pudding, and eat out all the raisin seeds, so none is left for the parrot, I’ll tell you next of Uncle Wiggily and Little Boy Blue.
CHAPTER V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND LITTLE BOY BLUE
“Uncle Wiggily, are you very busy to-day?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, who, with the old rabbit gentleman, was on a visit to the Bushytail family of squirrels in their hollow-tree home.
After staying a while with the Littletail rabbits, when his hollow-stump bungalow had burned down, the bunny uncle went to visit Johnnie and Billie Bushytail.
“Are you very busy, Uncle Wiggily?” asked the muskrat lady.
“Why, no, Nurse Jane, not so very,” answered the bunny uncle. “Is there something you would like me to do for you?” he asked, with a polite bow.
“Well, Mrs. Bushytail and I have just baked some pies,” said the muskrat lady, “and we thought perhaps you might like to take one to your friend, Grandfather Goosey Gander.”
“Fine!” cried Uncle Wiggily, making his nose twinkle like a star on a Christmas tree in the dark. “Grandpa Goosey will be glad to get a pie. I’ll take him one.”
“We have it all ready for you,” said Mrs. Bushytail, the squirrel mother of Johnnie and Billie, as she came in the sitting-room. “It’s a nice hot pie, and it will keep your paws warm, Uncle Wiggily, as you go over the ice and snow through the woods and across the fields.”
“Fine!” cried the bunny uncle again. “I’ll get ready and go at once.”
Uncle Wiggily put on his warm fur coat, fastened his tall silk hat on his head, with his ears sticking up through holes cut in the brim, so it would not blow off, and then, taking his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a cornstalk, away he started. He carried the hot apple pie in a basket over his paw.
“Grandpa Goosey will surely like this pie,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself, as he lifted the napkin that was over it to take a little sniff. “It makes me hungry myself. And how nice and warm it is,” he went on, as he put one cold paw in the basket to warm it; warm his paw I mean, not the basket.
Over the fields and through the woods hopped the bunny uncle. It began to snow a little, but Uncle Wiggily did not mind that, for he was well wrapped up.
When he was about halfway to Grandpa Goosey’s house Uncle Wiggily heard, from behind a pile of snow, a sad sort of crying voice.
“Hello!” exclaimed the bunny uncle, “that sounds like some one in trouble. I must see if I can help them.”
Uncle Wiggily looked over the top of the pile of snow, and, sitting on the ground, in front of a big icicle, was a boy all dressed in blue. Even his eyes were blue, but you could not very well see them, as they were filled with tears.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear!” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “This is quite too bad! What is the matter, little fellow; and who are you?”
“I am Little Boy Blue, from the home of Mother Goose,” was the answer, “and the matter is that it’s lost!”
“What is lost?” asked Uncle. “If it’s a penny I will help you find it.”
“It isn’t a penny,” answered Boy Blue. “It’s the hay stack which I have to sleep under. I can’t find it, and I must see where it is or else things won’t be as they are in the Mother Goose book. Don’t you know what it says?” And he sang:
“Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn,
There are sheep in the meadow and cows in the corn.
Where’s Little Boy Blue, who looks after the sheep?
Why he’s under the hay stack, fast asleep.
“Only I can’t go to sleep under the hay stack, Uncle Wiggily, because I can’t find it. And, oh, dear! I don’t know what to do!” and Little Boy Blue cried harder than ever, so that some of his tears froze into little round marbles of ice, like hail stones.
“There, there, now!” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “Of course you can’t find a hay stack in the winter. They are all covered with snow.”
“Are they?” asked Boy Blue, real surprised like.
“Of course, they are!” cried Uncle Wiggily, in his most jolly voice. “Besides, you wouldn’t want to sleep under a hay stack, even if there was one here, in the winter. You would catch cold and have the sniffle-snuffles.”
“That’s so, I might,” Boy Blue said, and he did not cry so hard now. “But that isn’t all, Uncle Wiggily,” he went on, nodding at the rabbit gentleman. “It isn’t all my trouble.”
“What else is the matter?” asked the bunny uncle.
“It’s my horn,” spoke the little boy who looked after the cows and sheep. “I can’t make any music tunes on my horn. And I really have to blow my horn, you know, for it says in the Mother Goose book that I must. See, I can’t blow it a bit.” And Boy Blue put his horn to his lips, puffed out his cheeks and blew as hard as he could, but no sound came out.
“Let me try,” said Uncle Wiggily. The rabbit gentleman took the horn and he, also, tried to blow. He blew so hard he almost blew off his tall silk hat, but no sound came from the horn.
“Ah, I see what the trouble is!” cried the bunny uncle with a jolly laugh, looking down inside the “toot-tooter.” “It is so cold that the tunes are all frozen solid in your horn. But I have a hot apple pie here in my basket that I was taking to Grandpa Goosey Gander. I’ll hold the cold horn on the hot pie and the tunes will thaw out.”
“Oh, have you a pie in there?” asked Little Boy Blue. “Is it the Christmas pie into which Little Jack Horner put in his thumb and pulled out a plum?”
“Not quite, but nearly the same,” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “Now to thaw out the frozen horn.”
The bunny uncle put Little Boy Blue’s horn in the basket with the hot apple pie. Soon the ice was melted out of the horn, and Uncle Wiggily could blow on it, and play tunes, and so could Boy Blue. Tootity-toot-toot tunes they both played.
“Now you are all right!” cried the bunny uncle. “Come along with me and you may have a piece of this pie for yourself. And you may stay with Grandpa Goosey Gander until summer comes, and then blow your horn for the sheep in the meadow and the cows in the corn. There is no need, now, for you to stay out in the cold and look for a haystack under which to sleep.”
“No, I guess not,” said Boy Blue. “I’ll come with you, Uncle Wiggily. And thank you, so much, for helping me. I don’t know what would have happened only for you.”
“Pray do not mention it,” politely said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. Then he and little Boy Blue hurried on through the snow, and soon they were at Grandpa Goosey’s house with the warm apple pie, and oh! how good it tasted! Oh, yum-yum!
And if the church steeple doesn’t drop the ding-dong bell down in the pulpit and scare the organ, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Higgledee Piggledee.
CHAPTER VI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND HIGGLEDEE PIGGLEDEE
One day Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, was sitting in an easy chair in the hollow-stump house of the Bushytail squirrel family, where he was paying a visit to Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the two squirrel boys.
There came a knock on the door, but the bunny uncle did not pay much attention to it, as he was sort of taking a little sleep after his dinner of cabbage soup with carrot ice cream on top.
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, went out in the hall, and when she came back, with her tail all tied up in a pink ribbon, (for she was sweeping) she said:
“Uncle Wiggily, a friend of yours has come to see you.”
“A friend of mine!” cried Uncle Wiggily, awakening so suddenly that his nose stopped twinkling. “I hope it isn’t the bad old fox from the Orange Mountains.”
“No,” answered Nurse Jane with a smile, “it is a lady.”
“A lady?” exclaimed the old rabbit gentleman, getting up quickly, and looking in the glass to see that his ears were not criss-crossed. “Who can it be?”
“It is Mother Goose,” went on Nurse Jane. “She says you were so kind as to help Little Boy Blue the other day, when his horn was frozen, and you thawed it on the warm pie, that perhaps you will now help her. She is in trouble.”
“In trouble, eh?” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, sort of smoothing down his vest, fastidious like and stylish. “I didn’t know she blew a horn.”
“She doesn’t,” said Nurse Jane. “But I’ll bring her in and she can tell you, herself, what she wants.”
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Mother Goose, as she set her broom down in one corner, for she never went out unless she carried it with her. She said she never could tell when she might have to sweep the cobwebs out of the sky. “Oh, Uncle Wiggily, I am in such a lot of trouble!”
“Well, I will be very glad to help you if I can,” said the bunny uncle. “What is it?”
“It’s about Higgledee Piggledee,” answered Mother Goose.
“Higgledee Piggledee!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, “why that sounds like——”
“She’s my black hen,” went on Mother Goose. “You know how the verse goes in the book about me and my friends.”
And, taking off her tall peaked hat, which she wore when she rode on the back of the old gander, Mother Goose sang:
“Higgledee Piggledee, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen.
Sometimes nine and sometimes ten.
Higgledee Piggledee, my black hen.
Gentlemen come every day,
To see what my black hen doth lay.”
“Well,” asked Uncle Wiggily, “what is the trouble? Has Higgledee Piggledee stopped laying? If she has I am afraid I can’t help you, for hens don’t lay many eggs in winter, you know.”
“Oh, it isn’t that!” said Mother Goose, quickly. “Higgledee Piggledee lays as many eggs as ever for gentlemen—sometimes nine and sometimes ten. But the trouble is the gentlemen don’t get them.”
“Don’t they come for them?” asked Uncle Wiggily, sort of puzzled like and wondering.
“Oh, yes, they come every day,” said Mother Goose, “but there are no eggs for them. Some one else is getting the eggs Higgledee Piggledee lays.”
“Do you s’pose she eats them herself?” asked the old rabbit gentleman, in a whisper. “Hens sometimes do, you know.”
“Not Higgledee Piggledee,” quickly spoke Mother Goose. “She is too good to do that. She and I are both worried about the missing eggs, and as you have been so kind I thought perhaps you could help us.”
“I’ll try,” Uncle Wiggily said.
“Then come right along to Higgledee Piggledee’s coop,” invited Mother Goose. “Maybe you can find out where her eggs go to. She lays them in her nest, comes off, once in a while, to get something to eat, but when she goes back to lay more eggs the first ones are gone.”
Uncle Wiggily twinkled his nose, tied his ears in a hard knot, as he always did when he was thinking, and then, putting on his fur coat and taking his rheumatism crutch with him, he went out with Mother Goose.
Uncle Wiggily rode in his airship, made of a clothes-basket, with toy circus balloons on top, and Mother Goose rode on the back of a big gander, who was a brother to Grandfather Goosey Gander. Soon they were at the hen coop where Higgledee Piggledee lived.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily, I am so glad you came!” cackled the black hen. “Did Mother Goose tell you about the egg trouble?”
“She did, Higgledee Piggledee, and I will see if I can stop it. Now, you go on the nest and lay some eggs and then we will see what happens,” spoke Uncle Wiggily.
So Higgledee Piggledee, the black hen, laid some eggs for gentlemen, and then she went out in the yard to get some corn to eat, just as she always did. And, while she was gone, Uncle Wiggily hid himself in some straw in the hen coop. Pretty soon the old gentleman heard a gnawing, rustling sound and up out of a hole in the ground popped two big rats, with red eyes.
“Did Higgledee Piggledee lay any eggs today?” asked one rat, in a whisper.
“Yes,” spoke the other, “she did.”
“Then we will take them,” said the first rat. “Hurray! More eggs for us! No gentlemen will get these eggs because we’ll take them ourselves. Hurray!”
He got down on his back, with his paws sticking up in the air. Then the other rat rolled one of the black hen’s eggs over so the first rat could hold it in among his four legs. Next, the second rat took hold of the first rat’s tail and began pulling him along, egg and all, just as if he were a sled on a slippery hill, the rat sliding on his back over the smooth straw. And the eggs rode on the rat-sled as nicely as you please.
“Ha!” cried Uncle Wiggily, jumping suddenly out of his hiding-place. “So this is where Higgledee Piggledee’s eggs have been going, eh? You rats have been taking them. Scatt! Shoo! Boo! Skedaddle! Scoot!”
And the rats were so scared that they skedaddled away and shooed themselves and did everything else Mr. Longears told them to do, and they took no eggs that day. Then Uncle Wiggily showed Mother Goose the rat hole, and it was stopped up with stones so the rats could not come in the coop again. And ever after that Higgledee Piggledee, the black hen, could lay eggs for gentlemen, sometimes nine and sometimes ten, and there was no more trouble as there had been before Uncle Wiggily caught the rats and made them skedaddle.