STORY VIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND BUNTY’S BOUQUET
“Will you do me just a little favor, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Baby Bunty one day, as she came home from school, and saw the dear old rabbit gentleman sitting in the sun outside his hollow stump bungalow.
“Do you a favor? Why, of course, I will, Baby Bunty,” said Mr. Longears to the little rabbit girl he had found in the woods. “But I hope it is a favor that will not make me hop around. I am a bit stiff from having gone on the picnic with you yesterday. Though I had a good time, after all,” he said.
“I’m glad you did,” said Baby Bunty. “This favor is a very easy one. You can sit there and do it. All I want you to do is to tell me what kind of woodland flowers to pick for a bouquet for the lady mouse teacher in the hollow stump school.”
“Oh, ho!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “So your lady mouse teacher wants a bouquet, does she?”
“Yes,” answered Baby Bunty. “She told each one of us to bring wild flowers to school tomorrow. Sammie and Susie Littletail, and Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, and Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble—they all know where to look in the woods for the blossoms. But I’m such a little rabbit girl I don’t know. So if you’ll tell me about the flowers, I’ll go pick them before supper, and have them ready for tomorrow.”
“Well,” said Uncle Wiggily, slowly like and disengaged, as he tilted back on his easy chair, “there are red flowers and blue ones, and golden yellow ones, and some of purple. They will make a nice bouquet when you pick them. Now run off in the woods, Baby Bunty, and pick some flowers. Then you’ll have pretty posies for your teacher.”
Uncle Wiggily closed his eyes, gave his pink nose a soft little twinkle and was dozing off again into a little before-supper sleep. Baby Bunty shook her little head.
“This will never do,” she thought. “Uncle Wiggily will get old and stiff, and he’ll think his rheumatism is worse and all things like that if I let him keep so quiet. I must rouse him up. I haven’t time to make him chase me, as I want to gather flowers. What shall I do? Oh, I know!”
Softly Baby Bunty hopped off on her tippy tip-paws. Into the woods, not far from the hollow stump bungalow, she went, and there she saw some red flowers. She began to pick them, looking back, now and then, through the trees to where Uncle Wiggily was asleep against the side of his hollow stump bungalow.
“I must rouse him up and make him more lively!” thought Baby Bunty. Then, all of a sudden, as she was picking pink flowers she gave a little scream and cried:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Come quick! Here’s a big snake after me!”
“What’s that! A snake! A snake after Baby Bunty when she’s picking a flower bouquet for teacher?” cried the rabbit gentleman, suddenly waking up. “That must never be!”
Quickly he sprang from the bark bench on which he had been sitting. Over to the edge of the woods he ran, where Baby Bunty was picking a bouquet.
“Where’s the snake?” asked Uncle Wiggily, all ready to kindly ask the crawly creature to go away and not hurt the little rabbit girl. “Where’s the snake?”
“There!” cried Baby Bunty, pointing to something squirming on the ground.
“That? Why that is only an angle worm!” said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. “He won’t hurt you, Baby Bunty.”
“Oh! Only an angle worm!” said the little rabbit girl, innocent-like and dissembling. “Why, I thought it was a snake!”
The angle worm crawled away, laughing to himself. Uncle Wiggily went back to sleep and Baby Bunty went on picking her bouquet. She glanced back to where Mr. Longears was having a nap. Then Baby Bunty suddenly cried again:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! There’s a big beast in an aeroplane airship flying after me! Come quick and drive him away! Oh! Oh!”
“A big beast in an airship!” exclaimed the rabbit gentleman, suddenly waking up. “Oh, ho! I’ll soon drive him away!” He ran to Baby Bunty.
“There it is!” she said, pointing her paw to something fluttering in the air.
“That? Why, that’s only a dragon fly!” said Uncle Wiggily. “He will never hurt you. All he does is to eat mosquitoes.” And back the bunny went to sleep, while the dragon fly flew on, laughing to himself.
Pretty soon Baby Bunty, who now had some red, white and blue flowers for her bouquet, called:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! There’s a big, wild, spotted leopard after me! Come quick!”
Uncle Wiggily jumped up so quickly from his sleep that he upset the bark bench.
“Where’s the spotted leopard?” he cried.
“There!” said Baby Bunty, pointing.
“That! Why, that’s only Billy No-Tail, the spotted frog boy!” said Uncle Wiggily. “He won’t hurt you!”
“Oh!” said Baby Bunty softly, “I thought he was a green and yellow spotted leopard. Well, as long as I have roused you up so often, Uncle Wiggily, don’t you think you’d better stay awake now, and help me pick teacher’s bouquet? It will keep you from getting stiff.”
“I suppose so,” said the rabbit gentleman, sort of sighing resigned like. And as he helped pick the flowers he heard Baby Bunty laugh softly every now and then.
“I wonder,” thought Uncle Wiggily, “if she knew, all the while, that it was only an angle worm, a dragon fly and the frog boy? I wonder?”
And so do I. And if the Thanksgiving Fourth of July pinwheel doesn’t scratch the baby’s rattle box and make it squeak like a tin horn I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Bunty’s hat.