“Well, Uncle Wiggily, how is your rheumatism now?”

“Why!” exclaimed the old rabbit, “it is all gone.  It certainly is.  I never would have believed it,” and, honestly, the pain was all gone, and he didn’t need his crutch for a long time after that.  Then he believed that the red lady was a fairy, and he hurried home to tell Sammie and Susie, while the little red lady and the golden ball flew back into the tree.  “Oh!” cried Susie, when she heard the story, “I wish I could see a fairy!” And, listen, she did!  The very next day; and, if nothing happens, the story to-morrow night will be about Susie Littletail and the blue fairy.

Now listen, Uncle Wiggily felt so good at being cured of his rheumatism that he asked the red fairy if some boys and girls, who had been very good, couldn’t stay up after they had heard the bedtime story to-night.

“I want to make them happy because I am happy,” said Uncle Wiggily.

“Yes, they stay up if their papas and mammas will let them,” answered the red fairy, so now you just ask, but be very polite about it, and see what happens.  But don’t stay up too late, you know, for that would never do, never at all.

XXVI

SUSIE AND THE BLUE FAIRY

They were talking about Uncle Wiggily’s visit to the red fairy, in the rabbits’ burrow the next day, when Susie remarked: 

“Well, if I saw a fairy, I think I’d ask for something more magical than having my rheumatism cured.”

“No you wouldn’t,” said her uncle, as he nibbled a bit of chocolate-covered carrot that Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy had made.  “You think you would, but you wouldn’t.  In the first place, you never had rheumatism, or you’d be glad to get the first fairy you saw to cure it.  And in the second place, when you see a fairy it makes you feel so funny you don’t know what you are saying.  But I am certainly glad I met that one.  I never felt better in all my life than I do since my rheumatism is cured.  I believe I’ll dance a jig.”

“Oh, no, don’t,” begged Mamma Littletail.

“Yes, I shall to,” spoke Uncle Wiggily.  “Begging your pardon, of course, Alvinah.”  You see, Mamma Littletail’s first name was Alvinah.  So Uncle Wiggily danced a jig, and did it fairly well, considering everything.

That afternoon Susie Littletail went for a walk in the woods.  She was all alone, for Sammie had gone over to play with Bully, the frog, and Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, his squirrel chums.  Susie walked along, and she was rather hoping she might meet the fairy prince, who was changed from a mud turtle into a nice boy, and came to Lulu and Alice Wibblewobble’s party.  But Susie didn’t meet him, and, when it began to get dark, she started for home.

“Oh!” she exclaimed aloud, as she came to a little spot where the grass grew nice and green, and where the trees were all set in a circle, just as if they were playing, Ring Around the Rosy, Sweet Tobacco Posey.  “Oh, dear, I wish I would meet with a fairy, as Uncle Wiggily did!  But I don’t s’pose I ever will.  I never have any good luck!  Only last week I lost my ring with the blue stone in it.”