"Wonderful! Wonderful!" exclaimed the old dog Rover. "You should write a book about your fortune."
"I haven"t found it yet, but perhaps I may, and then I"ll write the book,"
said Uncle Wiggily, combing out his whiskers.
That night the boy put a soft rag and some salve on the rabbit"s sore foot, and he also gave him some liniment for his rheumatism, and in the morning Uncle Wiggily was much better. He and the boy and the dogs had lots of fun playing together on the smooth, green, gra.s.sy lawn. They played tag, and hide-and-go-seek, and a new game called "Don"t Let the Ragman Take Your Rubber Boots." And the dog Rover pretended he was the ragman.
"Now, then, we"ll all go out in my motor boat," said the boy, so he and Uncle Wiggily and the dogs went down to the lake and, surely enough, there was the boat, the nicest one you could wish for. There was a little cabin in it, and seats out on deck, and a little engine that went "choo-choo!"
and pushed the boat through the water.
In the boat they all had a fine ride around the lake, which was almost like the one where you go to a Sunday-school picnic, and then it was time for dinner. And, as a special treat, when they got on sh.o.r.e, Uncle Wiggily was given carrot ice cream, with chopped-up turnips in it. And oh, how good it was to him!
Well, the days pa.s.sed, and Uncle Wiggily was getting so he could walk along pretty well, for his foot was all cured, and he began to think of going on once more to seek his fortune. And then something happened. One day the boy went out alone in a rowboat to see if he could find any fish.
And before he knew it his boat had tipped over, spilling him out into the water, and he couldn"t swim. Wasn"t that dreadful?
"Oh! Help! Help!" he cried, as the water came up to his chin.
My, but it"s awful to be tipped over in a boat! and I and I hope if you can"t swim you"ll never go out in one alone. And there was that poor boy splashing around in the water, and almost drowned.
"Save me! Save me!" the boy cried. "Oh, save me!"
Well, as it happened, Uncle Wiggily was walking along the sh.o.r.e of the lake just then. He saw the little boy fall out of the boat, and he heard him cry.
"I"ll save you if I can!" exclaimed the brave old rabbit. "Come on, Rover, we"ll go out in the motor boat and rescue him."
"Bow-wow! Bow-wow! Sure! Sure!" cried Cover, wagging his tail.
So he and Uncle Wiggily ran down, and jumped into the motor boat. And they knew just how to start the engine and run it, for the boy had showed them.
"Bang-bang!" went the engine. "Whizz-whizz!" went the boat through the water.
"Faster! Faster!" cried Uncle Wiggily, who was steering the boat, while Rover ran the engine. "Go faster!"
So Rover made it go as fast as he could, and then all of a sudden that boy went down under the water, out of sight.
"Oh, he"s drowned!" cried Uncle Wiggily sorrowfully.
But he wasn"t, I"m glad to say. Just then along came Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the muskrat, swimming. And she dived away down under and helped bring that boy up to the top of the water, and then Uncle Wiggily and Cover grabbed him as the muskrat lifted him up, and they pulled him into the motor boat, and so saved his life. And oh! how thankful he was when he was safe on sh.o.r.e, and he was careful never to fall in the water again.
Now, in case the clothes wringer doesn"t squeeze all the juice out of my breakfast orange, I"ll tell you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily making a cherry pie.
STORY XV
UNCLE WIGGILY MAKES A PIE
Do you remember the little boy whom Uncle Wiggily helped save after he fell out of the boat? Well, that boy"s papa was so glad because Uncle Wiggily had helped save the little chap from drowning that he couldn"t do enough for the old gentleman rabbit.
"You can stay here forever, and have carrot ice cream every day if you like," the man said.
"Oh, thank you very much, but I think I"ll travel on," replied Uncle Wiggily. "I have still to seek my fortune."
"Why, _I_ will give you a fortune!" said the boy"s papa. "I will give you a thousand million dollars, and a penny besides."
"That would be a fine fortune," spoke the rabbit, "but I would much rather find my own. It is no fun when you get a thing given to you. It is better to earn it yourself, and then you think more of it."
"Yes, that is so," said the man. "Well, we will be sorry to see you go."
Uncle Wiggily started off the next day, once more to seek his fortune, and the little boy felt so sad at seeing him go that he cried, and put his arms around the old gentleman rabbit, and kissed him between the ears. And Uncle Wiggily felt badly, too.
Well, the old gentleman rabbit traveled on and on for several days after that, sleeping under hay stacks part of the time, or in empty hollow stumps, and sometimes he dug a burrow for himself in the soft ground.
And one afternoon, just as the sun was getting ready to go to bed for the night, Uncle Wiggily came to an open place in the woods where there was a cave, made of a lot of little stones piled up together.
"My! I wonder who lives there?" thought the rabbit. "It is too small for a giant to live in, but there may be a bad bear or a savage fox in there. I guess I"d better get away from here."
Well, Uncle Wiggily was just going, when, all at once, a voice cried out:
"Here, hold on there!"
The rabbit looked back, and he saw a great big porcupine, or hedgehog--you know, those animals like a big gray rabbit, only their fur is the stickery-p.r.i.c.kery kind, like needles, and the quills come out and stick in anybody who bites a hedgehog. So I hope none of you ever bite one. And they won"t bite you if you don"t bother them.
So as soon as Uncle Wiggily saw that it was Mr. Hedgehog who was speaking he wasn"t a bit afraid, for he knew him.
"Oh, it"s you, is it?" asked the rabbit. "I"m real glad to see you. I was going to travel on, but----"
"Don"t say another word!" cried the hedgehog heartily. "You can stay in my cave all night. I have two beds, and it"s a good thing I have, for if you slept with me you might get full of my stickery-stickers."
"Yes, I guess I had better sleep alone," said Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh.
"But it seems to me, Mr. Hedgehog, that you are not looking well."
"I"m not," answered the porcupine, as he shivered so that several of his quills fell out on the gra.s.s. "I"m suffering for some cherry pie. Oh, cherry pie! If I only had some I know I"d feel better at once. I just love it!"
"Why don"t you make some yourself?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"I have tried," replied the hedgehog. "I"ve tried and tried again, but, somehow, it never comes out right. Here, I"ll show you. I made a cherry pie just before I looked out of the door and saw you. I"ll show it to you."
He went into his little stone house, and Uncle Wiggily went with him.
"There"s the pie--it"s no good!" cried the porcupine, as he pointed to something on the table. Well, as soon as Uncle Wiggily saw it he laughed so hard that his ears waved back and forth.
"What"s the matter? I don"t see anything funny," asked Mr. Hedgehog, shivering so that more quills fell out.
"Why, you"ve gone and put the cherry pits into the pie instead of the cherries," said the rabbit. "That"s no way to do. You must take out the stones from inside the cherries and put the outside part of them inside the pie, and throw the inside or stony part of the cherries away."
"Oh, good land!" cried the hedgehog, "no wonder I couldn"t eat the pie.