"We"ll be glad to," spoke Bawly. Then Uncle Wiggily drove in another nail, and the house was almost done.
"How do you get up and down off the roof?" asked Bawly, who didn"t see any ladder.
"Oh, I slide up and down a rope," answered Uncle Wiggily. "I have a strong cord fastened to the chimney, and I crawl up it, just like a monkey-doodle, and when I want to come down, I slide down. It"s better than a ladder, and I can climb a rope very well, for I used to be a sailor on a ship. See, here is the rope."
Well, he took hold of it, near where it was fastened to the chimney, to show the frog boy how it was done, but, alas, and also alack-a-day! All of a sudden that rope became untied, it slipped out of Uncle Wiggily"s paw and fell to the ground! Now, what do you think about that?
"Oh, my! Now I have gone and done it!" exclaimed the elderly rabbit, as he leaned over the edge of the roof and looked down. "Now I am in a pickle!-if you will kindly excuse the expression. How am I ever going to get down? Oh, dear me, suz dud and a piece of sticking-plaster likewise.
Oh, me! Oh, my!"
"Can"t you jump, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Bawly.
"Oh, my, no! I might be killed. It"s too far! I could never jump off the roof of a house."
"Perhaps you can climb down from one window shutter to the other, and so get to the ground," suggested Bawly.
"No," said Uncle Wiggily, looking over the edge of the house again.
"There are no window shutters on as yet. So I can"t climb on "em."
Well, it did seem as if poor Uncle Wiggily would have to stay up there on the roof for a long, long time, for there was no way of getting down.
"If there was a load of hay here, you could jump on that, and you wouldn"t be hurt," said Bawly, scratching his nose.
"But there is no hay here," said the rabbit carpenter, sadly.
"Well, if there was a fireman here with a long ladder, then you could get down," said Bawly, wiggling his toes.
"But there is no fireman here," objected Uncle Wiggily. "Ah, I have it, Bawly! You are a good jumper, perhaps you can jump up here to the roof with the rope and I can fasten it to the chimney again and slide down as I did before."
"I"ll try," said Bawly, and he did; but bless you! He couldn"t jump as high as the house, no matter how many times he tried it. And the dinner bell rang and Uncle Wiggily was very hungry and very anxious to get off the roof and eat something.
"Oh, I know how to do it!" cried Bawly at length, when he had jumped forty-sixteen times. "I"ll tie a string to my baseball, and I"ll throw the ball up to you. Then you catch it, untie the string, which I"ll keep hold of on this end, and I"ll tie the rope to the cord. Then you can haul up the rope, fasten it to the chimney, and slide down."
"Good!" cried Uncle Wiggily, clapping his front paws together in delight.
Well, if you"ll believe me, Bawly did tie the string to his baseball and with one big throw he threw it right up to Uncle Wiggily, who caught it just as if he were on first base in a game. And then with the little cord, which reached down to the ground, he pulled up the big rope, knotted it around the chimney, and down he slid, just in time for dinner, and he took Bawly home with him and gave him a penny.
Now if it should happen that I don"t lose my watch down the inkwell so I can see when it"s time for my p.u.s.s.y cat to have his warm soup, I"ll tell you in the story after this about Bully"s and Bawly"s big jump.
STORY IV
BULLY"S AND BAWLY"S BIG JUMP
One day Mrs. No-Tail, the frog lady, looked in the pantry to see what there was to eat for dinner and there wasn"t a single thing. No, just like Mother Hubbard"s cupboard, the pantry was bare, though there was a bone in it that was being saved for some time when Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the puppie-dog boys, might come on a visit.
"Oh, some one will have to go to the store to get something for supper,"
said Mrs. No-Tail. "Do you feel able to go, Grandpa Croaker?"
"Well, I could go," said the old frog gentleman, in his deepest ba.s.s voice, which sounded like the rumble of thunder over the hills and far away, "but I promised I would go over and play a game of checkers with Uncle Wiggily Longears. He has just finished the playhouse for Sammie and Susie, and he wants to show me that. So I don"t see how I can go to the store very well."
"If Bully and Bawly were here they"d go," said their mamma. "I wish they"d come. Oh, here they are now," she went on, as she looked out of the window and saw the two frog boys coming home from school. "Hurry!"
she called to them. "I want you to go to the store."
"All right," they both answered, and they were so polite about it that Mrs. No-Tail gave them each a penny, though, of course, they would have gone without that, for they always liked to help their mamma.
"I want some sugar, and mola.s.ses, and bread, and b.u.t.ter, and some corn meal, and bacon and watercress salad," said the mother frog, and Bully and Bawly each took a basket in which to carry the things. Then they hopped on toward the store.
"I"m going to buy marbles with my penny," said Bully.
"And I"m going to buy a whistle with mine," said Bawly.
Well, they got to the grocery, all right, and the cow lady who kept it gave them the things their mamma wanted. Then they went to the toy store and Bully got his marbles, and Bawly his whistle, which made a very loud noise.
Now I"m very sorry to be obliged to tell it, but something is going to happen to Bully and Bawly very soon. In fact, I think it is going to take place at once. Just excuse me a moment, will you, until I look out of the window and see if the alligator is coming. Yes, there he is. He just got off the trolley car. The conductor put him off because he had the wrong transfer.
So, all at once, as Bully and Bawly were hopping along through the woods, this alligator that I was telling you about jumped out at them from under a p.r.i.c.kly briar bush. Right at them he jumped, and he was a very savage alligator, for he had gotten loose out of the circus, where he belonged, and he had been tramping around without anything to eat for a long time, so he was very hungry.
"Now, I see where I"m going to have a nice dinner," the alligator said to himself, as he jumped out at Bully and Bawly.
But those two frog boys were smart little fellows, and they were always looking around for danger. So, as soon as the alligator made a jump at them, they also leaped to one side, and the unpleasant creature didn"t get them.
"Oh, you just wait! I"ll have you in a minute!" the alligator cried, and he opened his mouth so wide that it went all the way back to his ears, and the top of his head nearly flew off.
"We haven"t time to wait," said Bully with a laugh, as he hopped on with his basket of groceries.
"No, we must get back home in time for supper," spoke Bawly. "So we"ll have to leave you," and on he hipped and skipped and hopped with his basket.
Those frog boys didn"t really think that that alligator could reach them, for he was so big and clumsy-looking that it didn"t seem as if he could run very fast. But he could, and the first thing Bully and Bawly knew, that most unprepossessing creature, with a smile that went away around to his ears, was close behind them and gnashing his teeth at them.
"Oh, hop, Bully, hop!" cried Bawly in great fright.
"Sure, I"ll hop!" answered his brother. "You hop, too!"
Well, they both hopped as fast as they could, but on account of the baskets of groceries which they had they couldn"t hop as fast as usual.
The alligator saw this, and after them he crawled, and several times he nearly had them by their tails. Oh, no, excuse me, if you please, frogs don"t have tails. I was thinking of tadpoles.
"Oh, just wait until I catch you!" cried the alligator, snapping his teeth together.
But Bully and Bawly didn"t wait. On they hopped, as fast as they could, hoping to get away. And would you ever believe that an alligator could be so mean as this one was? For he chased Bully and Bawly right up a steep hill. You know it"s hard to walk up hill, and harder still to hop, so Bully and Bawly were soon tired. But do you s"pose that alligator cared? Not a bit of it!
Right after them he kept crawling, faster and faster.
Bully and Bawly hopped as swiftly as they could, but the alligator kept getting nearer and nearer to them, for he was big and strong, and didn"t mind the hill. They could hear his savage jaws gnashing together, and they trembled so that Bully almost spilled the mola.s.ses out of his basket and Bawly nearly dropped the granulated sugar.
Well, finally the two frog boys were at the top of the hill, and they were very thankful, thinking that they could now get away from the alligator, when they suddenly saw that the hill came to an end, and fell over the edge of a great precipice just like the Niagara waterfall, only there wasn"t any water there, of course.