Uncle Wiggilys Travels | Page 8

asked the rabbit.
"I could tell it by your ears--your wiggling ears," was the answer. "But
please climb up and help me."
"Rabbits can't climb trees," said Uncle Wiggily. "But I will tell you
what I'll do. I'll gnaw the tree down with my sharp teeth, for they are
sharp, even if I am a little old. Then, when it falls, I can reach the string,
untie it, and you will be free."
So Uncle Wiggily did this, and soon the tree fell down, but the golden
yellow bird was on a top branch and didn't get hurt. Then the old
gentleman rabbit quickly untied the string and the bird was out of the
trap.
"I cannot thank you enough!" she said to the rabbit. "Is there anything I
can do for you to pay you?"
"Well, my valise is down a hole," said Uncle Wiggily, "but I don't see
how you can get it up. I need it, though."
"I can fly down, tie the string to the satchel and you can pull it up," said
the birdie. And she did so, and the rabbit pulled up his valise as nicely
as a bucket of water is hoisted up from the well. Then some bad boys
and a man came along to see if there was anything in the hole-trap, or

the string-trap they had made; but when they saw the bird flying away
and the rabbit hopping away through the woods they were very angry.
But Uncle Wiggily and the yellow bird were safe from harm, I'm glad
to say.
And the rabbit had another adventure soon after that, and what it was
I'll tell you soon, when the story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the
skyrockets. It will be a Fourth of July story, if you please; that is if the
bean bag doesn't fall down the coal hole and catch a mosquito.

STORY V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SKY-CRACKER
Let me see, I think I promised to tell you a story about Uncle Wiggily
and the skyrocket, didn't I? Or was it to be about a firecracker, seeing
that it soon may be the Fourth of July? What's that--a firecracker--no?
A skyrocket? Oh, I'm all puzzled up about it, so I guess I'll make it a
sky-cracker, a sort of half-firecracker and half-skyrocket, and that will
do.
Well, after Uncle Wiggily had gotten the little yellow bird, that looked
like gold, out from the string-trap in the tree, the old gentleman rabbit
spent two nights visiting a second cousin of Grandfather Prickly
Porcupine, who lived in the woods. Then Uncle Wiggily got up one
morning, dressed himself very carefully, combed out his whiskers, and
said:
"Well, I'm off again to seek my fortune."
"It's too bad you can't seem able to find it," said the second cousin to
Grandfather Prickly Porcupine, "but perhaps you will have good luck
to-day. Only you want to be very careful."
"Why?" asked the old gentleman rabbit.
"Well, because you know it will soon be the Fourth of July, and some

boys may tie a firecracker or a skyrocket to your tail," said the
porcupine.
"Ha! Ha!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "They will have a hard time doing
that, for my tail is so short that the boys would burn their fingers if they
tried to tie a firecracker to it."
"Then look out that they don't fasten a skyrocket to your long ears,"
said the second cousin to Grandfather Prickly Porcupine, as he wrapped
up some lettuce and carrot sandwiches for Uncle Wiggily to take with
him.
The old gentleman rabbit said he would watch out, and away he started,
going up hill and down hill with his barber-pole crutch as easily as if he
was being wheeled in a baby carriage.
"Well, I don't seem to find any fortune," he said to himself as he
walked along, and, just as he said that he saw something sparkling in
the grass beside the path in the woods. "What's that?" he cried.
"Perhaps it is a diamond. If it is I can sell it and get rich." Then he
happened to think what the second cousin of Grandfather Prickly
Porcupine had told him about Fourth of July coming, and Uncle
Wiggily said:
"Ha! I had better be careful. Perhaps that sparkling thing is a spark on a
firecracker. Ah, ha!"
So he looked more carefully, and the bright object sparkled more and
more, and it didn't seem to be fire, so the old gentleman rabbit went up
close, and what do you suppose it was?
Why, it was a great big dewdrop, right in the middle of a purple violet,
that was growing underneath a shady fern. Oh, how beautiful it was in
the sunlight, and Uncle Wiggily was glad he had