Chapter III: Part 3

So among his friends Uncle Wiggily gathered up bundles of woodland presents. And in the dusk of Christmas eve the black crows fluttered silently in from the forest, gathered up in their claws the presents which the bunny had tied with thread, and away they flapped, not only to the houses of the two boys, but also to the homes of some girls, about whom Uncle Wiggily had heard. Their chimneys, too, it seemed, were choked with soot.

But the crows could be made no blacker, not even if you dusted them with charcoal, so they did not in the least mind fluttering down the sooty chimneys. And so softly did they make their way, that not a boy or girl heard them! As silently and as quietly as Santa Claus himself went the crows!

All during Christmas eve they fluttered down the chimneys at the homes of poor boys and girls, helping St. Nicholas, until all the presents that Uncle Wiggily had gathered from his friends had been put in place.

Then, throughout Woodland, in the homes of Sammie and Susie Littletail the rabbits, of Johnnie and Billie Bushytail the squirrels, Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow the dogs, Curly and Floppy Twistytail the piggie boys--in all the homes of Woodland great changes took place. Firefly lights began to glow on Christmas trees. Mysterious bundles seemed to come from nowhere, and took their places under the trees, in stockings and on chairs or mantels.

And then night came, and all was still, and quiet and dark--as dark as the black crows or the soot in the chimneys.

But in the morning, when the stars had faded, and the moon was pale, the glorious sun came up and made the snow sparkle like ten million billion diamonds.

"Merry Christmas, Uncle Wiggily!" called Nurse Jane. "See what Santa Claus brought me."

"Merry Christmas, Nurse Jane!" answered the bunny. "And what a fine lot of presents St. Nicholas left for me! See them!"

"Oh, isn't he a great old chap!" laughed Nurse Jane, as she smelled a bottle of perfume.

And all over the land voices could be heard saying:

"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!"

Near the hearth in the homes of some boys and girls who had not gone to bed with happy thoughts of the morrow, were some delightful presents. How they opened their eyes and stared--these boys and girls who had expected no Christmas.

"Why! Why!" exclaimed one of the two lads whom Uncle Wiggily had heard talking near the snowbank. "How in the world did Santa Claus get down our black chimney?"

But, of course, they knew nothing of Uncle Wiggily and the crows. And please don't you tell them.

So all over, in the Land of Boys and Girls, as well as in the Snow Forest of the Animal Folk, there echoed the happy calls of:

"Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!" Once again there was joy in the land.

And if the sunflower doesn't shine in the face of the clock, and make its hands go whizzing around backward, I shall take pleasure, next, in telling you about Uncle Wiggily's Fourth of July.

STORY XII

UNCLE WIGGILY'S FOURTH OF JULY

"You must be extra careful to-morrow, Uncle Wiggily," said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy to the bunny rabbit gentleman one morning, as he stood on the steps of his hollow stump bungalow.

"Why be careful to-morrow, more than on any other day in the year?" asked Mr. Longears. "Is it going to rain or snow?"

"Whoever heard of snow on the Fourth of July?" inquired the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she fastened a fluffy brush to the end of her tail, for she was presently going in the house to dust the furniture.

"Oh, so to-morrow is the Fourth of July!" exclaimed the bunny. "I had forgotten all about it. Yes, indeed, I must be careful! I am living near the real children, now, and some of them might think it fun to explode a torpedo under my pink, twinkling nose, or try to fasten a fire-cracker to my little tail."

"That's what I was thinking of," went on Nurse Jane. For Uncle Wiggily's bungalow, while still in the woods, was near to the homes of some boys and girls. And though only one boy, so far, had been bad to the bunny (and this boy soon turned good), there was no telling what might happen.

So as Uncle Wiggily hopped along the forest path, he took care not to get too far away from the bushes, behind and under which he could hide. For sometimes boys and girls came to the forest, and once a Kite Boy was lost, and the bunny helped him find his way home, you may remember.

"Hello, Uncle Wiggily!" suddenly called a voice, and Mr. Longears quickly jumped around, thinking it might be a real boy or girl. But it was only Neddie Stubtail, the little boy bear.

"I've been buying my fire-crackers," said Neddie to his uncle, the bunny. "I'm going to have lots of fun Fourth of July," and he showed Mr. Longears a bundle of dry sticks, painted red, white and blue like the bunny's rheumatism crutch.

You must know that in Animal Land the boys and girls have the same sort of fun you children do on holidays, but in a different manner. Instead of real fire-crackers, that have to be set off with a match, or piece of punk, with sparks that, perhaps, burn you, the animal children get some dried sticks. These they break, with loud, cracking sounds, but without any fire. And they have lots of fun. After the sticks are broken they can be put in the stove to boil the tea kettle.

"Did you get your sister, Beckie, any Fourth of July things?" asked Uncle Wiggily of the boy bear.

"Oh, yes, I got her some little stick crackers," answered Neddie.

"That's good!" spoke Mr. Longears. Then he went on through the woods, meeting Toddle and Noodle Flat-Tail the beaver boys, Joie, Tommie and Kittie Kat the kittens, Nannie and Billie Wagtail the goats, and many other animal boys and girls. All of them called:

"Hello, Uncle Wiggily! Happy Fourth of July!"

And the bunny answered back:

"Thank you! I wish you the same!"

Thus hopping through the woods, meeting the animal children, and learning of the fun they were to have next day, the bunny rabbit gentleman at length came to the end of the forest. A little farther on were the houses and homes of real boys and girls, some of whom had been helped by Mr. Longears.

"I think this is as far as I had better go, seeing it's so close to the Fourth of July," thought Uncle Wiggily. "If the real children are anything like those of my animal friends who live in the woods, they'll be shooting off their crackers and torpedoes ahead of time."

And, just as he said that, Uncle Wiggily heard a loud:

"Bang! Bang!"

The bunny jumped to one side, and hid under the broad leaf of a burdock plant. Then he laughed.

"I thought that was a hunter-man's gun," whispered Uncle Wiggily. "But I guess it was some boy setting off a fire-cracker. I need not have been afraid."

He was just going to hop along a little farther, before turning back to his hollow stump bungalow when, all at once he saw a hammock swinging between two trees near the edge of the wood.

In the hammock lay a boy with a thin, pale face, and beside him sat a nurse, gently pulling on a rope that caused the little nest-like swinging bed to sway to and fro.

"Oh ho!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "A sick boy! I'm sorry for him! He won't be able to run around and have fun on Fourth of July as Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow will."

And then the bunny heard the boy in the hammock speaking. And, being able, as he was of late, to understand the talk of real persons, Uncle Wiggily heard the boy say:

"Do you think I'll ever be able to run around again, and have fun, and shoot off fire-crackers?"

"Of course you will," the nurse answered cheerfully.

"But I can't have any fire-crackers now, can I?" asked the boy, timidly, as though knowing what the answer would be.

"No, Buddie! You are not quite well enough," the nurse gently replied. "No fire-crackers for you!"

"How about torpedoes?"

"You couldn't have those, either, I'm afraid," and the nurse smiled as she leaned over to give the boy a drink of orange juice.

"Oh, dear!" sighed the boy in the hammock, just like that. "Oh, dear!"

Uncle Wiggily felt very sorry for him.

"I wish I could do something," thought the bunny gentleman. "This boy won't have much fun on the Fourth of July--not even as much fun as Curly and Floppy Twistytail, the piggie chaps, will have throwing corncobs against a tin pan and making believe they are skyrockets."

"Oh, dear!" again sighed the boy in the hammock. "Oh, dear!"

"What's the matter now?" asked his nurse.

"I don't s'pose I could even have a Roman candle, or a pinwheel, could I?" the invalid asked.

"Oh, indeed no!" laughed the nurse. "What a funny chap you are!"

But the boy didn't feel very funny.

Uncle Wiggily twinkled his pink nose. Then he put his tall, silk hat firmly on his head and, tucking under his paw his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, off through the woods hopped the bunny uncle.

"I'm going to get some Fourth of July for that boy," said Mr. Longears. "He simply must have some."

Uncle Wiggily spent some time hopping here and there through the woods, and early the next morning, when the real boys and girls were shooting off real fire-crackers and torpedoes, and when the animal lads and lassies were cracking sticks and making torpedoes from broad, green leaves, Mr. Longears hopped to where the boy was, once more, swinging in his hammock.

The boy's head was turned to one side, and he was looking at some of his friends, over in the vacant lots, setting off fire-crackers. Uncle Wiggily, when the nurse wasn't looking, tossed into the hammock, from the bush behind which the bunny was hidden, a bundle of green things. They fell near the boy's hands.

Hardly knowing what he was doing the sick lad pinched one of the green things between his fingers.

"Pop!" it went.

"What's that?" cried the nurse. "It sounded like a fire-cracker."

The boy pinched another green leaf-like ball between his fingers.

"Pop!" sounded again, as the ball burst.

"Why," cried the nurse. "That's like a torpedo! What have you there, Buddie?"

"I don't know," the boy answered. "But these round, green balls, that burst and pop when I squeeze them, fell into my hammock. There's a lot of 'em! I can pinch them and make a noise for Fourth of July."

"So you can!" exclaimed the nurse, pinching one herself, and jumping when it went "Pop!"

"And they won't hurt me, will they?" asked the boy.

"No," answered the nurse, "they won't hurt you at all. They must have fallen off this tree, but I never knew, before, that such things as green fire-crackers grew on trees!"

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Uncle Wiggily to himself, hidden under a bush. "She doesn't know I brought the puff balls to the boy."

For that is what the bunny had done. In the woods he had found the green puff balls, inside which were the seeds of the plant. Later on, in the fall, the puff balls would be dry, and would crackle when you touched them, opening to scatter the seeds. But now, being green, and filled with air, they burst with a Fourth of July noise when squeezed.

"Oh, now I can have some fun!" laughed the sick boy, as he cracked one puff ball after another. "Hurrah! Now I'm celebrating Fourth of July!"

And he was. Uncle Wiggily had helped him, and the bunny gentleman had brought enough puff balls to last all day.

"Pop! Pop!" That is how they sounded as the boy pinched them in his hammock. Some were large, like big fire-crackers, and others were small, like little torpedoes.

"Oh, what a lovely Fourth of July!" sighed the boy, when evening came to put the sun to bed, and the nurse wheeled the boy into the house.

And then, when it grew dark, Uncle Wiggily called together ten thousand firefly-lightning bugs, and they flittered and fluttered about the porch, on which the boy had been taken after supper. The fireflies made pinwheels of themselves, they went up like skyrockets, they leaped about in bunches like the balls from Roman candles and finally, when it was time to go to bed, they took hold of each others' legs and, clinging together, spelled out:

"Oh, it's just like real fireworks!" cried the happy boy.

"I'm glad he liked it!" said Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped home to his hollow stump bungalow.

So if the pussy cat doesn't claw the tail off the letter Q and make it look like a big, round O, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the little boy's skates.

STORY XIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SKATES

There was once a little boy to whom Santa Claus brought a pair of skates at Christmas. And, of course, that boy, as soon as he saw the shiny, steel runners, wished that the pond would freeze over so that he might try his new playthings.

"When do you s'pose there'll be skating?" he asked his mother again and again, for, as yet, there was only a "skim" of ice on the pond.

"Oh, pretty soon," his mother would answer. "You mustn't go skating when the ice is too thin, you know. If you did you would break through, into the cold water."

"And that would spoil my skates, wouldn't it?" asked the boy.

"Yes, but besides that you might be drowned, or catch cold and be very ill," Mother said. "So keep off the ice with your new skates until the pond has frozen good and thick."

"Yes'm, I will," promised the little boy, and, really, he meant to keep his word. But as the days passed, and the weather was not quite cold enough to freeze thick ice, the little boy became tired of waiting.

Every chance he had, after school, he would go down to the edge of the pond, and throw stones on the ice to see how thick it was. Often the stones would break through, and fall into the cold, black water with a "thump!" Then the boy would know the ice was not thick enough.

"I don't want to fall through like a stone," he would say, and back to his house he would go with his new skates dangling and jingling at his back, over which they were hung by a strap.

But one day, when the boy threw a large stone on the ice of the pond, instead of breaking through, the rock only made a dent and stayed there.

"Oh, hurray!" cried the boy. "I guess it's strong enough to hold me now! I'm going skating!"

However, first he started to walk on the edge of the ice near the shore, and when he did so, and heard cracking sounds, he jumped quickly back.

"I guess I'd better not try it yet," said the boy to himself. "I'll wait a little while until it freezes harder."

So he sat down by the edge of the pond to wait for the ice to freeze harder. But as he sat there, and saw how white and shiny it was, and as he looked at his new skates, which he had only put on in the house, that boy couldn't wait another minute.

He walked along the shore a little farther, to a place where the ice seemed more hard and shiny and there, after throwing some stones, and venturing out a little way, finding that there was no cracking sound, the little boy made up his mind to try to skate. There was no one else on the pond--no other boys and girls, and it was a bit lonesome. But the boy was so eager to try his new skates that he did not think of this.

Down he sat on the ground, and began putting on his Christmas skates. And it was just about this time that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, Uncle Wiggily's muskrat lady housekeeper, happened to look out of the window of the hollow stump bungalow. The bunny's bungalow was so hidden in the woods, near the pond, that few boys or girls ever saw the queer little house. But Uncle Wiggily could see them, as they came to the woods winter and summer, and often he was able to help them.

"Well, I declare!" exclaimed Nurse Jane, as she looked out of the window a second time.

"What's the matter?" asked Uncle Wiggily, who was just finishing his breakfast of lettuce bread and carrot coffee, with some turnip marmalade.

"Why, there's a boy--a real boy and not one of the animal chaps--getting ready to go skating!" said the muskrat lady, for she could see the boy putting on his skates.

"That ice isn't thick enough for real boys or girls to skate on," the bunny gentleman said. "It would be all right for Sammie Littletail, or Johnnie or Billie Bushytail, but real boys are too heavy--much heavier than my nephew Sammie the rabbit, or than the bushytail squirrel chaps."

"Well, this boy is going on all the same," cried Nurse Jane. "And I know he'll break through, and he'll frighten his mother into a conniption fit!"

"That will be too bad!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he wiped a little of the turnip marmalade off his whiskers, where it had fallen by mistake. "I must try to save him if he does fall in!"

"It would be better to keep him from going on the ice," spoke Nurse Jane. "Safety first, you know!"

"If I could speak boy language I'd hop down there and tell him the ice is too thin," answered Uncle Wiggily. "But though I know what the boys and girls say, I cannot, myself, speak their talk. However, I think I know a way to save this boy, if he happens to break through the ice."

"Well, he's almost sure to break through," declared Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, "so you'd better hurry."

"No sooner said than done!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, and, catching up his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and putting on his fur cap (for the day was cold), away the bunny hopped from his hollow stump bungalow.

Instead of going to the place where the boy, with his skates fastened on his shoes, was about to try the ice, the bunny gentleman went to the house of some friends of his. The house would seem queer to you, for all it looked like was a pile of sticks half buried in the frozen pond.

But in this house lived a family of beavers--queer animals whose fur is so warm and thick that they can swim in ice water and not feel chilly. In fact the beavers had to dive down under the ice and water to get into their winter home.

"Are Toodle and Noodle in the house?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as he reached the stick-house. On shore, not far from it, was Grandpa Whackum, the old beaver gentleman, with his broad, flat tail.

"Why, yes, Toodle and Noodle are inside," answered Grandpa Whackum. "Shall I call them out?"

"If you please," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "I want them to come and help me save a boy who, I think, is going to break through the thin ice with his new skates."

"That will be too bad!" exclaimed Grandpa Whackum. Then with his broad tail he pounded or "whacked" on the ground, and soon up through a hole in the ice came swimming Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail, the two beaver boys.

"Oh, hello, Uncle Wiggily!" they called. "We're glad to see you!"

"Hello!" answered the bunny gentleman. "Will you come with me, and help save a real boy?"

"Of course," said Toodle, shaking off some ice water from his fur coat.

"He won't try to catch us, will he?" asked Noodle.

"I think not," the bunny gentleman replied. "If what I think is going to happen, does really happen, that boy will be too surprised to catch anything but a cold! Come along, beaver chaps!"

So Toodle and Noodle, wet and glistening from having dived out of their house, and down under water to come up through the hole in the ice, followed Uncle Wiggily. The sun and wind soon dried their fur.

"There's the boy," said Uncle Wiggily, as he and the beaver chaps reached the edge of the pond. "He's skating on thin ice. He'll go through in a minute!"

And, surely enough, hardly had the bunny spoken than there was a cracking sound, the ice broke beneath the boy's feet and into the dark, cold water he fell.

"Oh! Oh!" cried the boy. "Help me, somebody! Oh! Oh!"

"Ha! It's a good thing Nurse Jane saw him!" said Uncle Wiggily. "Quick now, Toodle and Noodle! I brought you along because you have such good, sharp teeth--much sharper and better than mine are for gnawing down trees. I can gnaw off the bark, but you can nibble all the way through a tree and make it fall."

"Is that what you want us to do?" asked Toodle.

"Yes," answered Uncle Wiggily. "We'll go close to shore, where the boy has fallen in. Near him is a tree. You'll gnaw that so it will fall outward across the ice, and he can reach up, take hold of it and pull himself out of the hole."

By this time the poor boy was floundering around in the cold water. He tried to get hold of the edges of the ice around the hole through which he had fallen, but the ice broke in his hands.

"Help! Help!" he cried.

"We're going to help you," answered Uncle Wiggily, but, of course, he spoke animal language which the boy did not understand. But Toodle and Noodle understood, and quickly running to the edge of the shore they gnawed and gnawed and gnawed very extra fast at an overhanging tree until it began to bend and break. Uncle Wiggily gnawed a little, also, to help the beaver boys.

Then, just as the real boy was almost ready to sink down under water, the tree fell on the ice, some of its branches close enough so the boy skater could grasp them.

"Oh, now I can pull myself out!" he said. "This tree fell just in time! Now I'll be saved!"

He did not know that Uncle Wiggily and the beaver boys had gnawed the tree down, making it fall just in the right place at the right time. For the boy was so frightened at having broken through the ice, that he never noticed the bunny gentleman and the beaver boys on shore.

He caught hold of the tree branches in his cold fingers, pulled himself up out of the water, that boy did; and to shore. Then as he sat down, all wet and shivering, to take off his skates, so he could run home, Uncle Wiggily called to Toodle and Noodle:

"Come on, beaver boys! Our work is done! We have saved that boy, and I hope he never again tries to skate on thin ice."

Then Uncle Wiggily hopped toward his hollow stump bungalow, and the beaver boys slid on the ice, near shore, toward their own stick-house, for the pond was frozen hard and thick enough to hold them. And the boy ran home as fast as he could, and drank hot lemonade so he wouldn't catch cold.

He did get the snuffles, but of course that couldn't be helped, and it wasn't much for falling through the ice; was it?

"You never should have gone skating until the pond was better frozen," his mother said.

"I know it," the boy answered. "But wasn't it lucky that tree fell when it did?"

"Very lucky!" agreed his mother. And neither the boy nor his mother knew that it was Nurse Jane, Uncle Wiggily and the beaver boys who had caused the tree to topple over just in time.

But that's the way it sometimes is in this world. And if the cow doesn't tickle the man in the moon with her horns, when she jumps over the green cheese, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily going coasting.

STORY XIV

UNCLE WIGGILY GOES COASTING

"Oh, it's stopped snowing! It's stopped snowing! Now we can go coasting; can't we, Mother?"

"And on our new Christmas sleds! Oh, what fun!"

A boy and a girl ran from the window, against which they had been pressing their noses, looking out to see when the white flakes would stop falling from the sky. Now the storm seemed to be over, leaving the ground covered with the sparkling snow crystals.

"Yes, you may go coasting a little while," said Mother. "But don't stay too late. When Daddy comes to supper you must be home."

"We will!" promised the boy and girl, and, laughing in glee, they ran to get on their boots, their mittens and warm coats.

"I want to go coasting! Take me to slide down hill!" cried Bumps, the little sister of the boy and girl. "I want a sleigh ride."

"Oh, Bumps, you're too little!" objected Sister.

"And she'll fall down and bang herself," added Brother. In fact the "littlest girl" did fall down so often that she was called "Bumps" as a pet name.

"I won't fall down!" Bumps promised. "I'll be good! Please take me coasting?"

"I think you might take her," said Mother.

"Yes, we will," spoke Sister. "Come on, Bumps!"

"Well, if she falls off the sled when it's going down hill, and she gets bumped, it won't be my fault!" declared Brother.

"I--I'll be good--I won't fall!" promised Bumps. So Mother bundled her up, and out she went to the coasting hill with Brother and Sister, each of whom had a sled.

"I'm not going to give her rides on my sled all the while!" said Brother, half grumbling.

"We'll take turns," more kindly suggested Sister. "Take hold of my hand, Bumps, and don't fall any more times than you can help, dear!"

"No; I won't," answered Bumps. The littlest girl was smiling and happy because she was going coasting with Sister and Brother. And she made up her mind she would try very, very hard not to fall.

On the other side of the forest, near which was the coasting hill of the children, lived Uncle Wiggily in his hollow stump bungalow. From afar he had often watched the boys and girls sliding down on their sleds, but the bunny gentleman had never gone very close.

"For," he said to himself, "they might, by accident, run over me. And, though I haven't much of a tail to be cut off, I would look queer if anything should happen to my long ears. I'll keep away from the coasting hill of the boys and girls."

But not far from the bunny's bungalow was another and smaller hill, down which the animal boys and girls coasted. Of course, very few of them had such sleds as you children have, with shiny steel runners, and with the tops painted red, blue, green and gold. In fact, some of the animal boys didn't bother with a sled at all.

Take Toodle and Noodle Flat-Tail, the beaver chaps, for instance. They just slid down hill on their broad, flat tails. And as for Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, they sat on their fuzzy tails and scooted down the hill of snow. Others of the animal children sometimes used pieces of wood, an old board or some sticks bound together with strands from a wild grape vine.

And about the time that Sister, Brother and Bumps went coasting, Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbits, passed the hollow stump bungalow of Uncle Wiggily Longears. The little bunnies were each pulling a sled made from pieces of birch bark they had gnawed from trees.

"Let's ask Uncle Wiggily to go coasting with us," spoke Susie.

"Oh, yes! Let's!" echoed Sammie. "It'll be lots of fun!"

And Uncle Wiggily was very glad to go coasting. Out of his bungalow he hopped, his pink nose twinkling twice as fast as the shiny star on top of the Christmas tree.

"Dear me, Wiggy!" cried Nurse Jane. "You don't mean to say you're going coasting with your rheumatism!"

"No, I'm going coasting with Sammie and Susie," the laughing bunny answered. "I haven't any rheumatism to go coasting with to-day, I'm glad to tell you." And, surely enough, he didn't need to take his red, white and blue striped crutch.

When Sammie, Susie and Uncle Wiggily reached the coasting hill, they found there many of the animal children.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Ride on my sled!" invited one after another. "Ride on mine! Coast with me!"

"I'll take turns with each one!" promised the bunny gentleman, and so he did, riding with Sammie and Susie first, then with the Bushytail squirrel brothers, next with Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the ducks, and so on down to Dottie and Willie Flufftail, the lamb children.

Oh, such fun as Uncle Wiggily had on the animal children's coasting hill. And on the other side of the forest, Sister, Brother and Bumps had their fun, with the real boys and girls.

At last it began to grow dusk, and when Uncle Wiggily was thinking of telling the animal children it was time for them to leave for home, up came rushing Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dog boys.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" barked Jackie. "We were just over to the big hill, where the real boys coast, and we saw----"

"We saw a little baby girl--that is, almost a baby--in a pile of snow!" finished Peetie, for his brother Jackie was out of breath and couldn't bark any more.

"What's that?" cried Uncle Wiggily. "A real, live little girl in the snow?"

"Right in a snow drift!" barked Jackie. "All alone!"

"Why," said the bunny gentleman, as he thought it over, "she must have been coasting with her brother or sister, and maybe she fell off a sled and went down deep in the snow. And they played so hard they never missed her! But she mustn't be allowed to stay asleep in the snow. She'll freeze!"

"If she's only a little one--almost a baby--couldn't we put her on one of our sleds?" asked Sammie.

"And ride her home," went on Susie.

"If we all pull together we'd be strong enough to pull a real, live girl, if she wasn't too large," quacked Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck.

"We'll try!" said Uncle Wiggily. "All of you take the grape-vine ropes from your sleds and follow me."

Quickly the animal children did this, taking with them only the large double sled of Neddie Stubtail, the boy bear, which was the largest sled of all. It was low and flat, and Uncle Wiggily thought it would be easy to roll a little girl up on it and pull her along.

Soon Uncle Wiggily and the animal children reached the hill where the real boys and girls had coasted. None of them was there now, all having gone home to their suppers.

"Here she is!" softly barked Jackie, leading the way to a snowbank, at the foot of the hill.

And there, sound asleep in the soft, warm snow was--Bumps!

Yes, as true as I'm telling you--Bumps!

The little girl had been sliding down with her sister, and had rolled off the sled at the bottom of the hill after about the forty-'leventh coast. And Bumps was so tired, and sleepy, from having been outdoors so long, that, as soon as she rolled from the sled into the snow, she fell asleep! Think of that!

And as Sister wanted to have a race with Brother and some of the other children, she never noticed what happened to Bumps. But there she was--in the snow asleep. Poor little Bumps!

"It will never do to leave her here!" whispered Uncle Wiggily to the animal boys and girls. "Don't awaken her, but roll her over on Neddie's sled, and we'll pull her to her home. I know where she lives. We'll leave her in front of the door, I'll throw a snowball to make a sound like a knock, and then we can run away. Her father and mother will come out and take her in."

So all working together, pushing, pulling, tugging and rolling most gently, the bunny gentleman and the animal boys and girls slid Bumps upon the low sled of the bear boy. Then they fastened the grape-vine ropes to it, and, all taking hold, off they started over the snow toward the village.

It was almost dark, so no one saw the strange procession of Uncle Wiggily and his friends; and the bunny gentleman was glad of this. Right up to the home of Bumps they pulled her, and just as they got the sled in her yard Bumps opened her eyes.

"Oh! Oh! Oh!" she cried when she saw all the animal children, and Uncle Wiggily, too, standing around her. "I'm in fairyland! Oh, how I love it!"

"Quick, Sammie--Susie--Jackie--Peetie--scoot away!" called Uncle Wiggily in animal talk, and the rabbits, squirrels, guinea pigs, ducks, bears, beavers and others, all hopped away through the soft snow, out of sight. Uncle Wiggily tossed a snowball at the door, making a sound like a knock, and then the bunny gentleman also hopped away, laughing to himself.

He turned back in time to see the door open and Sister, Brother, Daddy and Mother rush out.

"Oh, here's Bumps, now!" cried Brother. "We must have forgotten and left her at the hill."

"Oh, that's what we did!" exclaimed Sister.

"Yes, but how did she get home?" asked Mother. "She never walked, I'm sure!"

"And look at the queer wooden sled!" said Sister.

"Who brought you home, Bumps?" asked Daddy.

"A--a nice bunny man, and some little bunnies, and squirrels, and a little bear boy and some ducks and chickens and little lambs and--and----" But Bumps was out of breath now.

"Oh, she's been asleep and _dreamed_ this!" laughed Brother. "Some man must have found her and put her on this board for a sled, to bring her home."

"Nope!" declared Bumps, "it was a bunny! It was a funny bunny!"

"Bring her in the house!" laughed Mother. "She must have been dreaming!"

But we know it wasn't a dream; don't we? And if the strawberry shortcake doesn't go swimming with the gold fish in the lemonade and catch cold, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the picnic.

STORY XV

UNCLE WIGGILY'S PICNIC

"Come on, Uncle Wiggily! Wake up! Wake up!" called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy in the hollow stump bungalow one morning. "Come on!"

"What's that? What's the matter? Is the chimney on fire again?" asked the bunny gentleman, and he was so excited that he slid down the banister, instead of hopping along from step to step as he should have done.

"Of course the chimney isn't on fire!" laughed Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "But this is the day for the picnic of the animal children, and you promised to go with them to the woods."

"Oh, so I did!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, and he put one paw on his pink nose to stop the twinkling, which started as soon as he grew excited over thinking the chimney was on fire. "Well, I'm glad you called me, Nurse Jane. I'll get ready for the picnic at once. What are you going to put up for lunch?"

"Oh, some carrot bread, turnip cookies, lettuce sandwiches and nut cake," answered the muskrat lady.

"That sounds fine!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "I'm very glad I'm going to the picnic!"

"Well, you had better hurry and get ready," remarked Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "Here come Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow to see if you aren't soon going to start."

Uncle Wiggily looked from the window of his hollow stump bungalow, and saw the two little puppy dog boys coming along.

Jackie was so excited that he stubbed his paw and fell down twice, while Peetie was so anxious to show Uncle Wiggily what was in the package of lunch the puppies were going to take to the woods, that Peetie fell down three times, and turned a back somersault.

"Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Aren't you coming?" barked Jackie.

"Hurry or it may rain and spoil the picnic," added Peetie.

"Oh, I hope not!" answered the bunny gentleman. "For if there is one thing, more than another, that spoils a picnic, it is rain! Snow isn't so bad, for we don't have picnics when it snows."

"Maybe it won't rain," hopefully spoke Nurse Jane, who was busy putting up lunch for Uncle Wiggily. "There isn't a cloud in the sky!"

And, surely enough, when Uncle Wiggily, Nurse Jane and dozens of animal children started off to the woods for their picnic, the sun shone bravely down from the blue sky and a more lovely day could not have been wished for.

The forest where the bunny gentleman, Nurse Jane and the animal children went for their picnic was a large one, with many trees and bushes. There were dozens of places for the squirrels, rabbits, goats, ducks, dogs, pussy cats and others to play; and when they reached the grove they put their lunches under bushes, on the soft cool, green moss and began to have fun.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Please turn skipping rope for us?" begged Brighteyes, the little guinea pig girl.

"And please come play ball with us!" grunted Curly and Floppy Twistytail, the piggie boys.

"Have a game of marbles with us," teased Billie Wagtail, the goat, and Jacko Kinkytail, the monkey chap.

"I'll play with you all in turn," laughed the bunny gentleman. He was in the midst of having fun, and was just gnawing off a piece of wild grape vine to make a swing for Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble, the ducks, when up came hopping Bully No-Tail, the frog boy. Bully was quite excited.

"What's the matter, Bully?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"Oh, gur-ump!" croaked Bully. "There is a big crowd of boys and girls over on the other side of the pond. They're having a picnic, too! Ger-ump! Ger-ump!"

"Real boys and girls!" added Bawly, who was Bully's brother. "Hump-bump!"

"Well, that will do no harm!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "Let the real boys and girls have their picnic. They will not see us, for very few boys and girls know how to use their eyes when they go to the woods. I have often hidden beside a bush close to where a boy passed, and he never saw me. Let the boys and girls have their picnic, and we'll have ours!"

So that's the way it was. Uncle Wiggily and the animal children played tag, and they slid down hill. Perhaps you think they could not do this in summer when there was no snow. But the hills in the forest were covered with long, smooth, brown pine needles, and these layers of needles were so slippery that it was easy to slide on them.

And then, all of a sudden, just about when it was time to eat lunch, it began to rain! Oh, how hard the drops pelted down! Rain! Rain! Rain!

"Scurry for shelter--all of you!" cried Nurse Jane. "Get out of the rain!"

The animal boys and girls knew how to take care of themselves in a rain storm, even if they had no umbrellas. Most of them had on fur or feathers which water does not harm. And they snuggled down under trees and bushes, finding shelter and dry spots so that, no matter how hard it poured, they did not get very wet.

They hid their lunches under rocks and overhanging trees so nothing was spoiled. And when the rain was over and the sun came out, as it did, the animal picnic went on as before, and when the food was set out on flat stumps for tables, there was enough for everyone, and plenty left over.

Nurse Jane was looking at what remained of the good things to eat when Jackie Bow Wow, who, with Peetie, had been splashing in a mud puddle, came running up wagging his tail.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" barked Jackie. "What you think? Those real children, on the other side of the wood, they had their things to eat out on some stumps for tables, just as we had, and when the rain came, oh! it spoiled everything!"

"They didn't know how to keep their lunches dry," added Peetie. "Now they haven't anything to eat for their picnic, and they are starting home, and some of the little girls are crying."

"That's too bad!" murmured Uncle Wiggily, kindly. "Too bad that the rain had to spoil their picnic! Now we have plenty of things left that children could eat--nuts, apples, some popcorn and pears," for the animal folk had brought all these, and many more, to the woods with them. "We have lots left over."

"We could give them something to eat," spoke Nurse Jane, "but how are we going to get it to them? We can't call them here; and it would never do to let them see us carrying the things to them."

"No," agreed Uncle Wiggily. "But I think I have a plan. We can make some baskets of birch bark. Some of the animal children--such as Jacko and Jumpo Kinkytail, the monkeys, Joie and Tommie Kat, Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels--are good tree climbers. Let them climb trees near where the real children are having their picnic, and lower to them, on grape-vine ropes, the food we have left."

"Oh, yes!" mewed Tommie, the kitten boy. "What jolly fun!"

Quickly Nurse Jane began to gather up the food. Uncle Wiggily put it in birch bark baskets the animal children made and then, with the baskets, fastened to vines, in their paws or claws, the animal boys went through the wood to the place of the other picnic. Uncle Wiggily and the remaining animal children followed.

There the poor, disappointed real children were, looking at their rain-soaked and spoiled lunches. Some of the little girls were crying.

"We might as well go home," grumbled a boy. "Our picnic is no good!"

"Mean old rain!" sighed a girl.

But just then the animal chaps with lunch from Uncle Wiggily's picnic--lunch which had not been rained on--climbed up into trees over the heads of the boys and girls. Not a sound did the animal chaps make. And when the real boys and girls had their backs turned, there were lowered to the stump tables enough good things for a jolly feast--apples, pears, popcorn, nuts and many other dainties.

A little girl happened to turn around and see the birch bark baskets of good things just as the animal boys scurried off through the trees.

"Oh, look!" cried the girl. "The fairies have been here! They have left us some lunch in place of ours that the rain spoiled. Oh, see the fairy lunch!"

And I suppose that is as good a name for it as any, since the boys and girls didn't see Uncle Wiggily's friends lower the baskets from the trees. And the real boys and girls ate the lunch and had a most jolly time, and so did the bunny gentleman and his picnic crowd.

Now if the rubber plant doesn't stretch over and tickle the teapot so that it pours coffee instead of milk into the sugar bowl, you may next hear about Uncle Wiggily in the rain storm.

STORY XVI

UNCLE WIGGILY'S RAIN STORM

Down pelted the rain in Animal Land.

It also poured in Boy and Girl Land, which was on the other side of the forest from where Uncle Wiggily Longears lived in his hollow stump bungalow.

The bunny rabbit gentleman looked out of a window, and saw the drops fall drip, drip, dripping from trees and bushes, making little puddles amid the leaves where birds could come, later, and take a bath.

"You aren't thinking of going out in this storm; are you?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady bungalow-keeper, as she saw Mr. Longears putting on his coat.

"Why, I was, yes," slowly answered the bunny gentleman. "I am neither sugar nor salt, that I will melt in the rain. And, as it isn't freezing, I think I'll take a hop through the woods, and see Grandfather Goosey Gander."

"Well, as long as you are going out, I wish you'd go to the store for me," requested Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.

"What do you want?" asked the bunny gentleman.

"Oh, bring a muskmelon for dinner," said Nurse Jane.

"A watermelon would be much easier to carry through the rain," Uncle Wiggily answered. "I think I'll bring a watermelon. If it gets wet no harm is done."

"All right," agreed Nurse Jane, laughing, so away hopped the bunny rabbit uncle, over the fields and through the woods. It seemed to rain harder and harder, but Uncle Wiggily did not mind. He had an umbrella, though he did not always carry one. It was made from a toadstool, and it kept off most of the rain. Though, as Mr. Longears said, he was neither a lollypop nor an ice-cream cone that would melt in a shower.

But not everyone was as happy as Uncle Wiggily in this storm. On the other side of the forest, as I told you, was Boy and Girl Land, and in one of the houses lived a brother and a sister. They, too, stood at the window, pressing their noses against the glass as the rain beat down, and they were not happy.

"Rain, rain, go away!
Come again some other day!
Brother and I want to go and play!"

That is the verse the little girl recited over and over again as she watched the rain pelting down. But the storm did not stop for all that she said the verse backward and frontward.

"Will it ever stop?" crossly cried the boy. "Why doesn't it stop?" and he drummed on the window sill, banged his feet on the floor and whistled. And his sister loudly recited over and over again:

"Rain, rain, go away!"

"Children! Children!" gently called Mother from where she was lying down in the next room. "Can't you please be a little quiet? My head aches and I am trying to rest. The noise makes my pain worse."

"We're sorry, Mother," said the girl.

"But being quiet isn't any fun!" grumbled the boy. "Why can't we go out and play?"

"Because you would get all wet," answered his mother. "I've told you that two or three times, dear. Now please be quiet. It will stop raining sometime, and then you may go out."

"What can we play with?" asked the boy, not very politely I'm sorry to say.

"Why, some of your toys," replied his mother. "Surely you have enough."

"I'm tired of 'em!" grunted the boy.

"So'm I," echoed his sister.

Then she began once more to say the verse about the rain, as if that would do any good, and the boy rubbed his nose up and down the window, making queer marks.

Uncle Wiggily, on his way to see Grandpa Goosey Gander, and get a watermelon for Nurse Jane, took a short cut through a field, and passed the house where the children were kept in on account of the rain. And, as it happened, the window near which the boy and girl stood was open a little way at the top.

So, as the bunny gentleman hopped past, he not only saw the children, but he heard what they said, being able, as I have before related to you, to understand real talk.

But the children were looking up at the sky so intently, trying to see if it would stop raining, that they never noticed Uncle Wiggily. Though if they had seen him, all dressed as he was like a gentleman from the moving pictures, they would have been very much surprised.

"Too bad those children have to stay in on account of the rain," thought Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder if I couldn't find some way of amusing them? If they are tired of their own playthings I might toss in, through the open window, some of the things the animal boys and girls play with. I'll do it!"

Off through the woods in the rain hopped Uncle Wiggily. He found a number of smooth, brown acorns, some of which had the cups, or caps still on. He filled one pocket with the acorns.

Next the bunny picked up some cones from the pine tree. There were large and small cones, and Nurse Jane always used one as a nutmeg grater, it was so rough, while Uncle Wiggily kept one near his bed to scratch his back at night.

"Let me see, what else would the animal children take?" said the bunny to himself. "I think they would take some green moss, and the girls would make beds with it for their dolls. The animal boys would take hollow reeds and blow little pebbles through them as real boys blow beans in their tin shooters. I'll take some moss and reeds."

This the bunny uncle did, also picking up some empty snail and periwinkle shells he found on the bank of a brook.

"The little girl can string these shells for beads," thought the bunny. "And I'll strip off some pieces of white birch bark so the boy can make a little canoe, as the Indians used to do."

Having gathered all these things--playthings which the animal children found in the woods every day--the bunny hopped back to the house of the boy and girl. The window was open, but the boy and girl had left it. The girl was giving her mother a drink of water, and the boy was bringing up some coal for the fire.

"This is my chance!" thought Uncle Wiggily.

Standing outside, he tossed in through the open window the acorns, the pine cones, the shells, the moss and other things. Then he hopped quickly away and hid behind a bush. He could hear the children come back into the room, and soon he heard the girl cry:

"Oh, look what the wind blew in! Some acorns! I can make little cups of them, and use the tops for saucers! And I'll set a play-party table for my doll, and decorate it with green moss. Oh, how perfectly lovely!"

"I'm going to make a boat out of this birch bark!" cried the boy. "And look! A hollow reed, like a bean blower! Now I can have some fun!"

"Look at the lovely shells I can string and make a necklace of!" went on the girl.

"And I can make wooden legs, and a wooden head and stick em on these pine cones and make believe they're Noah's ark animals!" laughed the boy. "Hurray!" he cried most happily.

"What is going on out there?" called Mother from where she was lying down. "Have you found something to play with?"

"Yes'm," answered the boy. "We'll be quiet now."

"And we don't care if it does rain," said the girl. "The wind blew a lot of lovely things in the window!"

But of course we know that Uncle Wiggily tossed them in.

"I guess they'll be all right now, no matter how much it rains," said the bunny, as he hopped along to see Grandpa Goosey, and buy the snowmelon--excuse me, I mean the watermelon--for Nurse Jane.

So this teaches us that sometimes a rain storm is good for letting you find out new ways of having fun. And if the looking-glass doesn't make funny faces at the rag doll, when she's trying to see if her hair ribbon is on backward, on the next page you may read about Uncle Wiggily and the mumps.

+Note+

Uncle Wiggily specially requests that the following story will NOT be read to children who have the mumps. Please wait until they are better.

STORY XVII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MUMPS

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, was hopping through the woods one day, and he was thinking of making his way over to the other side of the forest, where the real boys and girls lived, hoping he might have an adventure, when, all at once, Mr. Longears heard some voices talking behind a mulberry bush.

"I know what we can do," said the voice of a boy, as Uncle Wiggily could tell, for he had learned to know the talk of boys and girls.

"What can we do?" asked the voice of another boy.

"We can pick up a lot of stones," went on the first boy, "and we can make believe we're hunters, and we can walk through the woods and throw stones at the birds, and squirrels, and rabbits! Come on! Let's do it!"

"Oh, no! I don't want to do _that_," said the second boy. "It isn't any fun to throw stones at birds and bunnies. If you hit a mother bird, and break her wing, she can't take anything to eat to the little birds, and they'll starve."