So off they started together to give a little show, and make some money, and, as they went on through the woods, they practised doing the tricks Uncle Wiggily had learned.

Well, in a little while, not so very long, they came to a nice place in the forest—­an open place where no trees grew.

“Here is a good spot for our show,” said Uncle Wiggily.

“But there is no one to see us do the tricks,” objected Fido.

“Oh, yes, there are some ants, and an angle worm, and a black bug and a grasshopper,” said Uncle Wiggily.  “They will do to start on, and after they see us do the tricks they’ll tell other folks, and we’ll have quite a crowd.”

So they started in to do their tricks.  Fido turned a lot of flip-flops, and Uncle Wiggily did a dance on the end of his crutch, and sang a song about a monkey-doodle, which the angle worm said was just fine, being quite cute, and the grasshopper made believe play a fiddle with his two hind legs, scratching one on the other, and making lovely music.

But, all of a sudden, just as Uncle Wiggily was standing on his left ear, and wiggling his feet in the air, which is a very hard trick for a rabbit, what should happen but that out of the woods sprang two boys.

“There’s the dog!  Grab him!” cried one boy.  “Never mind about the rabbit!  Get the trick dog!” And the boys rushed right up, knocking Uncle Wiggily down, and grabbing Fido Flip-Flop.  And they started off through the woods with him, while Uncle Wiggily cried out for them to come back.  But they wouldn’t.

Now please don’t feel badly, for I’m going to tell you in the next story how Uncle Wiggily saved Fido, and also how the rabbit went to Arabella Chick’s surprise party—­that is I will if our automobile doesn’t turn upside down, and break my ice cream cone.

STORY VI

UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE PARTY

Well, when Uncle Wiggily Longears found that the elephant wouldn’t get off his trunk—­oh, listen to me!  What I meant to say was, that when Uncle Wiggily saw those two boys running off with Fido Flip-Flop, the little trick dog, as I told you about in the story before this, the old gentleman rabbit was so surprised at first that he didn’t know what to do.

“Won’t you please come back with that little doggie?” begged Uncle Wiggily, but the bad boys kept right on.  I guess they knew how smart Fido was, and they wanted to get up a show with him.  Anyhow, they kept on running through the woods, holding him tightly in their arms.

“Oh, dear!  This is terrible!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily.  “I’ll never get any good fortune if Fido has such bad luck.  And it was partly my fault, too, for if we hadn’t been doing tricks, we would have heard these boys coming, and could have run away.  Well, now I must save Fido.”

So Uncle Wiggily sat down on a stump, and thought, and thought, and thought of all the plans he could think of, to save the doggie from the two boys, and at last he decided the only way to do was to scare them.