Uncle Wiggilys Adventures | Page 9

do."
"What?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Let's go around and give little shows and entertainments, for little
folks to see," went on the poodle doggie. "I can turn flip-flops, and you
can stand on your head on your crutch, and sing a song, and then we'll
take up a collection. I'll pass my hat, and perhaps we may make our
fortune--who knows?"
"Who, indeed?" said Uncle Wiggily. "We'll do it."
So off they started together to give a little show, and make some money,
and, as they went on through the woods, they practised doing the tricks
Uncle Wiggily had learned.
Well, in a little while, not so very long, they came to a nice place in the
forest--an open place where no trees grew.
"Here is a good spot for our show," said Uncle Wiggily.
"But there is no one to see us do the tricks," objected Fido.
"Oh, yes, there are some ants, and an angle worm, and a black bug and
a grasshopper," said Uncle Wiggily. "They will do to start on, and after
they see us do the tricks they'll tell other folks, and we'll have quite a
crowd."
So they started in to do their tricks. Fido turned a lot of flip-flops, and
Uncle Wiggily did a dance on the end of his crutch, and sang a song
about a monkey-doodle, which the angle worm said was just fine, being

quite cute, and the grasshopper made believe play a fiddle with his two
hind legs, scratching one on the other, and making lovely music.
But, all of a sudden, just as Uncle Wiggily was standing on his left ear,
and wiggling his feet in the air, which is a very hard trick for a rabbit,
what should happen but that out of the woods sprang two boys.
"There's the dog! Grab him!" cried one boy. "Never mind about the
rabbit! Get the trick dog!" And the boys rushed right up, knocking
Uncle Wiggily down, and grabbing Fido Flip-Flop. And they started off
through the woods with him, while Uncle Wiggily cried out for them to
come back. But they wouldn't.
Now please don't feel badly, for I'm going to tell you in the next story
how Uncle Wiggily saved Fido, and also how the rabbit went to
Arabella Chick's surprise party--that is I will if our automobile doesn't
turn upside down, and break my ice cream cone.

STORY VI
UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE PARTY
Well, when Uncle Wiggily Longears found that the elephant wouldn't
get off his trunk--oh, listen to me! What I meant to say was, that when
Uncle Wiggily saw those two boys running off with Fido Flip-Flop, the
little trick dog, as I told you about in the story before this, the old
gentleman rabbit was so surprised at first that he didn't know what to
do.
"Won't you please come back with that little doggie?" begged Uncle
Wiggily, but the bad boys kept right on. I guess they knew how smart
Fido was, and they wanted to get up a show with him. Anyhow, they
kept on running through the woods, holding him tightly in their arms.
"Oh, dear! This is terrible!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I'll never get
any good fortune if Fido has such bad luck. And it was partly my fault,
too, for if we hadn't been doing tricks, we would have heard these boys
coming, and could have run away. Well, now I must save Fido."
So Uncle Wiggily sat down on a stump, and thought, and thought, and
thought of all the plans he could think of, to save the doggie from the
two boys, and at last he decided the only way to do was to scare them.
"Then they'll drop Fido, and run away," said the old gentleman rabbit.
"Let me see, how can I scare them? I know, I'll make believe I'm a
tiger!"

So what did that brave Uncle Wiggily do? but go to a mud hole, and
with his crutch dipped into the mud, he made himself all striped over
like a tiger that you see in a circus. Oh, he was a most ferocious sight
when he finished decorating himself! Then he hid his satchel in the
bushes, and he started off on a short cut through the woods, to get
ahead of the boys. Faster and faster through the woods went Uncle
Wiggily, and he looked so peculiarly terrifying that all the animals who
saw him were scared out of their wits, and one old blue-jay bird was so
frightened that he wiggled his tail up and down, and hid his head in a
hollow tree.
Well, by and by, after a while, Uncle Wiggily got to a place in the
woods where he knew those boys, with Fido Flip-Flop, would soon