Part 6

The Pipsisewah came nearer and nearer, howling for rabbit-ear souse. And then, all of a sudden, a little bright and shining light flew through the air, and came down on the flat stone where Uncle Wiggily had placed the sticks to make a fire. And, in another moment ten thousand other little points of light came flying along. They dropped down among the dry sticks and branches at the spot where Uncle Wiggily had tried to make the blaze until it looked as if the whole place were burning.

“Oh, look!” cried Baby Bunty. “We have a bonfire!”

And the Pipsisewah, seeing the bright light, gave a grumble and growl and quickly sneaked away.

“Just my luck!” he said. “I thought I’d have a bit of souse, but I don’t even dare go near the fire!”

And Uncle Wiggily, looking among the sticks, said:

“This isn’t burning fire at all; it’s just a lot of lightning bugs crawling on the pieces of wood.”

“Yes, that’s what we are,” said a voice. “I am the lightning bug you saved from the sticky gum, and these are my cousins and my sisters and my aunts.”

“And you saved us from the Pipsisewah!” said Uncle Wiggily, and so the lightning bugs had. Then the firefly bugs flew on ahead, lighting the path to the hollow stump bungalow for the bunnies, and all was well.

And if the loaf of bread doesn’t hide in the flower pot when the rice pudding wants it to help catch the raisins for a pie, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the roses.

STORY XXIII UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE ROSES

“Dear me!” exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy one day, as she walked down to the end of her garden near the hollow stump bungalow. “This is too bad!”

“What’s the matter now?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears. “Have Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, those two little puppy dog boys, been digging up your seeds?”

“No,” answered the muskrat lady housekeeper to the bunny rabbit gentleman, “not quite that. But something has been eating my lovely roses. And I wanted to keep them nice to send a bouquet to Grandpa Goosey Gander.”

“Ha! Some one has been eating your roses have they, Nurse Jane?” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, animosity-like and determined. “Well, do you think Johnnie or Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, or Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck, or perhaps Curly and Floppy Twistytail, the piggie boys, could have taken the flowers?”

“No, indeed!” said Nurse Jane. “They wouldn’t do that. Some one seems to have been chewing the lovely rose petals, that are like satin velvet, and also, many of the green leaves are eaten.”

“Then I just know who did it!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I know who has been eating your roses!”

“Who?” asked Nurse Jane, all excited like.

“The Skuddlemagoon, the Skeezicks or the Pipsisewah! Either one of those bad chaps!” said the bunny.

“I think so, too,” said Baby Bunty, who hopped along just then, rolling her hoop. “Can you catch them, Uncle Wiggily?”

“I’m going to try,” said the brave bunny gentleman.

“Oh, please don’t!” begged Nurse Jane. “I don’t want you to run into danger, Uncle Wiggily, and catching the Skeezicks, the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon would be very dangerous. The roses aren’t worth it.”

“Oh, yes they are,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But I am not going to run into danger. The way I’ll catch whoever is eating your rose petals will be this. I’ll hide out here in the grass, and when I see the Skuddlemagoon, the Pipsisewah or the Skeezicks sneaking up to bite a flower, I’ll run out, sprinkle some salt on their tails and that will make them behave.”

“Well, perhaps if you do it that way it will be all right,” said Nurse Jane. “But do take care of yourself, Uncle Wiggily; won’t you?”

“I will,” promised the bunny rabbit gentleman. So he got the big salt cellar out of the kitchen, and then he hid himself in the tall grass near the rose bushes in Nurse Jane’s garden.

“I’m going to hide with you, too, and watch,” said Baby Bunty. “I can tell you when the Pipsisewah is coming, Uncle Wiggily.”

“Yes, you may hide with me,” said Mr. Longears. “You are a lively little rabbit girl, and you will not fall asleep yourself, nor let me.”

“Indeed, I won’t,” promised Baby Bunty, and she kept tickling Uncle Wiggily with a piece of ribbon grass on his pink, twinkling nose every time he looked as though he were going to doze off and fall asleep.

Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty had not been hiding and watching very long before, all of a sudden, the little rabbit girl whispered:

“Here comes the Skeezicks!”

“Eh? The Skeezicks? So he does!” spoke the rabbit gentleman softly, and, looking over the top of the grass he saw the bad chap sneaking along. The Skeezicks picked off a rose and held it in his paw.

“Now I’ll slip out and sprinkle salt on his tail!” said Uncle Wiggily. And he was just going to do this when Baby Bunty said:

“Oh, wait! Here comes the Skuddlemagoon!”

And, surely enough, into the garden came also the bad Skuddlemagoon.

“Two of ’em! This is going to be our busy day!” said Uncle Wiggily softly, as he looked to see if he had enough salt. “Well, I’ll tame ’em both! They must learn to let Nurse Jane’s roses alone,” said he.

Uncle Wiggily was just going to hop out and sprinkle salt on the tails of the Skeezicks and the Skuddlemagoon, when Baby Bunty caught him by the coat tails—she caught Uncle Wiggily, I mean—and pulled him back down in the tall grass.

“Look out! Here comes the Pipsisewah!” cried the lively little rabbit girl, in a shrill whisper.

Uncle Wiggily looked. Surely enough there was the old Pip, and just as the Skuddlemagoon and the Skeezicks had done, the Pipsisewah picked a rose.

“Now we know who has been eating Nurse Jane’s flowers,” said Uncle Wiggily to Baby Bunty. “Well, here I go to sprinkle salt on all three of their tails, and then we’ll see what happens.”

“Better wait,” said the little rabbit girl, and, as she said that the Pipsisewah exclaimed:

“Now, gentlemen, I believe we are all ready. Take a smell of your roses and then we’ll rush up to the bungalow, grab Uncle Wiggily and take away all his souse.”

“Right you are!” growled the Skuddlemagoon and the Skeezicks. All three of the bad chaps lifted the roses to their noses to smell the sweet posies, when, all of a sudden, a big, black pinching beetle flew out of the rose the Skeezicks had and pinched him on the nose. And a big black beetle flew out of the rose the Skuddlemagoon held and pinched him on the nose. And then a big black beetle flew out of the rose the Pipsisewah held and pinched him on the nose.

“Wow! Wow! Wow!” cried the bad animals. “This is too much!”

And away they ran, not hurting Uncle Wiggily at all, and they never took any more of Nurse Jane’s flowers. And because the beetles had been so brave they were given all the rose leaf honey they wanted.

Now if the umbrella doesn’t run out in the rain, and get its rubbers all wet so it can’t slide down the ironing board, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the red tulip.

STORY XXIV UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE RED TULIP

Down in Nurse Jane’s garden, near the hollow stump bungalow, grew many flowers besides the roses, out of which flew the black beetles to nip the noses of the Skeezicks, the Skuddlemagoon and the Pipsisewah, as I have told you.

Among the flowers were big tulips, white, golden and pink, and, best of all, Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, loved a tulip that was red.

“It makes me think of so many things that are beautiful,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I could look at the red tulip all day long.”

“Well, please don’t look at it all day just now, if you please!” begged Nurse Jane with a laugh. “Far be it from me, Uncle Wiggily, to hurt your feelings,” said she, “or to make you stop loving my flowers. But it is getting late afternoon now, and I have company coming for tea. There isn’t a bit of sugar in the bungalow, and unless you go to the seven and eight cent store and get me some—well, my little tea party will not be at all nice.”

“Oh, excuse me! I’ll go get the sugar at once,” said Uncle Wiggily. Then, putting on his tall, silk hat, and taking his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch off the garden gate, Uncle Wiggily started to hop to the nine and ten cent store for some sugar.

“But I must take just one more look at the red tulip,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I want to remember how beautiful it was as I hop along to the store.”

So he went into the garden again, and stood looking at the red flower, the petals of which were spread wide open to let the sun warm the heart of the blossom.

Then Uncle Wiggily noticed that some weeds were growing up too near the red tulip, so he dug them out with the end of his red crutch.

“Weeds are not good for flowers,” said Uncle Wiggily.

Just then Baby Bunty called to him from the back kitchen window:

“Uncle Wiggily, if you don’t stop fussing over that tulip, and hurry on to the store, it will be closed—I mean the store will be closed. It’s getting late.”

“Yes, and the tulip will be closed also,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Tulip flowers close when evening comes and open in the morning. But I’ll hurry, Baby Bunty.”

Giving one last look at his favorite flower, Uncle Wiggily hopped on to the ten and eleven cent store. The afternoon was rapidly turning into evening, and the bunny rabbit gentleman hurried as fast as he could. But, just as Baby Bunty had said, he had spent too much time over the red tulip. The store was closed and Uncle Wiggily could get no sugar.

“This is too bad!” he exclaimed. “What am I going to do for sugar for Nurse Jane’s tea! She’ll be so disappointed. I’ll go see if I can find another store that isn’t closed, as my red tulip must be closed now.”

So Uncle Wiggily hopped on through the woods, but no other store could he find. And it was getting later and later, and he knew it must be almost time for Nurse Jane’s company to arrive and have tea.

“Well, there is no help for it,” said the rabbit gentleman, sort of ashamed like and perfunctory. “I’ll just have to tell Nurse Jane I reached the store too late. She’ll have to use molasses to sweeten the tea. And yet that will not be at all nice.”

Still there was nothing else to be done. If it had been spring he could have gotten some sweet maple sugar sap from a tree, but the sap had stopped running.

“I guess molasses is what she’ll have to use,” said the bunny, as he hopped around the back way into his hollow stump bungalow. “I’ll take one last look at my red tulip,” he said. He wanted to put off, as long as possible, telling Nurse Jane the bad news.

Uncle Wiggily reached the garden. His red tulip had closed up its petals. Just as he had expected, until the blossom looked more like a bud than a full flower. And, as Uncle Wiggily looked at the red tulip he heard, coming from it, a voice which said:

“Let me out! Oh, please, let me out!”

“Who are you and where are you?” asked the rabbit gentleman in surprise.

“I am a buzzing bee and I am inside the red tulip,” was the answer. “I was getting a bit of yellow pollen on my legs, to help make wax, when the tulip flower suddenly closed its petals and I’m caught.”

“Yes, that is just what happened,” said the red tulip. “I’m sorry, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d open my petals and let you out, my dear bee, but I can not, I can not open my petals until morning.”

“Ah, but I can open them and I will, and I’ll let the bee out,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But I’ll do so very gently, my dear red tulip. I will not hurt you.”

Very carefully Uncle Wiggily opened the red tulip and out flew the buzzing bee.

“Thank you, Uncle Wiggily,” it said. And then it went on: “But why do you look so sad and worried?”

“Because I forget Nurse Jane’s sugar, or, rather, I got to the store too late,” was the answer.

“Oh, I can easily fix that,” said the bee. “Since you were so kind as to let me out of the red tulip, I’ll call a lot of my friends and we’ll bring sweet honey for Nurse Jane’s tea.” And the bees did, and so everything was all right, and Nurse Jane said the honey was better than sugar.

And, if the clothes pin doesn’t try to climb out of the thread box when it’s hiding away from the cake of soap as they play tag, you shall next hear about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s slippers.

STORY XXV UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S SLIPPERS

“Well, I think she is all ready now, except her slippers,” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.

“Who is ready?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, as he hopped up the steps of his hollow stump bungalow, in time to hear his muskrat lady housekeeper ring the dinner bell.

“Baby Bunty,” answered Nurse Jane. “She is all ready except her slippers, and I thought you’d get them for her.”

“Well, I’ll do almost anything for Baby Bunty except chase her, or play tag, on the days when I’m too lame and stiff,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he sat down on the softest side of the porch, for his rheumatism hurt him a little just then. “But what’s all this about her slippers, and what is Baby Bunty getting ready for?” he asked.

“Oh, a little party that Alice Wibblewobble, the duck girl, is going to give,” spoke Nurse Jane. “I have made Baby Bunty a new dress for it, and she has a new sky-blue-pink hair ribbon, so she is all ready except her slippers. Will you go to the five and six cent store and get them?”

“Of course I will!” said Uncle Wiggily with a jolly laugh that made his nose twinkle like a piece of cherry pie going to a moving picture show. “I’ll hop right along,” said the bunny rabbit gentleman, “and get Baby Bunty’s slippers. Don’t let her go to the party until I get back.”

“Oh, she can’t go without her slippers,” spoke Nurse Jane. “I’m going in now and curl her fur.”

So while the muskrat lady did this Uncle Wiggily hopped over the fields and through the woods to the seven and eight cent store to get Baby Bunty’s party slippers.

Now the rabbit gentleman had not gone very far over hill and dale than, all at once, he saw a nice hoptoad lady limping along the woodland path, trying to carry a loaf of dandelion bread. But she was going very slowly, was the hoptoad lady, and, every now and then, she would drop the loaf of bread.

“Why, my dear Mrs. Toad, what’s the matter?” kindly asked Uncle Wiggily as he caught up to her. “Have you met with an accident?”

“I should say so,” was the answer. “An automobile ran over my toes, and I can hardly walk; much less carry the loaf of dandelion bread.”

“Then allow me to carry it for you,” said Uncle Wiggily. And he did, and he helped the hoptoad lady limp to her home under an old log.

“I know what it is to be lame and hardly able to walk,” spoke Mr. Longears, as the toad lady thanked him. “I am only too glad that I could help you,” said he.

Then he hopped on a little farther and he met a bumble bee caught fast in the sticky gum of a pine tree. With his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, Uncle Wiggily helped the bee get its legs free, and away it flew.

“If I can ever help you I will, dear Uncle Wiggily,” buzzed the bee.

Then the bunny uncle hopped on and on, and pretty soon he came to the store where Nurse Jane had told him to get Baby Bunty’s slippers.

But alas! When he reached the place the store was closed, for it was much later in the afternoon than Uncle Wiggily had thought. It was so light, and with the clocks being set an hour ahead, you know, that he thought he had plenty of time. But the store was locked for the night.

“Well, if I can’t get Baby Bunty’s slippers here I’ll have to go to a drug store or somewhere else,” thought the bunny rabbit. “Drug stores keep open late.”

But the drug stores did not sell party slippers for little rabbit girls, and, though he tried in many other places, and even in a moving picture show, Uncle Wiggily could buy no slippers for Baby Bunty.

“Oh, dear! What shall I do?” thought Mr. Longears. “Baby Bunty will be so disappointed! She can’t go to the party without slippers! Oh, dear! What shall I do?”

“Ha! Perhaps I can help you, Uncle Wiggily,” said a buzzing voice. “I am the bumble bee to whom you were so kind. I know where there are a lot of lady slippers, and——”

“Oh, but Baby Bunty is too small to wear a lady’s slipper,” said the rabbit. “But where are those of which you speak?”

“Right over here,” buzzed the bee, and he flew over to where there was a large bed of the flowers called “Lady’s Slippers.” He perched upon a pink blossom and said: “Here are some very small flowers, Uncle Wiggily, I’m sure they would do for Baby Bunty.”

“And if they are too large I can make them smaller,” said another voice. “I am the toad lady whom you helped,” the voice went on, “and I can take a tuck in the flower slippers with some toad-flax, sewing them up, and making them just fit Baby Bunty.”

“Oh, I wish you would,” said Uncle Wiggily.

So he picked two of the smallest lady slipper flowers which the bee pointed out, the toad lady made them smaller, and Baby Bunty wore them to Alice Wibblewobble’s party. And all the animal girls said:

“Oh, aren’t Baby Bunty’s slippers cute!”

So everything came out all right.

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The Sunnybrook Series

By MRS. ELSIE M. ALEXANDER

Cloth Bound, 12 mo. Jackets in Full Color Illustrations in Color Colored End Papers, Illus.

A remarkably well told, instructive series of stories of animals, their characteristics and the exciting incidents in their lives. Young people will find these tales of animal life filled with a true and intimate knowledge of nature lore.

THE HAPPY FAMILY OF BEECHNUT GROVE (PETER GRAY SQUIRREL AND FAMILY)

BUSTER RABBIT, THE EXPLORER (THE BUNNY RABBIT FAMILY)

ADVENTURES OF TUDIE (THE FIELD MOUSE)

TABITHA DINGLE (THE FAMOUS CAT OF SUNNYBROOK MEADOW)

ROODY AND HIS UNDERGROUND PALACE (MR. WOODCHUCK IN HIS HAPPY HOME)

BUFF AND DUFF (CHILDREN OF MRS. WHITE-HEN)

The Wildwood Series

By BEN FIELD

Cloth Bound, 12 mo. Jackets in Full Color Illustrations in Color Colored End Papers, Illus.

In this new children’s series the adventures of many familiar animal characters are pictured in a realistic manner. Young readers will find these captivating tales of the habits, haunts and pranks of their little animal friends brimful of entertainment.

EXCITING ADVENTURES OF MR. TOM SQUIRREL

EXCITING ADVENTURES OF MR. JIM CROW

EXCITING ADVENTURES OF MR. GERALD FOX

EXCITING ADVENTURES OF MR. MELANCTHON COON

EXCITING ADVENTURES OF MR. ROBERT ROBIN

EXCITING ADVENTURES OF MR. BOB WHITE

A. L. BURT COMPANY, _Publishers_ 114–120 EAST 23rd STREET NEW YORK

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

1. Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. 2. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.