"Why in the world are you taking those bottles with you?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw Uncle Wiggily, the bunny rabbit gentleman, hopping off the front porch of his hollow stump bungalow one morning.
"These are the prizes which Alice from Wonderland gave me," answered Mr. Longears, as he looked at the blue and red corked bottles. "The red one makes things grow larger and the blue one makes them smaller. I am going to take them with me as I go looking for an adventure today, as there is no telling when I might need them. I did yesterday, when the alligator caught me. I gave him a drink from the blue bottle and he shrunk until he was no larger than a baby angle worm."
The rabbit gentleman had not gone very far, twinkling his pink nose as he hopped, before, all of a sudden, he came to a place where a big stone grew out of the ground, and near it he heard a voice, saying:
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!"
"Ha! That sounds like trouble!" exclaimed the bunny. "Who are you and what is the matter?" he asked, kindly.
"Oh, I am a Lady Bug," was the answer, "and I am so small that I either get lost all the while, or all the other animals and bugs in the forest step on me. Oh, I wish I were larger so I could be more easily seen!"
"Indeed, you are rather hard to see," said Uncle Wiggily, and he had to look twice through his glasses before he could notice the Lady Bug. At the first look he only half saw her, but the second time he saw her fully.
"I'd like to be about as large as a June Beetle," said the Lady Bug. "But I don't s'pose I ever shall be."
"Oh, yes you will!" cried jolly Uncle Wiggily.
"I will! How?" asked the Lady Bug, eagerly.
"I have here some water in a magic bottle," said the bunny. "I'll give you a few drops of it, and it will make you grow larger." So he took some water from the red-corked flask, and let the Lady Bug sip it. Instantly she grew as large as a turkey.
"Oh, now I'm too big," she said.
"I see you are," said Uncle Wiggily.
"I'll have to give you some from the other bottle and make you grow smaller." So he did, but he must have given a little too much, for the Lady Bug suddenly grew as small as the point of a baby pin.
"Oh, this is worse and worse," she said sadly.
"I know it!" agreed Uncle Wiggily. "Wait, I'll give you a little of both kinds," and he did, so the Lady Bug grew to the size of a small potato, which was just right, so she would not get lost or stepped on.
After the Lady Bug had thanked him, Uncle Wiggily, with his two magical bottles, hopped on through the woods. He had not gone very far before he saw Alice of Wonderland and the Queen of Hearts playing croquet on a grassy place.
"Come on, Uncle Wiggily!" called Alice. "You're just in time for the game."
"Fine!" said the bunny uncle, taking a mallet and round wooden ball which the Queen handed him.
"Three strikes and you go out!" warned the Queen.
"What does she mean?" asked Uncle Wiggily of Alice. "This isn't baseball."
"She means," explained the little flaxen-haired girl, "that if you miss striking the croquet ball three times with your mallet you have to go out and bring in some ice cream."
"Oh, I shan't mind that," the bunny rabbit said. "In fact, I shall rather like it. Now, what do I do—?"
"Play ball!" suddenly cried the Queen of Hearts, and she struck with her mallet the croquet ball near her such a hard blow that it sailed through the air and hit Uncle Wiggily in the coat tails. And then something cracked.
All at once the croquet ball began growing larger! Bigger and bigger it grew, like a snowball which you roll in the yard, and then it began to roll after Uncle Wiggily. Down the croquet ground the big wooden ball chased after him, rolling closer and closer.
"Oh, my!" cried the Queen of Hearts, "What have I done?"
"The ball cracked the magical red stoppered bottle that was in my coat tail pocket!" cried Uncle Wiggily over his shoulder, as he ran. "Some of the magic, big-growing water spilled on the ball, and now it has turned into a giant! Oh, it will crush me!"
And, really, it did seem as though the big croquet ball would, for now it was as large as a house and still growing, so strong was the water in the magical bottle that had been broken.
Larger and larger grew the croquet ball, and faster and faster it rolled after Uncle Wiggily. It was almost on his heels now, and the bunny gentleman was running so fast that his tall silk hat flew off.
"Oh, what shall I do?" he cried.
Alice thought for a minute, then she called:
"Quick, Uncle Wiggily. Take out the blue-corked bottle and sprinkle some of that water on the croquet ball! Hurry now!"
Uncle Wiggily did. As he ran he turned and threw back over his shoulder some of the blue bottle water on the big rolling croquet ball. And, all at once, just as the alligator had done, the croquet ball shrank and shrank until it was no larger than a boy's marble, and then it couldn't hurt Uncle Wiggily even if it did roll on him.
But it is a good thing he had that bottle of shrinking water with him; isn't it?
And, if the expressman doesn't take the baby carriage to ride the trunk down to the five-and-ten-cent store to buy a new piano, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Do-do.
"I declare!" exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper for Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, "I declare, I'll never get it done—never!"
"What?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "What won't you get done?"
"All this housework," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "You see, going over to call on Mrs. Bushytail, the squirrel lady, last night I didn't wash the supper dishes, and now I have them to do, and also the breakfast dishes and the sweeping and dusting and I ought to bake a cake, and mend some of your socks and—"
"Whoa!" called Uncle Wiggily with a jolly laugh, as though he had spoken to Munchie Trot, the pony. "That's enough! Don't say any more. You have too much work to do."
"And I'm worried about it," said Nurse Jane.
"Don't be," advised the rabbit gentleman. "I'll stay and help you do it."
"No," said Nurse Jane. "Thank you just the same, but I'd rather you wouldn't stay around the hollow stump bungalow when there is so much to do. You might get in my way and I'd step on you. That would give me the fidgets. It is very kind of you, but if you'll go off and have an adventure I think that will be best."
"Just as you say," agreed Uncle Wiggily. "But I'd like to help. Can't I bring you a diamond dishpan or a gold wash rag from the five and ten cent store?"
"No! Hop along with you!" laughed Nurse Jane. "I dare say I'll manage somehow."
So Uncle Wiggily hopped along, over the fields and through the woods, and then he suddenly said to himself:
"I know what I'll do. I'll play a little trick on Nurse Jane. She shouldn't spend so much time in the kitchen. A little is all right, but there is too much trouble about housework. Here I go off and have an adventure and she has to slop around in dishwater. It isn't right!"
Then the rabbit gentleman hopped along until he came to a woodland telephone, made from a trumpet vine flower, and into that he called, speaking right into his own hollow stump bungalow and to Nurse Jane.
"Oh, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy!" called Uncle Wiggily. "Can you come over to Mrs. Wibblewobble's duck house right away?"
"Why, yes, I can," answered the muskrat lady, "though I have a lot of work to do. What is the matter?"
"I'll tell you when you get there," said the voice of Uncle Wiggily, pretending he was Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady. Then he called up Mrs. Wibblewobble herself, told her how he had fooled Nurse Jane, and asked the duck lady, when the muskrat lady housekeeper came, to keep her talking and visiting as long as she could.
"And while Nurse Jane is at your house, Mrs. Wibblewobble," said Uncle Wiggily, over the trumpet vine telephone, "I'll run around the back way to the hollow stump bungalow and do all the work."
"That will be a nice surprise for Nurse Jane," the duck lady said.
Uncle Wiggily guessed so, too, and when he thought Nurse Jane was safely at Mrs. Wibblewobble's house, he went to the bungalow. He took off his tall silk hat, laid aside his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and began with the dishes. There was a large pile of them, but Uncle Wiggily was brave.
"When I was a soldier I fought a great many more mosquitoes than there are dishes here," he said. "I will make believe the plates, cups and saucers are the enemy, and I will charge on them and souse them."
And Uncle Wiggily did, with a cake of soap for a gun and washing powder to fire with. But, still and with all, there were many dishes, and when he thought of the beds to make, the sweeping and dusting to be done and the socks to mend, Uncle Wiggily said:
"Oh, dear!"
"What's the matter?" asked a voice behind him, and turning, he saw Alice from Wonderland. With her was a queer bird, which had a tail like that of a mouse.
"Oh, I'm glad to see you!" said Uncle Wiggily. "But I can't go and have an adventure with you, Alice, as I have to do all these dishes. Then I have to do the sweeping and do the dusting and do—"
"That's enough!" laughed Alice. "There are too many Do-dos. I am just in time, I see. My friend will help you," and she pointed to the queer bird.
"What?" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Can he do dishes?"
"He can do anything!" laughed Alice. "He is the Do-do bird, and all I have to do is to pinch his tail and he will work very fast."
"Doesn't it hurt him?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"What, to work fast?" Alice wanted to know.
"No, to pinch his tail."
"Not in the least," answered Alice. "He's used to it. The only trouble is I have to keep on pinching it to make him do things, and that means I have to keep my finger and thumb on his tail all the while and follow him around. Now we'll begin to do things, dear Do-do," and she pinched the bird's tail.
At once the bird began to wash dishes, and soon they were all done, and then when the Do-do started to do the beds Uncle Wiggily thought of a new plan.
"As long as you have to pinch his tail," said the bunny to Alice, "I'll get Nurse Jane's hair curlers. You can snap them on his tail and they'll keep pinching on it, and pinching on it all the while, and you and I can go take a walk."
"Fine!" cried Alice. So with the hair curlers pinching his tail the Do-do bird quickly did all the bungalow housework, and Uncle Wiggily and Alice had a fine walk. And when Nurse Jane came home from Mrs. Wibblewobble's and found the work all done she was very happy. And so was the Do-do, for he loved to do dishes.
And if the teacup doesn't try to hide in the milk pitcher, where the bread crumbs can't tickle it when they play tag with the butter knife, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Lory.
Once upon a time the skillery-scalery alligator was out walking in the fields near the muddy river where he lived, and he happened to meet a big spider.
"Good morning, Mr. Alligator," said Mr. Spider. "Have you caught that Uncle Wiggily Longears bunny yet?"
"I have not, I am sorry to say," answered the alligator chap. "I've tried every way I know how, but something always happens so that he gets away. Either he is helped by that funny book-girl, Alice from Wonderland, or by some of her friends. I'm afraid I'll never catch Uncle Wiggily."
"Oh, yes, you will," said Mr. Spider. "I'll help you."
"How?" asked the 'gator, which was his short name, though he was rather long.
"I'll crawl through the woods and over the fields until I find him asleep," said Mr. Spider. "And, when I do, I'll spin a strong web around and over him so he cannot get loose. Then I'll come and tell you and you can get him."
"Very good," spoke Mr. Alligator. "Please do it."
So the alligator went back to sleep in the mud to wait until Mr. Spider should bring him word that Uncle Wiggily was held fast in the web.
And now let us see what happens to the bunny gentleman. As he always did, he started out from his hollow stump bungalow one morning to look for an adventure. There had been a little accident at breakfast time. Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, had boiled the eggs too long and they were as hard as bullets.
"You can't eat them," she said to Uncle Wiggily. "I'll boil you some fresh ones."
"All right," laughed the bunny. "I don't want to get indyspepsia by eating hard bullet eggs. But I'll take them with me and give them to Johnnie or Billie Bushytail, the squirrel boys. They can crack hard nuts so they must be able to crack hard boiled eggs."
So it was that Uncle Wiggily, after having eaten the newly boiled soft eggs, started from his hollow stump bungalow with the hard boiled eggs in his pocket.
He had not traveled very far before he heard from behind a big log a voice crying:
"Oh, dear! It isn't hard enough! It isn't half hard enough!"
"What isn't?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as he saw a funny looking bird with a very large bill like a parrot's. "What isn't hard enough?"
"This log of wood," was the answer. "I need something hard to bite on to sharpen my beak, but this wood is too soft."
"You are a funny bird," laughed the bunny gentleman. "Who might you be?"
"I am the Lory bird," was the answer. "I belong in the book with Alice of Wonderland, but I'm out for a day's pleasure, and, as I can't tell what I might have to eat, I thought I'd sharpen my bill. But I can't find anything hard enough to use as a grindstone."
"Suppose you try these," said Uncle Wiggily, taking the hard boiled eggs out of his pocket.
"The very thing!" cried the Lory. "These will be fine for my bill!" With that he champed his beak down on the hard eggs and he had all he could do to bite them. "Now I'll get my beak good and sharp," said Lory. "You have done me a great favor, Uncle Wiggily, and I hope some day to do you one."
"Pray, do not mention it," said the bunny rabbit, modest-like and shy. Then, having found a good use for the hard boiled eggs, even if he didn't give them to the Bushytail squirrel boys, Uncle Wiggily hopped along, and the Lory kept on biting the shells for practice.
Now, it was a warm day, and, as Uncle Wiggily felt tired, he sat down in a shady place in the fields, and soon fell fast asleep. And, no sooner was he in Dreamland than along came Mr. Spider.
"Ah, ha!" said the spider. "Now's my chance to catch this bunny for the alligator. I'll spin a strong web around him, so strong that he cannot break loose. Then I'll go get my friend, the 'gator."
So while Uncle Wiggily slept, Mr. Spider spun a strong web about the bunny—a very extra strong web, with such big strands that Uncle Wiggily never could have broken them himself. And when the web was all finished, and the bunny was helpless, he awakened just as Mr. Spider was going off to call Mr. Alligator.
"Oh, what has happened to me?" cried the bunny, as he found he could not move his paws or even twinkle his pink nose. "Oh, what is it? Let me go!"
"No, you can't go!" said the spider. "You are going to stay there until I bring Mr. Alligator," and away he crawled. Uncle Wiggily tried to get loose, but he could not.
"Oh, if only some one would come who's good and strong, and would cut this web, then I would be free!" said the bunny.
And then, all of a sudden, out from behind the bush came the Four and Twenty Tailors, from Mother Goose. They had their big scissors with them, and they were led by Alice of Wonderland.
"I told these silly tailors I'd help them hunt the snail, because they are so timid that they even fear her tail," laughed Alice, "but we'll stop and help you first, dear Uncle Wiggily!"
Then the Four and Twenty Tailors, with their shears, sniped and snapped the strong spider's web until it was all in pieces and the bunny could easily get loose. And when the alligator, fetched by the spider, came to get the bunny he wasn't there.
But the strong-billed Lory bird was there. He had heard about Uncle Wiggily's trouble from the Do-do bird, and had come, with his strong bill, to bite the spider web into little pieces.
"But I am too late, I see," said the Lory. "The Mother Goose Tailors got here first. However, as I want to bite something hard and mean I'll bite the alligator." And he did and the alligator said "Ouch!" and I'm glad of it.
And if the telephone bell doesn't ring at the front door and make believe it's the milkman looking for old rags, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the puppy.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" called Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the two doggie boys, as they ran barking up to the hollow stump bungalow one morning.
"Well, well! What's the matter now?" asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as he came out on the porch.
"Oh, we've got a baby over at our house!" cried Jackie.
"Come and see it!" barked Peetie.
"A baby? At your house?" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily.
"Well, a little puppy dog," said Jackie. "That's the same to us as a real baby is to real persons."
"To be sure," agreed the bunny uncle. "I'll come over and see the new baby puppy," and putting on his tall silk hat, and taking down his red-white-and-blue-striped barber pole rheumatism crutch from the electric light, Mr. Longears started away over the fields to the kennel house, where the Bow Wow dog family lived.
"There's the new baby puppy!" cried Jackie, as he poked away the straw from the bed where something was moving about.
"I—why, bless my spectacles—I can hardly see him!" said Uncle Wiggily, taking off his glasses to polish them, for he thought maybe he had splashed some carrot oatmeal on them at breakfast and that they were clouded over.
"He's so small, that's why you can't see him," spoke Peetie. "But he'll soon grow big like us, Uncle Wiggily."
"Let us hope so," spoke the bunny uncle. "He's so small now I'd be afraid of stepping on him if I lived here."
"He's got awful cute eyes," said Peetie. "They aren't open yet, but I can pull 'em apart a little bit to show you they're going to be blue color, I guess," and Peetie began opening the shut eyes of his little baby brother puppy. Of course, the puppy whined and Mrs. Bow Wow called:
"Now, what are you boys doing to that baby?"
"Nothing, ma," answered Jackie.
"We're jest pokin' open his eyes so Uncle Wiggily can see 'em," answered Peetie.
"Oh, you doggie boys!" cried Mrs. Bow Wow. "You mustn't do that! I'm glad Uncle Wiggily came to see our baby, but now you run out and play, Peetie and Jackie, while I visit with Mr. Longears."
So the doggie boys ran out to play with Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, and Mrs. Bow Wow told Uncle Wiggily what a nice baby Wuff-Wuff was. Wuff-Wuff was the new puppy's name.
"I'm sure he'll grow up to be a fine dog," said the bunny. Just then the telephone bell in the kennel house rang, and when Mrs. Bow Wow answered she said, after listening awhile:
"Oh, dear! This is your friend Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy talking to me. She wants me to come over to show her how to make a strawberry longcake, as there is a lot of company coming for supper. A short cake won't be large enough."
"Are you going to my hollow stump bungalow?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"I'd like to, only I can't leave Baby Wuff Wuff," said Mrs. Bow Wow.
"Oh, I'll stay and take care of him," said the bunny uncle. "I think I can do it, and it may be an adventure for me. Trot along, Mrs. Bow Wow."
"Very well, I will. If Wuff Wuff gets hungry, just give him some milk from this bottle," and she handed a nursing one to Uncle Wiggily. So Mrs. Bow Wow went over to help Nurse Jane, the muskrat lady housekeeper, make the longcake, and the bunny man stayed with the puppy baby.
Uncle Wiggily sat in the kennel house, while the little doggie nestled in the straw. The bunny rabbit was just wondering who the company could be that were coming to his bungalow, when, all of a sudden, there was a big noise outside the kennel, and a big voice cried:
"Now I know you're in there, Uncle Wiggily, for I saw you hop in with Jackie and Peetie. And I know they're gone, for I saw them go out. And I know Mrs. Bow Wow is out. So you're there all alone and I'm going to get you!" And Uncle Wiggily saw the big skillery-scalery alligator standing outside the door.
"Oh, my!" thought the bunny rabbit gentleman. "He'll surely get me this time, for he can knock the kennel house apart with one flip-flap of his double-jointed tail. But maybe, if I keep real still, he will think I'm gone."
So Uncle Wiggily snuggled down in the straw with the baby puppy, but the alligator cried:
"Oh, I know you're there, and I'm going to get you!"
"Oh, if only this puppy was a big, strong dog, like Nero!" thought Uncle Wiggily, "he could save me from the alligator." Just then the puppy began to whine, and the bunny rabbit said:
"Oh, don't do that, Wuff Wuff! Don't whine, and make a noise, or the alligator will get you, too."
But the puppy baby still whined, for he was hungry. Uncle Wiggily picked up a bottle and put the end of it in Wuff Wuff's mouth.
"Here, drink that," said the bunny. "Then you won't be hungry." The puppy baby did so, and then something very strange happened. The little puppy suddenly began growing very large. First he was the size of Mr. Bow Wow, and then he swelled up until he was as big as a horse, and had to get out of the kennel house for fear of bursting off the roof.
And when the alligator saw the great big puppy dog, like the one in Alice of Wonderland, suddenly standing in front of him, Mr. 'Gator just gave one flip of his tail, and away he ran crying:
"Oh, my! I didn't know an elephant was there to save Uncle Wiggily!"
But there wasn't. It was only the puppy who had suddenly grown big. For by mistake instead of giving him the bottle of milk, the bunny rabbit gave him some of the water from the magical red-stoppered, big-growing bottle that Alice from Wonderland had sent the bunny. It had been mended after the croquet ball broke it. And, after the puppy had scared away the alligator, Uncle Wiggily gave Wuff Wuff some water from the magical blue-stoppered bottle and shrunk him to his regular baby size, and everybody was happy.
And if the fairy tale doesn't waggle itself all around the book case and scare all the big words out of the dictionary, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Unicorn.
"Well, you look just as if you were going somewhere, Uncle Wiggily," said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as the rabbit gentleman whizzed around the corner of his hollow stump bungalow in his automobile, with the bologna sausage tires, one morning.
"I am going somewhere," he answered, and really he was, for the wheels were whizzing around like anything.
"And going where, may I ask?" politely inquired the muskrat lady.
"I am going to give Alice a ride," answered Uncle Wiggily. "Alice from Wonderland, I mean. She never has ridden in an automobile."
"She never has?" cried Nurse Jane, in surprise.
"Never! You see, when she was put in that nice book, which tells so much about her, there weren't any autos, and, of course, she never could have had a ride in one.
"But she had ever so many other nice adventures, such as going down the rabbit hole and through the looking glass. However, I promised her a ride in my auto, and here I go to give it to her," and with that Uncle Wiggily sprinkled some pepper and salt on the sausage tires of his auto's wheels to make them go faster.
The rabbit gentleman found Alice, the little book girl, in the White Queen's garden having a make-believe tea party with the Mock Turtle, who soon would have to go into the 5 o'clock soup.
"Oh, how kind of you to come for me, Uncle Wiggily!" cried Alice, and she jumped up so quickly that she overturned the multiplication table, at which she and the Mock Turtle had been sitting, and ran to jump in the auto.
"Well, I don't call that very nice," said the Mock Turtle. "Here she's gone and mixed up the seven times table with the three times six, and goodness knows when I'll ever get them straightened out again."
"I'm sorry!" called Alice, waving her hand as she rode off with Uncle Wiggily. "I'll help you when I come back."
"And I'll help too," promised the bunny uncle.
Mr. Longears and Wonderland Alice rode over the fields and through the woods, and they were having a fine time when, all of a sudden, as the automobile came near a place where some oak trees grew in a thick cluster Alice cried:
"Hark! They're fighting!"
"Who?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "Please don't tell me it is the mosquito enemy coming after me to bite me."
"No, it's the Lion and the Unicorn," Alice answered. "Don't you remember how it goes in my book:
"'The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the Crown,
The Lion beat the Unicorn all around the town.
Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown,
And then the funny Unicorn jumped right up and down.'
"That last line isn't just right," explained Alice to the bunny uncle, "but I couldn't properly think of it, I'm so frightened!"
"Frightened? At what" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"At the Unicorn," answered Alice. "Here he comes," and, as she said that, Uncle Wiggily saw a funny animal, like a horse, with a big long horn sticking out of the middle of his head, straight in front of him, galloping out of the clump of trees.
"Hurray! I beat him!" cried the Unicorn. "Come on now, quick, I must get away from here before they catch me!"
"You beat him? Do you mean beat the Lion?" asked Uncle Wiggily for he was not frightened as was Alice.
"Sure I beat him," answered the Unicorn, as he jumped into the back seat of the automobile. "Drive on!" he ordered just as if the bunny uncle gentleman were the coachman.
"Did you beat him very hard, with a broomstick?" asked Alice, putting out her head from behind Uncle Wiggily's tall silk hat where she had hidden herself.
"Beat him with a broomstick? Ha! Ha! I should say not!" laughed the Unicorn. "We're too jolly good friends for that," and he spoke like an English chap. "I beat him playing hop-Scotch and Jack-straws. I was two hops and three straws ahead of him when I stopped and ran away because they were after me."
"Who were after you?" asked Alice. "The lion's friends?"
"No, the straws that show which way the wind blows. When the wind blows the straws against me they tickle, and I can't bear to be tickled. I'm worse than a soap bubble that way. So I ran to get in the auto. I hope you don't mind," and the Unicorn leaned back on the seat cushions.
"Mind? Not in the least!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I'm glad to give you a ride with Alice," and he made the auto go very fast. On and on they went, over the fields and through the woods and then, all of a sudden, out from behind a tree jumped the big skillery-scalery alligator walking on his hind legs and the end of his double-jointed tail.
"Halt!" he cried, like a sentry soldier, and Uncle Wiggily stopped the auto. "At last I have caught you," said the alligator in a nutmeg grater sort of a voice. "I want you, Uncle Wiggily, and that Alice girl also. As for your friend in the back seat, he may go—"
"Oh, may I? Thank you!" cried the Unicorn, and with that he leaned forward. And, as he did so the long sharp horn in his head reached over Uncle Wiggily's shoulder, and began to tickle the alligator right under his soft ribs.
"Oh, stop! Stop it, I tell you!" giggled the 'gator. "Stop tickling me!" and he laughed and wiggled and squirmed like an angle worm going fishing.
"Stop! Stop!" he begged.
"I will when you let my friends, Uncle Wiggily and Alice, alone," said the Unicorn, still tickling away.
"Yes! Yes! I'll let them alone," promised the alligator, and he laughed until the tears ran down his tail. And then he had to run off by himself through the woods, and so he didn't get the bunny uncle nor Wonderland Alice either. And he never could have gotten the Unicorn, because of his long, ticklish horn.
So it is sometimes a good thing to take one of these stickery chaps along when you go for an automobile ride. And if the skyrocket doesn't fall down and stub its nose when it tries to jump over the moon with the crumpled horn cow, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Humpty Dumpty.
"Excuse me," spoke a gentle voice behind Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, who was cleaning the steps of the hollow stump bungalow one morning. "Excuse me, but can Uncle Wiggily be out to play?"
"Be out to play?" repeated Nurse Jane. "Do you mean play with you?" and the muskrat lady turned to see a little girl, with flaxen hair, standing at the foot of the steps.
"Yes, play with me, if you please," said the little girl. "I'm Alice from Wonderland, you know, and Uncle Wiggily and I had such a jolly time yesterday, when the Unicorn tickled the alligator and made him laugh, that I'd like to go off with him again."
"With whom—the alligator?" asked Nurse Jane.
"No, with Uncle Wiggily," laughed Alice. "Where is he?"
"Here I am, Alice. I've just finished breakfast," answered the bunny rabbit gentleman himself, as he came out on the front bungalow steps. "Are you ready for another auto ride?"
"Indeed I am, thank you. And as tomorrow is a holiday I don't have any school today."
"That's funny," said Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his pink nose. "What holiday is it?"
"The Fourth of July!" answered Alice. "Have you forgotten? Even though I am an English girl I know what it means. Your boys and girls shoot off lollypops, bang ice cream cones and light red, white and blue candy."
"Candy? I guess you mean candles!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "However, you're right. It is the Fourth of July tomorrow, and whereas, years ago, we used to shoot off firecrackers (when many children were burned), now we have a nicer holiday.
"We go off in the woods and gather flowers. Why, do you know!" cried the bunny uncle, "there are flowers just right for Fourth of July. There are puff balls that are as good as torpedoes, and snap-dragons that open their mouths and make believe bite you, and there are dogwood flowers that bark, and red sumach which is just the color of firecrackers."
"Then let's go off in the woods and have Fourth of July there," proposed Alice, and soon she and the bunny uncle were in the automobile. And then along came Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, and Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" cried these animal boys and girls. "Take us with you for Fourth of July!"
"Of course I shall!" promised the bunny gentleman, so they all got in the automobile with him and Wonderland Alice, and away they went.
They had not gone very far before, all of a sudden, they came to a stone wall, and when Alice saw something on top of it, she cried:
"Why, there's my old friend Humpty Dumpty. I must stop and speak to him or he'll think I'm proud," and she waved her hands.
"Why, that—that's nothing but an—egg!" said Sammie. "It's like the ones I colored for Easter when the skilli-gimink dye splashed all over me. That isn't Humpty Dumpty at all—it's an egg!"
"Hush!" whispered Susie. "Humpty Dumpty is an egg, of course, but he doesn't like to be told of it. Don't you know the little verse?
"'Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the King's horses and all the King's men
Couldn't put Humpty Dumpty together again.'"
"That's right," said Alice from Wonderland. "Only don't speak of the fall before Humpty. He doesn't like to be reminded of it."
"I don't see why," spoke Jackie Bow Wow. "He can't hear a word we say. He's only an egg—he hasn't any ears."
"He really isn't dressed yet," said Alice. "It's a bit early. But I'll soon make him look more human."
With that she jumped out of the auto and, taking two ears of corn from a field nearby, she fastened them with silk from the cob, one on each side of the egg.
"Now he can hear," said Alice. Then with tulip flowers she made Humpty a mouth and from a potato she took two eyes, so the egg could see. A comb made him as nice teeth as one could wish for, and they never ached, and for a nose she took out a cute little bottle of perfumery.
"I think that's a queer nose," said Johnnie Bushytail, frisking his tail.
"Well, a bottle of perfumery smells, doesn't it?" asked Alice, "and that's what a nose is especially for; smells."
"Indeed it is!" cried Humpty Dumpty in his jolly voice, speaking through the tulips. "I'm all made now. I only hope—" And then he suddenly turned pale, for he nearly fell off the wall. "Has any one any powder?" he asked. "I think I'd like to clean my teeth."
"I have some talcum," spoke Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl, coming along just then.
"That will do," spoke Humpty Dumpty. "It will be just fine." And with a brush made from the end of a soft fern he began to clean his teeth with the talcum powder which Lulu gave him.
And then, all of a sudden, there was a loud noise, a puff of smoke, and Humpty Dumpty, the egg man, was seen sailing off through the air like a big white balloon.
"Well, this is better than falling off the wall!" he cried in a faint voice.
"Oh, my! What happened?" asked Sammie Littletail, trying to make his pink nose twinkle as Uncle Wiggily did his.
"Humpty Dumpty was blown up instead of falling down," said Alice. "I guess your talcum powder was too strong for him, Lulu, my dear. And it being the Fourth of July tomorrow, Humpty wanted to give us some fireworks. So he's gone, but I'm glad he wasn't broken, for if he was the way the book has it, when he falls off the wall, all the King's horses and all the King's men couldn't put him together again. Maybe it is best as it is."
But, after a while Humpty Dumpty sailed back again, not hurt a bit, and he sat on the wall as well as ever.
Then Alice and Uncle Wiggily and the animal boys and girls had fun in the woods. And, if the pink pills don't hide in the green bottle and pretend they're peppermint candy for the rag doll, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the looking glass.
"A package came for you while you were out adventuring today," said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, to Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, as he hopped down the stairs of the hollow stump bungalow to breakfast one morning.
"I wonder what's in it?" asked the bunny as he put a slice of carrot jam on his bread and held it over the lettuce coffee to have it flavored.
"I don't know. You'll have to open it to find out," answered Nurse Jane. "It is marked 'Glass. With Care.'"
Uncle Wiggily was so eager and excited like that he could not wait to finish his breakfast, but quickly opened the package which Mr. Hummingbird, the lightning express messenger, had left at the bungalow early that morning.
"It's a looking glass!" exclaimed the bunny uncle when he saw what it was. "And it's from Alice in Wonderland—at least she used to live in Wonderland before she came to Woodland to have adventures with me."
"And there's a note with it," spoke Nurse Jane, as she saw a piece of white birch bark, with writing on it; the letters having been made with a burned stick which marks black like a lead pencil.
"Yes, it's a little letter," said Uncle Wiggily as he read it. "And it's from Alice. It says: 'Dear Uncle Wiggily: I send you the Looking Glass I once went through, and on the other side I had many adventures. I wish you the same!'"
"That's queer," said the bunny, as he turned the glass over and looked at the back. "I don't see any hole where Alice went through."
"Maybe it closed up after her, the same as fairy doors always close once you pass through," explained Nurse Jane.
"I believe you are right," said Uncle Wiggily. "But this is a very small glass for a girl like Alice to get through," and indeed the glass was one of the kind you hold in your hand.
"Maybe the glass was larger when Alice went through it," said Nurse Jane, "or else perhaps she had taken some drops from the magic bottle and grew small like a rubber doll."
"I guess that was it," agreed Uncle Wiggily. "Anyhow, it is very kind of her to send me the looking glass. I may have an adventure with it. I'll take it out on the front steps and then we'll see what happens next."
So, having finished his breakfast, the bunny went out on the bungalow porch and sat with the looking glass in his paw, waiting for something to happen.
He sat there and sat there and sat there and he was just beginning to wonder if anything would happen, when, all of a sudden, there was a rustling in the bushes, and up on the porch popped a bad old skillery-scalery alligator, with bumps all down the middle of his back like the buttons on a lady's dress.
"Ah, ha! I am just in time, I see!" exclaimed the 'gator.
"For what?" asked Uncle Wiggily, suddenly awakening, for he had fallen into a little sleep while he waited for an adventure to happen with the looking glass. "In time for what?"
"To go away with you," answered the alligator.
"But I am not going away," said the bunny. "At least I did not know I was going," and he looked around rather sad and lonesome, for he did not like the bad alligator, and he wanted to see, Uncle Wiggily did, if brave Nurse Jane Fuzzy would not come out and throw cold water on him—on the alligator, I mean—to drive him away. But the muskrat lady had gone to the store to get some cheese for supper.
"I am not going away," said Uncle Wiggily again.
"Oh, yes you are!" exclaimed the alligator, and he smiled in such a way that it seemed as though the whole top of his head would pop off, so large was the smile. "You may not know it, but you are going away, Uncle Wiggily."
"With whom?" asked the bunny.
"With me," answered the 'gator. "We are going away together. I came on purpose to fetch you. Come along," and with that the bad alligator wound his double-jointed tail around the bunny uncle's ears, lifted him out of the rocking chair and started to walk off the bungalow porch with him.
"Oh, stop it!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Let me go! Let me go!"
"No! No!" barked the alligator, like a dog. "I'll not let you go, now I have you!" and he started to drag the bunny uncle off to the dark, damp, dismal swamp, where the mosquitoes lived with the tent caterpillars.
"Oh, please don't take me away!" begged the bunny. "I wish some one would help me!" and as he said that the alligator gave him a sudden twist and the looking glass, which Uncle Wiggily still held in his paw, came around in front of the alligator's face.
And, no sooner had the 'gator looked in the glass than he gave a loud cry, and, unwinding his tail from Uncle Wiggily, away the bad creature scurried, leaving the bunny alone and safe. And the alligator cried:
"Oh, excuse me! I didn't mean anything! I'll be good! I won't hurt Uncle Wiggily!"
"Well, I wonder what frightened him away?" asked Uncle Wiggily, out loud.
"Seeing himself in the looking glass," was the answer, and there stood Alice from Wonderland. "That is a magical mirror I sent you, Uncle Wiggily," she explained. "It shows the reflection of anything and anybody just as they are and not as they'd like to be.
"And the alligator is such a mean-looking and ugly chap, that, never before having seen himself, this time when he did, in the looking glass, he was frightened, seeing himself as others see him. He thought he was looking at a Chinese dragon who would bite him. So he ran away, leaving you alone."
"And I'm so glad he did," said Uncle Wiggily. "It's a good thing I had your looking glass."
Then Alice and Uncle Wiggily had a good time, and if the clothes pin doesn't pinch the pillow case so hard that it tickles the bedspread and makes it sneeze all the feathers out, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the White Queen.
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, was hopping along through the woods one day, wondering if he would have an adventure with Alice of Wonderland or some of her friends, when, all of a sudden, coming to a place where a rail fence ran along among the trees he saw, caught in a crack of one of the rails by its legs, a white butterfly.
The poor butterfly was fluttering its wings, trying to pull out its legs, but it had to pull very gently, for a butterfly's leg, you know, is very tender and easily broken, like a piece of spider-web.
"Oh, my!" cried kind Uncle Wiggily, when he saw what was the matter. "You are in trouble, aren't you? I'm glad I happened to come along."
"Why are you glad; to see me in trouble?" asked the white butterfly.
"No, indeed!" exclaimed the bunny uncle. "But I want to help you."
"Well, I wish you would," went on the fluttering creature. "I've tried and tried again to get my poor leg loose, but I can't. And I'm on my way—oh, but I forgot. That part is a secret!" quickly said the butterfly.
"Well, then, don't tell me," spoke Uncle Wiggily with a laugh, "for I might not be very good at keeping secrets. But I'll soon have your leg loose."
With that he took the small end of his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy had gnawed for him out of a cornstalk and putting the little end of his crutch in the crack of the rail fence, Uncle Wiggily gave a hard push, opened the crack wider, and soon the butterfly's leg was loose and she could fly away.
"But first I must thank you, Uncle Wiggily," she said. "And as you did me so great a favor I want to do you one in return. Not now, perhaps, as I am in a hurry, but later. So if ever you find you want something you can't get, just come to these woods and say a little verse. Then you shall have your wish."
"What verse shall I say?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"This," answered the butterfly. Then she recited:
"When the wind blows in the trees,
Making perfume for the breeze,
Will you grant to me this boon,
That my wish may come true soon?"
"And what then?" asked the bunny.
"Then," answered the butterfly, "you must whisper your wish to a green leaf and—well, we'll see what happens next."
"Thank you," said Uncle Wiggily, and then he hopped on through the woods while the butterfly fluttered away.
Uncle Wiggily had no adventure that day, but when he reached home to his hollow stump bungalow he found his muskrat lady housekeeper in the kitchen looking quite sad and blue.
"Well, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy!" cried the jolly bunny uncle. "Whatever is the matter?"
"Oh, I have broken my nice gold and diamond dishpan, and I can't do any more kitchen work until it is mended. I can't wash the dishes nor get you any supper."
"Oh, never mind about that," said Uncle Wiggily. "I'll take the diamond dishpan down to the five and ten cent store and have them mend it for you. Where is it?"
Nurse Jane gave it to him. The pan had a big crack right across the middle. The muskrat lady said it had fallen to the floor and had broken when she went to get Jackie Bow Wow, the little puppy dog boy a slice of bread and jam.
"I'll soon have it fixed for you," said Uncle Wiggily. But it was more easily said than done. The five and ten cent store was closed because every one was on a picnic, and no one else could mend the dishpan.
"Never mind, I'll buy Nurse Jane a new one and say nothing about it," said Uncle Wiggily. "I'll surprise her."
But this, too, was more easily said than done. In all Woodland, where Uncle Wiggily and the animal folk lived, there was not another gold and diamond dishpan to be had. They were all sold.
"Oh, dear! What shall I do?" thought Uncle Wiggily. "Nurse Jane will be so unhappy!" Then he happened to think of the white butterfly and what she had told him. So, taking the dishpan, he went to the wood where he had helped the fluttering creature and whispered to a leaf the little verse:
"When the wind blows in the trees,
Making perfume for the breeze,
Will you grant to me this boon,
That my wish may come true soon?"
"Well, what is your wish?" asked a sudden voice.
"I wish Nurse Jane's gold and diamond dishpan to be mended," said Uncle Wiggily.
Instantly something white came fluttering down out of a tree, and the bunny saw it was the white butterfly. And then, all of a sudden, before he could count up to sixteen thousand, the white butterfly seemed to fade away and in its place was a beautiful White Queen, seated on a golden throne with a diamond crown on her head.
"You shall have your wish, Uncle Wiggily," she said. "Give me the dishpan."
"Why—why!" exclaimed the bunny. "You are—you are—"
"I am the White Queen from Alice in Wonderland," was the answer, "and I will ask you a riddle. When you take the dishes out of the pan what remains?"
"Nothing," answered the bunny.
"Wrong," answered the White Queen. "The water does. Now I'll mend this for you." And she did, taking some gold from her throne and some diamonds from her crown to mend the broken dishpan.
Soon Nurse Jane's pan was as good as ever and she could wash the dishes in it.
"Thank you," said Uncle Wiggily. "But how is it you are a queen and a butterfly, too?"
"Oh, we Queens lead a sort of butterfly existence," said the White Queen. "But I must go now, for I have to find the tarts for the Queen of Hearts who is always losing hers."
Then, changing herself into a white butterfly again, the Queen flew away, and Uncle Wiggily, with the mended dishpan, hopped on to his hollow stump bungalow, where he and Nurse Jane were soon having a nice supper and were very happy.
And if the potato masher doesn't go to the moving pictures and step on the toes of the egg beater I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Red Queen.
Once upon a time, when Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was out walking in the woods, he stopped beside a little hole in the ground near a pile of oak tree leaves, and listening, when the wind stopped blowing, he heard a little voice saying:
"Oh, but where can she be? I fear she is lost! Little Crawlie is lost!"
"My! That's too bad," thought Uncle Wiggily. "Somebody's little girl is lost. I must ask if I cannot help find her." So he called:
"Oh, ho, there! May I have the pleasure of helping you in your trouble, whoever you are?"
"But who are you?" asked a voice that seemed to come out of the little hole in the ground.
"I am Uncle Wiggily Longears," answered the bunny. "You can easily see me, but I can't see you. And who is this Crawlie who is lost?"
"She is my little girl," was the answer, and up the hole in the ground came crawling a red ant lady, who was crying tear drops about as large as that part of a pin point which you can't see but can only feel.
"Oh, my!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I couldn't imagine who would live in such a little house, but of course ants can. And now what about Crawlie?"
"She is my little girl," answered the red ant. "I sent her to the store about an hour ago to get a loaf of sand bread, but she hasn't come back and I'm sure something has happened to her."
"Let us hope not," spoke Uncle Wiggily, softly. "I'll go at once and look for her. Have no fear, Mrs. Ant. I'll find Crawlie for you. It is rather a queer name."
"Crawlie is called that because she crawls in such a funny way," said Mrs. Ant. "Oh, dear! I hope she is all right. If she should happen to have fallen down a crack in a peach stone she'd never get out."
"I'll find her," said Uncle Wiggily, bravely.
So off started the bunny uncle, hopping on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch over the fields and through the woods, looking for Crawlie.
He had not gone very far before he heard a small voice calling:
"Help! Help! Oh, will no one help me?"
"Yes, of course, I will!" answered the bunny, and then he saw an acorn which seemed to be moving along the ground in a queer way.
"Ha! Can it be that this acorn is alive?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "And can that acorn want help?" he cried.
"No, it is I—Crawlie, the ant girl—under the acorn," was the answer, "and I want help, for I'm in such trouble."
"What kind?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "What's the trouble?"
"Why, I'm caught under this acorn here and I can't get out," was the answer, and Crawlie's voice sounded as though she had gone down cellar to get a crumb of apple and couldn't find her way back again. "I went under the acorn shell, which is empty," said the little ant girl, "and though it was nicely propped up on one side when I crawled in, it was blown over by the wind and I was held beneath it. Oh, dear! I can't get out and go to the store for the loaf of sand bread!"
"Oh, yes you can!" cried jolly Uncle Wiggily. "I'll lift the acorn shell off you and let you out."
So he did, easily picking up the empty oak tree acorn from where it was covering Crawlie, and then the little ant girl, who was red, just like her mother, could walk about.
"Oh, thank you, Uncle Wiggily," she said. "If ever we ants can do you a favor we will."
"Oh, pray do not mention it," spoke Uncle Wiggily, modest-like and shy. Then Crawlie hurried on to the sand bread store and the bunny hopped along over the fields and through the woods.
He had not gone very far before he met a poor old June bug gentleman, and the June bug seemed very sad and unhappy.
"What is the matter?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Lots," was the answer. "You see it is now time, being July, for June bugs like myself to get in their winter wood so we will not freeze in the cold weather. But I hurt my legs, banging into an electric light one night, and I'm so lame and stiff that I can't gather any wood at all. I shall freeze, I know I shall!" and the June bug gentleman was more sad than ever.
"Oh, cheer up!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "There is plenty of wood under these trees. I'll help you gather it."
"There is no need to do that," said another voice, and, looking up, Uncle Wiggily and the June bug saw, sitting on a green mossy log, a Red Queen wearing a golden crown.