Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Here comes the Skeezicks!”

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

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

“Oh, wait! Here comes the Skuddlemagoon!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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