Chapter VI: Part 6

Uncle Wiggily blew into the small end of one horn. Out of the other end came a sweet tooting sound.

"Hurray!" cried the bunny gentleman. "These will be just right for New Year's! I'll take one to the poor boy and one to his sister. Then they can celebrate with their friends who have regular tin horns."

"It is very kind of you to be so thoughtful," said Nurse Jane.

"And it was kind of you to help me make the New Year's horns from Billie's old ones," spoke Uncle Wiggily, as he skipped along, for it was getting dark and soon the Old Year would go away--like the hole in the doughnut--and the New Year would come, to bring with it Fourth of July, birthdays and Christmas.

Up the steps of the house of the poor boy and girl who had no New Year's horns to blow hopped Uncle Wiggily. No one saw him in the dusk. He placed the horns on the doormat, tapped three times with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch on the porch, and then hopped away.

"What was that?" asked the girl of the boy.

"I'll go see," he answered.

The boy opened the door and saw, in the light of the moon, which just then came from behind a cloud, the two goat horns made into New Year's "tooters."

"Oh, hurray!" shouted the boy, as he blew on one of the horns. "Now we can send the Old Year on its way and tell the New Year how glad we are to see him. Hurray!"

"And I can blow, too!" laughed the girl. "Hurray!"

Her brother gave her the other horn, and when twelve o'clock midnight came, the children blew on the tooters as loudly as they could. So did all the other boys and girls in the village; and the animal boys and girls in their nest-houses and burrows also blew on horns and wooden whistles to welcome the New Year.

All over the land the bells rang and horns were blown. Uncle Wiggily heard them in his hollow stump bungalow, and so did Nurse Jane.

"Happy New Year!" wished the muskrat lady.

"Happy New Year!" echoed the bunny gentleman.

The boy and girl, blowing Billie Wagtail's old horns, danced around their father and mother, wishing them a Happy New Year also.

"Where did you get the horns?" asked Mother.

"Oh, I guess Santa Claus dropped them, on his way back to the North Pole," answered the boy.

But we know better than that; don't we?

So, after all, everything came out right, and the boy and girl were very happy with their queer New Year's horns.

But if the Jumping Jack doesn't tickle the lollypop with the sharp end of the ice-cream cone, and make it fall off the stick, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily's Thanksgiving.

STORY XXVIII

UNCLE WIGGILY'S THANKSGIVING

There came, one afternoon, a knock at the door of the hollow stump bungalow where Uncle Wiggily Longears lived.

"Do you s'pose that can be the Fuzzy Fox or the Woozie Wolf?" anxiously asked Nurse Jane, the muskrat lady housekeeper.

"No," answered the bunny gentleman. "They would not dare come boldly up to my bungalow, in broad daylight, though if it were night they might come sneaking along, trying to nibble my ears. I suppose this may be Sammie or Susie Littletail, or Johnnie or Billie Bushytail. I'll let them in."

But when Uncle Wiggily opened the door, in came rushing a great big turkey gobbler gentleman. In his bill he carried a basket in which set a dish filled with something red.

"I have it, Uncle Wiggily! I have it!" exclaimed the turkey. "I picked it up and ran away with it! Now they can't have any Thanksgiving and I'll be safe! Shut the door!" he gobbled, and setting the basket on the floor he scuttled behind a chair, while Nurse Jane and Uncle Wiggily were so surprised they hardly knew what to do.

"_What_ in the world have you brought with you, Mr. Gobble Obble?" asked the bunny gentleman. Gobble Obble was the turkey's name.

"The _cranberry sauce_," was the answer. "At our house, where I have been living, they are making a great fuss over Thanksgiving, which will happen in a few days. They have been feeding me up to fatten me, and every day the Man would come out and look at me; though I didn't know what for until I heard the children talking about it."

"Talking about what?" Nurse Jane wanted to know.

"_Thanksgiving_," gobbled the turkey. "This morning I heard the cook say: 'That gobbler is fat enough to roast, now. I think I'll make the cranberry sauce. It will be Thanksgiving soon!'"

"Then," went on the turkey, "I knew why they had been feeding me things to make me fat! You can't imagine how I felt! Well, the cook made the cranberry sauce. She put it in a dish and set it out on the back steps to cool. I watched my chance, picked it up and ran over here. There's the cranberry sauce!" and Mr. Gobble Obble pointed to it with one wing.

"But why in the world did you bring away the cranberry sauce? What good is that going to do you?" asked Uncle Wiggily, very much puzzled by the turkey's queer talk and actions.

"Listen," gobbled the turkey. "I heard one of the children say that Thanksgiving wouldn't be Thanksgiving without _turkey and cranberry sauce_! Then, thinks I to myself, if I run away, and take the cranberry sauce with me, there will be no Thanksgiving, and many poor turkeys will be glad of it."

"Ha! Ha! Ha!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, chuckling so hard that his pink nose twinkled like a lightning bug on Fourth of July.

"What's the matter?" asked Mr. Gobble Obble. "Won't you be good enough to hide me and the cranberry sauce until after Thanksgiving? Then I'll be safe."

"Of course you may stay here," said the bunny gentleman. "But the idea of thinking you can stop Thanksgiving by hiding yourself, or the cranberry sauce!"

"Can't I?" asked Mr. Gobble Obble, doubtful-like.

"Of course you can't!" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "Why, Thanksgiving doesn't mean just feasting on turkey, ice cream and cranberries!"

"It does at the house I ran away from," said Mr. Gobble Obble.

"Yes, and I suppose it does at many other houses," went on the bunny gentleman. "But Thanksgiving is really a time in which to be thankful for the things one has had to eat all the year--for that, and other blessings. The Pilgrim Fathers, who came over to live among the Indians, were thankful for even a little parched corn."

"What are Indians?" asked the turkey, who had never studied history.

"Wild men, who wore feathers such as yours," said Nurse Jane. "They are Indians."

"I'll tell you about the Indians some day," promised Uncle Wiggily. "Now we must talk more about Thanksgiving."

"I don't like to talk about it," sighed Mr. Gobble Obble. "It isn't a happy thing for me even to think about, much less talk about!"

"But you shouldn't have run away with the cranberry sauce," went on the bunny gentleman. "I'm afraid I shall have to ask you to take it back."

"All right--I will," promised Mr. Gobble Obble. "But I'll go after dark, so the cook won't see me. Then I'll come here again and stay with you and Nurse Jane."

"Yes, do," invited the bunny. "Spend Thanksgiving with us."

So when it grew dark Mr. Gobble Obble picked up the basket of cranberry sauce in his bill, and went over the fields and through the woods to the village, where lived the real boys and girls and their fathers and mothers. Softly and silently, like the shadow of a feathered Indian, the turkey made his way to the back stoop. There he set down the cranberry sauce and scuttled over to Uncle Wiggily's hollow stump bungalow again.

Days and nights came and went, and then it was Thanksgiving.

"Very lucky am I to live to see this day," gobbled the turkey as he ate breakfast with Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane. "If I hadn't run away with the cranberry sauce I'd be roasting in the oven now!"

"Well, I'm glad you aren't," spoke the bunny. "Though of course it wasn't right for you to take the cranberry sauce."

"They'll have that for Thanksgiving, anyhow," remarked Nurse Jane. "But now, Wiggy," she went on, "if I get the baskets ready, will you start out with them?"

"Yes, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy," answered the bunny gentleman, twinkling his pink nose.

"What baskets are you speaking of?" asked Mr. Gobble Obble, as he saw the muskrat lady putting carrot cakes, turnip flopovers and lettuce sandwiches up in little bundles.

"These are for the poor folk of animal land," answered Uncle Wiggily. "Each year, at Thanksgiving, Nurse Jane puts up a good dinner for them, and I take the baskets around in my automobile."

"How nice!" gobbled the turkey. "May I help? I'm so thankful for not being in the oven, that I'd like to make some one else thankful too, if I could."

"That's the idea!" cried the bunny. "Yes, come along, Mr. Gobble Obble!"

Soon the bunny gentleman had filled his automobile with baskets of good things packed by Nurse Jane. Over the fields and through the woods rode Uncle Wiggily and the turkey gentleman, and many a poor animal family was the happier for Uncle Wiggily's visit.

And at last, when the final basket had been left, and Uncle Wiggily and the turkey were on their way back to the bungalow, out from behind a bush jumped the bad old Fuzzy Fox.

"I want to nibble Uncle Wiggily's ears for my Thanksgiving dinner!" howled the Fox. "I want ears to nibble!"

"Well, you can't--not to-day!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, and he made the auto go so fast that the Fox was left far, far behind.

"Oh, ho!" gobbled the turkey as they came within sight of the stump bungalow. "This ride will give us a good appetite for the Thanksgiving dinner."

"Indeed it will!" laughed the bunny.

But when they went inside, and met Nurse Jane, the muskrat lady looked at them in such a queer way that Uncle Wiggily asked:

"What is the matter, Miss Fuzz Wuzz?" (He sometimes called her that in fun.) "Has anything happened?" "Yes, Uncle Wiggily, there has," sadly answered the muskrat lady housekeeper. "I will not keep it from you!"

"Have--have they come after me?" asked the turkey in a faint and far-off voice. "Have they?"

"Oh, no," said Nurse Jane. "But by mistake I packed up everything in the house to eat in those Thanksgiving baskets, Uncle Wiggily! I didn't save out a thing for ourselves, and what to do about your Thanksgiving dinner I don't know! I'm so sorry----"

"Tut! Tut! Never mind," broke in Uncle Wiggily kindly. "I dare say we shall find something to nibble on. A couple of carrots will do me."

"Well, I have _those_," Nurse Jane said, "and a little corn."

"I love corn!" gobbled the turkey.

"I can eat it myself," the muskrat lady declared. "So if you can put up with that for Thanksgiving, we'll eat!"

Then they sat down to the corn and carrots, and Uncle Wiggily said:

"I'm thankful I could make the auto go so fast that we ran away from the fox."

"So am I," agreed the gobbler. "And I'm thankful I'm here sitting up to the dining table, instead of being nicely roasted on _top_ of it! And I'm thankful I could help you feed the poor animal families."

"I'm thankful," spoke Nurse Jane, "because you two gentlemen didn't scold and make a fuss when you found what a mistake I'd made about the dinner."

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "Then we are _all_ thankful, and there could not possibly be a better Thanksgiving than this!"

So they ate the corn and carrots and were very happy. And if the jumping jack doesn't waggle his tail like a skyrocket and knock over the milk bottles so they think they're roller skates and slide down the back stoop, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the circus.

STORY XXIX

UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE CIRCUS

Jackie Bow Wow, the little puppy dog boy, came running up to Uncle Wiggily one morning, so excited that he barked three times and fell down twice, stubbing his toe over a lollypop stick on the path.

"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" barked Jackie. "What you think? There's pictures of elephants, and tigers and lions and camels! There's a man putting up a big tent! There are red wagons and golden chariots, and blue wagons and one that plays funny tunes!"

"And there's a man with his face all painted red, white and blue, just like your rheumatism crutch!" barked Peetie Bow Wow, the other little puppy dog chap, as he ran up wagging his tail. "And there's popcorn, peanuts and pink lemonade! Wuff! Wuff!"

"What's it all about?" asked the bunny rabbit gentleman, as he sat down on the steps of his hollow stump bungalow, while the puppy dog boys caught their breaths, which had nearly run away from them.

"It's a circus!" cried Jackie and Peetie just like twins, which they almost were. "A real circus!"

"A circus!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "That's nice! Do you mean it is the kind you animal boys sometimes get up; where you charge two pins to get in and three pins for a seat?"

"Oh, no! It's a regular man-circus, that real boys and girls go to see!" barked Jackie.

"It's like the kind we once ran away and joined, where we learned to do jumping, to turn somersaults and other tricks," explained Peetie.

"Well, if it's that kind of a circus," spoke Uncle Wiggily, "we needn't bother our heads about it. We animal folk can't go to any real circus, you know!"

"Oh, but that's what we came to see you for!" whined Jackie. "We want you to take us to the circus!"

"Take you to the circus!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Why, the very idea! How would an old rabbit gentleman and two funny puppy dog boys look walking into a real circus? The men would think we belonged to it, and had somehow gotten out of our cages. They'd shut us up behind the iron bars, as the lions and tigers are kept. Take you two to the circus! Oh, no! It couldn't be thought of!"

"Oh, dear!" sighed Jackie.

"We told the others that you'd take us," softly barked Peetie.

"What others?" Uncle Wiggily wanted to know, curious like.

"Oh, Sammie and Susie Littletail, Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, and a lot of the animal boys and girls," went on Peetie. "We were over on the edge of the woods, looking at the circus men put up the tent and the colored posters, and we all thought you'd take us."

"Baby Bunty will be so disappointed!" said Jackie.

Uncle Wiggily twinkled his pink nose serious like and thoughtful.

"Hum! Circus!" murmured the old rabbit gentleman. "So Baby Bunty wants to go, does she? Well, she never saw a circus, not even a make-believe one, such as you boys get up. Now I don't care for a circus _myself_--I've seen too many of 'em. But I'll go--just to take Baby Bunty!"

"And may we come?" asked Jackie, eagerly.

"Oh, well, yes, I s'pose so!" slowly answered Mr. Longears. "Nurse Jane will say I'm queer; but what matter? A circus comes but once a year! Now run along, doggie boys. I'll have to think up some way of getting all of you into the circus tent, for we can't buy tickets and go in the regular way. The circus men wouldn't understand."

Jackie and Peetie were so delighted that they turned somersaults all the way across the field as they ran to tell the other animal boys and girls. Meanwhile Uncle Wiggily hopped along on his red, white and blue twinkling nose----Oh, listen to me, would you! I mean his rheumatism crutch. I guess I'm getting excited about the circus.

Anyhow Uncle Wiggily hopped across the field to the edge of the forest where Jackie and Peetie had said the big show was going to be given that afternoon. Surely enough there was the large white tent, much larger than the one the camping boys had used the time Uncle Wiggily helped dig a rain-water canal for the lads, so they would have dry beds to sleep in.

There was the circus tent!

And there were red, green, yellow, blue and purple posters showing pictures of lions, tigers, camels, elephants and all such wild animals.

"It's a regular circus surely enough," said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "But how am I going to get in with the animal boys and girls? I can't go up to the wagon and buy tickets, much as I'd like to. I can't speak man-talk, though I can understand it. How can I get in?"

Just then Uncle Wiggily saw two real boys slowly walking around outside the big tent. They seemed to be looking for something.

"I hope they haven't lost their ticket money," thought the bunny. One boy said to the other:

"Here's a good place to get in!"

"All right! Crawl under!" exclaimed the other.

Then those two boys suddenly crawled under the circus tent, because they had no money to buy tickets. Uncle Wiggily watched them.

"Why! The idea!" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "What a way to get in! Why--I have it! That's how I can get in with the animal children! I can crawl under the tent! Of course I wouldn't do it that way if I could buy them tickets, and get in the regular way. But I can't--the ticket man wouldn't understand if I hopped up with green or yellow leaf money. Crawling under the tent is the only way."

Uncle Wiggily hopped back to the woods where he had built his hollow stump bungalow. The animal children were gathered about waiting for him.

"Come on. It's time to start!" said Susie Littletail, who had on her best hat made of green ferns.

"Where are you going, Wiggy?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as she saw the bunny gentleman starting off at the head of the procession of animal boys and girls.

"Oh, I'm just going to take Baby Bunty to the circus," said Mr. Longears, holding the littlest rabbit girl by her paw.

"Are you sure you aren't going for _yourself_?" asked Nurse Jane with a laugh.

"Of course not!" exclaimed the bunny. "The idea!"

On he hopped with the animal children, and when they came near to the edge of the woods, where the circus tent gleamed white amid the green trees, Uncle Wiggily said:

"Wait here, children, until I hop ahead and see if everything is all right."

The bunny, hiding behind a bush, looked across a little field at the tent. He saw two more boys walk softly up and try to crawl under the white canvas, but all at once a man with a big club rushed up, drove away the boys, and cried:

"No, you don't! You can't get in this circus that way!"

"Oh, dear!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "If men are on guard to keep boys from crawling under the tent, they won't let me in with the animal children! What can I do? Baby Bunty will be so disappointed! Ha! I know! I'll start here in this field, and dig a burrow, or tunnel under ground. I'll slant it down until I'm beneath the tent, and then I'll slant it up, so when we come out we'll be inside the tent. In that way the men with clubs will not see us!"

Uncle Wiggily hopped back to the waiting animal children.

"I'll have to dig a tunnel-burrow to get you into the circus," said the bunny. "Stay here and keep quiet!"

Starting in the field, behind the bushes and a little way from the circus tent, Uncle Wiggily began to dig. He was a fast worker, and soon he had dug the burrow all the way through.

He came out inside the circus tent, beneath the rows of seats on which were perched many boys, girls and grown folk watching the funny clowns, listening to the band, seeing the men on the high trapeze bars and looking at the horses.

"Ha! The circus is just beginning!" said Uncle Wiggily to himself, as the big bass drum boomed out: "Zoom! Zoom!"

He crawled back through the burrow and got the animal children in line.

"Forward march!" cried Uncle Wiggily, and through the underground burrow crawled the rabbits, squirrels, puppy dogs, pussy cats, chickens, ducks, guinea pigs and all the smaller animal friends of the rabbit gentleman.

They were not seen by the men with clubs, because they crawled beneath the tent far below the ground. Then they came up inside the circus, under the high tier of seats.

"Oh, isn't it wonderful!" cried Baby Bunty, keeping hold of Uncle Wiggily's paw.

"Hush!" whispered the rabbit gentleman. "Don't let the people up above know we're down here or they might chase us out!"

So there sat Mr. Longears and his little friends, having a fine view of the circus almost from start to finish. And the people sitting on the seats above dropped peanuts and kernels of popcorn which the animal children picked up and ate. The only thing they didn't have was pink lemonade, but perhaps that was not good for them.

And at last, when the band began to play like anything, and the horses and elephants raced around the big ring, Uncle Wiggily said:

"Come, now. The circus is ended. We had better get out before the crowd starts or we may be stepped on. Did you like it, Baby Bunty?"

"Oh, it was the most wonderful thing I ever saw!" sighed the little rabbit girl. "Thank you, ever so much!"

"Yes, and we thank you also, Uncle Wiggily," called the other animal children.

Then they crawled down through the burrow again, outside the tent and came into the woods, through which they scampered to their different homes. But they had been to the circus!

And if the window curtain doesn't roll up so fast that it flies to the top of the ceiling, taking the gold fish with it, you shall next hear about Uncle Wiggily and the lion.

STORY XXX

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LION

Once upon a time, as Uncle Wiggily was hopping through the woods, he heard a roaring sound, coming, it seemed, from a distant clump of trees.

"Oh, ho!" exclaimed the bunny rabbit gentleman. "That's thunder! I suppose we are going to have a storm. I didn't bring my umbrella, but I can find a large toadstool, or mushroom. That will do as well."

The animal folk often use toadstools for umbrellas, you know, and Uncle Wiggily had done this more than once. The bunny hopped on a little farther, and the roaring, rumbling sound boomed out again.

"The thunder is coming nearer," thought Mr. Longears. "I had better hurry if I am going to pick a toadstool umbrella!"

He limped on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch over toward a large mushroom (which, of course, isn't the same as a toadstool, though they look alike), and Uncle Wiggily was just breaking off the stem, so he would not get wet in the thunder shower, when, all of a sudden, a loud voice asked:

"Can you please tell me where the circus went to?"

Uncle Wiggily turned so quickly that he nearly lost the twinkle from the end of his pink nose. For the voice that spoke was almost as loud as thunder.

"Was that you making the noise like a storm?" asked the bunny as he saw a large yellow creature, with a great head, surrounded by a fluffy mane, and a tail on the end of which was a bunch of hair.

"It was," answered the big animal. "I'll try to speak more gently if it hurts your ears. But, naturally, I have a loud voice, being a lion, you know."

"Yes, I knew you were a lion. I remember seeing you in the circus," spoke the bunny gentleman, who was not at all afraid. "But tell me, why aren't you with the show now?"

"Because I ran away," the lion answered. "I got tired of being shut up in my cage all the while, and, when the man left the iron door open I slipped out. I've been hiding in the woods ever since; but it is not as much fun as I thought it would be. Now I wish I could go back to the circus. Can you please tell me where it is?"

"I am sorry to say I cannot," Uncle Wiggily answered. "But if you will come with me to my hollow stump bungalow--not that you can get inside, for you are too large--why, perhaps Nurse Jane may know where your circus is. She knows nearly everything."

"Who is Nurse Jane?" asked the lion.

"She is Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper," replied the bunny gentleman.

"A rat, is she?" went on the lion. "I don't know much about rats, but once a mouse gnawed the ropes, when I was caught in a net, and set me free--that was before I joined the circus."

"Well, a muskrat is something like a big mouse," said Uncle Wiggily, "so I think you will like Nurse Jane."

"I'm sure I shall," the lion rumbled, trying to make his voice soft and gentle.

"Well, then," went on Uncle Wiggily, "please come along with me, and I'll try to find the circus for you. Nurse Jane may know where it moved to, or some of the animal boys and girls may tell us."

So Uncle Wiggily hopped through the woods, the lion stalking along beside him, and soon they reached the hollow stump bungalow of the bunny gentleman.

"Nurse Jane! Nurse Jane!" called Mr. Longears. "I have brought home a friend with me!"

"Not to dinner, I hope, Wiggy," remarked Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, from inside the bungalow. "I have a dreadful headache! I haven't been able to wash the breakfast dishes yet, and as for making the beds, and dusting the furniture--it is out of the question! So if you want dinner----"

"Please tell her not to bother," whispered the lion. "I am not hungry and----"

"Is that thunder?" asked the muskrat lady, thrusting her head, tied up in a wet towel, from her bedroom window.

And when the muskrat lady saw the big lion she screamed.

"Pray do not be frightened, my dear Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy," the lion said. "I just came with Uncle Wiggily to inquire where I might find the circus, from which I foolishly ran away. But I'll toddle on, and not bother you, since you are ill."

"Oh, it isn't really any bother," spoke the muskrat lady. "I could get you a cup of tea. It was only your loud voice that startled me."

"I'm sorry," rumbled the lion, as gently as he could. "I'm afraid my voice is rather louder than the purr of a pussy cat. But I can't help it."

"Oh, of course not!" agreed Nurse Jane. "I wish I could ask you in, but our bungalow was not made for lions."

"I'll come in and get him something he can eat outside," offered Uncle Wiggily. "By that time some of the animal boys or girls, who know where the circus went, may come along, since you don't know, Nurse Jane."

"No, I am sorry to say I don't know," spoke the muskrat lady, as she went back to bed with her headache.

Uncle Wiggily took some carrot soup and some lettuce tea out to the lion, but though the tawny creature said he was not hungry, he ate nearly all there was in the bungalow, for his appetite was much larger than that of the muskrat lady or Mr. Longears.

"And now I would like to do you and Nurse Jane a favor," went on the circus chap, licking the soup off his whiskers with his red tongue. "Couldn't I help wash the dishes or make the beds?"

"I'm afraid not!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, thinking how funny it would look to see a lion making a rabbit's bed.

"Yes, I suppose I am too large to get in the bungalow," went on the roaring chap, in as gentle a voice as he could make come from his throat. "But I know one way in which I can help!"

"How?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"With my tail," said the lion. "That isn't too large to put through one of your windows. And on the end of my tail is a tuft of fluffy hair, just like a dusting brush. Please let me stick my tail in through the different windows. Then I can switch it around, and dust the furniture for Nurse Jane."

"Do you think you can?" asked the bunny, doubtful-like.

"Of course!" said the lion. "True, I never before have dusted furniture in a bunny's hollow stump bungalow, but that is no reason for not trying. Please give me a chance!"

So Uncle Wiggily opened all the windows. The lion backed up, and thrust his tail first in one and then in another. When his tail was in the parlor he switched it around--I mean he switched his tail around--and the fluffy tuft of hair on the end knocked all the dust off the chairs, table and piano. Soon the parlor was as nicely dusted as Nurse Jane could have done it herself.

In this way, with his tail, the lion dusted all the rooms in the bungalow, even the one where Nurse Jane was lying down with a headache. And when the muskrat lady saw the lion's fluffy tail switching around on her chairs in such a funny way, she laughed, and then, in a little while, her headache was all better.

"You certainly are a good houseworker," said the muskrat lady as she got up and drank a cup of tea. "And you have done me a great favor."

"Pray do not mention it," spoke the lion politely as he flapped his tail in the air to rid it of dust. "It was a pleasure!"

Then along came Jacko Kinkytail, the monkey boy, and he said the circus had moved on to a town about ten miles away.

"Thank you! I'll travel there and get back in my cage," rumbled the lion. Then, with a polite bow to Nurse Jane and Mr. Longears, the tawny, yellow chap with the big voice walked away through the forest. And every time the muskrat lady thought of the lion thrusting his tail in through the window to dust the furniture she had to laugh.

Now would you like to hear a story about Uncle Wiggily and the tiger? Well, you may if the scrubbing brush doesn't take the cake of soap out to the washrag's party and forget to bring it back for the bathtub to play ball with.

STORY XXXI

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE TIGER

"Uncle Wiggily! Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" called a voice after the rabbit gentleman, as he was hopping away from his hollow stump bungalow one morning.

"What's the matter now?" inquired the bunny, turning around so quickly that his tall silk hat nearly slipped down over his pink, twinkling nose. "Does the Woozie Wolf or the Fuzzy Fox wish to nibble my ears?"

"I hope not!" exclaimed Nurse Jane, the muskrat lady housekeeper, for she it was who had called. "But will you please take my scissors with you, Uncle Wiggily?"

"Take your scissors? What for?" asked Mr. Longears.

"To have them sharpened," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "They are so dull I can hardly cut anything, and I want to cut some linen up into new sheets and pillow cases. Take my scissors along with you, Wiggy dear, and have them made good and sharp."

"I will," promised the bunny rabbit gentleman. Then, wrapping the dull scissors in a grape-vine leaf, Uncle Wiggily put them in the top of his tall silk hat, and set the hat on his head.

"Why do you put them there?" asked Nurse Jane.

"So I'll remember them," the rabbit gentleman answered. "If I put them in my pocket I'd forget them. But now, if I meet Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, or Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, and bow to them, I'll take off my hat. Out will slide the scissors, and then I'll remember that I am to get them sharpened."

"That's a good idea," said Nurse Jane. "Now don't forget to bring them back to me good and sharp. If you don't I can't cut up into sheets and pillow cases the new linen I have bought."

"I'll not forget," promised the bunny gentleman.

He hopped on and on through the woods, and he had not gone very far before, all of a sudden, he heard a growling, rumbling-umbling noise, a little like far-off thunder.

"I wonder if that can be the lion again?" thought Uncle Wiggily. "Perhaps he couldn't find the circus and he has come back to dust more furniture for Nurse Jane with the end of his tail stuck through a window in the bungalow."

Uncle Wiggily looked through the forest, but he saw no tawny lion. Instead he saw, limping toward him, a beast almost as big as the lion, but with a beautiful black and yellow striped coat.

"Oh, ho! Mr. Tiger--the one I saw when I went to the circus with Baby Bunty!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "This is a tiger!"

"Yes, I am the striped tiger," answered the other animal. "And, oh, what trouble I am in!"

"What is the matter?" kindly asked the rabbit gentleman, for he could see that the tiger was limping and in pain.

"I ran a thorn in my foot," went on the black and yellow fellow, "and my eyes are so poor I can't see to pull it out."

"Perhaps I can," Uncle Wiggily said. "I have strong glasses."

So the bunny gentleman looked through his spectacles, and soon saw the thorn that was in the tiger's foot. It did not take Uncle Wiggily long to pull it out.

"Oh, thank you, so much!" growled the tiger, though not in a cross voice. "It serves me right, I suppose, for having run away from the circus."

"Did you run away, too, as the lion did?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"Yes," answered the striped beast, "we ran away together--the lion, some other animals and myself. But now I'd be glad to run back again."

"The lion was," said Uncle Wiggily. "He was very glad to go back."

"Don't tell me you have met _him_!" exclaimed the tiger. "Where is he?"

"He started back yesterday, after stopping at my bungalow and helping Nurse Jane dust the furniture with his tail through the windows," the bunny answered.

"Then I'm going back, too!" declared the tiger. "It isn't as much fun roaming by yourself through the woods as I thought it would be. I'm going back!"

"Before you start," kindly suggested Uncle Wiggily, "please come to my bungalow with me."

"Does more furniture need dusting?" asked the tiger, laughing. "I have no fluffy tuft on the end of my tail, as has the lion."

"It isn't that," the bunny answered. "But I would like to have Nurse Jane put some salve on the place where the thorn ran in your paw, and also wrap it up in a rag."

"That would be very nice," spoke the tiger. "Right gladly will I come with you."

So he limped through the forest with the bunny gentleman, and soon they came to the hollow stump bungalow.

"More company for you, Nurse Jane!" called the jolly rabbit uncle.

"That's nice," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "Oh, you're a tiger, aren't you?" she went on, as she saw the striped beast.

"And he has a sore paw," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "Will you put salve on it for him, Nurse Jane?"

"Of course," answered the muskrat lady. And when the tiger's sore paw was nicely wrapped in a clean rag, he started off through the woods to find the circus.

"Good-bye, and come again," invited Uncle Wiggily, making a low and polite bow with his tall silk hat.

"I will," promised the tiger. And then the bunny suddenly exclaimed:

"Oh, your scissors, Nurse Jane! I forgot all about getting them sharpened," and he picked them up from where they had fallen when he took off his hat.

"Oh, dear! That's too bad!" said the muskrat lady. "And I wanted to cut the linen in strips to make sheets and pillow cases. Now it is so late I'm afraid the sharpening place will be closed."

"Perhaps I can help," said the tiger, turning back.

"Can you sharpen scissors?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"No," was the answer, "but my claws are sharper than any scissors you ever saw. If you and Nurse Jane will hold the cloth, I will cut it into strips for you with my sharp claws. I don't need to use my sore paw. I'll take my other one."

"Oh, that will be very kind of you," said Nurse Jane. "I forgot that tigers have sharp claws."

So the muskrat lady and the rabbit gentleman held the linen cloth in front of the tiger, and with his claws he cut and slashed it into just the shapes Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy needed for making sheets and pillow cases.

"I am very glad I could do you this favor," the tiger said, when all the linen was cut.

"So am I," spoke Uncle Wiggily, "for if you hadn't been here to use your claws, Nurse Jane would not have forgiven me for not remembering to get the scissors sharpened. Good-bye!"

"Good-bye!" echoed the tiger, as he walked on to find the circus. And that night he slept in his cage again.

So if the doorknob doesn't try to crawl through the keyhole to play bean bag with the rice pudding in the gas stove oven, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the elephant.

STORY XXXII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE ELEPHANT

"Matches, Uncle Wiggily! Matches!" cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy one morning, as the bunny rabbit gentleman was hopping down the forest path, away from his hollow stump bungalow.

"What's that? Patches?" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "Did I put on my garden trousers that have patches?" and he tried to twist his neck like a corkscrew, so he could look behind him.

"No, I didn't say '_patches_'!" laughed Nurse Jane. "I said _matches_. Don't forget to bring me some matches to light the fire, when you come back from looking for an adventure."

"Oh! Matches!" repeated the bunny. "I'll get some for you, Nurse Jane."

Over the fields and through the woods hopped the bunny rabbit gentleman. He looked here, there and everywhere for an adventure, but could not seem to find one. The Woozie Wolf nor the Fuzzy Fox did not chase him to nibble his ears. Not that Uncle Wiggily wanted them to, but, if they had, that would have been an adventure.

"Well, perhaps I shall find one when I come back," said the bunny gentleman as he hopped along to the seven and eight cent store, where he bought a box of matches.

Carrying these fire-sticks in his paw, Uncle Wiggily was hopping through the forest, on his way back to the hollow stump bungalow when, all at once, the bunny gentleman felt the ground trembling, and he heard a sound like a big horn being blown, and then a loud voice said:

"Oh, dear! I can't get it out!"

"Well, what can this be?" thought Uncle Wiggily. "That horn sounds like the big brass one I heard in the circus. From the way the earth shakes I'd say a big automobile truck was coming along. And as for someone who can't get something out--well, that sounds like trouble! I'd like to help, but first I must see who it is."

Uncle Wiggily looked through the bushes, and at first he thought he saw the side of some big house moving behind the trees. Then he noticed something like a great leaf flapping in the wind, and a moment later something long, like a fire hose, was thrust forward.

"Why, it's an elephant!" exclaimed the bunny, as he caught sight of the big chap.

"An elephant is just who I am," was the answer in a rumbling voice, coming through the rubber hose of a trunk. "I'm from the circus, and I wish I might be back there this minute, eating my hay!"

"Oh, so you have run away from the circus also, like the lion and tiger?" questioned the bunny.

"Yes," answered the elephant, "I did. But what do you know of my friends, the lion and tiger?"

"Oh, I have met them," answered Mr. Longears. "But is that your only sorrow--wishing you were back in the circus?"

"Indeed it is not," the elephant answered. "I have stepped on a loose stone, and it is fast between the toes of my left hind foot. I can't get it loose by stamping on the ground, and I can't reach so far back with my trunk. I'm in great pain and trouble!"

"That is too bad," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "I guess your stamping on the ground is what I thought was an auto truck coming along."

"Perhaps," admitted the big circus elephant. "I wish I could get that stone out from between my toes," he went on, stamping so hard that he shook the very trees, making them rustle as though a wind had blown them.

"Maybe I can help you," said Uncle Wiggily most kindly. "I have with me my red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch. With that I may be able to poke out the stone that hurts you."

"I wish you'd try," begged the elephant.

It did not take the bunny gentleman long to loosen the stone from between the elephant's toes, for the foot of an elephant is not like that of a horse or cow--he really has toes and toe-nails, just as you have, only a little larger, of course. Well, I should say so!

"Ah, I feel much better, Uncle Wiggily! Thank you!" spoke the elephant through his hollow rubber hose-like trunk, and it sounded like a trumpet or brass horn when he talked. "Now that the stone is out of my foot I shall go back to the circus."

"The path to the place where the circus is now showing leads past my bungalow," said the rabbit gentleman. "I'll hop along and point out for you the way. I'd like you to meet Nurse Jane."

"That will give me pleasure, also," remarked the elephant, who was very polite.

So he and Uncle Wiggily went along together, but several times the bunny had to say:

"Please don't go so fast, Mr. Elephant. I can't keep up with you."

"I beg your pardon," spoke the immense chap. "Suppose I lift you upon my back and carry you that way?"

"I should much like that," the rabbit uncle said. So in his trunk the elephant gently lifted up Uncle Wiggily, and set him down on the broad back.

"Ah, this is even better than my auto," laughed Uncle Wiggily, as the elephant crashed his way through the forest. Soon they came to the hollow stump bungalow.

"More company for you, Nurse Jane!" called Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh.

"Eh? What's that? Where are you? I don't see anybody but a big elephant?" cried the muskrat lady, looking up.

"I'm on his back!" answered the bunny. And as the elephant lifted Mr. Longears down in the trunk, Nurse Jane was so surprised that she hardly knew what to say.

"Will you--er--have a cup--I mean a _washtub_ of tea?" the muskrat lady asked, well knowing that so big a creature must drink a lot of everything.

"Some water is all I need, thank you," answered the elephant. "I had something to eat in the forest before I met Uncle Wiggily."

Then the big chap put his trunk down in the brook and sucked up a great quantity of water. Uncle Wiggily put the box of matches down on the bench at the side of the bungalow, where the sun shone bright and hot, and watched the elephant drink.

"Well, now I'll travel along and go back to the circus," said the big chap with the large trunk and little tail. "I'll tell the lion and tiger I met you."

"Please do." begged the bunny, and then, all of a sudden Nurse Jane cried:

"Fire! Fire! Fire! Oh, the sun has set off the box of matches, and the bungalow is burning! Fire! Fire! Fire!"

Surely enough, this had happened. The box of matches, fizzing and spluttering, was burning Uncle Wiggily's bungalow.

"Turn in an alarm; Get the firemen! Call out the water bugs!" cried the bunny gentleman.

"Just a moment! Don't get excited!" spoke the elephant calmly. "I will put out that fire in a second!"

He sucked up more water from the brook in his trunk and squirted it on the blaze. The fire hissed and spluttered and died out in a puff of smoke.

"Oh, you have saved my bungalow!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Thank you ever so much! Only for you I'd be burned out of house and home!"

"Pooh! That wasn't any more than you did for me--taking the stone out of my foot," said the elephant. "With my rubber hose-nose of a trunk, I very often put out little fires."

"Oh, I'm so glad Uncle Wiggily met you!" sighed Nurse Jane. "If he hadn't, our bungalow would have burned down, perhaps, Mr. Elephant!"

"Well, one good turn deserves another," laughed the elephant as he tramped away through the forest to find the circus, and the bunny gentleman and Nurse Jane waved "Good-bye" to the big chap.

So if the wheelbarrow doesn't catch cold when it runs after the train of cars to get a ride around the block, the next adventure will be about Uncle Wiggily and the camel.

STORY XXXIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CAMEL

"What sort of an adventure do you think you will have to-day, Uncle Wiggily?" asked the muskrat lady housekeeper of the bunny rabbit as he hopped away from the hollow stump bungalow one morning.

"Well, Nurse Jane, I hardly know," was the answer. "I may meet with some of those queer circus animals again."

"I hope you do," Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy said, as she tied her whiskers in a bow knot, for she was going to dust the furniture that day. "The circus animals are very kind to you. And it is strange, for some of them are such savage jungle beasts."

"Yes," spoke the bunny gentleman, "I am glad to say the circus animals were kind and gentle. More so than the Pipsisewah or Skeezicks. But then, you see, the circus animals have been taught to be kind and good--that is, most of them."

"I hope you never meet the other sort--the kind that will want to nibble your ears!" exclaimed Nurse Jane as Uncle Wiggily put his tall silk hat on front-side before and started off with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch under his paw.

"I hope nothing happens to him," sighed Nurse Jane as she went in to put the dishes to bed in the china closet.

But something was going to happen to Uncle Wiggily. You shall hear all about it.

On and on through the woods hopped the bunny rabbit gentleman, looking first on one side of the path and then on the other for an adventure. He was beginning to think he would never find one when, all of a sudden, he heard a rustling in the bushes, and a voice said:

"Oh, dear! I can't go a hop farther! I'm so tired, and my bundle is so heavy. I guess I'm getting old!"

"Ha! That sounds like trouble of the old-fashioned sort!" murmured Uncle Wiggily to himself. "I may be able to give some help, as long as it isn't the fox or wolf, and it doesn't sound like them."

The bunny gentleman peered through the trees and, sitting on a flat stump, he saw an old gentleman cat, looking quite sad and forlorn.

"Hello, Mr. Cat!" called Uncle Wiggily, cheerfully, as he hopped over toward the stump. "What's the trouble?"

"Oh, lots of trouble!" mewed the cat. "You see I'm a peddler. I go about from place to place selling pins and needles and things the lady animals need when they sew. Here is my pack," and he pointed to a large bundle on the ground near the stump.

"But what is the matter?" asked the bunny gentleman. "Don't the animal ladies buy your needles, pins and spools of thread? Just step around and see Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper. She is always sewing and mending. She'll buy things from your pack."

"Oh, it isn't _selling_ them that's the trouble," said Mr. Cat. "But I am getting so old and stiff that I can hardly carry the pack on my back any longer. I have to sit down and rest because my back aches so much. Oh, how tired I am! What a weary world this is!"

"Oh, don't say that!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, who felt quite cheerful that morning. "See how the sun shines!"

"It only makes it so much hotter for me to carry the pack on my back," sighed the cat.

"Ha! That is where I can help you!" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "I am quite well and strong, except for a little rheumatism now and then. That, however, doesn't bother me now, so I'll carry your peddler's pack for you."

"Will you? That's very kind!" said the cat. "Perhaps I may be able to do you a favor some day."

"Oh, that will be all right!" laughed the bunny, as he twinkled his pink nose. "Come along, we'll travel together and perhaps find an adventure."

Uncle Wiggily slung the cat-peddler's pack up on his back, the pussy carried the bunny's crutch, and so off they started together through the woods. They had not gone very far, and the bunny was wondering whether he could not sell Nurse Jane a lot of pins to help the poor cat when, all of a sudden, a loud, snarling sort of voice cried out:

"Oh, where can I find some water? Oh, how much I need a drink! I can go without one for seven days, but this is the eighth and if I don't see some water soon I don't know what will happen!"

"I wonder who that is?" asked the peddler cat.

"I don't know, but we'll soon find out," spoke Mr. Longears.

They looked through the bushes and there they saw a very strange animal, and not what you would call pretty, either. This animal had a long neck, bent like the letter U, and his face looked as though he had rolled over on it in his sleep. But the queerest part of all was his back, on which were two humps, like little mountains, running up to peaks.

"Oh, what a queer chap!" mewed the peddler cat.

"Hush, don't let him hear you!" whispered Uncle Wiggily. "I think this is an animal from the circus."

"You are right--I am!" exclaimed the two-humped chap, looking toward the bushes behind which Uncle Wiggily and the cat were standing. "I heard what you said, too, Mr. Cat," the odd chap went on. "But I don't mind. I'm a camel, and I'm used to hearing folks say how queer I look. But I am in trouble now. Oh, dear!"

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

"I'm so thirsty," the camel said. "You see, I took a long drink before I ran away from the circus, which I did, very foolishly, as I wanted some adventures. Well, I'm having them, all right! I've been lost in the woods, and, though I had enough to eat I couldn't find a thing to drink. On the desert, where I came from, I could find water once in a while. But here I'm lost."

"And, though I am a camel," went on the humped creature, "and can hold enough water in my stomach to last for several days, now my time is up. I haven't had a drink for over seven days, and unless I get one soon I don't know what will happen."

"Oh, I can take you to the duck pond and you can get a drink there, Mr. Camel," Uncle Wiggily said, as he hopped out from behind the bush.

"Oh, ho! What a funny chap you are!" snarled the camel, not that he was cross, only a snarl was his regular way of speaking. "Are you a little camel?"

"Why, no, I'm not a camel," answered the bunny. "What made you think so?"

"Because of that hump on your back," said the camel. "Some of us camels have two humps, and some only one. But surely you cannot be a one-humped camel! I never saw one with ears so long!"

"Indeed, I'm not a camel!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "I'm a rabbit, and this pack that you see belongs to this poor peddler cat, who is too tired to carry it. So I am carrying it for him."