Uncle Wiggily, Alice and the Gryphon
And the mosquitoes that were not caught were so frightened at the fierce look on the Gryphon's face that they fainted, andcouldn't bite even as much as a spoonful of mustard.
So the Gryphon drove the mosquitoes away and then he took Alice to see the Mock Turtle, while Uncle Wiggily hopped on home to his bungalow. And if the rubber doll doesn't bounce off the clothes horse when she rides to the candy store for some cornstarch pudding, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the blue caterpillar.
"Uncle Wiggily! Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" called Alice from Wonderland as she stood one day just outside the hollow stump bungalow where the rabbit gentleman had just finished his breakfast of carrot oatmeal with parsnip sauce sprinkled over the top.
"Do you want to come for another walk with me?" asked Alice as she ran up the bungalow front steps.
"Are you going to have the Gryphon take you to the Mock Turtle again?" the bunny gentleman wanted to know. "If you are, I'll bring my talcum powder gun along this time, to keep away the mosquitoes."
"No. I don't have to see the Gryphon today," replied Wonderland Alice with a laugh. "But the Duchess has sent me to find the Blue Caterpillar."
"The Duchess has sent you to find the Blue Caterpillar?" questioned Uncle Wiggily,wondering if he had heard rightly. "But who is the Duchess?"
"Oh, she's some relation to the Queen of Hearts," Alice answered. "She's in the book with me, the Duchess is. In the book-picture she always has a lot of trimming on her big hat, and she doesn't care whether or not she holds the baby upside down."
"Oh, yes, now I remember," Uncle Wiggily said, laughing as he thought of the baby. "And now about the Blue Caterpillar?"
"Oh, he's a sort of long, fuzzy bug, who sits on a toadstool smoking a pipe," explained Alice. "The Duchess wants him to come and smoke some hams for her."
"Smoke hams!" cried the bunny rabbit. "Why the very idonical idea! I've heard of men smoking tobacco—but hams—"
"Oh, you don't smoke hams in a pipe," said Alice with a laugh. "They take a ham before it is cooked, and hang it up in a cloud of smoke, or blow smoke on it, or do something to it with smoke, so it will dry and keep longer."
"What do they want to keep it for?" askedUncle Wiggily. "I thought ham was to eat, with eggs."
"Oh, dear!" laughed Alice. "I wish you wouldn't ask me so many questions. You're like the Dormouse, or the Cheshire Cheese Cat or the Hatter. They were always asking the curiousestest questions like 'Who threw stones at the cherry tree?' or 'How did the soft egg get inside the hard shell without cracking it?' All things like that. I can't answer them!"
"Very well," said Uncle Wiggily, smiling at Alice. "I'll not ask you any more questions. Come on! We'll go find the Blue Caterpillar."
So off they started, the bunny rabbit gentleman and Wonderland Alice who had a day's vacation from the book with her name on it. Now and then she could slip out of the book covers and go off to have a real adventure with Uncle Wiggily.
The bunny uncle and the little girl with the pretty, flaxen hair had not gone very far over the fields and through the woods before, all of a sudden, as they were walking undersome trees, something long and twisty and rubbery, like a big fire hose, reached out and grabbed them.
"Oh, my!" cried Alice, trying to get loose, which she could not do. "A big snake has us!"
"No," said Uncle Wiggily, looking around as best he could, for he, too, was held fast as was Alice. "This isn't a snake."
"What is it?" asked Alice.
"It's a bad circus elephant," said the bunny, "and he has caught us in his trunk. Oh, dear! Please let us go!" he begged the big animal.
"No," sadly answered the circus elephant, for it was indeed he. "I can't let you go, for if I do they will all sit on my back and bite me."
"Who will?" asked Uncle Wiggily, curious like.
"The mosquitoes," was the answer. "You see they have tried in so many ways to catch you, and haven't done it, Uncle Wiggily, that they finally came to me. About a million billion of them swarmed around me, and theysaid they'd bite me until I had the shiv-ivers if I did not help them catch you. So I had to promise that I would, though I did not want to, for I like you, Uncle Wiggily.
"If I hadn't promised, though, the mosquitoes would have bitten me, and though I seem to have a very thick skin I am very tender, not to say ticklish, when it comes to mosquito bites. So I hid here to catch you, and I'll have to hold you until the mosquitoes come to get you. I'm very sorry!" and the elephant wound his rubbery nose of a trunk still more tightly around Uncle Wiggily and Alice.
"Oh, dear!" said Alice. "What shall we do?"
"I don't know, I'm sure," answered the bunny. "This is quite too bad. If only the Blue Caterpillar—"
"Hush!" exclaimed a fuzzy voice down in the grass near the elephant's left front foot. "Don't say a word. I'll help you," and along came crawling a big Blue Caterpillar, with a folded toadstool umbrella and a long-stemmed pipe on his back.
"That elephant is very ticklish," said the Blue Caterpillar. "Watch me make him squirm. And when he squirms he'll have to uncurl his trunk to scratch himself, and when he does that—"
"We'll get away!" whispered Uncle Wiggily.
"Exactly!" said the Blue Caterpillar. So he crawled up the elephant's leg, and tickled the big animal on its ear.
"Oh, dear!" cried the elephant. "How itchy I am!" and he uncurled his trunk to scratch himself, and then Uncle Wiggily and Alice could run away safely, and the mosquitoes didn't get them after all. Then Alice told the Blue Caterpillar about the Duchess wanting the hams smoked and the crawling creature said he'd attend to it, and puff smoke on them from his pipe.
So everything came out all right, I'm glad to say, and if the starch doesn't all come out of the collar so it has to lie down instead of standing up straight at the moving picture show, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Hatter.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as Mr. Longears, the rabbit gentleman, started to hop out of his hollow stump bungalow one morning. "Oh, Uncle Wiggily!"
"Well, what is it?" asked the bunny with a polite bow. "Do you want anything from the store?"
"Some carrot coffee, if you please," answered the muskrat lady. "When you finish your walk, and have had a nice adventure, bring home some coffee."
"I'll do it," promised Uncle Wiggily, and then, as he hopped along, over the fields and through the woods, he thought perhaps he had better buy the carrot coffee first.
"For," said he to himself, "I might have such a funny adventure that I'd forget all about what Nurse Jane told me."
Now you just wait and see what happens, if you please.
It did not take the bunny long to get the coffee; the monkey doodle gentleman who kept the store wrapping it up for him in a paper that had been twisted around a lollypop candy.
"It's a bit sticky and sweet," said the monkey doodle store keeper, speaking of the lollypop paper, "but that will stop the coffee from falling out."
"Fine!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, and then he hopped on to look for an adventure. He had not gone very far before when, all of a sudden, he heard a voice saying:
"Well, I don't know what to do about it, that's all! I never saw such trouble! The idea of wanting me to get ready for it this time of day!"
"Ha! Trouble!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "This is where I come in. What is it you can't get ready for this time of day, and who are you?" asked the bunny, for he saw no one.
"Oh, it's you, is it?" called a voice, and out from under a mulberry bush stepped a littleman, with such a large hat that it covered him from head to foot.
"Oh, excuse me," said Uncle Wiggily. "You are—"
"The Hatter! Exactly! You have guessed it," said the little man, opening a window which was cut in the side of his hat. The window was just opposite his face, which was inside, so he could look out at the bunny gentleman.
"I'm the Hatter, from 'Alice in Wonderland,'" went on the little man. The bunny hadn't quite really guessed it, though he might if he had had time.
"And what is the trouble?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, I've just been ordered by the Queen of Hearts to get up a tea party right away for Alice, who is expected any minute," went on the Hatter. "And here it is 10 o'clock in the morning, and the tea's at 5, and I haven't even started."
"You have lots of time," said Uncle Wiggily. "Hours and hours."
"Yes, but I haven't the tea!" cried the Hatter."Don't mind me, but I'm as mad—as mad as—as lollypops, and there's nothing madder than them!" he said, sort of grinding his teeth. This grinding made Uncle Wiggily think of the coffee in his pocket. So, holding out the package, he said:
"I don't s'pose this would do, would it?"
"What?" asked the Hatter.
"It's coffee," went on the bunny, "but—"
"The very thing!" cried the Hatter, who was now smiling. "It will be just the thing for the 5 o'clock tea. We'll have it right here—I'll set the table," and opening two little doors lower down in his big hat, he stuck his arms through them and began brushing off a broad, flat stump near Uncle Wiggily.
"The stump will do for a table," said the Hatter. "This is great, Uncle Wiggily! We'll have tea for Alice after all, and make things happen as they do in the book. Don't mind me saying I was as mad as lollypops. I have to be mad—make believe, you know—or things won't come out right."
"I see," said Uncle Wiggily, remembering that it was quite stylish to be "as mad as ahatter," though he never before knew what it meant. "But you see, my dear sir," the rabbit went on, "I have only coffee to give you, and not tea."
"It doesn't matter," said the Hatter. "I'll boil it in a cocoanut shell, and it will do her very well," and with that he took out, from somewhere inside his hat, half a cocoanut shell. This he set on top of the stump on a little three-legged stool, and built a fire under it.
"But you need water to make coffee—I mean tea," said Uncle Wiggily.
"I have it!" cried the Hatter, and, picking up an umbrella plant growing near by, he squeezed some water from it into the cocoanut shell kettle.
Uncle Wiggily poured some of the ground coffee into the cocoanut shell of umbrella water, which was now boiling, and then the bunny exclaimed:
"But we have no sugar!"
"We'll sweeten it with the paper that came off the lollypop," said the Hatter, tearing off a bit of it and tossing it into the tea-coffee.
"What about milk?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "Alice may want cream in her coffee—I mean tea."
"Here we are!" cried the Hatter.
With that he picked a leaf from a milkweed plant growing near the flat stump and from that he squeezed out some drops of milk into a cup he made from a Jack-in-the-pulpit flower.
"Now we're all ready for 5 o'clock tea!" cried the Hatter, and just then along came Alice from Wonderland, with the March Hare, and they sat down to the stump table with Uncle Wiggily, who happened to have a piece of cherry pie in his pocket, so they had a nice little lunch after all. And the carrot coffee with milkweed cream in it, tasted like catnip tea, so everything came out all right.
And if the white shoes don't go down in the coal bin to play with the fire shovel and freeze their toes so they can't parade on the Board Walk, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Duchess.
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was hopping along through the woods one day, looking for an adventure, when, all of a sudden, he came to a door standing up between two trees. It was a regular door, with a knob, hinges and all, but the funny part of it was there didn't seem to be a room on either side of it.
"This is remarkable!" exclaimed Wiggily, "remarkable" meaning the same thing as queer. "It is very odd! Here is a door and the jamb—"
"Where's the jamb?" asked a little katydid, who was sitting on a leaf in the sun. "I'm very fond of jam."
"I didn't say j-a-m—the kind you eat on bread," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "I was talking about the j-a-m-b—with a b—"
"Bees make honey," said the katydid, "and honey's almost as good as jam. I'm not sofussy as all that. Jam or honey—honey or jam, it's all the same to me."
"No, there isn't any honey, either," said the bunny. "The jamb of the door is the wooden frame that goes around it, to hold it in place."
"Then I don't want any door jamb—I want bread and jam," said the katydid, hopping off to find her sister, Katydidn't, leaving Uncle Wiggily to stare at the lone door.
"Well," said the rabbit gentleman to himself, "I may as well see what's on the other side. Though a door standing all by itself in the woods is the strangest thing I've ever seen."
However, he turned the knob, opened the door and stepped through, and, to his surprise, he found himself in a big kitchen which seemed magically to have appeared the moment he entered the very surprising place. At one end was a big stove, with a hot fire in it, and on the stove was a boiling kettle of soup, which was being stirred by a big fat cook lady, who was shaped like a ham, without the string in the end, of course. For thecook could stand up and didn't need to be hung on a nail as a ham is hung before it's cooked.
In front of the fire was another large lady with a bonnet on almost as big as the Hatter's hat. Over the bonnet was a fluffy, flowing veil.
"Now please be quiet—do!" exclaimed the sitting down lady to something in her lap, and Uncle Wiggily saw that it was a baby. "Come, cook!" she cried. "Is that hot soup ready yet for the baby?"
"Not yet, mum. But it soon will be," answered the cook, and Uncle Wiggily was just going to say something about not giving a little baby hot soup, when the door opened again, and in came Alice from Wonderland.
"Oh, I'm so glad you're here, Uncle Wiggily!" cried Alice. "Now it will be all right."
"What will?" asked the bunny. "What will be right?"
"My left shoe," said Alice. "You see I just came from the Pool of Tears, and everything got all mixed up. When I came out I had two left shoes instead of one being a right, butnow you are here it's all right—I mean one is right and the other is left, as it should be," and with that Alice put on one shoe she had been carrying in her hand, and smiled.
"But who is this?" asked Uncle Wiggily, pointing with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch at the big lady holding the baby, which was now squirming like an angle worm.
"It's the Duchess—a friend of the Queen of Hearts," answered Alice. "I'll introduce you to her in a minute. Are you fond of sneezing?"
"Only when I have a cold," answered Uncle Wiggily. "Why do you ask?" and he began to think he was having a very funny adventure indeed. "Why should I be fond of sneezing?"
"Because you'll have to whether you like it or not," answered Alice. "The Duchess is going to talcum powder the baby now—it's just had a bath."
With that the duchess, who is the wife of a duke, you know, called:
"Here, cook! Never mind the soup. Give me the pepper!"
The Cook, Duchess, Baby, Uncle Wiggily and Alice
"Goodness me sakes alive and some horseradish lollypops!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "She isn't going to talcum powder the baby with pepper, is she?"
"Of course," answered Alice. "It's that way in the book from which I came to have an adventure with you, so, of course, pepper it has to be. Look out—here come the sneezes!" and Alice got out her handkerchief.
Uncle Wiggily saw the duchess, with a funny smile on her big face, take the pepper-box the cook gave her and start to sprinkle the black stuff over the baby in her lap. The baby was cooing and gurgling—as all babies do after their bath—and didn't seem at all to mind her being peppered.
"They season chickens and turkeys with salt and pepper, so why not babies?" asked Alice of Uncle Wiggily. The bunny gentleman was just going to say he did not know the answer to that riddle, when the door suddenly opened again and in came a great big dodo bird, which is something like a skillery-scaleryalligator, only worse, with a beak like that of a mosquito.
"Ah, ha!" chirped the dodo. "At last I have found him!" and he made a dart with his big beak for Uncle Wiggily. The dodo was just going to grab the bunny gentleman in his claws, and Mr. Longears was so shivery he didn't know what to do, when the duchess, suddenly tossing the baby to the cook, cried:
"Ha! No you don't! I guess it's you I want to pepper instead!" and with that she shook the box of pepper at the dodo, who began sneezing as hard as he could sneeze.
"Aker-choo! Aker-choo! Aker-choo!" sneezed the dodo.
"Keer-zoo! Keer-zoo! Keer-zoo!" sneezed the duchess.
"Goo-snitzio! Goo-snitzio! Goo-snitzio!" sneezed Alice.
"Fizz-buzzy-wuzz! Fizz-buzzy-wuzz! Fizz-buzzy-wuzz!" sneezed Uncle Wiggily, and then the dodo himself gave another very large special five and ten cent store sale sneeze and blew himself backward out of thedoor. So he didn't get Uncle Wiggily after all.
"And now we are all right," said Alice, when they had all finished sneezing, including the baby. "Have some soup, Uncle Wiggily."
So the bunny did, finding it very good, and made from cabbage and pretzels and then he went home to his stump bungalow.
And if the lollypop stick doesn't have to go out and help the wash lady hold up the clothesline when it goes fishing for apple pie I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the cook.
"Well, Mr. Longears, I shall have to leave you all alone today," said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she gave Uncle Wiggily, the bunny rabbit gentleman, his breakfast in the hollow stump bungalow one morning.
"Leave me all alone—how does that happen?" asked Uncle Wiggily, sort of sad and sorrowful like. "Do you mean you are going to leave me for good?"
"Oh, no; I'm just going to be busy all day sewing mosquito shirts for the animal boy soldiers who are going off to war. Since you taught them how to shoot their talcum powder guns at the bad biting bugs, Sammie Littletail, your rabbit nephew, and Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels; Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow, the puppy dogs, and all the other Woodland chaps have been bothered with the mosquitoes."
"They made war enough on me," said Uncle Wiggily.
"And, since they could not catch you, they are starting war against your friends," went on Nurse Jane, "so I am making mosquito shirts for the animal boys. I'll be away sewing all day, and you'll have to get your own lunch, I'm afraid."
"I'm not afraid!" laughed brave Uncle Wiggily. "If I could get away from the bad, biting mosquitoes, I guess I can get my own lunch. Besides, maybe Alice from Wonderland will come along and help me."
"Maybe," spoke Nurse Jane. Then the muskrat lady, tying her tail up in a pink-blue hair ribbon, scurried off, while Uncle Wiggily hopped over the fields and through the woods, looking for an adventure.
But adventures, or things that happen to you, seemed to be scarce that day, and it was noontime before the bunny gentleman hardly knew it.
"Well!" he exclaimed. "I'm getting hungry, and, as I didn't bring any cherry piewith me I'll have to skip along to my hollow stump bungalow for something to eat."
Nurse Jane had left some things on the table for the bunny gentleman to eat for his lunch. There were cold carrot sandwiches, cold cabbage tarts, cold turnip unsidedowns—which are like turnovers only different—and cold lettuce pancakes.
"But it seems to me," said Uncle Wiggily, "it seems to me that I would like something hot. I think I'll make a soup of all these things as I saw the cook doing when I went through the funny little door and met Alice from Wonderland in the kitchen of the Duchess."
So, getting a large soup kettle, Uncle Wiggily put into it the cold carrot sandwiches, the cold lettuce pancakes, the cold cabbage tarts and so on. Then he built a fire in the stove.
"For," said he, "if those things are good cold they are better hot. I shall have a fine hot lunch."
Then Uncle Wiggily sat down to wait for the things to cook, and every once in a whilehe would look at the kettle on the stove and say:
"Yes, I shall have a fine, hot lunch!"
And then, all of a sudden, after the bunny rabbit gentleman had said this about five-and-ten-cent-store times a voice cried:
"Indeed you will have a hot lunch!" and all of a sudden into the kitchen of the hollow stump bungalow came the red hot flamingo bird, eager to burn the rabbit gentleman.
"Oh!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I—I don't seem to know you very well."
"You'll know me better after a bit," said the red flamingo bird, clashing its beak like a pair of tailor's shears. "I'm the bird that Alice from Wonderland used for a croquet mallet when she played with the Queen of Hearts."
"Oh, now I know!" said the bunny. "Won't you have lunch with me?" he asked, trying to be polite. "I'm having a hot lunch, though Nurse Jane left me a cold one, and—"
"You are going to have a much hotter lunch than you imagine!" said the red flamingo bird. "Look out! I'm getting sizzlinghot!" And indeed he was, which made him such a red color, I suppose. "I'm going to burn you!" cried the bird to Uncle Wiggily, sticking out his red tongue.
"Burn me? Why?" asked the poor bunny gentleman.
"Oh, because I have to burn somebody, and it might as well be you!" said the flamingo. "Look out, now!"
"Ha! Indeed! And it's you who had better look out!" cried a new voice. And with that the cook—the same big lady, shaped like a ham, whom Uncle Wiggily had last seen in the kitchen of the Duchess—this cook hopped nimbly in through a window of the hollow stump bungalow.
"I'll fix him!" she cried, catching up the flatirons from the shelf over the stove and throwing them at the flamingo. "Get out! Scat! Sush! Run away!" And she threw the fire shovel, the dustpan, the sink shovel, the stove lifter, the broom and the coal scuttle at the flamingo. My, but that cook was a thrower!
She didn't hit the red flamingo bird withany of the things she threw, but she tossed them so very hard, and seemingly with such anger, that the bird was frightened.
"This is no place for me!" cried the flaming red bird, drawing in his red tongue. "I'll go make it hot for Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear. He might like some heat for a change from his cake of ice."
Then the red flamingo bird, not burning Uncle Wiggily at all, flew away, and the cook, after she had picked up all the kitchen things she had thrown, came in and had a hot lunch with Uncle Wiggily, who thanked her very much.
"I'm glad you came," said the bunny, "but I didn't know you cooks threw things."
"Oh, I'm from the Wonderland Alice book, which makes me different," the cook answered. And she was queer. But everything came out all right, you see, and if the trolley car conductor doesn't punch the transfer so hard that it falls off the seat, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Baby.
"Well," said Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, to himself, as he stood in the middle of the woods and looked around. "I don't seem to be going to have any adventures today at all. I wonder what's the matter?"
Something was wrong, that is certain.
The bunny uncle had been hopping along all the morning, and part of the afternoon, and not a single adventure had he found. Almost always something happened to him, but this time was different.
He had not met Alice from Wonderland, nor any of her queer relations, and Uncle Wiggily had not seen any of his animal boy or girl friends, so the rabbit gentleman was beginning to feel a bit lonesome.
Then, all of a sudden, before you could count a million (providing you had time andwanted to), Uncle Wiggily saw, fluttering from a tree, what he thought was a flag.
"That's queer," he said to himself, only out loud. "I wonder if any of my mosquito enemies have made a camp there under the trees, and are flying the flag before they come to bite me? I'll go closer and see."
Uncle Wiggily was very brave, you know, even if he only had his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch instead of the talcum powder popgun that shot bean-bag bullets. So up he went to where he thought he saw the mosquito enemy's flag fluttering, and my goodness me sakes alive and some chocolate cake ginger snaps! It wasn't the mosquito flag at all, which shows that we ought never to be afraid until we are sure what a thing is—and sometimes not then.
"Why, it's a lady's veil!" cried Uncle Wiggily, as he looked at the fluttering thing. And, as he said that, someone, who was sitting on an old log, turned around, and—there was the Wonderland Duchess herself—the queer, stout lady who looked like a barrel of flour—very rich you know!
"Oh, hello, Uncle Wiggily!" called the Duchess, who is a sort of princess grown up. "I'm glad to see you. I have a friend of yours here with me!"
"Do you mean Alice?" asked the bunny.
"No, this time it's the Baby," answered the Duchess, and then Uncle Wiggily saw that she had a live baby in her arms upside down. I mean the baby was upside down, not the arms of the Duchess, though perhaps it would have been better that way.
"Bless me!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "That's no way to hold the child."
"Oh, indeed!" said the Duchess, sort of sniffing proud like. "Then if you know so much about holding babies, take this one. I have to go make a rice pudding," and before Uncle Wiggily could stop her she tossed the baby to him as if it were a ball and ran away, crying:
"Rice! Rice! Who has the rice pudding?"
"Oh, my!" Uncle Wiggily started to say, but that was all he had time for, as he had to catch Baby, which he managed to do right side up. This was a good thing, I think.
"You poor little dear!" cried the bunny uncle as he smoothed out the Baby's clothes and looked around for a nursing bottle or a rattle box. And, as he was doing this, and while the Baby was trying to close its lips, which it had opened to cry with when it found itself skedaddling through the air—while this was going on, some one gave a loud laugh, and Uncle Wiggily, looking around in surprise, saw Alice from Wonderland.
"Well!" said the bunny. "I'm glad to see you, but what is there to laugh at?"
"The—the baby!" said Alice, sort of choking like, for she was trying to talk and laugh at the same time.
"Why should you laugh at a poor baby, whom no one seems to know how to care for?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "Why, I ask you?"
"Oh! But look what it's turning into!" said Alice, pointing.
The bunny uncle looked at what he held in his paws. It was wiggling, twisting and squirming in such a funny way, squee-geeing its dress all up around its face that for amoment Uncle Wiggily could not get a good look, but, when he did, he cried:
"My goodness me sakes alive and some bacon gravy! It's a little pig!"
And so it was! As he held it the baby had turned into a tiny pig, with a funny nose and half-shut eyes.
"Bless my rheumatism crutch!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "What made it do that?"
"Because it's that way in the book where I came from," said Alice. "You read and you'll see that the baby which the Duchess gives me to hold turns into a little pig."
"But she gave it to ME to hold!" cried Uncle Wiggily.
"It's much the same thing," spoke Alice. "As long as it's a pig it doesn't matter."
"But dear me hum suz dud!" cried the bunny. "I don't want to be carrying around a little pig. Of course I like pigs, and I'm very fond of my friends Curley and Floppy Twisty-tail, the little grunters. But this baby pig—"
And, just as Uncle Wiggily said that, who should come along but a bad old skillery-scaleryhump-tailed alligator, walking on his hind legs, with his two front claws stretched out in front of him.
"Ah, ha!" cried the bad alligator, who had promised to be good, but who had not kept his word. "Ah, ha! At last I have caught you, Uncle Wiggily, and Wonderland Alice, too!"
He was just going to grab them when the little Baby Pig, who had been squirming very hard all the while, finally squirmed out of Uncle Wiggily's paws, fell to the ground, and then, running right between the legs of the alligator, as pigs always do run, the squealing chap upset the bad, unpleasant creature, knocking him over in a frontward somersault and also backward peppersault down the steps.
"Oh, my goodness!" cried the skillery-scalery alligator. "I'm killed!" Which he wasn't at all, but he thought so, and this frightened him so much that he ran away and didn't catch Uncle Wiggily or Alice after all, for which I'm glad.
And if the puppy dog doesn't take all thebark off the sassafras tree and leave none for the pussy cat to polish her claws on, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Mock-Turtle.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Will you please take me with you this morning?" asked a little voice, somewhere down near the lower, or floor-end, of the old rabbit gentleman's rheumatism crutch, as Mr. Longears sat at the breakfast table in his hollow stump bungalow. "Please take me with you!"
"Well, who are you, and where do you want to be taken?" asked the bunny.
"Oh, I'm Squeaky-Eeky, the little cousin mouse," was the answer, "and I want you to take me with you on one of your walks, so I can have an adventure as you do with Alice in Wonderland."
"But perhaps I may not see Alice in Wonderland," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "I do not always have that pleasure."
"Well, then, perhaps we'll see the Baby or the Duchess, or the Gryphon or some of the funny folk who make such jolly fun withyou," went on Squeaky-Eeky. "I have a holiday from school today, because they are painting the blackboards white, and I'd like to come with you."
"Come along then!" cried Uncle Wiggily, giving the little cousin mouse a bit of cheese cake with some lettuce sugar sprinkled over the top. "We'll see what sort of adventure happens today."
So, calling good-bye to Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, Uncle Wiggily and Squeaky-Eeky started off over the fields and through the woods. They had not gone very far before, all at once, as they walked along a little path under the trees they saw a funny thing lying near a clump of ferns.
It looked like a mud turtle at first, but after peering at it through his glasses Uncle Wiggily saw that the larger part was made of a half-round stone. In front of that was part of a broken rubber ball, and sticking out at the four corner places were four pieces of wood, like little claws, while at the back was a piece of an old leather boot.
"My! I wonder what in the world this can be?" said Uncle Wiggily, surprised like.
"Maybe it's something from Alice in Wonderland," spoke Squeaky-Eeky, the cousin mouse.
"You are right—I am!" exclaimed a voice. "I am the Mock-Turtle and I have just gotten out of the soup."
"Oh, I'm so glad to meet you!" cried Squeaky. "I've always wanted to see what a real mock turtle looked like, ever since I read the book about Alice."
"Hum!" grunted the queer creature. "There's no such thing as a real mock turtle any more than there is a make-believe toothache."
"I hope you never have that," said Squeaky-Eeky, politely.
"Thank you, I don't care for any," answered the Mock-Turtle, just as if the little cousin mouse had passed the cakes. And then the turtle began to sing:
"Speak gently to your toothache drops,And do not let them fall.And when you have the measle-mumps,They'll scarcely hurt at all."
"Mine did," said Squeaky-Eeky, wondering if this was what Alice would have answered. But the Mock-Turtle kept right on with:
"Once a tramp was seated onA chair made out of cheese.He ate the legs and then he fellDown with a terrible sneeze."
"That isn't right," said Squeaky-Eeky. "It's a trap that was baited with a piece of cheese, and—"
"Hush!" suddenly exclaimed the Mock-Turtle. "Here he comes!"
"Who?" asked the little cousin mouse. "Do you mean the tramp?"
Before the Mock-Turtle could answer along came shuffling a big, shaggy bear. At first Uncle Wiggily and the little cousin mouse thought perhaps it was Neddie or Beckie Stubtail, one of the good bear children,but instead it was a bad old tramp sort of a bear—the kind that goes about taking honey out of beehives.
"Ah, ha!" growled the bear. "A rabbit and a mouse! That's fine for me! I shall have a good dinner, I'm sure!" and he smacked his red tongue against his teeth.
"Where will you get your dinner?" asked Uncle Wiggily, curious like.
"There is no restaurant or kitchen around here," went on Squeaky-Eeky.
"Never you mind about that!" cried the bear. "I'll attend to you at dessert. Just now I want Uncle Wiggily to come here and count how many teeth I have," and he opened his mouth real wide, the bear did.
"Oh, but I don't want to count your teeth," said the poor bunny gentleman, for well he knew what the bear's trick would be. The bear wanted to bite Uncle Wiggily.
"You must count my teeth!" growled the shaggy creature, coming close to Uncle Wiggily.
"No, let me do it!" suddenly cried the Mock-Turtle. "I am good at counting."
"Well, it doesn't make any difference who does it," said the bear. Then, going close over to where the Mock-Turtle sat on the path, the bear opened wide his mouth. And then, just as he would have done to the rabbit gentleman, the bear made a savage bite for the Mock-Turtle.
But you know what happened. Instead of biting on something good, like a lollypop, the bear bit on the hard stone, of which the top part of Mock, or Make-Believe, Turtle was made, and the stone was so gritty and tough that the bear's teeth all broke off, and then he couldn't bite even a jelly fish.
"Oh, wow! Oh, woe is me!" cried the bear, as he ran to see if he could find a dentist to make him some false teeth.
"And he didn't hurt me a bit," laughed the Mock-Turtle, made of stone, wood and leather, who was built that way on purpose to fool bad bears and such like. "I don't mind in the least being bitten," said the pretend turtle.
"But you saved my life, and Squeaky-Eeky's, too," said Uncle Wiggily. "I thankyou!" Then the Mock-Turtle crawled away and the bunny and mousie girl had a fine time together. And if the milk wagon doesn't go swimming down on the board walk with the watering cart and make the ice cream jump over the lollypop, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Lobster.
"You'll be home to supper, won't you?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw her friend, Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, hopping down off the front porch of the hollow stump bungalow one morning.
"Oh, yes, I'll be home," he answered, "I'm just going to look for a little adventure."
Then, not having been on the board walk in quite a while, Uncle Wiggily went down to the ocean seashore beach.
"For," said the old rabbit gentleman to himself, "I have not had a seashore adventure in some time. And, perhaps, my friend, Alice, from Wonderland, may be down there. I know in her story book there are many curious things that happen near the sea."
So down to the shore went Uncle Wiggily and as he was walking along, looking at the funny marks his feet made in the wet sand,all of a sudden he came to a pile of damp, green seaweed, and from underneath it he heard a voice calling:
"Oh, help me out! Please help me out!"
"Ha! That sounds like some one in trouble!" Uncle Wiggily said. "I must help them." Then with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a lollypop stick, the bunny poked away the seaweed, and underneath it, all tangled up so he could hardly move, was a Lobster gentleman.
"Oh, it was so good of you to get me out," said the Lobster as he gave a flip-flap with his tail. "An old crab, who doesn't like me, piled the seaweed over my back as I was taking a nap in the sun. My long thin legs were all tangled in it, and even with my big pinching claws I could not get loose, and I was so afraid I'd be late."
"Late for what?" asked Uncle Wiggily, wondering where the Lobster was going.
"To the dance—the quadrille, of course," was the answer.
"Oh, now I remember," said the bunny."It's in the Wonderland Alice book. You have to go to a dance, don't you?"
"Exactly," said the Lobster. "I'd be pleased to have you come with me."
"I will," promised Uncle Wiggily, thinking maybe he would have an adventure there. So down the beach started the Lobster gentleman and the bunny uncle. On and on they went for a long, long time, it seemed to Uncle Wiggily, and it was getting quite late, as he could tell by the star fish which were twinkling on the beach, and still they had seen no signs of a dance.
"I can't understand it," said the Lobster. "Alice said I was to walk until I met her, and she'd take me to the party. And we certainly have been walking a long time."
"We have," agreed Uncle Wiggily. "It is so late I'm afraid I'll have to leave you and go home to supper, as I promised Nurse Jane."
"That's too bad," went on the Lobster. "I wanted you to see how well I can dance on the end of my tail. But I can't understand why we don't get to the quadrille. We certainly have walked down the beach, haven't we?"
"We have," answered the bunny. "But—Ah! I have it!" Uncle Wiggily suddenly cried. "You have been walking BACKWARD, and I have been following you. We have been goingawayfrom the dance instead oftowardit."
"Of course!" cried the Lobster, in a cold and clammy voice. "Why didn't I think of that before? I always have to go backward, on account of my claws being so heavy I have to pull them after me, instead of pushing them ahead.
"And so, of course, going backward as I do, and as all Lobsters do, when I want to get anywhere I always turn my back toward it, and get to it that way. This time I forgot to do that."
"But what can we do now?" Uncle Wiggily wanted to know. "How can we get to the dance?"
"I'll just turn around and back up to it," spoke the Lobster. "I'm sorry to have mixed things up for you, especially as you were so kind as to get me from under the pile of seaweed."
"Oh, don't worry!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, jolly-like. "I dare say it will be all right. Come on!"
So the lobster turned around and began to back toward where he hoped to find the dance. It grew darker and darker, and the star fish were twinkling more than ever, and then, all of a sudden, they came to the hollow stump bungalow where Uncle Wiggily lived.
"Hurray!" cried the Lobster. "Here we are at the quadrille. Now I'll explain to Alice—"
"No, this isn't the dance," said Uncle Wiggily. "This is where I live. But I'd be pleased to have you come in to supper, and we can go to the dance tomorrow."
"I will!" cried the Lobster, after thinking about it.
Into the hollow stump bungalow they went, the Lobster backing in, of course, and Uncle Wiggily cried:
"Supper for two, if you please, Nurse Jane!"
"Right away!" answered the muskrat lady. And she began to set the table. And then,while Uncle Wiggily and the Lobster were talking together Nurse Jane called:
"Oh, dear! I've lost the can opener, and I can't open this tin of peaches. What shall I do?"
"Let me try!" begged Uncle Wiggily. But his paws were not big enough.
"I'll do it!" said the Lobster. And with his strong, pinching claws he punched open the can of peaches as easily as you can eat a chocolate cream drop. It was no trouble at all for him. So it was a good thing Uncle Wiggily brought the Lobster home for supper, you see.
And if the stairs don't stand on their heads and with their toes tickle all the holes out of the lawn tennis nets, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Father William.
One morning, soon after he had finished his breakfast, having taken his red, white and blue striped barber pole rheumatism crutch down from behind the clock, Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, started out from his hollow stump bungalow.
There were quite a few friends of the little girl named Alice in Wonderland whom he had not yet met, and he hoped to have an adventure with one of them. So, tossing up in the air his tall silk stovepipe hat, and letting it bounce three times on the end of his pink nose, Uncle Wiggily hurried off.
The rabbit gentleman had not gone very far, over the fields and through the woods, before he saw something very strange indeed. This something was what seemed to be a funny sort of flower vase, with twothings sticking up in it, and on the end of them were two shoes.
"My goodness me, sakes alive and some chocolate cake pudding!" cried the surprised bunny uncle. "What's this?"
Then, as he looked again, he saw a funny face, and a pair of bright eyes looking at him from the bottom part of what seemed to be a flower vase.
"Why, it's a man!" cried Uncle Wiggily.
"Of course I'm a man," was the jolly answer. "But don't be afraid of me; I'm not a hunter man."
"And you—you're standing on your head!" went on Uncle Wiggily, more surprised than ever.
"Of course I'm standing on my head!" said the funny man. "I have to do that to make things come out as they do in the Alice in Wonderland book. I'm Father William, you know," and with that he gave a nimble spring, turned a back somersault, putting himself right side up, and began to recite this verse:
"You are old, Father William, the Young Man said,And your hair has become very white.But yet you incessantly stand on your head.Do you think, at your age, that is right?"
"But is it?" asked Uncle Wiggily quickly, as soon as funny Father William had ceased speaking.
"Of course it is," was the answer. "Otherwise it wouldn't be in the book and I wouldn't do it. At first it came very hard to me, but now I can easily manage. And you'll find you get quite a different view of things, looking at them upside down as I do every now and then," he went on.
"I wonder if I could stand on my head?" spoke Uncle Wiggily.
"Try it," said Father William.
"I'd like to," went on the bunny uncle. "But I might crush my tall silk hat."
"Take it off," suggested Father William.
"Yes, I could do that. But suppose some one were to see me?" asked the bunny. "It would look sort of queer."
"No one will see you here behind the trees," spoke Father William. "Besides, if they do, learning to stand on one's head is very useful. There is no telling when you may want to do it at home."
"That's so," agreed Uncle Wiggily. "Well, I'll try."
At first he couldn't stand up on his head at all, just turning over in a sort of flip-flop every time he tried. But at last Father William held up the bunny rabbit by the heels, and then Uncle Wiggily did it better. After a while he could stand straight, right side up, on his hind paws, give a little wiggle, and then suddenly, with a funny twist and a somersault flop, there he was, standing on his head, with his silk hat twirling around on his upper paws. And Father William could do the same thing.
If you had happened to walk through the woods when Uncle Wiggily and Father William, who had a little holiday from the Alice book, were standing on their heads, surely you would have laughed.
"And, now that I have learned a new trick,I must go look for an adventure," said the bunny.
"I'll go with you," spoke Father William. Together they went along through the woods and over the fields and, all of a sudden, from behind a currant jam bush, out jumped a bad, old, double-jointed skillery-scalery alligator.
"Ah, ha!" cried the alligator. "At last I have caught some one to whom I can do it! Ah, ha!"
"Do what?" asked Uncle Wiggily, while Father William looked around for a place to hide. "What are you going to do?"
"Tickle your feet!" was the surprising answer. "I am the ticklish alligator, and feet I must tickle! Get ready now, here I come."
"Oh, dear!" cried Father William. "I never can bear to have my feet tickled. For, when that happens I laugh and then I sneeze and then I catch cold and have to go to bed. Oh, dear! I don't want my feet tickled!"
"Hush!" whispered Uncle Wiggily, as the 'gator was hopping toward them. "You won't have to suffer that! Quick! Stand on yourhead as you taught me to, and hold your feet up in the air!"
And in the twinkle of a spiced pear Uncle Wiggily and Father William were standing on their heads. The surprised alligator saw them, and after trying to reach their feet with his claws, which he couldn't do, as they were up in the air, he cried:
"Ah, ha! Thought you'd fool me, didn't you, by standing on your heads! Well, I'll tickle your feet after all. I'll climb a tree and reach down to them!"
"Oh, dear! He'll make me catch cold no matter what I do," sighed Father William.
"No, he won't," said Uncle Wiggily. "The alligator is very good at climbing up trees, but it takes him ever so long to climb down. As soon as he climbs up we'll stop standing on our heads. We'll flip-flop to our feet and run away."
And that's exactly what the bunny and Father William did. As soon as the alligator was up in the tree branches they turned a flip-flop, stood up straight and away they ran, and the alligator was all day getting downout of the tree. So he didn't tickle their feet after all, but he might have if Uncle Wiggily had not learned to stand on his head.
And if the ice wagon doesn't slide down hill and throw snowballs at the potato pudding in the parlor I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the magic bottles.
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was hopping along through the woods one morning after having eaten breakfast in his hollow stump bungalow, when, just as he reached a nice, grassy place, near a spring of water, he saw the little flaxen-haired girl, Alice from Wonderland, coming toward him.
"Oh, I'm so glad to see you!" cried Alice. "You are just in time to win the first prize."
She handed the gentleman rabbit a little bottle, filled with what seemed to be water, and stoppered with a blue cork.
"First prize for what?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"For getting here early," answered Alice. "And you also get second prize, too," and she handed him another bottle, stoppered with a red cork.
"Why do I get second prize?" asked the bunny.
"For not being late," answered Alice with a smile. "It is very simple. First prize for being early, second prize for not being late."
"Hum!" said Uncle Wiggily, sort of scratching his pink, twinkling nose, thoughtful like. "It's much the same thing, it seems to me."
"Not at all," said Alice, quickly. "The prizes are very different. Those bottles are magical. They are filled with water from the pool of tears. If you drink a few drops from the one with the blue cork you will grow very small. And if you take some of the water from the red-stoppered bottle you will grow very large. Be careful of your prizes."
"I will," promised Uncle Wiggily. "Are there any others coming?" he asked, looking about through the trees.
"Any others coming where?" inquired Alice.
"Here. I mean, might they have gotten prizes, too?"
"No, only you," said the flaxen-haired girl. "You were the only one expected."
"But," spoke the puzzled bunny rabbit, "ifI was the only one expected, what was the use of giving prizes? No one else could have gotten here ahead of me; could they?"
"Please don't ask me," begged Alice. "All I know is that it's one of the riddles like those the March Hare asks, such as 'What makes the mirror look crooked at you?' The answer is it doesn't if you don't. In this case you get the prizes because there is no one else to give them to. So take them and have an adventure. I have to go see what the Duchess wants."
With that Alice faded away like the Cheshire Cat, beginning at her head and ending up at her feet, the last things to go being the buttons on her shoes.
"Well," said Uncle Wiggily to himself, "I have two prizes, it seems, of magic bottles. I wonder what I am to do with them?"
He looked at the red and blue corked bottles, holding one in each paw, and he was wondering whether it would be best to grow small or large, when, all at once, he felt himself caught from behind by a pair of big claws, and, looking over his shoulder, as besthe could, Uncle Wiggily saw that he was held fast by a big alligator; a skillery-scalery chap with a double-jointed tail that he could swing back and forth like a pantry door.
"Ah, ha! I have you!" gurgled the 'gator.
"Yes, I see you have!" said Uncle Wiggily, sadly.
"You thought you and Father William would fool me by standing on your heads so I couldn't tickle your feet," went on the 'gator, as I call him for short. "But I got down out of the tree, and here I am. I have you now and you can't get away from me!"
Indeed it did seem so, for he held Uncle Wiggily very tight and fast in his claws.
"What are you going to do with me?" asked the rabbit.
"Take you home to my den, and my dear little foxes, Eight, Nine and Ten," said the alligator.
"Foxes!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Have you foxes?"
"I have!" answered the alligator. "I am keeping them until their father gets back from a hunting trip, and they are veryhungry. Their father is the fox who went out 'in a hungry plight, and he begged of the moon to give him light, for he'd many miles to go that night, before he could reach his den-O.'"
"Oh, now I remember," said Uncle Wiggily. "It's in Mother Goose."
"Yes, and so is the rest of it," went on the alligator. "'At last the fox reached home to his den, and his dear little foxes, Eight, Nine, Ten.' Those are their names, though they sound like numbers," said the 'gator. "I'll soon introduce you to them. Come along!"
Now Uncle Wiggily did not like this at all. He wanted to get away from the alligator, but he did not know how he could do it. At last he thought of the magical bottles Alice had given him.
"Ah, ha!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "I'll give the alligator a drink from the blue-corked one, and we'll see what happens." So Uncle Wiggily slyly said to the 'gator:
"Before you take me off to your den, would you not like a drink from this bottle to refresh you?"
"Yes, I would," said the skillery-scalery creature, not at all politely. "I was going to take some anyhow whether you asked me or not."
With that he took the blue-corked bottle from the paw of the bunny rabbit gentleman, pulled out the stopper with his teeth and drank a few drops.
And, no sooner had he done that, than the alligator began to shrink. First he became as small as a dog, then as little as a cat, then as tiny as a kitten, then no larger than a bird and finally he was no bigger than a baby angle worm. And when the alligator became that size Uncle Wiggily was not afraid and easily got away from him, taking the two magic bottles.
"Oh, dear!" cried the 'gator in a baby angle worm voice, which was about as loud as the head of a pin. "How foolish I was to drink from the magic bottle and grow small."
But it served him right, I think, and the bunny uncle was safe. And if the head of the table doesn't step on the front door mat and make it slide off the porch I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the croquet ball.