“Off again, I see!” Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, exclaimed one morning to Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, for whom she kept house. “Off again, Wiggy!”
You see she called him Wiggy as a sort of pet name.
“Yes, I am off again,” spoke Uncle Wiggily, as he put some extra soft cushions in his clothes basket airship. “I am going on a long trip this time.”
“Pray, where are you going?” asked the muskrat lady. “That is, if you do not mind me asking,” she said quickly.
“Oh, not at all. I don’t mind telling you,” Uncle Wiggily answered. “I am going to see if I can find an adventure.”
“Oh, such a queer old rabbit gentleman as you are, Wiggy,” said Nurse Jane with a laugh. “Instead of sitting quietly at home here, making a garden, or reading, you go chasing off across the country in that funny airship of yours. Something is sure to happen to you!”
“Well, the things that happen are adventures,” said Uncle Wiggily. “And I like the nice ones. Of course I do not like to fall out of my airship, as I sometimes do, but that cannot be helped. I always have a little red white and blue court-plaster with me to put on any scratches I may get.
“And now, Nurse Jane, I’ll say good-by. I am going to look for an adventure.”
Into his airship, made of a clothes basket, some toy balloons, a Japanese umbrella and an electric fan, Uncle Wiggily placed himself. Then he sailed up in the air, farther and farther, until he was higher than the birds.
All of a sudden, as he was riding along, thinking what fun it was to have an airship, the rabbit gentleman heard some one down on the ground below crying:
“Oh dear! Oh, who will help me?”
“Ha! I wonder who that is,” said Uncle Wiggily. So he looked over the edge of the clothes basket and he saw Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, running up and down in front of her pen-house, flapping her wings, all excited-like.
“Ha! Trouble!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll go down and see what it is.” Down he went in his airship.
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!” cried Mrs. Wibblewobble. “My boy, Jimmie, is very ill, and I have no one to send for Dr. Possum. Will you go?”
“Indeed I will!” the rabbit gentleman said. “I’ll make him come right back with me and cure Jimmie.”
Off Uncle Wiggily sailed again in his airship, but when he got to Dr. Possum’s office the old gentleman animal physician made the same fuss about an airship as Grandfather Goosey Gander, the goose gentleman, did at first.
“If you’ll get in with me I’ll ride you straight to the Wibblewobble duck house, and you can cure Jimmie,” said the rabbit gentleman.
“What! Trust myself in a clothes basket away up in the air? Never; thank you just the same!” cried Dr. Possum. “I’ll come along, as I always do, on my own legs.”
“Well, if you won’t come with me, I suppose you won’t,” Uncle Wiggily said. “But I’ll ride on ahead and tell them you are on the way.”
“All right, only I am sure I will get there before you,” spoke Dr. Possum. “I do not think much of airships.”
“Neither did Grandpa Goosey Gander, at first,” said the rabbit gentleman with a laugh.
Off started Dr. Possum through the woods, carrying his bag of medicine on his tail. Overhead Uncle Wiggily started in his airship. And of course Uncle Wiggily reached the Wibblewobble house first, for airships can go very fast, you know.
“Where is Dr. Possum?” asked Mrs. Wibblewobble, who was waiting outside. “My little duck boy is very ill.”
“The doctor is coming,” said Uncle Wiggily. “He would not ride with me; he walked.” Well, they waited and they waited, but no Dr. Possum came. Meanwhile Jimmie was getting worse. He had cocoanut-cake-fever, which is very bad.
“I guess I’ll sail back in my airship and see what keeps Dr. Possum,” Uncle Wiggily said. “Perhaps something has happened to him.”
And there had! Just think of it. I’ll tell you how it was.
“I’ll show Uncle Wiggily that I can go faster than his airship!” laughed Dr. Possum to himself, as he started out from his office. “I’ll take a short cut through the woods and get there first, airship or no airship.”
Well, he took the short cut all right, but when he came to a mud puddle and tried to jump over, he slipped, and down he came in it with both hind feet.
And the mud was so sticky that Dr. Possum was stuck there. No matter how he pulled he could not pull himself loose.
“Oh, this is terrible!” he cried. “I may have to stay here all night, and I can’t cure poor, sick Jimmie. This is very sad!”
And it was there, stuck in the mud puddle, that Uncle Wiggily found Dr. Possum.
“Oh, ho!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “So there you are!” and he looked down on the animal docter from overhead in his airship.
“Oh, please help me out!” cried Dr. Possum.
“Of course I will,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll drop you a piece of clothesline. Fasten it about your waist and I’ll tie one end up here on the clothesbasket and pull you out by my airship.”
When the clothesline was fast around Dr. Possum, Uncle Wiggily made the electric fan wheel of the airship go very fast and hard. And then slowly at first, but soon faster and faster, out of the mud Dr. Possum was pulled by the clothesline.
“Now I guess I’d better take you the rest of the way to the Wibblewobble house in this airship, then you won’t get stuck in the mud again,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
“I guess so,” said Dr. Possum. And when he reached Jimmie’s house he soon cured the duck boy. Then Mrs. Wibblewobble helped wash the mud off the animal physician, and Dr. Possum rode home again in Uncle Wiggily’s airship.
“Airships are better and more useful than I thought,” said Dr. Possum, as he got out.
“You are just like Grandfather Goosey Gander,” said Uncle Wiggily with a laugh. “You have changed your mind.”
