STORY XXIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE RED TULIP
Down in Nurse Jane’s garden, near the hollow stump bungalow, grew many flowers besides the roses, out of which flew the black beetles to nip the noses of the Skeezicks, the Skuddlemagoon and the Pipsisewah, as I have told you.
Among the flowers were big tulips, white, golden and pink, and, best of all, Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, loved a tulip that was red.
“It makes me think of so many things that are beautiful,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I could look at the red tulip all day long.”
“Well, please don’t look at it all day just now, if you please!” begged Nurse Jane with a laugh. “Far be it from me, Uncle Wiggily, to hurt your feelings,” said she, “or to make you stop loving my flowers. But it is getting late afternoon now, and I have company coming for tea. There isn’t a bit of sugar in the bungalow, and unless you go to the seven and eight cent store and get me some—well, my little tea party will not be at all nice.”
“Oh, excuse me! I’ll go get the sugar at once,” said Uncle Wiggily. Then, putting on his tall, silk hat, and taking his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch off the garden gate, Uncle Wiggily started to hop to the nine and ten cent store for some sugar.
“But I must take just one more look at the red tulip,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I want to remember how beautiful it was as I hop along to the store.”
So he went into the garden again, and stood looking at the red flower, the petals of which were spread wide open to let the sun warm the heart of the blossom.
Then Uncle Wiggily noticed that some weeds were growing up too near the red tulip, so he dug them out with the end of his red crutch.
“Weeds are not good for flowers,” said Uncle Wiggily.
Just then Baby Bunty called to him from the back kitchen window:
“Uncle Wiggily, if you don’t stop fussing over that tulip, and hurry on to the store, it will be closed—I mean the store will be closed. It’s getting late.”
“Yes, and the tulip will be closed also,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Tulip flowers close when evening comes and open in the morning. But I’ll hurry, Baby Bunty.”
Giving one last look at his favorite flower, Uncle Wiggily hopped on to the ten and eleven cent store. The afternoon was rapidly turning into evening, and the bunny rabbit gentleman hurried as fast as he could. But, just as Baby Bunty had said, he had spent too much time over the red tulip. The store was closed and Uncle Wiggily could get no sugar.
“This is too bad!” he exclaimed. “What am I going to do for sugar for Nurse Jane’s tea! She’ll be so disappointed. I’ll go see if I can find another store that isn’t closed, as my red tulip must be closed now.”
So Uncle Wiggily hopped on through the woods, but no other store could he find. And it was getting later and later, and he knew it must be almost time for Nurse Jane’s company to arrive and have tea.
“Well, there is no help for it,” said the rabbit gentleman, sort of ashamed like and perfunctory. “I’ll just have to tell Nurse Jane I reached the store too late. She’ll have to use molasses to sweeten the tea. And yet that will not be at all nice.”
Still there was nothing else to be done. If it had been spring he could have gotten some sweet maple sugar sap from a tree, but the sap had stopped running.
“I guess molasses is what she’ll have to use,” said the bunny, as he hopped around the back way into his hollow stump bungalow. “I’ll take one last look at my red tulip,” he said. He wanted to put off, as long as possible, telling Nurse Jane the bad news.
Uncle Wiggily reached the garden. His red tulip had closed up its petals. Just as he had expected, until the blossom looked more like a bud than a full flower. And, as Uncle Wiggily looked at the red tulip he heard, coming from it, a voice which said:
“Let me out! Oh, please, let me out!”
“Who are you and where are you?” asked the rabbit gentleman in surprise.
“I am a buzzing bee and I am inside the red tulip,” was the answer. “I was getting a bit of yellow pollen on my legs, to help make wax, when the tulip flower suddenly closed its petals and I’m caught.”
“Yes, that is just what happened,” said the red tulip. “I’m sorry, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d open my petals and let you out, my dear bee, but I can not, I can not open my petals until morning.”
“Ah, but I can open them and I will, and I’ll let the bee out,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But I’ll do so very gently, my dear red tulip. I will not hurt you.”
Very carefully Uncle Wiggily opened the red tulip and out flew the buzzing bee.
“Thank you, Uncle Wiggily,” it said. And then it went on: “But why do you look so sad and worried?”
“Because I forget Nurse Jane’s sugar, or, rather, I got to the store too late,” was the answer.
“Oh, I can easily fix that,” said the bee. “Since you were so kind as to let me out of the red tulip, I’ll call a lot of my friends and we’ll bring sweet honey for Nurse Jane’s tea.” And the bees did, and so everything was all right, and Nurse Jane said the honey was better than sugar.
And, if the clothes pin doesn’t try to climb out of the thread box when it’s hiding away from the cake of soap as they play tag, you shall next hear about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s slippers.