STORY V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S DOLL
“Where is Bunty?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one morning, as he came down to breakfast in his hollow stump bungalow.
“Oh, Bunty has gone out to play, long ago!” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.
“Well, I’m glad of that,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, with a sigh, sort of restful like and ample. “It’s a good thing to have Bunty go out and play.”
“Do you mean it’s good for her?” asked Nurse Jane, as she sliced some carrots for the bunny’s breakfast and poured maple sugar sauce over them.
“It’s restful for Bunty and restful for me,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Do you know, Nurse Jane,” he went on, “since I found Baby Bunty, that cute little rabbit girl, in a hollow stump and brought her home to live with us, she certainly has kept me going. Yes, sir!” exclaimed Mr. Longears, explosive like and inflammatory, at the same time documentary, “she certainly has kept me busy!”
“But it’s good for you,” said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. “You haven’t looked so well in months. Baby Bunty, by being lively, and making you chase her every once in a while, keeps you from getting stiff.”
“Well, yes, perhaps,” admitted the bunny rabbit. “But, at the same time I am glad she has gone out to play this morning. Now, after breakfast, I can sit and read my paper in peace and restfulness.”
And, when he had finished eating his turnip turnovers, with lettuce frosting on, Uncle Wiggily sat down in his easy chair in the sunshine, and began to look over the Cabbage Leaf Gazette, which is the newspaper of the animal people of Woodland, near the Orange Ice Mountains.
But just as Uncle Wiggily was reading how Grandfather Goosey Gander had a cold in his bill and couldn’t quack very well, Nurse Jane suddenly cried:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Come here as quickly as you can. Hurry!”
“What’s the matter now?” asked the rabbit gentleman, as he dropped his paper and gave three hops, a jump and part of a skip to the window, out of which Nurse Jane was looking. “What’s the matter?”
“See! There goes Baby Bunty’s doll!” said the muskrat lady. “It’s skidding along over the ground as fast as the skillery-scalery alligator can crawl. Baby Bunty’s doll is running away, and she’ll feel so badly!”
“Baby Bunty’s doll running away? Impossible!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “The doll isn’t alive—it can’t run away!”
“But it is!” said Nurse Jane. “See it skiddle along!”
And, as true as I’m telling you, there was Baby Bunty’s doll, moving along the woodland path, over the green moss, over the green grass, over the brown leaves in and out among the green ferns. The doll was sliding along the ground, but no one was dragging her or pulling her or pushing her—that is as far as Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane could see.
“Did you ever? Can you imagine it!” cried the muskrat lady.
“I can see it!” said the bunny, rubbing his eyes, and his pink, twinkling nose, to make sure he was awake.
“I can see it!” said Uncle Wiggily. “I don’t have to imagine it. But what makes that doll go I don’t know. Some dolls can walk and talk, but I never saw one slide along all by herself before.”
“Run after it, quickly!” cried Nurse Jane. “Baby Bunty will feel very badly if her doll is lost! Run after it for her!”
“I will,” said the rabbit gentleman. Not stopping to put on his tall, silk hat, and forgetting all about his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, out of his hollow stump bungalow rushed Uncle Wiggily. After the doll he hopped.
But as fast as he hopped the doll skiddled along just as fast, always keeping ahead of Mr. Longears.
“Oh, ho! I’ll get you yet!” cried the bunny. And he hopped faster and faster. But the doll skiddled along even more quickly. Uncle Wiggily was hopping as he had never hopped before.
“What makes that doll skiddle along?” panted the bunny, all out of breath. “I cannot see any one pulling or pushing her. It can’t be a trick of the Pipsisewah or the Skuddlemagoon, for I can see neither of those bad chaps. What makes the doll move along? I must find out, but first I must get hold of it!”
So the bunny hopped along faster and faster, and the doll skiddled along until, all of a sudden, Baby Bunty’s play-toy caught on a twisted tree root, was held fast, and Uncle Wiggily, making a big jump, grabbed it. Then he saw that a thin, black but very strong thread was tied around the doll.
“Ha! Some one was pulling that doll along by this black string, and I couldn’t see it,” said the rabbit gentleman. “I wonder who did it?”
“I did!” cried a jolly voice, and out from behind a bush jumped Baby Bunty. “I tied the long thread to my doll, and then I hopped ahead and pulled the doll after me!” said Baby Bunty. “I wanted you to hop along fast, and not get stiff, Uncle Wiggily, and you did! Ho! Ho! Ha! Ha!”
Uncle Wiggily rubbed his pink nose. He shook his paw at Baby Bunty, but he couldn’t help laughing.
“I’m not stiff now,” he said, “but I may be tomorrow.”
“Oh, no you won’t!” laughed Baby Bunty! And if the bath tub doesn’t sprinkle paregoric perfume on the wash rag, thinking it’s a handkerchief, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s medicine.