"Why, some poor kittie must be lost," thought the old gentleman rabbit.
"I"ll see if I can find it."
Then the cry sounded again, and, in another moment, out of a tree flew a big bird.
"Oh, maybe that bird stuck his sharp beak in the kittie and made it cry,"
thought Uncle Wiggily. "Bird, did you do that?" he asked, calling to the bird, who was flying around in the air.
"Did I do what?" asked the bird.
"Did you stick the kittie, and make it cry?"
"Oh, no," answered the bird. "I made that cat-crying noise myself. I am a cat-bird, you know," and surely enough that bird went "Mew! Mew! Mew!"
three times, just like that, exactly as if a cat had cried under your window, when you were trying to go to sleep.
"Ha! That is very strange!" exclaimed the rabbit. "So you are a cat-bird."
"Yes, and my little birds are kittie-birds," was the answer. "I"ll show you."
So the bird went "Mew! Mew! Mew!" again, and a lot of the little birds came flying around and they all went "Mew! Mew!" too, just like kitties.
Oh, I tell you cat-birds are queer things! and how they do love cherries when they are ripe! Eh?
"That is very good crying, birdies," said Uncle Wiggily, "and I think I"ll give you something to eat, to pay for it." So he took out from his valise some peanuts, that Percival, the circus dog, had given him, and Uncle Wiggily fed them to the cat-bird and her kittie-birds.
"You are very kind," said the mamma bird, "and if we can ever do you a favor we will."
And now listen, as the telephone girl says, those birds are going to do Uncle Wiggily a favor in a short time--a very short time indeed.
Well, after the birds had eaten all the peanuts they flew away, and Uncle Wiggily started off once more. He hadn"t gone very far before he came to a fountain. You know what that is. It"s a thing in a park that squirts up water, just like when you fill a rubber ball with milk or lemonade and squeeze it. Only a fountain is bigger, of course.
This fountain that Uncle Wiggily came to had no water in it, for it was being cleaned. There was a big basin, with a pipe up through the middle, and this was where the water spouted up when it was running.
"This is very strange," said Uncle Wiggily, for he had never seen a fountain before, "perhaps I can find my fortune in here. I"ll go look." So down he jumped into the big empty fountain basin, which was as large as seven wash tubs made into one. And it was so nice and comfortable there, and so shady, for there were trees near it, that, before he knew it, Uncle Wiggily fell fast asleep, with his head on his satchel for a pillow.
And then he had a funny dream. He dreamed that it was raining, and that his umbrella turned inside out, and got full of holes, and that he was getting all wet.
"My!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he gave a big sneeze. "This is a very real dream. I actually believe I _am_ wet!"
Then he got real wide awake all of a sudden, and he found that he was right in the middle of a lot of wetness, for the man had turned the water on in the fountain unexpectedly, not knowing that the old gentleman rabbit was asleep there.
"I must get out of here!" cried Uncle Wiggily, as he grabbed up his valise and crutch. Then the water came up to his little short, stumpy tail. Next it rose higher, up to his knees. Then it rose still faster up to his front feet and then almost up to his chin.
"Oh, I"m afraid I"m going to drown!" he cried. "I must get out!" So he tried to swim to the edge of the fountain, but you can"t swim very well with a crutch and a valise, you know, and Uncle Wiggily didn"t want to lose either one. Then the water from the top of the fountain splashed in his eyes and he couldn"t see which way to swim.
"Oh, help! Help!" he cried. "Will no one help me?"
"Yes, we will help you!" answered a voice, and up flew the big cat-bird, and her little kitten-birds. "Quick, children!" she cried, "we must save Uncle Wiggily, who was so kind to us! Every one of you get a stick, and we"ll make a little boat, or raft, for him!"
Well, I wish you could have seen how quickly the mamma cat-bird and her kittie-birds gathered a lot of sticks, and twigs, and laid them together crossways on the water in that fountain basin, until they had a regular little boat. Upon this Uncle Wiggily climbed, with his crutch and valise, and then the mamma cat-bird flew on ahead, and pulled the boat by a string to the edge of the fountain, where the rabbit could safely get out.
So that"s how the bunny was saved from drowning in the water, and in the next story, if a big, red ant doesn"t crawl upon our porch and carry away the hammock, I"ll tell you another adventure Uncle Wiggily had. It will be a story of the old gentleman rabbit and the bad dog.
STORY IX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE DOG
Uncle Wiggily"s rheumatism was quite bad after he got wet in the fountain, as I told you in the other story, and when he thanked the mamma cat-bird and her kitten-birds for saving him, he found that he could hardly walk, much less carry his heavy valise.
"Oh, we"ll help you," said Mrs. Cat-Bird. "Here, Flitter and Flutter, you carry the satchel for Uncle Wiggily, and we"ll take him to our house."
"But, mamma," said Flutter, who was getting to be quite a big bird-boy, "Uncle Wiggily can"t climb up a tree to our nest."
"No, but we can make him a nice warm bed on the ground," said the mamma bird. "So you and Flitter carry the satchel. Put a long blade of gra.s.s through the handle, and then each of you take hold of one end of the gra.s.s in your bills, and fly away with it. Skimmer, you and Dartie go on ahead, and get something ready to eat, and I"ll show Uncle Wiggily the way."
So Flitter and Flutter, the two boy birds, flew away with the satchel, and Skimmer and Dartie, the girl birds, flew on ahead to set the table, and put on the teakettle on the stove to boil, and Mrs. Cat-Bird flew slowly on over Uncle Wiggily, to show him the way.
Well, pretty soon, not so so very long, they came to where the birds lived. And those good children had already started to make a nest on the ground for the old gentleman rabbit. They had it almost finished, and by the time supper was ready it was all done. Then came the meal, and those birds couldn"t do enough for Uncle Wiggily, because they liked him so.
When it got dark, they covered him all up, with soft leaves in the nest on the ground, and there he slept until morning. His rheumatism wasn"t quite so bad when, after breakfast, he had sat out in the warm sun for a while, and after a bit he said:
"Well, I think I"ll travel along now, and see if I can find my fortune to-day. Perhaps I may, and if I do I"ll come back and bring you more peanuts."
"Oh, that"ll be fine and dandy!" cried Flitter and Flutter, and Skimmer and Dartie. So they said good-by to the old gentleman rabbit, and once more he started off.
"My! I"m certainly getting to be a great traveler," he thought as he walked along through the woods and over the fields. "But I don"t ever seem to get to any place. Something always happens to me. I hope everything goes along nicely to-day."
But you just wait and see what takes place. I"m afraid something is going to happen very shortly, but it"s not my fault, and all I can do is to tell you exactly all about it. Wait! There, it"s beginning to happen now.
All of a sudden, as Uncle Wiggily was traveling along, he came to a place in the woods where a whole lot of Gypsies had their wagons and tents. And on one tent, in which was an old brown and wrinkled Gypsy lady, there was a sign which read:
FORTUNES TOLD HERE.
"Ha! If they tell fortunes in that tent, perhaps the Gypsy lady can tell me where to find mine," thought Uncle Wiggily. "I"ll go up and ask her."
Well, he was just going to the tent when he happened to think that perhaps the Gypsy woman wouldn"t understand rabbit talk. So he sat there in the bushes thinking what he had better do, when all at once, before he could wiggle his ears more than four times, a great big, bad, ugly dog sprang at him, barking, oh! so loudly.
"Come on, Browser!" cried this dog to another one. "Here is a fat rabbit that we can catch for dinner. Come on, let"s chase him!"
Well, you can just imagine how frightened Uncle Wiggily was. He didn"t sit there, waiting for that dog to catch him, either. No, indeed, and a bag of popcorn besides! Up jumped Uncle Wiggily, with his crutch and his valise, and he hopped as hard and as fast as he could run. My! How his legs did twist in and out.
"Come on! Come!" barked the first dog to the second one.
"I"m coming! I"m coming! Woof! Woof! Bow-w-w Bow-wow!" barked the second dog.
Poor Uncle Wiggily"s heart beat faster and faster, and he didn"t know which way to run. Every way he turned the dogs were after him, and soon more of the savage animals came to join the first two, until all the dogs in that Gypsy camp were chasing the poor old gentleman rabbit.