Uncle Wiggily in Wonderland Read online

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  UNCLE WIGGILY IN WONDERLAND

 

  UNCLE WIGGILY SERIES

  by Howard R. Garis

  _UNCLE WIGGILY BEDTIME STORIES_

  Uncle Wiggily in Wonderland

  By HOWARD R. GARIS

  Author of "SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL," "DICKIE AND NELLIE FLIPTAIL," "UNCLE WIGGILY'S AIRSHIP," THE DADDY SERIES, ETC.

  ILLUSTRATED BY EDWARD BLOOMFIELD

  A. L. Burt Company Publishers New York

  THE FAMOUS BED TIME STORIES

  Books intended for reading aloud to the Little Folks at night. Eachvolume contains colored illustrations, and a story for every night inthe month. The animal tales send the children to bed with happy dreams.

  BEDTIME ANIMAL STORIES By HOWARD R. GARIS

  SAMMIE AND SUSIE LITTLETAIL JOHNNIE AND BILLIE BUSHYTAIL LULU, ALICE AND JIMMIE WIBBLEWOBBLE JACKIES AND PEETIE BOW-WOW BUDDY AND BRIGHTEYES PIGG JOIE, TOMMIE AND KITTIE KAT CHARLIE AND ARABELLA CHICK NEDDIE AND BECKIE STUBTAIL BULLY AND BAWLY NO-TAIL NANNIE AND BILLIE WAGTAIL JOLLIE AND JILLIE LONGTAIL JACKO AND JUMPO KINKYTAIL CURLY AND FLOPPY TWISTYTAIL TOODLE AND NOODLE FLAT-TAIL DOTTIE AND WILLIE FLUFFTAIL DICKIE AND NELLIE FLIPTAIL

  UNCLE WIGGILY BEDTIME STORIES By HOWARD R. GARIS

  UNCLE WIGGILY'S ADVENTURES UNCLE WIGGILY'S TRAVELS UNCLE WIGGILY'S FORTUNE UNCLE WIGGILY'S AUTOMOBILE UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE SEASHORE UNCLE WIGGILY'S AIRSHIP UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE COUNTRY UNCLE WIGGILY IN THE WOODS UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FARM UNCLE WIGGILY'S JOURNEY UNCLE WIGGILY'S RHEUMATISM UNCLE WIGGILY AND BABY BUNTY UNCLE WIGGILY IN WONDERLAND UNCLE WIGGILY IN FAIRYLAND

  For sale at all bookstores or sent prepaid on receipt of price, 75 centsper volume, by the publishers

  A. L. BURT COMPANY, 114-120 East 23rd Street New York City

  _Copyright, 1921, by R. F. Fenno & Company_

  UNCLE WIGGILY IN WONDERLAND

  CONTENTS

  Chapter Page

  I Uncle Wiggily and Wonderland Alice 9

  II Uncle Wiggily and the March Hare 16

  III Uncle Wiggily and the Cheshire Cat 23

  IV Uncle Wiggily and the Dormouse 30

  V Uncle Wiggily and the Gryphon 37

  VI Uncle Wiggily and the Caterpillar 44

  VII Uncle Wiggily and the Hatter 50

  VIII Uncle Wiggily and the Duchess 56

  IX Uncle Wiggily and the Cook 63

  X Uncle Wiggily and the Baby 69

  XI Uncle Wiggily and the Mock Turtle 76

  XII Uncle Wiggily and the Lobster 83

  XIII Uncle Wiggily and Father William 89

  XIV Uncle Wiggily and the Magic Bottles 96

  XV Uncle Wiggily and the Croquet Ball 102

  XVI Uncle Wiggily and the Do-Do 108

  XVII Uncle Wiggily and the Lory 115

  XVIII Uncle Wiggily and the Puppy 122

  XIX Uncle Wiggily and the Unicorn 129

  XX Uncle Wiggily and Humpty Dumpty 136

  XXI Uncle Wiggily and the Looking Glass 143

  XXII Uncle Wiggily and the White Queen 150

  XXIII Uncle Wiggily and the Red Queen 157

  XXIV Uncle Wiggily and Tweedledum 164

  XXV Uncle Wiggily and Tweedledee 171

  XXVI Uncle Wiggily and the Tear Pool 178

  CHAPTER I

  UNCLE WIGGILY AND WONDERLAND ALICE

  Once upon a time, after Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice bunny rabbitgentleman, had some funny adventures with Baby Bunty, and when he foundthat his rheumatism did not hurt him so much as he hopped on his red,white and blue striped barber pole crutch, the bunny uncle wished hemight have some strange and wonderful adventures.

  "I think I'll just hop along and look for a few," said Uncle Wiggily tohimself one morning. He twinkled his pink nose, and then he was allready to start.

  "Good-bye, Nurse Jane! Good-bye!" he called to his muskrat ladyhousekeeper, with whom he lived in a hollow stump bungalow. "I'm goingto look for some wonderful adventures!" He hopped down the front steps,with his red, white and blue striped crutch under one paw, and his tall,silk hat on his head. "Good-bye, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy!"

  "Good-bye!" answered Nurse Jane. "I hope you have some niceadventures!"

  "Thanks, I wish you the same," answered Uncle Wiggily, and away he wentover the fields and through the woods. He had not hopped very far,looking this way and that, before, all of a sudden, he came to a queerlittle place, near an old rail fence. Down in one corner was a hole,partly underground.

  "Ha! That's queer," said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "That looks just likethe kind of an underground house, or burrow, where I used to live. Iwonder if this can be where I made my home before I moved to the hollowstump bungalow? I must take a look. Nurse Jane would like to hear allabout it."

  So Uncle Wiggily, folding back his ears in order that they would not getbent over and broken, began crawling down the rabbit hole, for that iswhat it really was.

  It was dark inside, but the bunny uncle did not mind that, being able tosee in the dark. Besides, he could make his pink nose twinkle when hewanted to, and this gave almost as much light as a firefly.

  "No, this isn't the burrow where I used to live," said Uncle Wiggily tohimself, when he had hopped quite a distance into the hole. "But it'svery nice. Perhaps I may have an adventure here. Who knows?"

  And just as he said that to himself, Uncle Wiggily saw, lying under alittle table, in what seemed to be a room of the underground house, asmall glass box.

  "Ha! My adventure begins!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I'll open that glassbox and see what is in it."

  So the bunny uncle raised the cover, and in the glass box was a littlecake, made of carrots and cabbage, and on top, spelled out in pinkraisins, were the words:

  "EAT ME!"

  "Ha! That's just what I'll do!" cried jolly Uncle Wiggily, and, neverstopping to think anything might be wrong, the bunny gentleman ate thecake. And then, all of a sudden, he began to feel very funny.

  "Oh, my!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I hope that cake didn't belong to mynephew, Sammie Littletail, or Johnnie or Billie Bushytail, the squirrelbrothers. One of them may have lost it out of his lunch basket on hisway to school. I hope it wasn't any of their cake. But there is surelysomething funny about it, for I feel so very queer!"

  And no wonder! For Uncle Wiggily had suddenly begun to grow very large.His ears grew taller, so that they lifted his tall silk hat right offhis head. His legs seemed as long as bean poles, and as for his whiskersand pink, twinkling nose, they seemed so far away from his eyes that hewondered if he would ever get them near enough to see to comb the one,or scratch the other when it felt ticklish.

  "This is certainly remarkable!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder what mademe grow so large all of a sudden? Could it have been the cake which gaveme the indyspepsia?"

  "It was the cake!" cried a sudden and buzzing voice, and, looking aroundthe hole Uncle Wiggily saw a big mosquito. "It was the cake that madeyou grow big," went on the bad biting bug, "and I
put it here for you toeat."

  "What for?" asked the bunny uncle, puzzled like.

  "So you would grow so big that you couldn't get out of this hole," wasthe answer. "And now you can't! This is how I have caught you! Ha! Ha!"and the mosquito buzzed a most unpleasant laugh.

  "Oh, dear!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "I wonder if I am caught? Can't I getout as I got in?"

  Quickly he hopped to the front of the hole. But alas! Likewisesorrowfulness! He had grown so big from eating the magical cake that hecould not possibly squeeze out of the hole through which he had crawledinto the underground burrow.

  "Now I have caught you!" cried the mosquito. "Since we could not catchyou at your soldier tent or in the trenches near your hollow stumpbungalow, I thought of this way. Now we have you and we'll bite you!"and the big mosquito, who with his bad friends had dug the hole onpurpose to get Uncle Wiggily in a trap, began to play a bugle tune onhis wings to call the other biting bugs.

  "Oh, dear!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "I guess I am caught! And I haven'tmy talcum powder pop gun that shoots bean-bag bullets! Oh, if I couldonly get out of here!"

  "You can get out, Uncle Wiggily," said a soft little voice down towardthe end of his pink, twinkling nose. "You can get out!"

  "Oh, no, I can't!" the bunny said. "I am much too large to squeeze outof the hole by which I came in here. Much too large. Oh, dear!"

  "Here, drink some of this and you'll grow small just as I did when Idrank from it before I fell into the pool of tears," the soft and gentlevoice went on, and to Uncle Wiggily's surprise, there stood a nicelittle girl with long, flaxen hair. She was holding out to him a bottlewith a tag that read:

  "DRINK ME."

  "Am I really to drink this?" asked the bunny.

  "You are," said the little girl.

  Uncle Wiggily took a long drink from the bottle. It tasted like lollypopice cream soda, and no sooner had he taken a good sip than all of asudden he found himself shutting up small, like a telescope. Smaller andsmaller he shrank, until he was his own regular size, and then thelittle girl took him by the paw and cried:

  "Come on! Now you can get out!"

  And, surely enough, Uncle Wiggily could.

  "But who are you?" he asked the little girl.

  "Oh! I'm Alice from Wonderland," she said, "and I know you very well,though you never met me before. I'm in a book, but this is my holiday,so I came out. Come on, now, before the mosquitoes catch us! We'll havea lot of funny adventures with some friends of mine. Come on!" And awayran Uncle Wiggily with Wonderland Alice, who had saved him from beingbitten. So everything came out all right, you see.

  And if the teacup doesn't lose its handle and try to do a foxtrot waltzwith the soup tureen, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and theMarch Hare.

  CHAPTER II

  UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MARCH HARE

  "Well, Uncle Wiggily, you certainly did have quite a time, didn't you,"said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper for the rabbitgentleman as they both sat on the porch of the hollow stump bungalow onemorning. It was the day after the bunny rabbit had been caught in themosquito hole, where he swelled up too big to get out, after eating cakefrom the glass box, as I told you in the first story.

  Then Alice from Wonderland happened along and gave Uncle Wiggily a drinkfrom a magical little bottle so that he grew small enough to crawl outof the hole again.

  "Yes, I had a wonderful time with Alice," said the rabbit gentleman. "Itwas quite an adventure."

  "What do you s'pose was in the cake to make you swell up so large?"asked Nurse Jane.

  "Cream puffs," answered Uncle Wiggily. "They're very swell-like, youknow."

  "Of course," agreed Nurse Jane. "And what was in the bottle to make yougrow smaller?"

  "Alum water," Uncle Wiggily made reply. "That's very shrinking, youknow, and puckery."

  "Of course," spoke Nurse Jane again, "I might have guessed it. Now Isuppose you're off again?"

  "Off to have another adventure," went on Uncle Wiggily, with a jollylaugh. "I hope I meet Alice again. I wonder where she lives?"

  "Why, she's out of a book," said Nurse Jane. "I used to read about herto Sammie Littletail, when he was quite a little rabbit chap."

  "Oh, yes, to be sure," said Uncle Wiggily. "Alice from Wonderland islike Mother Goose, Sinbad the Sailor and my other Arabian Night friends.Well, I hope I meet some of them and have another adventure now," andaway he hopped down the front steps of his bungalow as spry as thoughhe never had had the rheumatism.

  The bad mosquitoes that used to live over in the swamp had gone away ontheir summer vacation, and so they did not bother the bunny rabbit justat present. He no longer had to practice being a soldier and stand onguard against them.

  Pretty soon, as Uncle Wiggily hopped along, he came to a little place inthe woods, all set around with green trees, and in the center was alarge doll's tea table, all ready for a meal.

  "Ha! This looks like an adventure already!" said the bunny uncle tohimself. "And there's a party," he went on, as he saw the little girlnamed Alice, a March Hare (which is a sort of spring rabbit), a hatterman, with a very large hat, much larger than Uncle Wiggily's, on hishead, and a dormouse. A dormouse (or doormouse) is one that crawls outunder a door, you know, to get away from the cat.

  "Oh, here's Uncle Wiggily!" cried Alice.

  "Come right along and sit down. We didn't expect you!"

  "Then if I'm unexpected, perhaps there isn't room for me," spoke UncleWiggily, looking at the March Hare.

  "Oh, yes, there's plenty of room--more room than there is to eat," saidthe spring rabbit. "Besides, we really knew you were coming."

  As this was just different from what Alice had said, Uncle Wiggily didnot know what to believe.

  "You see, it's the unexpected that always happens," went on the MarchHare, "and, of course, being unexpected, you happened along, so we'reglad to see you."

  "Only there isn't anything to eat," said Alice. "You see, the Hatter'swatch only keeps one kind of time--"

  "That's what I do when I dance," interrupted Uncle Wiggily.

  "We haven't come to that yet," Alice spoke gently. "But as the Hatter'swatch only keeps tea-time we're always at the tea table, and the cakeand tea were eaten long ago."

  "And we always have to sit here, hoping the Hatter's watch will startoff again, and bring us to breakfast or dinner on time," said the MarchHare, who, Uncle Wiggily noticed, began to look rather mad and angry."He's greased it with the best butter, but still his watch has stopped,"the hare added.

  "It's on account of the hard crumbs that got in the wheels," said theHatter, dipping his watch in the cream pitcher. "I dare say they'll getsoaked in time. But pass Uncle Wiggily the buns," he added, and Alicepassed an empty plate which once had dog biscuits on, only Jackie andPeetie Bow Wow had eaten them all up--I should say down, for theyswallowed them that way.

  Uncle Wiggily was beginning to think this was a very queer tea partyindeed, when, all of sudden, out from the bushes jumped a great, big,pink-striped Wabberjocky cat, who began singing:

  "London Bridge is falling up, On Yankee Doodle Dandy! As we go 'round the mulberry bush To buy a stick of candy."

  "Well, what do you want?" asked the Mad March Hare of the Wabberjocky."If you've come to wash the dishes you can't, for it's still tea timeand it never will be anything else as long as he keeps dipping his watchin the molasses jug! That's what makes it so sticky-slow," and he tosseda tea biscuit at the Hatter, who caught it in his hat, just like amagician in the theater, and turned it into a lemon meringue pie.

  "I've come for Uncle Wiggily!" cried the Wabberjocky. "I've come to takehim off to my den, and then--"

  Uncle Wiggily was just going to hide under the table, which he noticedwas growing smaller and smaller, and he was wondering if it would belarge enough to cover him, when--

  All of a sudden the Mad March Hare caught up the bunny uncle's red,white and blue striped rheumatism cr
utch, and cried:

  "You've come for Uncle Wiggily, have you? Well, we've no time for that!"and with this the March Hare smashed the crutch down on the Hatter'swatch, "Bang!" breaking it all to pieces!

  "There, I guess it'll go now!" cried the March Hare, and indeed thewheels of the watch went spinning while the spring suddenly uncurled,and one end, catching around Uncle Wiggily's left hind leg, flew out andtossed him safely away over the trees, until he fell down on his softsoldier tent, right in front of his own hollow stump bungalow. So he wassaved from the Wabberjocky.

  "Well! That was an adventure!" cried the bunny uncle. "I wonder whathappened to the rest of them? I must find out." And if the laundry mandoesn't let the plumber take the bath tub away for the gold fish to playtag in, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the Cheshire Cat.

  CHAPTER III

  UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CHESHIRE CAT

  Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was hopping along throughthe woods one day, wondering what sort of an adventure he would have,and he was thinking about Alice in Wonderland and what a queer tea partyhe had been to the day before, when the Mad March Hare smashed theHatter's watch because the hands always stayed at 5 o'clock tea time.

  "If anything like that is going to happen to me today," said the bunnyuncle to himself, "I ought to have brought Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy along,so she could enjoy the fun. I'll just hop along and if anything queerstarts I'll go back after her."

  So he went on a little farther, and, all of a sudden, he saw, lying onthe woodland path, a piece of cheese.