Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, was riding along in his automobile, with the turnip for a steering wheel, and he had not yet taken more than two bites out of the turnip, for it was only shortly after breakfast. With him was Mr. Caw-caw, the black crow gentleman.
“Do you think your automobile will go all right now?” asked the crow, as he looked down from his seat at the big wheels which had German sausages around for tires, so in case Old Percival, the circus dog, got hungry, he could eat one for lunch.
“Oh yes, it will go all right now,” said the rabbit gentleman. “Specially since we have had it fixed.”
I think, if I am not mistaken, and in case the cat has not eat up all the bacon, that I told you in the story before this one how Uncle Wiggily had been advised by Dr. Possum to go traveling around for his health and how he had started off in the auto. Did I tell you that?
He met Mr. Caw-caw and the tinkle-inkle-um on the auto broke, or else it was the widdle-waddle-um. Anyhow, it wouldn’t go, and Old Dog Percival, coming along, pulled the machine to the fixing place. Then Uncle Wiggily and Mr. Caw-caw slept all night and now it was daylight again and they had started off once more.
“It is a lovely morning,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he drove the machine over the fields and through the woods. “A lovely spring day!”
“But we may get an April shower before night,” said Mr. Caw-caw, the crow gentleman, who had black feathers and who was always sad instead of being happy. “Oh, dear, I’m sure it will rain,” he said.
“Nonsensicalness!” cried Uncle Wiggily, swinging his ears around just like some circus balloons trying to get away from an elephant eating peanuts. “Cheer up! Be happy!”
“Well, if it doesn’t rain it will snow,” said the sad crow.
“Oh, cheer up,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he took another bite out of the turnip steering wheel. “Have a nibble,” he went on politely. “It may only blow.”
“I’m sure it will do something,” spoke the gloomy crow. “Anyhow I don’t care for turnip.”
“Have some corn then,” said Uncle Wiggily.
“Is it popped?” asked the crow.
“No, but I can pop it,” said the old gentleman rabbit. “I will pop it on my automobile engine, which gets very hot, almost like a gas stove.”
So the old rabbit gentleman, who was riding around in his auto to take exercise, because he was getting too fat, and Dr. Possum had said so, popped the corn on the hot engine, and very good it was, too, for the crow to eat.
But even the popcorn could not seem to make the unhappy crow feel better, and he cried so much, as the auto went along, that his tears made a mud-puddle in the road where they happened to be just then. And the auto wheels, with the German bologna sausages on for tires, splashed in the mud and made it fly all over like anything.
Then, just as Uncle Wiggily steered the auto right away from the road into a nice green wood, where the leaves were just coming out on the trees, the old gentleman rabbit heard some one saying:
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear me! I know I’ll never be at school on time! Oh, what a bad accident!”
“My!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What can that be?”
“Oh, something dreadful, you may be sure,” said Mr. Caw-caw, the crow gentleman. “Oh, I just knew something would happen on this trip.”
“Well, let it happen!” said Uncle Wiggily. “I like things to happen. This seems to be some one in trouble, and I am going to help, whoever it is.”
“Then please help me,” said the voice.
“Who are you?” asked Uncle Wiggily.
“I am the lady mouse school teacher,” said some one they could not see, “and on my way to school I ran a thorn in my foot, so I cannot walk. If I am not there on time to open the school, the children will not know what to do. Oh, isn’t it terrible!”
“Say no more!” cried Uncle Wiggily, cheerfully. “You shall ride to school in my auto. Then you will be there on time, and the animal children will not have to go home and miss their lessons. I am so glad I can help you. Isn’t it horribly jolly to help people?” cried Uncle Wiggily to the crow, just as an English rabbit might have done.
“Ha! It’s jolly, all right, if you can help them,” said the crow. “But I’m sure something will happen. Some bad elephant will eat off our sausage tires, or a cow will drink the gasoline, or we shall roll down a hill.”
“Nonsensicalness!” cried Uncle Wiggily, real exasperated-like, which means bothered. “Get in, Miss Mouse School Teacher,” he said, “and I will soon have you at your classes.”
So the lady mouse school teacher got into the auto, and sat beside Mr. Caw-caw, who asked her how many six and seven grains of corn were.
“Thirteen,” said the nice mouse school teacher.
“Thirteen in the winter,” spoke the crow, “but I mean in summer.”
“Six and seven are thirteen in summer just as in winter,” said the lady mouse.
“Wrong,” croaked the crow. “If you plant thirteen grains of corn in summer you’ll get thirteen stalks, each with thirteen ears of corn on, and each ear has five hundred and sixty-three grains, and thirteen times thirteen times five hundred and sixty-three makes—how many does it make?” he asked of Uncle Wiggily suddenly.
“Oh, please stop!” cried the lady mouse school teacher; “you make my head ache.”
“How much is one headache and two headaches?” asked the crow, who seemed quite curious.
“Stop! Stop!” cried Uncle Wiggily, as he took a bite out of the turnip steering wheel. “You will make the auto turn a somersault.”
“How much,” said the crow, “is one somersault and one peppersault added to a mustard plaster and divided by——”
“There you go!” suddenly cried Uncle Wiggily as the auto hit a stone and stopped. “You’ve made the plunkity-plunk bite the wizzie-wazzie!”
“Oh, dear!” cried the crow. “I knew something would happen!”
“Well, it was your fault,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Now I’ll have to have the auto fixed again.”
“Can’t we go on to school?” asked the lady mouse teacher anxiously.
“No, I am sorry to say, we cannot,” said Uncle Wiggily.
“Then I shall be late, and the children will all run home after all. Oh, dear!”
“I knew something—” began the crow.
“Stop it!” cried Uncle Wiggily, provoked-like.
The lady mouse school teacher did not know what to do, and it looked as if she would be late, for even when Uncle Wiggily had crawled under the auto, and had put pepper on the German sausage tires, he could not make the machine go.
But, just as the school teacher was going to be late, along came flying Dickie Chip-Chip, the sparrow boy, with his new airship. And in the airship he gave the lady mouse school teacher a ride to school up above the tree tops, so she was not late after all.
She called a good-by to Uncle Wiggily, who some time afterward had his auto fixed again, and then he and the crow gentleman went on and had more adventures.
