“Yes, our pie is all spoiled,” said his brother, “and we were just going to bake it.”

“Oh, it is too bad!” said Uncle Wiggily, sorrowfully, “but you see I had to get away from that snake, and I didn’t have time to look where I was jumping.  I’m glad, though, that I left the snake on the other side of the bushes.”

“So are we,” said the two hedgehog boys.

“But you didn’t leave me there.  I’m here!” suddenly cried a voice, and out wiggled the snake again.  He started to catch the rabbit, but those two brave hedgehog boys grabbed up a lot of mud, and plastered it in that snake’s eyes so that he couldn’t see, and he had to wiggle down to the pond to wash it out.

Then Uncle Wiggily and the boys were safe, and he helped them to make another mud pie, with stones in for raisins, and he gave them some of his real cherry pie, and oh! how they liked it!  Then they were all happy, and Uncle Wiggily stayed at the hedgehog’s house until the next morning.

Now, in case the little girl in the next house brings me a watermelon ice cream cone with a rose on top, I’ll tell you on the next page about Uncle Wiggily and the elephant.

STORY XXIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE ELEPHANT

Uncle Wiggily didn’t sleep very well at the hedgehog’s house that night, and the reason for it was this:  You see they didn’t have many beds there, and first the rabbit gentleman lay down with the smallest little porcupine boy, in his bed.

But pretty soon, along about in the middle of the night, this little boy got to dreaming that he was a rubber ball.  And he rolled over in the bed, and he rolled up against Uncle Wiggily, and the stickery-stickers from the little hedgehog chap stuck in the old gentleman rabbit.

“Oh, dear!” cried Uncle Wiggily, “I think I’ll have to go and sleep with your brother Jimmie.”

So he went over to the other hedgehog boy’s bed, but land sakes flopsy-dub and a basket of soap bubbles!

As soon as the rabbit got in there that other hedgehog chap began to dream that he was a jumping jack, and so he jumped up and down, and he jumped on top of Uncle Wiggily, and stuck more stickery-stickers in him, until at last the rabbit got up and said: 

“Oh, dear, I guess I’ll have to go to sleep on the floor.”

So he did that, putting his head on his satchel for a pillow and pulling his red-white-and-blue-striped-barber-pole crutch over him for a cover.  And, in the morning, he felt a little better.

“Well, I think I will travel on once more,” said Uncle Wiggily after a breakfast of strawberries, and mush and milk.  “I may find my fortune to-day.”

The hedgehog boys wanted him to stay with them, and make more mud pies, or even a cherry one, but the rabbit gentleman said he had no time.  So off he went over hills and down dales, and along through the woods.