I Love Animal Stories. Aesop
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long before Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, came along, with nothing to keep the April showers off her new bonnet. “Oh, please take this toadstool!” begged the rabbit uncle. “I don’t need it.” Mrs. Twistytail said he was very kind, and invited him to walk under it with her, but he was going the other way. “I like to get wet,” he said politely.
4. Uncle Wiggily hopped along in the rain without an umbrella, when, all of a sudden, he heard a voice say: “Quack! Quack! Quack! Come over here, Mr. Longears, and I’ll give you a Japanese parasol we don’t need. We ducks just live in the water.” The bunny thanked Mrs. Wibblewobble. Just as Uncle Wiggily raised the paper umbrella, which kept off the rain, along came Mrs. Cluck Cluck the hen.
5. “Oh, please, Mrs. Cluck Cluck, take this Japanese parasol that Mrs. Wibblewobble loaned me!” cried Uncle Wiggily to the hen lady when he saw she was getting all wet. “Oh, but I’ll be robbing you!” cackled Mrs. Cluck Cluck. “Nonsense!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “I don’t mind April showers. Besides, maybe, I can get under the pan with this kind dog I see coming along. Keep dry, Mrs. Cluck Cluck!”
6. “Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” barked the ragged but polite tramp dog. “It won’t do for you to get wet. Take my umbrella! I made it out of an old dishpan I found, and a broom stick. It will keep you dry. As for me, I’ll stand out in the rain, and wash my clothes that way.” Uncle Wiggily thanked the tramp dog, and just then, the bunny saw Mrs. Bushytail, the squirrel lady coming. “I must help her,” he thought.
7. Uncle Wiggily had no sooner stepped under the pan umbrella than along came Mrs. Bushytail. The squirrel lady was getting all wet. “Oh, my dear Mrs. Bushytail!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Pray allow me! This isn’t a stylish umbrella, but it will keep off the wet.” And the bunny stood in the April shower as Mrs. Bushytail scrambled off. Then out of his house with some pancakes came Mr. Stubtail, the nice bear.
8. “Look here, Uncle Wiggily!” said Mr. Stubtail. “There is no need of you getting wet. Here are some very tough pancakes my wife made. I can’t eat them; rain won’t hurt them. Fasten them on a stick and they’ll keep off the rain.” The bunny, thanking the bear, did this. And Uncle Wiggily was hopping along through the rain with his pancake umbrella when out popped the Skillery Scallery Alligator.
9. “Wait a minute!” grunted the Alligator. “Oh, no!” answered Uncle Wiggily. “I know what you want—my ears!” The ’Gator growled: “Well, I’m so hungry I must eat something! Stand still until I get you!” But Uncle Wiggily wouldn’t do that. “Here, nibble some of Mrs. Stubtail’s griddle cakes!” he cried. “They are so tough you can chew on them for a week and I can get away!” Then the sun came out.
And if the Circus elephant doesn’t take the wheels off the lion’s cage to make a pair of roller skates for the camel, the next pictures and story will be about Uncle Wiggily’s Lemonade Stand.
LEMONADE SHOULD BE SOUR, AND NOT MADE TOO SWEET. BUT UNCLE WIGGILY’S KIND SWEPT THE FOX OFF HIS FEET! AND IT SERVED HIM RIGHT, I THINK.
1. One day, as Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy opened the kitchen door in the hollow stump bungalow, she saw Uncle Wiggily squeezing juice from a lemon. “Oh, Wiggy! Are you making a lemon pie?” asked the muskrat lady. Just then some of the sour juice squirted in her eye and she squirmed like an angle worm. “I guess I made a mistake that time!” sadly said the bunny. “But I am trying to make lemonade.”
2. After Uncle Wiggily had helped Nurse Jane wipe the lemon juice out of her eye with the towel, the muskrat lady asked: “Why are you making lemonade, Uncle Wiggily?” The bunny gentleman said that some of the animal children wanted to start a lemonade stand, so they could sell cool drinks on hot days and give the money to the Fresh Air Fund for Poor Animal Children. So the stand was started.
3. Uncle Wiggily helped Nannie the girl goat, and Curly the pig to make lemonade to sell from a street stand. The first customer was Mr. Stubtail, the bear gentleman. Nannie handed him a glass, and when no one was looking the piggie boy took some lemonade. I’m not saying that was right, though. “We hope you like our lemonade, Mr. Stubtail.” said Nannie. “Please bring Neddie and Beckie to our stand.”
4. “I’ll drink this lemonade.” said Mr. Stubtail, “and then I’ll go get Neddie and Beckie and treat them.” He put the glass to his lips, but, no sooner had he taken a sip, than he dropped the glass and roared: “Oh, burr-r-r-r-r! Wuff! Wow!” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know what was the matter, and Nannie and the piggie boy were surprised. “Too sour! Too sour!” howled Mr. Stubtail. “I like sweet lemonade!”
5. Nannie ran in to Uncle Wiggily’s bungalow and brought out some sugar, which she poured into the lemonade, while the piggie boy stirred it ’round and ’round. “I guess this will be all right for our next customer,” spoke Uncle Wiggily. Soon along came Curly’s father, Mr. Twistytail. He tasted some of the Fresh Air lemonade. “Oh, ugh! Bunk!” he grunted. “It’s quite too SWEET! I like lemonade sour!”
6. “Our customers are getting mixed in our lemonade,” said Uncle Wiggily to Nannie and Curly, as he sent them to the store to get more lemons. “I’ll mark each pail so I’ll know which is sweet and which is sour lemonade.” So the bunny marked a large S on one pail, to show it was sweet. And he marked a large S on the other pail to show that it was sour. “Now everything will be fine!” said the bunny.
7. All at once Uncle Wiggily happened to think that just the letters on the pails weren’t enough. “I can’t tell Sweet from Sour, as each begins with the letter S,” said the bunny. “I wonder what I’d better do?” Just then the bad Fuzzy Fox and the worse Woozie Wolf sprang out of the bushes. “You’d better keep still while we nibble your ears!” they howled. “First have some lemonade,” invited the rabbit.
8. “What kind of lemonade have you?” barked the Fox, looking hungrily at Uncle Wiggily’s ears. “Both kinds—Sweet and Sour,” replied the bunny. “Then I’ll take both kind—mixed!” chuckled the Fox, trying to be funny. “One kind will be enough for you, and it doesn’t make any difference what kind!” cried Uncle Wiggily, and he threw the whole pail full of Sour lemonade over the bad Fox.
9. “Oh, wow! What does this mean?” barked the Fox. “It means that I am tired of having you make fun of my lemonade!” cried the bunny. “And I’m tired of waiting