Uncle Wiggily's Story Book. Howard R. Garis
said Uncle Wiggily, thinking of the unhappy freckled girl on the stump. “May I see the eggs in your nest?”
“Of course,” answered the father-singer. “Our nest is in a low bush, but it is well hidden. Here, I’ll show you. Mrs. Bird will not mind if you look.”
The father bird fluttered to the nest, and Mrs. Bird raised her fluffy feathers to show Uncle Wiggily some beautiful blue eggs.
“Why—why, they’re freckled!” exclaimed the bunny gentleman. “Aren’t you birds sad because you have freckled eggs? Why, your little birds will be freckled, too! And, if they are girl birds they will cry!”
“Why?” asked Mr. Bird in surprise. “Why will our girl birdies cry?”
“Because they’ll be freckled,” answered the bunny. “I just saw a girl in the woods, crying to break her heart because she is freckled!”
“Nonsense!” chirped Mrs. Bird. “In the first place these are not freckles on my eggs, though they look so. My eggs are spotted, or mottled, and they would not be half so pretty if they were not colored that way. Besides, being spotted as they are, makes them not so easily seen in the nest. And, when I fly away to get food, bad snakes or cats can not so easily see my eggs to eat them. I just love my freckled eggs, as you call them!” laughed Mrs. Bird.
“Well, they are pretty,” admitted Uncle Wiggily. “But will your little birds be speckled, too?”
“Not at all,” sang Mr. Bird. “Say, Uncle Wiggily!” he whistled, “if we could get that girl here so she could see our spotted eggs, and know how beautiful they are, even if they are what she would call ‘freckled’; wouldn’t that make her happier?”
“Perhaps it would,” said the bunny rabbit. “I never thought of that. I’ll try it! You will not be afraid to let her see your eggs, will you?” he asked.
“No; for girls are not like some boys—they don’t rob the nests of birds,” replied the mother of the speckled eggs. “Bring the unhappy girl here, and Mr. Bird and I will hide in the bushes while she peeps into our nest.”
“I will!” said Uncle Wiggily.
Away he hopped through the woods, and soon he came to the place where the freckled girl was still sobbing on the stump.
“Now how can I get her to follow me through the woods, to see the nest, when I can’t talk to her?” whispered Uncle Wiggily.
Then he thought of a plan.
“I’ll toss a little piece of tree-bark at her,” chuckled the bunny. “That will make her look up, and when she sees me I’ll hop off a little way. She’ll follow, thinking she can catch me. But I’ll keep ahead of her and so lead her to the woods. I want to make her happy!”
The bunny tossed a bit of bark, hitting the girl on her head. She looked around, and then she saw Uncle Wiggily, all dressed up as he was with his tall silk hat and his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch.
“Oh, what a funny rabbit!” exclaimed the girl, smiling through her tears, and forgetting her freckles, for a while at least. “I wonder if I can catch you?” she said.
“Well, not if I know it,” whispered Uncle Wiggily to himself, for he knew what the girl had said. “But I’ll let you think you can,” the bunny chuckled to himself.
He hopped on a little farther, and the girl followed. But just as she thought she was going to put her hands on the rabbit, Uncle Wiggily skipped along, and she missed him. But still she followed on, and soon Uncle Wiggily had led her to the bushes where the birds had built their nest.
Mr. and Mrs. Bird were watching, and when they saw Uncle Wiggily and the freckled girl, Mr. Bird began to sing. He sang of blue skies, or rippling waters of sunshine and sweet breezes scented with apple blossoms.
“Oh, what a lovely song!” murmured the freckled girl. “Some birds must live here. I wonder if I could see their nest and eggs? I wouldn’t hurt them for the world!” she said softly.
Uncle Wiggily shrank back out of sight. The girl looked around for the singing birds, and just then the wind blew aside some leaves and she saw the nest. But she saw more than the nest, for she saw the eggs that were to be hatched into little birds. And, more than this; the girl saw that the eggs were spotted or mottled—freckled as she was herself!
“Oh! Oh!” murmured the girl, clasping her hands as she looked down at the speckled eggs in the nest. “They have brown spots on, just like my face. They are freckled eggs—but, oh, how pretty they are! I never knew that anything freckled could be beautiful! I never knew! Oh, how wonderful!”
As she stood looking at the eggs, Mr. Bird sang again, a sweeter song than before, and the wind blew softly on the freckled face of the unhappy girl—no, not unhappy now, for she smiled, and there were no more tears in her eyes.
“Oh, how glad I am that the funny rabbit led me to the nest of freckled eggs!” said the girl. “I wonder where he is?”
She looked around, but Uncle Wiggily had hopped away. He had done all that was needed of him.
The mother bird softly fluttered down into her nest, covering the beautiful mottled eggs with her downy wings. She was not afraid of the girl. The girl reached out her hand and timidly stroked the mother bird. Then she gently touched her own freckled cheeks.
“I’m never going to care any more,” she whispered. “I did not know that freckles could be so pretty. I’m glad I got ’em!”
The freckled girl walked away, leaving the mother bird on the nest, while the father of the speckled eggs, that soon would be little birds, sang his song of joy. The freckled girl, with a glad smile on her face, went back to the stump, and, without looking into the mirror, she tossed the bit of looking-glass into a deep spring.
“I don’t need you any more,” she said, as the glass went sailing through the air. “I know, now, that freckles can be beautiful!”
And if the pussy cat doesn’t think the automobile tire is a bologna sausage, and try to nibble a piece out to make a sandwich for the rag doll’s picnic, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the mud puddle.
Story III. Uncle Wiggily and the Mud Puddle
Did you ever fall down in a mud puddle? Perhaps this may have happened to you when you were barefooted, with old clothes on, so that it did not much matter whether you splashed them or not.
But that isn’t what I mean.
Did you ever fall into a mud puddle when you had on your very best clothes, with white stockings that showed every speck of mud? If anything like that ever happened to you, when you were going to Sunday-school, or to a little afternoon tea party, why, you know how dreadfully unhappy you felt! To say nothing of the pain in your knees!
Well, now for a story of how a little boy named Tommie fell in a mud puddle, and how Uncle Wiggily helped him scrub the mud off his white stockings—off Tommie’s white stockings I mean, not Uncle Wiggily’s.
Tommie was a little boy who lived in a house on the edge of the wood, near where Uncle Wiggily had built his hollow stump bungalow. No, Tommie wasn’t the same little boy who had the toothache. He was quite a different chap.
One day the postman rang the bell at Tommie’s house, and gave Tommie a cute little letter.
“Oh, it’s for me!” cried Tommie. “Look, Mother! I have a letter!”
“That’s nice,” said Mother. “Who sent it to you?”
“I’ll look and tell you,” answered the little boy. The writing in the letter was large and plain, and though Tommie had not been to school very long he could read a little. So he was able to tell that the letter was from a little girl named Alice, who wanted him to come to a party she was going to have one afternoon a few days later.
“Oh,