The Most-Beloved Animal Stories in One Volume. Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг

      “What’s this? What’s this?” asked Uncle Wiggily, in surprise. “What’s this?”

      “It’s a valentine for Jill,” said Jack. “To-day is Valentine’s Day, you see, but I don’t want Jill to know I sent it, so I went off here and hid until I could see you to ask you to take it to her.”

      “All right, I’ll do it,” Uncle Wiggily said, laughing. “I’ll take your valentine to Jill for you. So that’s why you weren’t ‘round to get the pail of water; is it?”

      “Yes,” answered Jack. “I wanted to finish making my valentine. As soon as you give it to Jill I’ll get the water.”

      “Oh, never mind that,” said the bunny uncle. “I’ll get the water, just you do the falling-down-hill part. I’m too old for that.”

      “I will,” promised Jack. Then Uncle Wiggily went on up the hill, and pretty soon he heard some one else calling him, and, all of a sudden, out from behind a stump stepped Jill, the little Mother Goose girl.

      “Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” said Jill, bashfully holding out a pretty red leaf, shaped like a heart, “will you please give this to Jack. I don’t want him to know I sent it.”

      “Of course, I’ll give it to him,” promised the rabbit gentleman. “It’s a valentine, I suppose, and here is something for you,” and while Jill was reading the valentine Jack had sent her, Uncle Wiggily looked at the red heart-shaped leaf. On it Jill had written in blue ink:

      “One day when I went to school,

      Teacher taught to me this rule:

      Eight and one add up to nine;

      So I’ll be your valentine.”

      “My, that’s nice!” said Uncle Wiggily, laughing. “So that’s why you’re hiding off here for, Jill, to make a valentine for Jack?”

      “That’s it,” Jill answered, blushing sort of pink, like the frosting on a strawberry cake. “But I don’t want Jack to know it.”

      “I’ll never tell him,” said Uncle Wiggily.

      So he went on up the hill to get a pail of water for Mother Goose. And on his way back he gave Jill’s valentine to Jack, who liked it very much.

      “And now, since you got the water, Jill and I will go tumble down hill,” said Jack, as he found the little girl, where she was reading his valentine again. Up the hill they went, near the well of water, and Jack fell down, and broke his crown, while Jill came tumbling after, while Uncle Wiggily looked on and laughed. So it all happened just as it did in the book, you see.

      Mother Goose was very glad Uncle Wiggily had brought the water for Simple Simon to go fishing in, and that afternoon she gave a valentine party for Sammie and Susie Littletail, the Bushytail squirrel brothers, Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goats, and all the other animal friends of Uncle Wiggily. And every one had a fine time.

      And if the cup doesn’t jump out of the saucer and hide in the spoonholder, where the coffee cake can’t find it, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and little Jack Horner.

CHAPTER XI

      UNCLE WIGGILY AND JACK HORNER

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      “Well, I think I’ll go for a walk,” said Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, one afternoon, when he was sitting out on the front porch of his hollow-stump bungalow. He had just eaten a nice dinner that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, had gotten ready for him.

      “Go for a walk!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “Why, Mr. Longears, excuse me for saying so, but you went walking this morning.”

      “I know I did,” answered the bunny uncle, “but no adventure happened to me then. I don’t really count it a good day unless I have had an adventure. So I’ll go walking again, and perhaps I may find one. If I do, I’ll come home and tell you all about it.”

      “All right,” said Nurse Jane. “You are a funny rabbit, to be sure! Going off in the woods, looking for adventures when you might sit quietly here on the bungalow front porch.”

      “That’s just it!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “I don’t like to be too quiet. Off I go!”

      “I hope you have a nice adventure!” Nurse Jane called after him.

      “Thank you,” answered Uncle Wiggily, politely.

      Away over the fields and through the woods went the bunny uncle, looking on all sides for an adventure, when, all of a sudden he heard behind him a sound that went:

      “Honk! Honk! Honkity-honk-honk!”

      “Ha! That must be a wild goose!” thought the rabbit gentleman.

      So he looked up in the air, over his head, where the wild geese always fly, but, instead of seeing any of the big birds, Uncle Wiggily felt something whizz past him, and again he heard the loud “Honk-honk!” noise, and then he sneezed, for a lot of dust from the road flew up his nose.

      “My!” he heard some one cry. “We nearly ran over a rabbit! Did you see?”

      And a big automobile, with real people in it, shot past. It was the horn of the auto that Uncle Wiggily had heard, and not a wild goose.

      “Ha! That came pretty close to me,” thought Uncle Wiggily, as the auto went on down the road. “I never ride my automobile as fast as that, even when I sprinkle pepper on the bologna sausage tires. I don’t like to scare any one.”

      Perhaps the people in the auto did not mean to so nearly run over Uncle Wiggily. Let us hope so.

      The old gentleman rabbit hopped on down the road, that was between the woods and the fields, and, pretty soon, he saw something bright and shining in the dust, near where the auto had passed.

      “Oh, maybe that’s a diamond,” he said, as he stooped over to pick it up. But it was only a shiny button-hook, and not a diamond at all. Some one in the automobile had dropped it.

      “Well, I’ll put it in my pocket,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself. “It may come in useful to button Nurse Jane’s shoes, or mine.”

      The bunny gentleman went on a little farther, and, pretty soon, he came to a tiny house, with a red chimney sticking up out of the roof.

      “Ha! I wonder who lives there?” said Uncle Wiggily.

      He stood still for a moment, looking through his glasses at the house and then, all of a sudden, he saw a little lady, with a tall, peaked hat on, run out and look up and down the road. Her hat was just like an ice cream cone turned upside down. Only don’t turn your ice cream cone upside down if it has any cream in it, for you might spill your treat.

      “Help! Help! Help!” cried the lady, who had come out of the house with the red chimney.

      “Ha! That sounds like trouble!” said Uncle Wiggily. “I think I had better hurry over there and see what it is all about.”

      He hopped over toward the little house, and, when he reached it he saw that the little lady who was calling for help was Mother Goose herself.

      “Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” exclaimed Mother Goose. “I am so glad to see you! Will you please go for help for me?”

      “Why, certainly I will,” answered the bunny gentleman. “But what kind of help do you want; help for the kitchen, or a wash-lady help or——”

      “Neither of those,” said Mother Goose. “I want help so Little Jack Horner can get his thumb out of the pie.”

      “Get his thumb out of the pie!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What in the world