"I will," said Billie. So he wound the string on the top again and soon it was spinning as fast as anything on the hard ground in the woods.
"Do you want me to show you how to pick up a top, and let it spin on your paw?" asked Billie, of Uncle Wiggily.
"Yes, show me all the tricks there are," said the bunny gentleman.
So, while the top was spinning very fast, Billie picked it up, and, holding it on his paw, quickly put it over on Uncle Wiggily"s paw.
"Ouch! It tickles!" cried the bunny uncle, sort of giggling like.
"Yes, a little," laughed Billie, "but I don"t mind that. Now I"ll show you how to pick it up."
Once more he spun the top, and he was just going to pick it up when, all of a sudden, a growling voice cried:
"Ah, ha! Again I am in luck! A rabbit and a squirrel! Let me see; which shall I take first?" And out from behind a stump popped a big bear. It was the same one that Uncle Wiggily had hit on the nose with Johnnie"s marble, about a week before.
"Oh, my!" said the bunny man.
"Oh, dear!" chattered Billie.
"Surprised to see me, aren"t you?" asked the bear sticking out his tongue.
"A little," answered Uncle Wiggily, "but I guess we"d better be getting along Billie. Pick up my top and come along."
"Oh, oh! Not so fast!" growled the bear. "I shall want you to stay with me. You"ll be going off with me to my den, pretty soon. Don"t be in a hurry," and, putting out his claws, he grabbed hold of Uncle Wiggily and Billie. They tried to get away, but could not, and the bear was just going to carry them off, when he saw the spinning top whizzing on the ground.
"What"s that red thing?" he asked.
"A top Billie just picked out for me," said Uncle Wiggily.
"Would you like to have it spin on your paw?" asked Billie, blinking his eyes at Uncle Wiggily, funny-like.
"Oh, I might as well, before I carry you off to my den," said the bear, sort of careless-like and indifferent. "Spin the top on my paw."
So Billie picked up the spinning top and put it on the bear"s broad, flat paw. And, no sooner was it there, whizzing around, than the bear cried:
"Ouch! Oh, dear! How it tickles. Ha! Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho! Ho! It makes me laugh. It makes me laugh. It makes me giggle! Ouch! Oh, dear!"
And then he laughed so hard that he dropped the top and turned a somersault, and away he ran through the woods, leaving Billie and Uncle Wiggily safe there alone.
"We came out of that very well," said the bunny uncle as the bear ran far away.
"Yes, indeed, and here is your top," spoke Billie, picking it up off the ground where the bear had dropped it.
"My top? No that"s yours," said the bunny gentleman. "I meant it for you all the while."
"Oh, did you? Thank you so much!" cried happy Billie, and then he ran off to spin his red top, while Mr. Longears went back to his bungalow.
And if the sofa pillow doesn"t leak its feathers all over, and make the room look like a bird"s nest at a moving picture picnic, I"ll tell you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily and the sunbeam.
STORY XXIII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SUNBEAM
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, was walking along in the woods one day, sort of hopping and leaning on his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, and he was wondering whether or not he would have an adventure, when, all at once, he heard a little voice crying:
"Oh, dear! I never can get up! I never can get up! Oh, dear!"
"Ha! that sounds like some one who can"t get out of bed," exclaimed the bunny uncle. "I wonder who it can be? Perhaps I can help them."
So he looked carefully around, but he saw no one, and he was just about to hop along, thinking perhaps he had made a mistake, and had not heard anything after all, when, suddenly, the voice sounded again, and called out:
"Oh, I can"t get up! I can"t get up! Can"t you shine on me this way?"
"No, I am sorry to say I cannot," answered another voice. "But try to push your way through, and then I can shine on you, and make you grow."
There was silence for a minute, and then the first voice said again:
"Oh, it"s no use! I can"t push the stone from over my head. Oh, such trouble as I have!"
"Trouble, eh?" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Here is where I come in. Who are you, and what is the trouble?" he asked, looking all around, and seeing nothing but the shining sun.
"Here I am, down in the ground near your left hind leg," was the answer. "I am a woodland flower and I have just started to grow. But when I tried to put my head up out of the ground, to get air, and drink the rain water, I find I cannot do it. A big stone is in the way, right over my head, and I cannot push it aside to get up. Oh, dear!"
sighed the Woodland flower.
"Oh, don"t worry about that!" cried Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice.
"I"ll lift the stone off your head for you," and he did, just as he once had helped a Jack-in-the-pulpit flower to grow up, as I have told you in another story. Under the stone were two little pale green leaves on a stem that was just cracking its way up through the brown earth.
"There you are!" cried the bunny uncle. "But you don"t look much like a flower."
"Oh! I have only just begun to grow," was the answer. "And I never would have been a flower if you had not taken the stone from me. You see, when I was a baby flower, or seed, I was covered up in my warm bed of earth. Then came the cold winter, and I went to sleep. When spring came I awakened and began to grow, but in the meanwhile this stone was put over me. I don"t know by whom. But it held me down.
"But now I am free, and my pale green leaves will turn to dark green, and soon I will blossom out into a flower."
"How will all that happen?" Uncle Wiggily asked.
"When the sunbeam shines on me," answered the blossom. "That is why I wanted to get above the stone--so the sunbeam could shine on me and warm me."
"And I will begin to do it right now!" exclaimed the sunbeam, who had been playing about on the leaves of the trees, waiting for a chance to shine on the green plant and turn it into a beautiful flower. "Thank you, Uncle Wiggily, for taking the stone off the leaves so I could shine on them," went on the sunbeam, who had known Uncle Wiggily for some time. "Though I am strong I am not strong enough to lift stones, nor was the flower. But now I can do my work. I thank you, and I hope I may do you a favor some time."
"Thank you," Uncle Wiggily said, with a low bow, raising his tall silk hat. "I suppose you sunbeams are kept very busy shining on, and warming, all the plants and trees in the woods?"
"Yes, indeed!" answered the yellow sunbeam, who was a long, straight chap. "We have lots of work to do, but we are never too busy to shine for our friends."
Then the sunbeam played about the little green plant, turning the pale leaves a darker color and swelling out the tiny buds. Uncle Wiggily walked on through the woods, glad that he had had even this little adventure.