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

I’m the maid who was in the garden, hanging out the clothes,” said she, “and, as you can see, along came a blackbird and nipped off my nose. That is, you can’t see the blackbird, but you can see the place where my nose ought to be.”

      “Yes,” answered Uncle Wiggily, “I can. It’s too bad. That blackbird ought to have his feathers ruffled.”

      “Oh, he didn’t mean to be bad,” said the garden maid. “He had to do as it says in the book, and he had to nip off my nose. So that’s why I can’t smell Nurse Jane’s nice perfume.”

      Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute. Then he said:

      “Just you wait here. I think I can fix it so you can smell as well as ever.”

      Then the bunny uncle hurried off through the woods until he found Jimmie Caw-Caw, the big black crow boy.

      “Jimmie,” said the bunny uncle, “will you fly off, find the blackbird, and ask him to give back the garden maid’s nose so she can smell perfume?”

      “I will,” said Jimmie Caw-Caw, very politely. “I certainly will!”

      Away he flew, and, after a while, in the deep, dark part of the woods he found the blackbird, sitting on a tree.

      “Please give me back the garden maid’s nose,” said Jimmie, politely.

      “Certainly,” answered the blackbird, also politely. “I only took it off in fun. Here it is back. I’m sorry I bothered the garden maid, but I had to, as it’s that way in the Mother Goose book.”

      Off to Uncle Wiggily flew Jimmie, the crow boy, with the young lady’s nose, and soon Dr. Possum had fastened it back on the garden maid’s face as good as ever.

      “Now you can smell the perfume,” said Uncle Wiggily, and when he held up the bottle the maid said:

      “Oh, what a lovely smell!”

      So the bunny uncle left a little perfume in a bottle for the garden maid, and then she went on hanging up the clothes, and she felt very happy because she had a nose. So you see how kind Uncle Wiggily and Jimmie were, and Nurse Jane, too, liked the perfume very much.

      So if the little girl’s roller-skates don’t run over the pussy’s tail and ruffle it all up so she can’t go to the moving picture party, I’ll tell you next of Uncle Wiggily and the King.

CHAPTER XXVI

      UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE KING

       Table of Contents

      Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old rabbit gentleman, was sitting in an easy chair in his hollow-stump bungalow, one day, looking out of the window at the blue sky, and he was feeling quite happy. And why should he not be happy?

      Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, his muskrat lady housekeeper, had just given him a nice breakfast of cabbage pancakes, with carrot maple sugar tied in a bow-knot in the middle, and Uncle Wiggily had eaten nine. Nine cakes, I mean, not nine bows.

      “And now,” said the bunny uncle to himself, “I think I shall go out and take a walk. Perhaps I may have an adventure. Do you want any perfume, or anything like that from the store?” asked Mr. Longears of Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.

      “No, thank you, I think not,” answered the muskrat lady. “Just bring yourself home, and that will be all.”

      “Oh, I’ll do that all right,” promised the bunny gentleman. So away he hopped, over the fields and through the woods, humming to himself a little song which went something like this:

      “I’m feeling happy now and gay,

      Why shouldn’t I, this lovely day?

      ’Tis time enough to be quite sad,

      When wind and rain make weather bad.

      But, even then, one ought to try

      To think that soon it will be dry.

      So then, no matter what the weather,

      Smile, as though tickled by a feather.”

      Uncle Wiggily felt happier than ever when he had sung this song, but, as he went along a little further, he came, all at once, to a very nice house indeed, out of which floated the sound of a sad voice.

      Uncle Wiggily was surprised to hear this, for the house was such a nice one that it seemed no one ought to be unhappy who lived there.

      The house was made of gold and silver, with diamond windows, and the chimney was made of a red ruby stone, which, as every one knows, is very expensive. But with all that the sad voice came sailing out of one of the opened diamond windows, and the voice said:

      “Oh, dear! It’s gone! I can’t find it! I dropped it and it rolled down a crack in the floor. Now I’ll never get it again. Oh, dear!”

      “Well, that sounds like some one in trouble,” said the bunny uncle. “I must see if I cannot help them,” for Uncle Wiggily helped real folk, who lived in fine houses, as well as woodland animals, who lived in hollow trees.

      Uncle Wiggily hopped up to the open diamond window of the gold and silver house, with the red ruby chimney, and, poking his nose inside, the rabbit gentleman asked:

      “Is there some one here in trouble whom I may have the pleasure of helping?”

      “Yes,” answered a voice. “I’m here, and I’m surely in trouble.”

      “Who are you, and what is the trouble, if I may ask?” politely went on Uncle Wiggily.

      “I am the king,” was the answer. “This is my palace, but, with all that, I am in trouble. Come in.”

      In hopped Uncle Wiggily, and there, surely enough, was the king, but he was in the kitchen, down on his hands and knees, looking with one eye through a crack in the floor, which is something kings hardly ever do.

      “It’s down there,” he said. “And I can’t get it. I’m too fat to go through the crack.”

      “What’s down there?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.

      “My money,” answered the king. “You may have heard about me,” and he recited this little verse:

      “The king was in the kitchen,

      Counting out his money;

      The queen was in the parlor,

      Eating bread and honey;

      The maid was in the garden,

      Hanging out the clothes,

      Along came a blackbird,

      Who nipped off her nose.”

      The fat man got up off the kitchen floor.

      “I’m the king,” he said, taking up his gold and diamond crown from a kitchen chair, where he had put it as he kneeled down, so it would not fall off and be dented. “From Mother Goose, you know; don’t you?”

      “Yes, I know,” answered Uncle Wiggily.

      “I dare say you’ll find the queen in the parlor eating bread and honey,” went on the king. “At least I saw her start for there with a plate, knife and fork as I was coming here. And, no doubt, the maid is in the garden, where she’ll pretty soon have her nose nipped off by a blackbird.”

      “That part happened yesterday,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I was there just after it happened, and I got Jimmie Caw-Caw, the crow boy, to fly after the blackbird and bring back the maid’s nose. She is as well as ever now and can smell all kinds of perfume.”

      “Good!” cried the fat king. “You were very kind to help her. I only wish you could help me. But I don’t