“Nurse Jane ought to like the bungalow much better after I paint it sky blue pink,” said Uncle Wiggily as he stood on a ladder putting some dabs of color on his hollow stump house. “I hope nothing happens when I am up here. If I should fall in the pots of paint, I’d look like some scrambled Easter eggs.” Uncle Wiggily had used up nearly all the color in one pot when he saw Billie Wagtail, the goat, and Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow coming along. “I’ll ask one of them to hand me another pot of paint,” said the bunny.
“Hello, boys!” called Uncle Wiggily as Billie, Jackie, and Peetie came near. “Will one of you please hand me up another pot of red paint? My can is almost empty.” Billie the goat said he’d bring up some red paint, but instead, just for a joke, he took up some green paint to Uncle Wiggily. “Won’t he be surprised when he starts daubing green paint over where he put the red,” said Jackie to Peetie. “It will be a good joke,” agreed Peetie. “But I hope he doesn’t get mad at us.”
Uncle Wiggily was so busy talking to Billie, Jackie, and Peetie that the bunny rabbit never noticed the color of the paint the goat boy handed up to him. And before he knew it, Mr. Longears had daubed some green color on where it ought to have been red. “Oh my! Nurse Jane will not like this a bit!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I did it for a joke!” laughed Billie. “Wait a minute, and I’ll hand you up the right color.” Nearer and nearer came the skillery-scallery alligator.
All of a sudden, as Billie was getting ready to take up the right pot of red paint, up rushed the funny old skillery scallery alligator with the double-jointed tail. “Ah ha, Mr. Longears! At last, I have you!” cried the ‘gator. “Come down off that ladder until I nibble a bit of your souse!” Uncle Wiggily was so surprised that he spilled some paint on Jackie, Peetie, and Billie. But still, the bunny rabbit gentleman would not come down to have his souse nibbled.
“Well, if you won’t come down nice and pretty when I tell you to, so I may have some of your souse, I’ll make you tumble!” said the bad ‘gator to Uncle Wiggily. Then the unpleasant chap yanked the ladder out from the side of the hollow stump bungalow, and the bunny rabbit gentleman began to fall. “Oh, I am almost sure I am going to have an adventure this time!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Something is going to happen!” And Billie, Jackie, and Peetie thought the same thing.
The skillery scallery alligator pulled the ladder so hard, hoping to make Uncle Wiggily fall, that the ladder toppled into a tree nearby. Uncle Wiggily gave a jump and landed on one of the branches. “Are you coming down out of that and let me nibble your souse?” asked the snippy-snappy ‘gator. Uncle Wiggily said he was not. “Then with my rough nutmeg grater tail, I’ll saw down the tree and get you anyhow,” snarled the bad chap. “I’ll saw the tree down and get your souse!”
“Indeed I am not coming down and let you have any of my souse!” said Uncle Wiggily to the bad ‘gator at the foot of the tree. “Very well then, now I’ll begin to saw!” gargled the bad chap. So with his tail, which was just like a saw, he began to cut down the tree. “Oh, we must save Uncle Wiggily!” whispered Billie the goat. “Yes, but how can we?” asked Jackie. “I know,” barked Peetie. “We’ll paint the alligator’s tail red, and he’ll think he has the nose-bleed!”
All of a sudden, when the alligator had the tree almost sawed through, and it was beginning to fall with Uncle Wiggily in it, the three animal boys rushed up with their pots of paint. “Splatter him good!” barked Jackie, and he and Peetie and Billie splashed different kinds of paint on the bad ‘gator. “Oh my goodness me!” grunted the skillery scallery chap. “This will spoil my complexion! This is no place for me! I’ll get Uncle Wiggily’s souse some other time, I guess.”
Jackie, Peetie, and Billie splashed so much paint on the ‘gator, even putting some in his eyes, that the bad chap was glad enough to run away. He looked like a broken piece of the rainbow. Uncle Wiggily easily got down out of the fallen tree, and he felt so happy, at saving his souse, that he danced a jig around the paint pots with the doggies and the goat. “Well, I never!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “This is a funny way to paint a red bungalow green, Uncle Wiggily!” But the bunny gentlemen only laughed.
