"Oh, dear!" cried Susie. "I don"t want my tail pulled, even if it is very short."
"Nor I mine," Uncle Wiggily said.
"That makes no manner of difference to me," chattered the monkey. "I"m a tail-pulling chap, and tails I must pull. So you might as well have it over with, now as later." And he spoke just like a dentist who wants to take your lolly-pop away from you.
"Pull our tails! Well, I guess you won"t!" cried Uncle Wiggily suddenly. "Come on, Susie! Let"s run away!"
Before the monkey could grab them Uncle Wiggily and Susie started to run. But soon the monkey was running after them, crying:
"Stop! Stop! I must pull your tails!"
"But we don"t want you to," answered Susie.
"Oh, but you must let me!" cried the monkey. Then he gave a great big, long, strong and double-jointed jump, like a circus clown going over the backs of fourteen elephants, and part of another one, and the monkey grabbed Uncle Wiggily by his ears.
"Oh, let go of me, if you please!" begged the bunny. "I thought you said you pulled tails and not ears."
"I do pull tails when I can get hold of them," said the malicious monkey. "But as I can"t easily get hold of your tail, and as your ears are so large that I can easily grab them, I"ll pull them instead. All ready now, a long pull, a strong pull and a pull altogether!"
"Stop!" cried the bunny uncle, just as the monkey was going to give the three kinds of pull at once. "Stop!"
"No!" answered the monkey. "No! No!"
"Yes! Yes!" cried the bunny uncle. "If you don"t stop pulling my ears you"ll freeze!" and with that the bunny uncle pulled out from behind him, where he had kept them hidden, the bunch of white snowdrops.
"Ah, ha!" cried Mr. Longears to the monkey. "You come from a warm country, where there is no snow or snowdrops. Now when you see these snow drops, shiver and shake--see how cold it is! Shiver and shake!
Shake and shiver! Burr-r-r-r-r!"
Uncle Wiggily made believe the flowers were real snow, sort of shivering himself (pretend like) and the tail-pulling chap, who was very much afraid of cold and snow and ice, chattered and said:
"Oh, dear! Oh, how cold I am! Oh, I"m freezing. I am going back to my warm nest in the tree and not pull any tails until next summer!"
And then the monkey ran away, thinking the snowdrops Uncle Wiggily had picked were bits of real snow.
"I"m sorry I said the snowdrops weren"t nice," spoke Susie, as she and Uncle Wiggily went safely home. "They are very nice. Only for them the monkey would have pulled our tails."
But he didn"t, you see, and if the hookworm doesn"t go to the moving pictures with the gold fish and forget to come back to play tag with the toy piano, I"ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the horse chestnut tree.
STORY XIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE HORSE CHESTNUT
"Bang! Bango! Bunko! Bunk! Slam!"
Something made a big noise on the front porch of the hollow stump bungalow, where, in the woods, lived Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman.
"My goodness!" cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. "I hope nothing has happened!"
"Well, from what I heard I should say it is quite certain that SOMETHING has happened,"
spoke the bunny uncle, sort of twisting his ears very anxious like.
"I only hope the chimney hasn"t turned a somersault, and that the roof is not trying to play tag with the back steps," went on Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, a bit scared like.
"I"ll go see what it is," offered Uncle Wiggily, and as he went to the front door there, on the piazza, he saw Billie Wagtail, the little goat boy.
"Oh, good morning, Uncle Wiggily," spoke Billie, politely. "Here"s a note for you. I just brought it."
"And did you bring all that noise with you?"
Mr. Longears wanted to know.
"Well, yes, I guess I did," Billie said, sort of bashful like and shy as he wiggled his horns.
"I was seeing how fast I could run, and I ran down hill and got going so lickity-split like that I couldn"t stop. I fell right up your front steps, rattle-te-bang!"
"I should say it was rattle-te-bang!" laughed Uncle Wiggily. "But please don"t do it again, Billie."
"I won"t," promised the goat boy. "Grandpa Goosey Gander gave me that note to leave for you on my way to the store for my mother.
And now I must hurry on," and Billie jumped off the porch and skipped along through the Woodland trees as happy as a huckleberry pie and a piece of cheese.
"What was it all about?" asked Nurse Jane, when Uncle Wiggily came in.
"Oh, just Billie Wagtail," answered the bunny uncle. "He brought a note from Grandpa Goosey, who wants me to come over and see him. I"ll go. He has the epizootic, and can"t get out, so he wants some one to talk to and to play checkers with him."
Off through the woods went Uncle Wiggily and he was almost at Grandpa Goosey"s house when he heard some voices talking. One voice said:
"Oh, dear! How thirsty I am!"
"And so am I!" said another.
"Well, children, I am sorry," spoke a third voice, "but I cannot give you any water. I am thirsty myself, but we cannot drink until it rains, and it has not rained in a long, long time."
"Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear!" cried the other voices again. "How thirsty we are!"
"That"s too bad," thought Uncle Wiggily.
"I would not wish even the bad fox to be thirsty.
I must see if I can not be of some help."
So he peeked through the bushes and saw some trees.
"Was it you who were talking about being thirsty?" asked the rabbit gentleman, curious like.
"Yes," answered the big voice. "I am a horse chestnut tree, and these are my children," and the large tree waved some branches, like fingers, at some small trees growing under her.
"And they, I suppose, are pony chestnut trees," said Uncle Wiggily.
"That"s what we are!" cried the little trees, "and we are very thirsty."