Uncle Wiggily's Story Book. Howard R. Garis
had held in his paw ready for this part in the little play, but it looked like a tooth.
“Well, I declare!” laughed Grandma. “The bunny had his tooth pulled!”
“And he doesn’t seem to mind it at all,” added Mother.
Surely enough, Uncle Wiggily hopped off the make-believe dentist-stump, and with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch, began to dance a little jiggity-jig with Dr. Possum.
“This dance is to show that it doesn’t hurt even to have a tooth pulled; much less to have one filled,” said the bunny.
“I understand!” laughed Dr. Possum. And as he and Uncle Wiggily danced, they looked, out of the corners of their eyes, and saw the Toothache Boy standing at the window watching them.
“Well, I never, in all my born days, saw a sight like that!” exclaimed Grandma.
“Nor I,” said Mother. “Isn’t it wonderful!”
Sonny Boy took his hand down from his mouth.
“I—I guess, Mother,” he said, as he saw Uncle Wiggily jump over his crutch in a most happy fashion, “I guess I’ll go to the dentist, and have him stop my toothache!”
“Hurray!” softly cried Uncle Wiggily, who heard what the boy said. “This is just what I wanted to happen, Dr. Possum! Our little lesson is over. Now we may go!”
Away hopped the bunny, to tell Nurse Jane about the strange adventure, and Dr. Possum, with his bag of powders and pills on his tail, where he always carried it, shuffled back to his office.
Sonny Boy went to the dentist’s, and soon his tooth was fixed so it would not ache again. He hardly felt at all what the dentist did to him.
“I—I didn’t know how easy it was ’till I saw the rabbit have his tooth pulled,” said the boy to the dentist.
“Hum,” said the dentist, noncommittal-like, “some rabbits are very funny!”
And if the puppy dog doesn’t waggle his tail so hard that he knocks over the milk bottle when it’s trying to slide down the doormat, I shall have the pleasure, next, of telling you the story of Uncle Wiggily and the freckled girl.
Story II. Uncle Wiggily and the Freckled Girl
Uncle Wiggily was hopping through the woods one summer day, when, as he happened to stop to get a drink of some water that the rain-clouds had dropped in the cup of a Jack-in-the-pulpit flower, the bunny gentleman heard a girl saying:
“Oh, I wish I could get them off! I wish I could scrub them off with sandpaper, or something like that! I’ve tried lemon juice and vinegar, but they won’t go. And oh, they make me so homely!”
Uncle Wiggily stopped suddenly and rubbed the end of his pink, twinkling nose with the brim of his tall, silk hat.
“This is very queer,” said the bunny uncle to himself. “I wonder what is it she has tried to take off with lemon juice? She seems very unhappy, this little girl does.”
The bunny uncle looked through the trees and, seated on a green, mossy stump, he saw a girl about ten or twelve years old. She held a looking-glass in her hand, and as she glanced at her likeness in the mirror she kept saying:
“How can I get them off? How can I make them disappear so I will be beautiful? Oh, how I hate them!”
“What in the world can be the matter?” thought Uncle Wiggily to himself. For, as I have told you, the bunny gentleman was now able to hear and understand the talk of girls and boys, though he could not himself speak that language.
He hopped a little closer to the unhappy girl on the green, mossy stump, but the bunny stepped so softly on the leaf carpet of the forest that scarcely a sound did he make, and the girl with the mirror never heard him.
“I wonder if I said a little verse, such as I have read in fairy books, whether they would go away?” murmured the girl. “I’ve tried everything but that. I’ll do it—I’ll say a magical verse! But I must make up one, for I never have read of the kind I want in any book.”
She seemed to be thinking deeply for a moment and then, shutting her eyes, and looking up at the sun which was shining through the trees of the wood, the girl recited this little verse:
“Sun, sun, who made them come,
Make them go away.
Then I’ll be like other girls,
Happy all the day!”
“This is like a puzzle, or a riddle,” whispered Uncle Wiggily to himself, as he kept out of sight behind a bush near the stump. “What is it she wants the sun to make go away? It can’t be rain, or storm clouds, for the sky is as blue as a baby’s eyes. I wonder what it is?”
Then, as the girl took up the mirror again, and looked in it, Uncle Wiggily saw the reflection of her face.
It was covered with dear, little brown freckles!
“Ho! Ho!” softly crooned Uncle Wiggily to himself. “Now I understand. This girl is unhappy because she is freckled. She thinks she doesn’t look pretty with them! Why, if she only knew it, those freckles show how strong and healthy she is. They show that she has played out in the fresh air and sunshine, and that she will live to be happy a long, long while. Freckles! Why, she ought to be glad she has them, instead of sorry!”
But the girl on the stump kept her eyes shut, clenching the mirror in her hand and as she held her face up to the sun she recited another verse of what she thought was a mystic charm.
This is what she said:
“Freckles, freckles, go away!
Don’t come back any other day.
Make my face most fair to see,
Then how happy I will be!”
Slowly, as Uncle Wiggily watched, hidden as he was behind the bush, the girl opened her eyes and held up the looking-glass. Over her shoulder the bunny gentleman could still see the freckles in the glass; the dear, brown, honest, healthy freckles. But when the girl saw them she dropped the mirror, hid her face in her hands and cried:
“Oh, they didn’t go ’way! They didn’t go ’way! Now I never can be beautiful!”
Uncle Wiggily twinkled his pink nose thoughtfully.
“This is too bad!” said the bunny gentleman. “I wonder how I can help that girl?” For, since he had helped the Toothache Boy by letting Dr. Possum pretend to pull an aching tooth, the bunny gentleman wanted do other favors for the children who loved him.
“I’d like to make that girl happy, even with her freckles,” said the bunny. “I’ll hop off through the woods, and perhaps I may meet some of my animal friends who will show me a way.”
The bunny gentleman looked kindly at the girl on the stump. She was sobbing, and did not see him, or hear him, as she murmured over and over again:
“I don’t like freckles! I hate them!”
Away through the woods hopped Uncle Wiggily. He had not gone very far before he heard a bird singing a beautiful song. Oh, so cheerful it was, and happy—that song!
“Good morning, Mr. Bird!” greeted Uncle Wiggily, for you know it is the father bird who sings the sweetest song. The mother bird is so busy, I suppose, that she has little time to sing. “You are very happy this morning,” the rabbit said to the bird.
“Why, yes, Uncle Wiggily, I am very happy,” answered Mr. Bird, “and so is my wife. She is up there on the nest, but she told me to come down here and sing a happy song.”
“Why?” asked the bunny.
“Because we are going to have some little