BEDTIME STORIES

UNCLE WIGGILY’S
AIRSHIP

BY

HOWARD R. GARIS

Author of “Sammie and Susie Littletail,” “Nannie and Billie Wagtail,” “Uncle Wiggily at the Seashore,” “The Daddy Series,” “The Island Boys Series,” Etc.

ILLUSTRATED BY LOUIS WISA

A. L. BURT COMPANY
PUBLISHERS - - NEW YORK

Books by Howard R. Garis

THE UNCLE WIGGILY BOOKS

Cloth, Decorated Cover, Eight Colored Illustrations
Price 75 Cents Each

THE DADDY BOOKS

Nature Stories for Children. Cloth Bound, Colored and Black
and White Pictures. Price 50 Cents Each

Copyright, 1915, by
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY

UNCLE WIGGILY’S AIRSHIP

The stories herein contained appeared originally in the Evening News, of Newark, N. J., where (so many children and their parents were kind enough to say) they gave pleasure to a number of little folks and grown-ups also. Permission to issue the stories in book form was kindly granted by the publisher and editor of the News, to whom the author extends his thanks.

CONTENTS

Uncle Wiggily’s Airship

STORY I
UNCLE WIGGILY AND MOTHER GOOSE

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, sat in his burrow-house reading the morning paper. It was after breakfast, on a nice, sunny May day, and outside the flowers were blossoming and making perfume and honey for the bees as they nodded their heads in the air. I mean the flowers nodded their heads—not the bees. The bees were far too busy to do that.

“Yes,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself, “I think I must get one. They are getting very fashionable and stylish. I certainly must get one for myself,” and he let the paper slip down to the floor, and he sat there in his easy chair, sort of thinking to himself, and nodding his head every now and then, as he said, over and over again:

“Yes, I must get one. It will do me more good than riding around in my automobile or going to the seashore.”

“My gracious me sakes alive and some horseradish apple pie!” exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady who kept house for Uncle Wiggily. She was out in the kitchen, doing up the dishes, and she heard what the old rabbit gentleman had said, though he did not think she had.

“I wonder what it is he is going to do now?” Nurse Jane said to herself. “He’s been so funny lately—doing those queer new dances—the corn meal flop, the apple dumpling dip and the machoo-choo slide. I hope he isn’t going to do anything more foolish. I wonder what it is?”

But Uncle Wiggily didn’t tell Nurse Jane—at least just then. He got up, put on his fur coat—oh, listen to me, would you! A fur coat in May! I mean Uncle Wiggily put on his light coat, and without wearing a hat, which he never did in the summer, out he went, leaving Nurse Jane to wonder what it was he was going to do.

Uncle Wiggily went to a store where they sold toy circus balloons, and of the monkey gentleman who kept the store he asked:

“Have you any flying machines?”

“What do you mean—flying machines?” asked the monkey gentleman. “Do you mean birds?”

“Well, birds are flying machines, of course,” the rabbit gentleman said. “But I mean a sort of airship that I could go up in as if I were in a balloon, and fly around in the clouds. I am going to get one of those airships for a change.”

“Ha!” exclaimed the monkey gentleman. “You certainly are a queer one, Uncle Wiggily, to want to do that. But I am sorry to say I have no airships.”

“Then I will have to make one,” said the rabbit. “Please give me some of your balloons.”

Uncle Wiggily took some red balloons, two blue ones, a green one, a pink one and one colored skilligimink, which is a very funny color. It was like the Easter egg dye color into which Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, once fell, getting all splashed up.

“I don’t see how you are going to make an airship out of those toy balloons,” said the monkey gentleman.

“I’ll show you,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. “I next need a clothes basket. I’ll leave my balloons here until I get that. You see,” the old rabbit gentleman went on, “I want to surprise my housekeeper, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy. She doesn’t know I’m going to have an airship,” and Uncle Wiggily winked both eyes, sort of comical like, and twinkled his nose as if he were going to sneeze.

He went off to get the clothes basket, and when he had it he fastened the toy balloons to it by strings tied to the handles.

“There!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “You see, the toy balloons will lift up the clothes basket and me in it. That will be an airship.”

“But will it sail in the air?” asked the monkey gentleman.

“To be sure it will,” Uncle Wiggily said. “To make it go forward I am going to put an electric fan in the back of the clothes basket. The fan will whizz around and push the air away, and when the air is pushed out of the way I can shoot ahead, and I’ll be sailing. Now you watch me, if you please.”

So the rabbit gentleman tied the balloons to the clothes basket, and he made the basket fast to the ground with some clothes-pins, so it wouldn’t go up before he was ready for it. Next he got an electric fan, which goes around whizzie-izzie and makes the air cool on a hot day, and the rabbit gentleman fastened this fan on the back of his clothes basket.

“Now I have my airship,” Uncle Wiggily said to the monkey gentleman. “I shall go up and sail to my burrow. I think Nurse Jane will be surprised.”

Uncle Wiggily started to climb into the basket.

“Wait! Wait!” called the monkey gentleman, who had sold him the toy balloons.

“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

“You had better take some soft sofa cushions in with you,” spoke the monkey gentleman. “You—you might fall in your airship, you know,” he whispered, sort of bashful like, “and the cushions would be a good thing to fall on.”

“I believe you are right,” Uncle Wiggily answered. “Thank you! I’ll take a few.”

So he put some sofa cushions in the clothes basket.

“Now I am ready!” he called. “Please take off the clothes-pins and I will go up. I am going to sail like the airship-birdmen I read of in the newspaper this morning.”

The monkey gentleman took the clothes-pins off the ropes that held down Uncle Wiggily’s airship and pop-up it went, lifted by the toy balloons—red, green, blue, orange and skilligimink color.

“Now, here I go!” cried the rabbit gentleman, as he started the electric fan. And, surely enough, through the air he sailed, as nicely as you please, right above the tree tops, in his new airship he flew.

“Oh, this is great!” cried Uncle Wiggily. Pretty soon he was right over his house. “I’m always going to travel this way, from now on,” he said. “Airships are fine.”

And then, all of a sudden, something happened. Mother Goose, who happened to be flying through the air on a broomstick, that day, accidentally dropped a paper of pins she had just bought. They fell down with their sharp points on Uncle Wiggily’s balloons, that were fastened to the clothes-basket. The balloons burst, “Pop! Pop! Poppity! Pop! Pop!” and down fell the clothes-basket airship, Uncle Wiggily and all.

“Oh dear!” cried Mother Goose.

Right down in front of his own door Uncle Wiggily fell and only for the soft cushions he might have been hurt. As it was, his rheumatism was jarred up a little.

“Oh, my!” cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, rushing out of the house. “What is this? What has happened, Wiggy?”

“Why, this is my new airship,” answered the rabbit gentleman, sort of dazed and puzzled like. “I just made it and I came along to surprise you.”

“Well, you surprised me all right,” said Nurse Jane. “Now, come in the house and I’ll rub your back with witch hazel. You must be all bruised! You had better leave airships alone after this.”

“I guess I had,” said Uncle Wiggily sadly.

But do you s’pose he did? Not a bit of it. He was right at it again next day, and in the story after this, if the rose bush doesn’t scratch the eyes out of the potato salad, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily up a tree.

STORY II
UNCLE WIGGILY UP A TREE

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, walked out in front of his burrow house one morning, and looked at his new airship. He limped a little, for you know he had had a fall the day before, tumbling down almost out of the clouds. But he fell on some sofa cushions, that the monkey gentleman had put in the clothes basket part of the airship, so Mr. Longears was not much hurt—only his rheumatism was sort of twisted.

I guess I told you, did I not, how Uncle Wiggily made himself an airship out of some toy balloons, a clothes basket, and an electric fan? He thought he would fly through the air for a while, instead of riding around in his automobile.

But Mother Goose had accidentally dropped a lot of pins on the toy balloons that lifted up the airship, and when the balloons burst, with loud “pops,” the airship came down “ker-floppo!”—if you will kindly excuse me for saying so.

So Uncle Wiggily walked out in front of his burrow, or underground house, and looked at his broken airship.

“I’m afraid it will never sail again!” said Uncle Wiggily, sadly, as he noticed the burst balloons and the clothes basket, which had quite a dent in one of the handles. The electric fan was not hurt at all, I am glad to say, only it had stopped whizzing around, of course.

“It’s too bad!” Uncle Wiggily went on. “My nice airship, that I thought would take me sailing all over, is broken. I can’t go riding in it again.”

“What!” cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept house for the rabbit gentleman. “You don’t mean to tell me that you would ever go sailing again in an airship, after what happened; would you?”

“I certainly would,” answered Uncle Wiggily, as he combed out his whiskers with a shoestring. “I would love to go airshipping again.”

“Well, well!” cried Nurse Jane. “This is worse than dancing the clam chowder clip! I am certainly surprised at you.”

“But you don’t need to worry,” said Uncle Wiggily. “My airship is broken, so there is not much danger of me going sailing again.”

“I am glad of it,” said Nurse Jane, “for your sake.”

“Oh, ho!” exclaimed a voice from behind the ice cream freezer, “something broken, eh? Well, perhaps I can fix it,” and out stepped Dr. Possum, with his satchel of red, white and blue pills. “What is broken?” he asked. “Anybody’s legs or arms?”

“My airship,” replied Uncle Wiggily. “The balloons that lift it up into the air are all burst from Mother Goose’s pins.”

“Ha! Buy new balloons!” cried Dr. Possum. “That’s easy!”

“The very thing!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. “I never thought of that. But the clothes basket has a dent in it.”

“Oh, as to that, I can easily fix the dent,” said Dr. Possum. “I am used to fixing dents. I can do harder things than that. You go get some more new toy balloons, and I’ll fix the basket. You shall have your airship again.”

“Oh, dear me and some molasses pancakes!” cried Nurse Jane. “I can see a lot more trouble ahead for Uncle Wiggily if he is going around in an airship. I had better buy some court-plaster at the five and six cent store, for he will need it. He is sure to fall again, and get all cut and bruised.”

So Nurse Jane kindly went to the store for the court-plaster. Dr. Possum mended the dent in the clothes basket, and Uncle Wiggily went after the toy balloons. He got some red, green, yellow and sky-blue-pink ones, and soon his airship was made over as good as ever again.

“Now watch me sail in it!” the rabbit gentleman cried, as he got into the clothes basket, to which the balloons and electric fan were fastened. “I’m going away up to the clouds this time.”

“Well, I only hope you don’t fall,” said Nurse Jane, sort of anxious like.

“I’ve got the soft sofa cushions under me, if I do,” answered Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh.

Up he went, high in the air, the electric fan going whizzie-izzie, and the balloons lifting the clothes basket off the ground.

Well, Uncle Wiggily in his airship, sailed on and on, and pretty soon, all of a sudden, quick-like, it began to hail. There was a hard hail storm. And hail, you know, is frozen rain. Down pelted the round hail stones on Uncle Wiggily and his airship.

“Oh, me! Oh, my, and some lolly-pops!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I think something is going to happen.” And just then a hail stone hit on the end of his twinkling nose, making him sneeze—“ker-cher! Ker-choo!”

Then something else happened. More hail stones came down, and “Pop! Pop! Pop!” went the toy balloons, bursting one after another, as the hard hail hit them, just as when the Mother Goose pins had pricked them.

“Oh, dear! I’m going to fall again!” cried the rabbit gentleman, for he knew when the balloons burst there would be nothing to hold him and his clothesbasket airship up above the earth.

And, surely enough, he began to fall. Down and down he went, with the hail falling all around him.

“My! I hope the sofa cushions don’t fall out of my clothes basket!” thought the rabbit gentleman, “for if they do I will get a very hard bump.”

But, as it happened, he did not need the soft cushions, for, all of a sudden, his airship turned over, and he fell into a tree, spilling right out, and landing in the branches. Luckily, there were green leaves on them, and they made a soft place on which Uncle Wiggily fell. He was scratched some, but Nurse Jane’s court plaster would fix that. The airship, however, kept on falling until it landed on the ground at the foot of the tree.

“Oh, I wonder how I am to get down?” said Uncle Wiggily. “It is very far from the top of this tree to the earth, and I cannot climb, as the Bushytail squirrel boys, or as Kittie Kat can. What shall I do? Oh, dear!”

And just then along came Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel boy, himself.

“I’ll help you get down!” called Johnnie to Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll get a rope, and climb up with it to you. Then you can make a rope ladder, fasten one end to a limb of the tree, and climb down that.”

“Fine!” cried Uncle Wiggily. The little squirrel boy found a grape vine rope, and up the tree he scrambled, carrying one end of it up to Uncle Wiggily, who soon made a rope ladder, such as sailors use. Then the rabbit gentleman came down on that as nicely as you please.

“Well, my airship is badly broken,” he said, as he looked at the burst balloons and the bent and twisted clothes basket. “I shall have to fix it before I can sail again.”

“Do you mean to tell me you are going up in that dangerous thing again?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as she stuck a piece of red, white and blue court plaster on Uncle Wiggily’s nose, where the hail stone had hit him.

“I am going to try,” he said, modest like, and shy.

“Oh, dear me, and some popcorn cakes!” cried Nurse Jane. “I never saw such a rabbit—never!”

Then Uncle Wiggily got old dog Percival, with the express wagon, to cart home the broken airship. And in the story after this, if the ice cream cone doesn’t jump up and down on the tablecloth, and poke holes in the loaf of bread, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the little birds.

STORY III
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LITTLE BIRDS

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old rabbit gentleman, was out in his yard one day, whistling away, hammering and sawing and making his funny nose twinkle like a star on a frosty night in June. He could not twinkle his nose so very well because it had on it a piece of red, white and blue court plaster. And the reason he had the plaster there was because the last time he was out in his airship, he had had an accident, and a hailstone had struck him on the nose, as I have told you.

You just try to make your nose twinkle with a piece of court plaster on it, and see how hard it is. It’s almost as hard as it is to stand on your head and peel a basket of soap bubbles.

But still Uncle Wiggily was doing the best he could, and, as I have said, he was whistling and hammering and sawing.

“What in the world are you doing?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept house for Uncle Wiggily.

“I am fixing my airship,” he said. You know he had one, made of a clothes basket, with an electric fan to send it along through the air whizzy-izzie-like, and to lift the airship Uncle Wiggily used a lot of toy circus balloons, tied together.

“Going up in your airship!” cried Nurse Jane. “Why, you were out in it the other day, and look what a terrible fall you had. The hailstones burst your balloons and down you came in a tree. And Johnnie Bushytail, the squirrel, had to get you a wild grape vine rope so you could climb down.”

“I know he did,” said Uncle Wiggily, cheerful-like. “And I am very thankful to him.”

“And still, and with all that happened to you, getting your nose scratched and all that, are you again going up in your airship?” Nurse Jane wanted to know.

“I am going up,” said Uncle Wiggily bravely. “I want to learn how to sail all over the world in my airship.”

“But suppose another hailstorm comes and smashes your balloons?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy. “You will fall again, and you may be hurt worse next time.”

“No more hailstones can bother me!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “See, I am going to fasten an umbrella over my toy balloons, and then no hailstones can hit them.” And he whistled more cheerfully than before.

“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “You are surely odd!”

Uncle Wiggily really was fastening a Japanese umbrella over his funny clothes basket airship.

“The umbrella will keep off the sun as well as the rain and hail,” he said happy-like.

Well, the old gentleman rabbit was just getting ready to go up in his airship again, when, from among the leaves of a tree that grew in his garden, he heard a voice saying:

“Now, birdies, it is time you learned to fly. Stand on the limb, where our nest is built, flutter your wings as I do, and jump off. Keep your wings fluttering and you will be flying.”

“Oh, but we are afraid!” cried several tiny chirping voices.

“Ha! That is a mother bird teaching her little ones to fly,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he looked up. “I must watch this. I love little birds.”

“Don’t be afraid,” said the mamma bird to the children birds. “You will not fall. When I was a little bird I was afraid, too, but nothing happened to me and I have been flying ever since. Come now, jump off the tree branch into the air.”

“Oh, we’re afraid!” cried the littlest of the birdies.

“Our wings might come off, and then we’d drop to the ground,” said another little bird, as it fluttered back into the nest.

“Nonsense!” cried the mamma bird. “Your wings will not drop off and you will not fall. You must learn to fly now. You are getting old enough to fly for yourselves. Come, Pickie!” she called to the one who had gone back in the nest, “stand in line with the others and learn to fly.”

“Oh, mamma! I can’t! Really I can’t!” cried Pickie, who was given that name because he had such a sharp little bill for picking up bread crumbs.

“You must learn to fly,” said the mamma bird. “Your papa will soon be home, and think how proud he will be if you can fly to meet him!”

“Oh, we are afraid,” said the little birds.

It is just like when baby first learns to walk. At the beginning he is afraid to take a step alone, but soon he grows braver and toddles all over.

“Come! Fly!” called the mamma bird.

“We are afraid—afraid!” chirped the little birdies.

“Ha! I think I can help the mamma bird give them their flying lesson,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I will go up in my airship and float slowly along. I will keep right under the little birds, and I’ll tell them that if their wings give out, and if they fall, they will land on my umbrella and not get hurt at all.”

So away he went in his airship, and when he got near the top of the tree, with the electric fan buzzing and the toy balloons lifting him up, the rabbit gentleman called:

“See me, birdies! I am flying, and you know a rabbit has no wings. Look!”

“Exactly,” said the mamma bird. “See, little ones! If Uncle Wiggily is not afraid to fly, you should not be, for you were made on purpose for sailing through the air, and he was not.”

“And I’ll keep right under you with my airship, to catch you if you fall,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Don’t be afraid, birdies!”

“All right! Here we come!” cried Pickie, getting brave all of a sudden. Off the limb he fluttered, and his brothers and sisters fluttered after him, flapping their wings.

“Oh, we are flying!” they cried joyfully. “We can fly!”

“I knew you could,” called their mamma, soaring on her wings after them. “And how proud your papa will be! Thank you so much, Uncle Wiggily, for making my birdies brave enough to fly.”

“Pray do not mention it,” answered the rabbit gentleman politely, as he sailed about in his airship.

He kept under the little birds for a while, in case they might fall, but none of them did, and soon they fluttered back to the nest for supper. They had learned to fly and were not afraid any more. Wasn’t that good?

And in the next story, if the dish doesn’t run away with the spoon and go to the moving picture show in our back yard, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and Grandfather Goosey Gander.

STORY IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND GRANDPA GOOSEY

“Well, where are you going to-day?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, of Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as she saw him putting on his red necktie and starting out toward the barn where he kept his airship.

“Where am I going?” he repeated. “Well, to tell you the truth, Nurse Jane, I hardly know.”

“Out in your airship, I suppose,” she said, as she looked in the bread box to see if there was any rice pudding for the pussy cat to play store with.

“Oh, yes, I am going to fly about a bit,” said the rabbit gentleman. “Perhaps I may have an adventure; who knows?”

“Well, I know one thing you will have if you go flying around in that airship of yours,” said Nurse Jane, putting on her apron to peel the oranges for the clam chowder. “You’ll have a fall; that’s what you’ll have. And you’ll skin your nose and stub your toes and maybe rub off the fur from your ears for all I know.”

“Oh, I trust not! I trust not!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily quickly, holding up his paws. “I hope nothing like that will happen. The last time I rode in my airship I did not fall—when I helped to teach the little birds to fly.”

“Well, I’m sure you’ll fall this time,” spoke Nurse Jane.

“You are not very cheerful this morning,” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “Have no fear; I will come back safe and sound.”

“Well, all the same, you had better take some court-plaster along in case you scratch your twinkling nose on a bramble briar bush,” said the muskrat lady. So Uncle Wiggily took the court-plaster with him.

Then he went for a ride in his queer airship. I call it queer because it was very odd. The old rabbit gentleman’s airship was made of a clothes basket, with a lot of toy circus balloons tied to it to make it rise up. In back there was a whizzy electric fan to make the airship go along like an automobile, and there was a baby carriage wheel to steer it by. On top of all this was a big Japanese umbrella fastened over the balloons, to keep hail stones from pelting holes in them and making them burst.

That happened once, and Uncle Wiggily and his airship had a dreadful fall, just like Humpty-Dumpty.

“But I’ll not fall to-day,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he got in the clothes basket and sat on the sofa cushions.

He had taken the airship outside the barn, and as he loosed the string that held it fast, up it shot into the air, just like a balloon. Then Uncle Wiggily started the electric fan, and away he went as nicely as you please.

“Oh, there he goes!” cried Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, as they stood on the ground below, and watched him. “Please take us for a ride, Uncle Wiggily!” they begged.

“Not now, my dears,” he said kindly. “Some other time I will. You must go to school now.”

So Sammie and Susie hopped on to school, and Uncle Wiggily traveled along in his airship.

“I wonder what sort of an adventure I will have?” he said. “Ha! I have it! I will go call on Grandfather Goosey Gander. I will take him for a ride.”

He went to the old goose gentleman’s pen, but when he got there, and invited Grandpa Goosey to get into the clothes basket, Grandpa Goosey said:

“What! Trust myself in an airship, high above the ground? No, indeed, thank you, Uncle Wiggily. I have no use for airships. They are too dangerous! They are no good!”

“I am sorry you think so, and will not come with me,” said Uncle Wiggily, sort of sadly like. “I think airships are fine. I am going off looking for an adventure.”

“And I am going to the woods to gather acorns for my kitchen fire,” said the goose gentleman. “But I am going to walk. It is safer, by far. Airships are not good for animals like us.”

“Well, I think they are,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, as he rose in the air again.

The rabbit gentleman circled around, flying along in his clothes basket airship, and he was having a fine ride. But no adventure happened to him. By and by, after a while, not so very long, Uncle Wiggily found himself flying over a big woods.

“I wonder if this is the forest where Grandfather Goosey went to gather acorns?” thought Uncle Wiggily. “If it is, maybe he will be so tired, if he is here, that he will be glad to ride home in my airship.”

Pretty soon the old rabbit gentleman heard a loud quacking noise.

He looked down, and what do you think he saw? Why, the old goose gentleman was caught fast in a trap by both legs. Some hunter had set a trap to catch a fox, and poor Grandfather Goosey Gander had stepped into it by mistake. There he was, held fast.

“Oh, dear!” cried Grandpa Goosey. “What shall I do? I have tried to get out and I can’t. I have called for help, but no one comes to me. I am away off in the woods alone, and here I must die in the trap. Oh, I wish I had even gone in Uncle Wiggily’s airship! Oh, will no one help me?”

“Yes, I will help you!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “Here I am, Grandpa Goosey!” And wasn’t the goose gentleman surprised, when he looked up and saw his rabbit friend in the airship over his head? Oh, he certainly was surprised.

Uncle Wiggily made his airship go down, and then he soon helped Grandpa Goosey out of the fox trap. He put some court-plaster on the goose gentleman’s scratched legs and asked:

“Now will you ride home in my airship?”

“Indeed I will,” said Grandpa Goosey. “Airships are good after all. I am sorry I said they were not.”

“Pray do not mention such a thing. I knew you didn’t mean it,” Uncle Wiggily said. Then he and Grandpa Goosey rode safely home through the air, and, if the blackbird on our fence doesn’t pick all the clothes pins off the chocolate cake, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the fire.

STORY V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE FIRE

“What do you think, mamma!” cried Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, as he came running in the house after school one fine day. “Oh, what do you think?”

“Why, I’m sure I don’t know, Sammie, my dear,” said Mrs. Littletail, smiling at him. “I think of a great many things, of course.”

“Oh, he means what do you think teacher told us!” cried Sammie’s sister Susie, as she came in more slowly, for girl rabbits cannot run quite as fast as can rabbit boys.

“Did your teacher say you were good little animal children to-day, and that you had your lessons well?” Mrs. Littletail wanted to know.

“Well, she did say that,” spoke Sammie, sort of bashful like and shy, “but I think you can’t guess what I mean. She said we ought to make a little garden, each for ourselves, and grow things to eat in it. The one who has the best garden will get a prize.”

“And I’m going to have a garden and raise lettuce!” cried Susie.

“And I’m going to have one and plant carrots. And I’m going to give Uncle Wiggily some!” added Sammie.

“It will be very nice for each of you to make a garden,” said the rabbit children’s mamma. “You may each have a little part of our big garden for yourselves.”

“And we are to do all the work, too,” explained Sammie. “We must clear off the ground, spade it up, rake it smooth, put in the seeds and water them when they come up.”

“Oh, of course, if it’s your garden, you must look after it yourselves,” said Mrs. Littletail.

So Sammie and Susie began to make their garden. First they raked away the brush, sticks and leaves from the ground that was to be dug up. This brush they piled in a big heap in the large garden.

“That pile of brush does not look very nice there,” said their mamma.

“Oh, we are going to burn it when we get through,” said Sammie. “Teacher said we were to burn up all trash and rubbish, for the ashes were good to mix with the garden dirt. I don’t know why, but ashes make the ground better.”

“Yes,” agreed Mrs. Littletail, “but you had better let your papa burn the brush. He will have more brush when he rakes up the ground for his garden. Animal or real children should not play with fire,” said the mamma rabbit.

So Sammie and Susie Littletail went on making their garden, and in it they planted cabbage, radishes, lettuce and carrots—all things that rabbits love to eat. A few days later their papa, Mr. Littletail, the rabbit gentleman, made his garden, and he raked up a big pile of brush. When the garden was all nice and smooth Mr. Littletail said:

“Now I will burn that brush.”

“And may we watch you?” asked Sammie.

“Yes, if you do not come too close,” his papa said.

Mr. Littletail set fire to the big pile of dried brush, sticks and leaves, and my goodness me sakes alive and some peanut pancakes! How it did blaze up! It crackled like the Fourth of July, and the heat was so great that Mr. Littletail had to jump back very quickly.

“Oh, what a fine fire!” cried Susie.

“We could roast potatoes in it if it were not so large,” spoke Sammie. “But it is too hot now.”

“Indeed it is,” his father said. “Keep back.”

Hotter and hotter grew the brush fire. The blaze leaped up, and then every one had to run far away. The fire grew so hot that the Littletail house began to smoke and scorch.

“Oh, our house will catch fire from the brush!” cried Sammie.

“Yes, I am afraid it will!” exclaimed Mr. Littletail. “I must get some pails of water and throw on the brush fire.”

But, by this time, the fire was so hot that, when Mr. Littletail had the water, he could not get near enough to toss it on the blaze.

“Oh, what shall we do!” cried his wife. “Our house will burn down! Oh, I must save what I can!”

So she threw the clock and a lot of her best dishes out of the window, and they were broken, I am sorry to say. Then Mrs. Littletail carefully carried out the feather bed. You see she was so excited that she did things backwards. She should have thrown the feather bed out of the window, for that would not break. And she ought to have carried the clock and dishes down stairs in her apron.

Hotter and hotter grew the fire, and the rabbit house was beginning to smoke and blaze.

“Call out the water bug fire department!” shouted Grandfather Goosey Gander. But the water bugs had gone away on an excursion, and could not come.

“Oh, my lovely house will burn!” cried Mrs. Littletail.

“No, I know how to save it!” shouted Sammie. “I’ll go get Uncle Wiggily Longears in his airship. We can go up in the air over the fire and spill a pail of water on it. He won’t be burned as he will be so high up, but the water will put out the fire.”

“Go and get him quickly then!” shouted Mr. Littletail hopping up and down on his big ears.

Uncle Wiggily came sailing along in his airship right away when Sammie called him. The rabbit gentleman took up with him many pails of water, and when he had steered his airship high up over the fire, where he was out of danger, Uncle Wiggily spilled down the water, just like rain from the clouds, and the fire hissed like a snake, and went out.

The brush was all burned up, of course, and the Littletail house was scorched on the roof, but not very much. Uncle Wiggily had put it out just in time.

“But if it hadn’t been for your airship I don’t know what we would have done!” cried Mr. Littletail. “Thank you so much!”

“Pray do not mention it,” said Uncle Wiggily politely, as he wagged his tail up and down as well as sideways.

Then the rabbit gentleman helped pick up the broken dishes, and he mended the broken clock and all was well. And Mr. Littletail did not make such a big brush fire again.

And on the next page, if the carpenter man doesn’t take our bathtub away to slide his little puppy dog down hill in, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and Dr. Possum.

STORY VI
UNCLE WIGGILY HELPS DR. POSSUM

“Off again, I see!” Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, exclaimed one morning to Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, for whom she kept house. “Off again, Wiggy!”

You see she called him Wiggy as a sort of pet name.

“Yes, I am off again,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, as he put some extra soft cushions in his clothes basket airship. “I am going on a long trip this time.”

“Pray, where are you going?” asked the muskrat lady. “That is, if you do not mind me asking,” she said quickly.

“Oh, not at all. I don’t mind telling you,” Uncle Wiggily answered. “I am going to see if I can find an adventure.”

“Oh, such a queer old rabbit gentleman as you are, Wiggy,” said Nurse Jane with a laugh. “Instead of sitting quietly at home here, making a garden, or reading, you go chasing off across the country in that funny airship of yours. Something is sure to happen to you!”

“Well, the things that happen are adventures,” said Uncle Wiggily. “And I like the nice ones. Of course I do not like to fall out of my airship, as I sometimes do, but that cannot be helped. I always have a little red white and blue court-plaster with me to put on any scratches I may get.

“And now, Nurse Jane, I’ll say good-by. I am going to look for an adventure.”

Into his airship, made of a clothes basket, some toy balloons, a Japanese umbrella and an electric fan, Uncle Wiggily placed himself. Then he sailed up in the air, farther and farther, until he was higher than the birds.

All of a sudden, as he was riding along, thinking what fun it was to have an airship, the rabbit gentleman heard some one down on the ground below crying:

“Oh dear! Oh, who will help me?”

“Ha! I wonder who that is,” said Uncle Wiggily. So he looked over the edge of the clothes basket and he saw Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, running up and down in front of her pen-house, flapping her wings, all excited-like.

“Ha! Trouble!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll go down and see what it is.” Down he went in his airship.

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Mrs. Wibblewobble. “My boy, Jimmie, is very ill, and I have no one to send for Dr. Possum. Will you go?”

“Indeed I will!” the rabbit gentleman said. “I’ll make him come right back with me and cure Jimmie.”

Off Uncle Wiggily sailed again in his airship, but when he got to Dr. Possum’s office the old gentleman animal physician made the same fuss about an airship as Grandfather Goosey Gander, the goose gentleman, did at first.

“If you’ll get in with me I’ll ride you straight to the Wibblewobble duck house, and you can cure Jimmie,” said the rabbit gentleman.

“What! Trust myself in a clothes basket away up in the air? Never; thank you just the same!” cried Dr. Possum. “I’ll come along, as I always do, on my own legs.”

“Well, if you won’t come with me, I suppose you won’t,” Uncle Wiggily said. “But I’ll ride on ahead and tell them you are on the way.”

“All right, only I am sure I will get there before you,” spoke Dr. Possum. “I do not think much of airships.”

“Neither did Grandpa Goosey Gander, at first,” said the rabbit gentleman with a laugh.

Off started Dr. Possum through the woods, carrying his bag of medicine on his tail. Overhead Uncle Wiggily started in his airship. And of course Uncle Wiggily reached the Wibblewobble house first, for airships can go very fast, you know.

“Where is Dr. Possum?” asked Mrs. Wibblewobble, who was waiting outside. “My little duck boy is very ill.”

“The doctor is coming,” said Uncle Wiggily. “He would not ride with me; he walked.” Well, they waited and they waited, but no Dr. Possum came. Meanwhile Jimmie was getting worse. He had cocoanut-cake-fever, which is very bad.

“I guess I’ll sail back in my airship and see what keeps Dr. Possum,” Uncle Wiggily said. “Perhaps something has happened to him.”

And there had! Just think of it. I’ll tell you how it was.

“I’ll show Uncle Wiggily that I can go faster than his airship!” laughed Dr. Possum to himself, as he started out from his office. “I’ll take a short cut through the woods and get there first, airship or no airship.”

Well, he took the short cut all right, but when he came to a mud puddle and tried to jump over, he slipped, and down he came in it with both hind feet.

And the mud was so sticky that Dr. Possum was stuck there. No matter how he pulled he could not pull himself loose.

“Oh, this is terrible!” he cried. “I may have to stay here all night, and I can’t cure poor, sick Jimmie. This is very sad!”

And it was there, stuck in the mud puddle, that Uncle Wiggily found Dr. Possum.

“Oh, ho!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “So there you are!” and he looked down on the animal docter from overhead in his airship.

“Oh, please help me out!” cried Dr. Possum.

“Of course I will,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll drop you a piece of clothesline. Fasten it about your waist and I’ll tie one end up here on the clothesbasket and pull you out by my airship.”

When the clothesline was fast around Dr. Possum, Uncle Wiggily made the electric fan wheel of the airship go very fast and hard. And then slowly at first, but soon faster and faster, out of the mud Dr. Possum was pulled by the clothesline.

“Now I guess I’d better take you the rest of the way to the Wibblewobble house in this airship, then you won’t get stuck in the mud again,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly.

“I guess so,” said Dr. Possum. And when he reached Jimmie’s house he soon cured the duck boy. Then Mrs. Wibblewobble helped wash the mud off the animal physician, and Dr. Possum rode home again in Uncle Wiggily’s airship.

“Airships are better and more useful than I thought,” said Dr. Possum, as he got out.

“You are just like Grandfather Goosey Gander,” said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. “You have changed your mind.”

So that’s how the rabbit gentleman helped his friend, and on the next page, if the man beating rugs in our back yard doesn’t put the clothes post in his pocket and take it away for an umbrella handle, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the moth balls.

STORY VII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MOTH BALLS

“There it goes! Get it!” suddenly cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, one night, making a jump up from the rocking chair where she was sitting, sewing up the holes in the coffee strainer.

“My goodness me sakes alive and some cheese pudding!” cried Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, who was reading the evening paper in his hollow stump bungalow near the underground house. “Have you dropped your ball of yarn, Nurse Jane, or did you see Jilly Longtail, the mousie?”

“Neither one,” answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, who kept house for Uncle Wiggily. “Oh, there’s another! Hit it quick before it gets upstairs!” she cried, making a grab for something in the air.

“Well, this is certainly surprising!” Uncle Wiggily exclaimed. “I see nothing!”

He looked at Nurse Jane, who was making funny motions in the air, waving her paws about and clapping them together.

“You don’t see anything?” the muskrat lady cried. “Why, the place is full of moths. They will eat everything up!”

“Will they eat up my turnip sandwich?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.

“Oh, not that,” replied Nurse Jane. “They are not like foxes, or bears. Moths are little things that first flit about like butterflies. Then they find a nice, cosy, soft bed in your fur coat, or your flannel shirts, and they lay eggs. Then out of the egg comes a little insect that eats up the fur and flannel. They even eat pianos!”

“My gracious!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “They must be regular giants to eat pianos! I never heard of such a thing!”

“Well, of course they don’t exactly eat the whole piano,” said Nurse Jane, as she made another grab in the air, trying to catch the moth-butterfly. But she missed it and knocked off Uncle Wiggily’s spectacles. Very luckily, however, the glasses fell on the soft back of Kittie Kat, who had come over to Uncle Wiggily’s house to borrow a cup of flour to make a bouquet for her school teacher, and so the glasses were not broken.

“Moths must be terrible things!” said Uncle Wiggily, as he put on his spectacles again. “Fancy, now; eating pianos!”

“Well, I mean they eat the felt cloth inside the pianos, and so spoil them for playing,” went on Nurse Jane. “But we must get busy, Uncle Wiggily. To-morrow you must go up in your airship and buy me some moth balls.”

“I didn’t know moths played ball,” said the rabbit gentleman. “They certainly are strange creatures, to eat pianos and play ball!”

“Oh, of course, moths don’t play ball!” Nurse Jane said. “How silly you are, Wiggily. Moth balls are white balls that smell very strongly of camphor and other things that moths do not like. If you put moth balls in your fur and flannels the moths will go away.”

“Where will they go?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

“I don’t know. Please don’t ask so many questions,” Nurse Jane answered, as she tried to catch another moth. And this time she stepped on Kittie’s tail and the little cat girl meaowed: said:

“Oh, dear! I guess I had better go home.”

“Oh, please excuse me!” begged Nurse Jane. “But I must get these moths out of the way.”

“I’ll get the moth balls to-morrow,” Uncle Wiggily promised, “and if there are any balls left over I will give them to Sammie Littletail to play marbles with.”

“Well, the next day the old rabbit gentleman started off in his airship to get the moth balls for Nurse Jane. He found them in a drug store, and the monkey gentleman who kept the place put the white balls in a box for Uncle Wiggily, so he could easily carry them.

“I hope you have no trouble, going back in your airship,” said the monkey gentleman, politely.

“Thank you,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I think I shall be all right.” Then he sailed back toward his house with the moth balls, and on the way he heard down below him some voices saying:

“Oh, dear! Isn’t it too bad?”

“Yes, if we only had some marbles we could have a nice game!”

“But we haven’t any!” cried a third voice, sadly.

Uncle Wiggily looked down, and in the schoolyard, over which he was flying in his airship, he saw Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, Bully and Bawly No-Tail, the frogs, Jackie and Peetie Bow-Wow, the puppies, and many other animal friends. They wanted to have a game of marbles, but could not.

“I’ll just drop them down a few of the moth balls; I have plenty,” said Uncle Wiggily. So he did, taking care not to let any of the balls fall on the animal boys.

“Oh joy!” the little chaps cried, when they saw the white balls. “These will make fine marbles!” And they had a great game.

A little farther along Uncle Wiggily saw some toy wooden soldiers who were going to shoot their pop guns at a mark for practice, so that they might become good marksmen in time of war.

“Oh, but alas and alack!” cried the captain. “I forgot to bring any bullets. What shall I do?”

“Ha! Perhaps these will answer!” cried Uncle Wiggily, and the rabbit gentleman dropped down some more moth balls from his airship.

“Oh, how kind are you!” cried the soldier captain. Then his soldiers loaded their guns with the white moth ball bullets and shot at the mosquito targets as much as they pleased.

Then, a little farther on, Uncle Wiggily saw a bad old lion chasing after a poor little dog. And the lion was going to pull the doggie’s tail, for all I know. Mind, I’m not saying for sure, but maybe.

“Ha! This will never do!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “I must stop that lion.”