“My goodness me sakes alive, and some peanut pancakes!” cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, as she saw Uncle Wiggily, the rabbit gentleman, out in the yard one day punching some sofa cushions. “What in the world are you doing, Wiggy?” asked Nurse Jane.
“Well,” replied the old gentleman rabbit for whom the muskrat lady kept house, “I am trying to make these sofa cushions softer, if you please, Nurse Jane.”
“Softer? What for?” she asked.
“So they will be easier for me to fall on, in case I have any accidents when out riding in my airship,” replied Uncle Wiggily. “You see, I am sort of shaking up the feathers inside the cushions, by punching them with my paws. Not to hurt them! No, indeed, not for the world would I hurt the feathers,” cried the rabbit gentleman.
“So that’s why you are punching the cushions?” asked Nurse Jane, as she folded her long tail around her neck to keep the mosquitoes from biting her. “Well, all I have to say is, Wiggy, that you never will make your cushions soft that way.”
“No?” asked Uncle Wiggily, sort of surprised like.
“No, indeed,” answered Nurse Jane. “The trouble is that you need more feathers in the cushions. That will make them nice and soft for you to fall on in case your airship turns a somersault.”
“Good!” cried the old rabbit gentleman. “I am glad you mentioned it. I will take a ride over to the Wibblewobble duck penhouse at once, and have Mrs. Wibblewobble put more feathers in the cushions. That will make them lovely and soft. Queer, isn’t it, that I should have thought punching the pillows was the proper thing to do—very queer, wasn’t it, Nurse Jane?”
“Oh, well, you are often strange, Wiggy,” she said, calling him that for short. “Once more doesn’t make much difference.”
So Nurse Jane went in the house to give the breakfast dishes their bath, and put talcum powder on them, and Uncle Wiggily started off in his airship for the Wibblewobble duck house to have the old sofa cushions made over, with new feathers inside.
Away he sailed, above the tree tops, in the clothes basket of his airship, with red, white and blue toy circus balloons lifting him, the Japanese umbrella keeping off the sun and the electric fan in the back going around whizzie-izzie, like anything; if you will kindly allow me to say so.
Uncle Wiggily sat on the old sofa cushions, and he did not sail very high up in the air on this trip.
“For,” said the rabbit gentleman to himself, “if I should have an accident, and fall from a great height, I might get hurt, as the cushions are so thin.”
You see Uncle Wiggily always carried these sofa cushions in the clothes basket part of his airship, where he sat to steer it.
Pretty soon he was at the duck house.
“Will you please fix my sofa cushions for me, by stuffing them with new feathers?” he asked the duck lady.
“To be sure I will,” answered Mrs. Wibblewobble, with a polite quack. “Give them to me.”
Uncle Wiggily took the sofa cushions out of his clothes basket airship, and Mrs. Wibblewobble began filling them with some of her old feathers she did not need any more. All of a sudden, along came Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” Lulu cried, “while you are waiting, please give me a ride in your airship!”
“Oh, no, I am afraid I cannot,” he answered. “You see the sofa cushions are being stuffed by your mother.”
“Oh, well, I don’t mind that. Give me a ride without them!” cried Lulu. “We had examinations in school to-day, and now I want a little fun.”
“What examination did you have?” asked the rabbit gentleman.
“An examination in quacking and in wing flapping,” answered Lulu. “I think I passed, too. Teacher said I flapped my wings better than any other duck girl in the class.”
“Oh, but I am glad to hear that!” Uncle Wiggily cried, for he liked his little duck niece very much. “And, since you have been such a good pupil, I will take you up in my airship,” he said. “Oh, joy!” cried Lulu, flapping her wings and quacking as she had done in the examinations.
“But we will not go up very high.” Uncle Wiggily went on. “Since we have not the sofa cushions with us, we might get hurt if we had an accident and fell. So I will only take you up a little way, Lulu.”
“Oh, even a little ride will be lovely!” quacked the duck girl. She and Uncle Wiggily got in the airship, and away they went, about as high as a jumping rope.
“Oh, this is lovely!” cried Lulu. “Thank you so much, Uncle Wiggily! It is very good of you.”
“Pray do not say so,” spoke the old gentleman rabbit. And then, all at once, something went wrong with the airship, and it shot up, away above the trees. Higher and higher it went before the rabbit gentleman could stop it.
“Oh, if we ever fall now—without our sofa cushions!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, “something sure will happen!” And then, all of a sudden, a bad bumble-bee came along, and, with his sharp stinger, he made holes in the toy balloons of Uncle Wiggily’s airship, just as a bad wasp once did. Down the airship began to fall, faster and faster.
“Oh, if we hit the ground now, with no soft sofa cushions to sit on, we shall surely be hurt!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What shall I do?”
“I know,” cried Lulu Wibblewobble, the brave duck girl. “I will flap my wings very hard, just as I did in my school examinations to-day, and that will make us fall more slowly, so we will not strike the ground so hard.”
“Please do!” cried Uncle Wiggily. And Lulu did. Faster and faster she flapped her wings, beating the air with them, and this kept up the airship, just as a bird keeps itself up, and made it fall more and more slowly and gently.
“Look out!” cried the rabbit gentleman, peeping over the side of the clothes basket. “We are going to bump!”
But they did not bump very hard. For, just as they came down to the ground, Mrs. Wibblewobble had finished stuffing the sofa cushions. She ran out, and tossed them under Uncle Wiggily’s airship, and he and Lulu came down on them as lightly as a feather. But, after all, had it not been for the duck girl’s wing-flapping, I do not know what would have happened.
