"Ah, ha!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "Mr. Bigtail! I ought to know that name. It"s the fox, and he and some one else seem to be after us rabbits. But I thought the fox promised to be good and let me alone.
He must have changed his mind."
Uncle Wiggily peeked cautiously around the stump, taking care to make no noise, and there he saw a fox and another animal talking.
And the rabbit gentleman saw that it was not the fox who had promised to be good, but another one, of the same name, who was bad.
"Yes, I"ll go down the hole and drive out the rabbits and you can grab them," said the queer animal.
"That"s good," growled the fox, "but to whom have I the honor of speaking?" That was his way of asking the name of the other animal, you see.
"Oh, I"m called Mr. Pop-Goes," said the other.
"Mr. Pop-Goes! What a queer name," said the fox, and all the while Uncle Wiggily was listening with his big ears, and wondering what it all meant.
"Oh, Pop-Goes isn"t all my name," said the queer animal. "Don"t you know the story in the book? The monkey chased the cobbler"s wife all around the steeple. That"s the way the money goes, Pop! goes the weasel. I"m Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel, you see. I"m "specially good at chasing rabbits."
"Oh, I see!" barked Mr. Bigtail, the fox. "Well, I"ll be glad if you can help me get those rabbits. I"ve been over to that Uncle Wiggily"s hollow-stump bungalow, but he isn"t around."
"No, he"s visiting the Littletail rabbits," said Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel. "But we"ll drive him out."
Then Uncle Wiggily felt very badly, indeed, for he knew that a weasel is the worst animal a rabbit can have after him. Weasels are very fond of rabbits. They love them so much they want to eat them, and Uncle Wiggily did not want to be eaten, even by Mr. Pop-Goes.
"Oh, dear!" he thought. "What can I do to scare away the bad fox and Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel? Oh, dear!" Then he thought of the toy balloons, that made a noise like a gun when they were blown up and burst. "The very thing!" thought the rabbit gentleman.
Carefully, as he hid behind the stump, Uncle Wiggily took out one of the toy balloons. Carefully he blew it up, bigger and bigger and bigger, until, all at once:
"Bang!" exploded the toy balloon, even making Uncle Wiggily jump.
And as for the fox and Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel, why they were so kerslostrated (if you will kindly excuse me for using such a word) that they turned a somersault, jumped up in the air, came down, turned a peppersault, and started to run.
"Did you hear that noise?" asked the weasel. "That was a pop, and whenever I hear a pop I have to go! And I"m going fast!"
"So am I!" barked the fox. "That was a hunter with a gun after us, I guess. We"ll get those rabbits some other time."
"Maybe you will, and maybe not!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, as he hurried on to the burrow with the bread, sugar and the rest of the toy balloons, with which Sammie and Susie had lots of fun.
So you see Mr. Pop-Goes, the weasel, didn"t get Uncle Wiggily after all, and if the pepper caster doesn"t throw dust in the potato"s eyes, and make it sneeze at the rag doll, I"ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Simple Simon.
CHAPTER XIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND SIMPLE SIMON
"There!" exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, who, with Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was visiting at the Littletail rabbit burrow one day. "There they are, Uncle Wiggily, all nicely wrapped up for you to carry."
"What"s nicely wrapped up?" asked the bunny uncle. "And what do you want me to carry?" And he looked over the tops of his spectacles at the muskrat lady, sort of surprised and wondering.
"I want you to carry the jam tarts, and they are all nicely wrapped up," went on Nurse Jane. "Don"t you remember, I said I was going to make some for you to take over to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady?"
"Oh, of course!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "The jam tarts are for Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children. I remember now.
I"ll take them right over."
"They are all nicely wrapped up in a clean napkin," went on the muskrat lady, "so be careful not to squash them and squeeze out the jam, as they are very fresh."
"I"ll be careful," promised the old rabbit gentleman, as he put on his fur coat and took down off the parlor mantle his red, white and blue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, made of a corn-stalk.
"Oh, wait a minute, Uncle Wiggily! Wait a minute!" cried Mrs.
Littletail, the bunny mother of Sammie and Susie, the rabbit children, as Mr. Longears started out. "Where are you going?"
"Over to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady"s house, with some jam tarts for Lulu, Alice and Jimmie," answered Uncle Wiggily.
"Then would you mind carrying, also, this little rubber plant over to her?" asked Mrs. Littletail. "I told Mrs. Wibblewobble I would send one to her the first chance I had."
"Right gladly will I take it," said Uncle Wiggily. So Mrs.
Littletail, the rabbit lady, wrapped the pot of the little rubber plant, with its thick, shiny green leaves, in a piece of paper, and Uncle Wiggily, tucking it under one paw, while with the other he leaned on his crutch, started off over the fields and through the woods, with the jam tarts in his pocket. Over toward the home of the Wibblewobble duck family he hopped.
Mr. Longears, the nice old rabbit gentleman, had not gone very far before, all at once, from behind a snow-covered stump, he heard a voice saying:
"Oh, dear! I know I"ll never find him! I"ve looked all over and I can"t see him anywhere. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?"
"My! That sounds like some one in trouble," Uncle Wiggily said to himself. "I wonder if that is any of my little animal friends? I must look."
So the rabbit gentleman peeked over the top of the stump, and there he saw a queer-looking boy, with a funny smile on his face, which was as round and shiny as the bottom of a new dish pan. And the boy looked so kind that Uncle Wiggily knew he would not hurt even a lollypop, much less a rabbit gentleman.
"Oh, h.e.l.lo!" cried the boy, as soon as he saw Uncle Wiggily. "Who are you?"
"I am Mr. Longears," replied the bunny uncle. "And who are you?"
"Why, I"m Simple Simon," was the answer. "I"m in the Mother Goose book, you know."
"Oh, yes, I remember," said Uncle Wiggily. "But you seem to be _out_ of the book, just now."
"I am," said Simple Simon. "The page with my picture on it fell out of the book, and so I ran away. But I can"t find him anywhere and I don"t know what to do."
"Who is it you can"t find?" asked the rabbit.
"The pie-man," answered the funny, round-faced boy. "Don"t you remember, it says in the book, "Simple Simon met a pie-man going to the fair?""
"Oh, yes, I remember," Uncle Wiggily answered. "What"s next?"
"Well, I can"t find him anywhere," said Simple Simon. "I guess the pie-man didn"t fall out of the book when I did."
"That"s too bad," spoke Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
"It is," said Simple Simon. "For you know he ought to ask me for my penny, when I want to taste of his pies, and indeed, I haven"t any penny--not any, and I"m _so_ hungry for a piece of pie!" And Simple Simon began to cry.
"Oh, don"t cry," said Uncle Wiggily. "See, in my pocket I have some jam tarts. They are for Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the ducks, but there are enough to let you have one."