Uncle Wiggily was the first one to awaken in the little house that the monkey had built in the woods. It was the morning after the day when Munchie Trot had brought the rabbit and the little squirrel boy home on his back.
“Well, my rheumatism is somewhat better to-day,” said the old gentleman rabbit to himself as he stretched out first one leg and then the other to see if they hurt him. He didn’t have much pain, so he started to make the fire to boil the coffee.
And some of the wood which he put on the fire was wet so that it smoked. And the smoke got up the monkey’s nose, and made him sneeze, so that he was awakened, and he helped to get the breakfast in a hurry.
Then, in turn, Munchie Trot woke up, and next the squirrel boy. His leg hurt him very much, but Uncle Wiggily and the monkey bound it up with some splints, and some soft bark, tying it with ribbon grass, and then they all had breakfast, and felt better.
“But how am I to get home?” asked the little squirrel boy. “My mamma and papa will worry about me, I know.”
“Oh, as to that,” said Munchie Trot, switching his long tail to keep the flies off the breakfast table, “I will take you home on my back.”
“Very good,” said Uncle Wiggily, “and I will go a little way with you, and come back here. Perhaps I may find part of my fortune in that way.”
“That’s nice,” spoke the red monkey, “and I’ll stay here and get dinner. And, say, Uncle Wiggily, if you happen to see a green parrot just bring him along to whistle for me.”
“I will,” promised the old gentleman rabbit. Then he helped the little lame squirrel boy up on the pony’s back, and off Munchie started with Uncle Wiggily hopping alongside. The rabbit looked for his fortune, but he couldn’t find it, and pretty soon he had come as far as he thought he ought to go, so he said he would start back.
“Good-by,” called the lame squirrel boy, “and thank you so much for being kind to me. Perhaps you may find your fortune on your way back.”
“Or, if you don’t find that,” spoke Munchie, as he waved good-by with his long tail, “perhaps you will find the green parrot.”
Then Uncle Wiggily hopped back toward where he had left the monkey getting dinner at the little house in the woods. And, just as the old gentleman rabbit was passing under a butternut tree, he heard a voice singing this little song:
“Oh, I’m a jolly, jolly sailor lad,
I sail the ocean blue.
And if you’re glad, and not very bad,
I’d like to sail with you.
Oh, it’s yo-ho-ho when the wind does blow,
And the waves run mountains high.
We will skip along and sing a song
Beneath the bright blue sky.
“Oh, once I lived in a big wire cage,
In a house upon a hill.
For birds like me were the style you see,
Though I sometimes felt quite ill.
I had seeds to eat, in a seed dish neat,
But they didn’t agree with me,
So I flew away on a rainy day,
To live in a greenwood tree.”
“My, that’s rather strange,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I don’t see how a sailor lad could live in a cage, nor yet perch in a tree. I must look into this. Perhaps it may be the beginning of my fortune.”
So he crept along very softly, and there, perched on the limb of a tree, was a nice green parrot, scratching his crooked beak with his left foot.
“Ha! How do you do? How are the oysters? Have you been in swimming? Pass the crackers, please. Right this way for your hot ice-cream cones!” quickly cried the green parrot in a shrill voice.
“Well of all things!” exclaimed the rabbit. “I am pretty well, thank you, but I don’t know anything about oysters, and I haven’t been in swimming. I don’t see any crackers to pass, and, as for hot ice-cream cones, I never heard of them.”
“Ha! Ha!” laughed the parrot. “Never mind me. That was only my joking way. But I’m glad to see you anyhow. I was only fooling about hot ice-cream cones. Listen and I’ll whistle a song for you,” and then and there, without even wiggling his tail once, he whistled a song called: “Never Drop a Penny Down a Crack in the Boardwalk.”
“How do you like that?” asked the parrot as he stood on one leg and stretched out his wings.
“It was very fine,” said the rabbit. “And I believe you are just what I am looking for. Will you kindly come and whistle for the monkey, so the bears won’t catch him?”
“I certainly will,” spoke the parrot, politely. “Show me the way. I am very fond of monkeys. I used to know one who could play five hand organs at once–one with his tail.”
“This is a red monkey, and he is a friend of the hand organ one,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped on ahead to show the green parrot the way.
Well, pretty soon, not so very long, they came near to the place where the little house was. They heard a curious hissing noise, like a steam radiator sissing in cold weather.
“My! What’s that? A snake?” asked the parrot, in alarm. Uncle Wiggily looked through the bushes. Then he laughed.
“It is only the monkey trying to whistle,” said the rabbit, “but he can’t do it.”
“Poor fellow!” spoke the green parrot kindly. “I’ll whistle for him,” and he did so. At first the monkey was frightened, thinking some real dogs were coming at the sound of the whistle, but then Uncle Wiggily and the parrot popped out of the bushes, laughing, and they told the monkey who they were, the rabbit explaining that the parrot had come to whistle and scare the bears away.
“It’s very kind of you,” said the red monkey, “and perhaps in time I may learn to whistle a little myself. But come now and have dinner.”
So the monkey and the parrot and Uncle Wiggily ate their lunch and in the afternoon they all looked for the old gentleman’s fortune, but they couldn’t find it. And that night something very strange happened as they were all sleeping in the little house which the monkey had built in the woods.
It was all dark and quiet when, all of a sudden, the fuzzy fox sneaked up. He broke open the front window, and he was just crawling in through the hole to eat up the rabbit when the parrot was quickly awakened by feeling the wind blowing on him through the broken glass. Then he saw the burglar fox, and he whistled for the make-believe dogs and cried out:
“Fire! Thieves! Police! Bean-soup! Trolley Cars! Ice-cream cones! Robbers! Get out of here! Take your tail with you! Police! Mud pies! Cocoanut pudding! Merry-go-rounds! Look out! Fire! Fish hooks! Automobiles! Bang-bang! Whoop-de-doodle-do!”
Well, if you’ll believe me, that fuzzy fox was never so frightened in all his life before. He thought a whole lot of soldiers, and guns, and dogs, and police were after him, and he jumped out of the window and ran off as fast as his legs would take him. Then Uncle Wiggily and the green parrot and the red monkey went to sleep again, and there’s no more to this story, as you can see for yourself.
