Uncle Wiggily in the Woods | Page 7

animal doctor came he looked at the bunny uncle's
tongue, felt of his ears, and said:
"Ha! Hum! You have the Spring fever, Uncle Wiggily. What you need
is sassafras."
"Nurse Jane has some in the bungalow," spoke Mr. Longears. "Tell her
to make me some tea from that."
"No, what is needed is fresh sassafras," said Dr. Possum. "And, what is
more, you must go out in the woods and dig it yourself. That will be
almost as good for your Spring fever as the sassafras itself. So hop out,
and dig some of the roots."
"Oh, dear!" cried Uncle Wiggily, fussy like. "I don't want to. I'd rather

stay here in bed."
"But you can't!" cried Dr. Possum in his jolly voice. "Out with you!"
and he pulled the bed clothes off the bunny uncle so he had to get up to
keep warm.
"Well, I'll just go out and dig a little sassafras root to please him,"
thought Uncle Wiggily to himself, "and then I'll come back and stay in
bed as long as I please. It's all nonsense thinking I have to have fresh
root--the old is good enough."
"I do feel quite wretched and lazy like," said Uncle Wiggily to himself,
as he limped along on his red, white and blue-striped barber-pole
rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a
cornstalk. "As soon as I find some sassafras I'll pull up a bit of the root
and hurry back home and to bed."
Pretty soon the bunny uncle saw where some of the sassafras roots
were growing, with their queer three-pointed leaves, like a mitten, with
a place for your finger and thumb.
"Now to pull up the root," said the bunny uncle, as he dug down in the
ground a little way with his paws, to get a better hold.
But pulling up sassafras roots is not as easy as it sounds, as you know if
you have ever tried it. The roots go away down in the earth, and they
are very strong.
Uncle Wiggily pulled and tugged and twisted and turned, but he could
break off only little bits of the underground stalk.
"This won't do!" he said to himself. "If I don't get a big root Dr. Possum
will, perhaps, send me hack for more. I'll try again."
He got his paws under a nice, big root, and he was straining his back to
pull it up, when, all of a sudden, he heard a voice saying:
"How do you do?"

"Oh, hello!" exclaimed the bunny, looking up quickly, and expecting to
see some friend of his, like Grandpa Goosey Gander, or Sammie
Littletail, the rabbit boy. But, instead, he saw the bad old fox, who had,
so many times, tried to catch the rabbit gentleman.
"Oh!" said Uncle Wiggily, astonished like. And again he said: "Oh!"
"Surprised, are you?" asked the fox, sort of curling his whiskers around
his tongue, sarcastic fashion.
"A little--yes," answered Uncle Wiggily. "I didn't expect to see you."
"But I've been expecting you a long time," said the fox, grinning most
impolitely. "In fact, I've been waiting for you. Just as soon as you have
pulled up that sassafras root you may come with me. I'll take you off to
my den, to my dear little foxes Eight, Nine and Ten. Those are their
numbers. It's easier to number them than name them."
"Oh, indeed?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as politely as he could,
considering everything. "And so you won't take me until I pull this
sassafras root?"
"No, I'll wait until you have finished," spoke the fox. "I like you better,
anyhow, flavored with sassafras. So pull away."
Uncle Wiggily tried to pull up the root, but he did not pull very hard.
"For," he thought, "as soon as I pull it up then the fox will take me, but
if I don't pull it he may not."
"What's the matter? Can't you get that root up?" asked the fox, after a
while. "I can't wait all day."
"Then perhaps you will kindly pull it up for me," said the bunny uncle.
"I can't seem to do it."
"All right, I will," the fox said. Uncle Wiggily hopped to one side. The
fox put his paws under the sassafras root. And he pulled and he pulled
and he pulled, and finally, with a double extra strong pull, he pulled up

the root. But it came up so suddenly, just as when you break the point
off your pencil, that the fox keeled over backward in a peppersault and
somersault also.
"Oh, wow!" cried the fox, as he bumped his nose. "What happened?"
But Uncle Wiggily did not stay to tell. Away ran the bunny through the
woods, as fast as he could go, forgetting