He didn't sit there, waiting for that dog to catch him, either. No, indeed, and a bag of popcorn besides! Up jumped Uncle Wiggily, with his crutch and his valise, and he hopped as hard and as fast as he could run. My! How his legs did twist in and out.
"Come on! Come!" barked the first dog to the second one.
"I'm coming! I'm coming! Woof! Woof! Bow-w-w Bow-wow!" barked the second dog.
Poor Uncle Wiggily's heart beat faster and faster, and he didn't know which way to run. Every way he turned the dogs were after him, and soon more of the savage animals came to join the first two, until all the dogs in that Gypsy camp were chasing the poor old gentleman rabbit.
"I guess I'll have to drop my satchel or my crutch," thought Uncle Wiggily. "I can't carry them much farther. Still, I don't want to lose them." So he held on to them a little longer, took a good breath and ran on some more.
He thought he saw a chance to escape by running across in front of the fortune-telling tent, and he started that way, but a Gypsy man, with a gun, saw him and fired at him. I'm glad to say, however, that he didn't shoot Uncle Wiggily, or else I couldn't tell any more stories about him.
Uncle Wiggily got safely past the tent, but the dogs were almost up to him now. One of them was just going to catch him by his left hind leg, when one of the Gypsy men cried out:
"Grab him, Biter! Grab him! We'll have rabbit potpie for dinner; that's what we'll have!"
Wasn't that a perfectly dreadful way to talk about our Uncle Wiggily? But just wait, if you please.
Biter, the bad dog, was just going to grab the rabbit, when all of a sudden, Uncle Wiggily saw a big hole in the ground.
"That's what I'm looking for!" he exclaimed. "I'm going down there, and hide away from these dogs!"
So into the hole he popped, valise, crutch and all, and oh! how glad he was to get into the cool, quiet darkness, leaving those savage, barking dogs outside. But wait a moment longer, if you please.
Biter and Browser stopped short at the hole.
"He's gone—gotten clean away!" exclaimed Browser. "Isn't that too bad?"
"No, we'll get him yet!" cried Biter. "Here, you watch at this hole, while I go get a pail of water. We'll pour the water down, under the ground where the rabbit is, and that will make him come out, and we'll eat him."
"Good!" cried Browser. So while he stood there and watched, Biter went for the water. But, mind you, Uncle Wiggily had sharp ears and he heard what they were saying, and what do you think he did?
Why, with his sharp claws he went right to work, and he dug, and dug, and dug in the back part of that underground place, until he had made another hole, far off from the first one, and he crawled out of that, with his crutch and valise, just as Biter was pouring the water down the first hole.
"Ah, ha! I think this will astonish those dogs!" thought Uncle Wiggily, and he took a peep at them from behind a bush where they couldn't see him, and then he hopped on through the woods, to look for more adventures, leaving the dogs still pouring water.
And one happened to him shortly after that, as I shall tell you on the next page, when, in case the rocking chair doesn't tip over backwards and spill out the sofa cushion into the rubber plant, the story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the monkey.
STORY X
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MONKEY
Let me see, we left those two bad dogs pouring water down the hole, to get Uncle Wiggily out, didn't we? And the old gentleman rabbit fooled them, didn't he? He got out of another hole that he dug around by the back door, you remember.
Well, I just wish you could have seen those two dogs, after they had poured pail after pail of water down the hole, and no rabbit came floating up.
"This hole must go all the way down to China!" said Browser, breathing very fast.
"Yes, I'm tired of carrying water," said Biter. And just then another dog cried out:
"Why, foolish dogs, the water's all running out the back way!" And, surely enough, it was. Then they knew Uncle Wiggily had escaped, and they were as angry as anything, but it served them right, I think.
"My! I wonder what will happen next?" thought the old gentleman rabbit, as he hopped along. "That was a narrow escape."
So, having nothing else to do, Uncle Wiggily sat down on a nice, smooth stump, and he ate some lunch out of his valise. And a red ant came up, and very politely asked if she might not pick up the crumbs which the old rabbit dropped.
"Of course you may," said Uncle Wiggily kindly. "And I'll give you a whole slice of bread and butter, also."
"Oh, you are too generous," spoke the red ant. "I never could carry a slice of bread and butter. But if you will leave it on the stump I'll get some of my friends, and we'll bite off little crumbs, a few at a time, and in that way carry it to our houses."
So that's what Uncle Wiggily did, and the ants had a fine feast, and they were very thankful. Uncle Wiggily asked them if they knew where he could find his fortune.
"Why don't you go to work, instead of traveling around so much?" asked the biggest red ant. "The best fortune is the one you work for."
"Is it? I never thought of that," said Uncle Wiggily. "I will look for work at once. I wonder if you ants have any for me."
"We'd like to help you," they said, "but you see you are so large that you couldn't get into our houses to do any work. You had much better travel along, and work for some one larger than we are."
"I will," decided the old gentleman rabbit. "I'll ask every one I meet if they want me to work for them."
So he started off once more, and the first place he came to was a house where a mouse lady lived.
"Have you any work I can do?" asked Uncle Wiggily politely.
"What work can you do?" asked the mouse lady.
"Well, I can peel carrots or turnips with my teeth," said Uncle Wiggily, "and I can look after children, and tell them stories, and I can do some funny tricks——"
"Then you had better go join a circus," interrupted the mouse lady. "I have no children, and I can peel my own carrots, thank you. As for turnips, I never eat them."
"Then I must go on a little further," said Uncle Wiggily, as he picked up his valise, and walked off on his crutch. So he went on, until he came to another house in the woods, and he knocked on the door.
"Have you any work I can do?" inquired Uncle Wiggily politely.
"No! Get away and don't bother me!" growled a most unpleasant voice, and the rabbit was just going down the steps, when the door opened a crack, and a long, sharp nose and a mouth full of sharp teeth, and some long legs with sharp claws on them, were stuck out.
"Oh, hold on!" cried the voice. "I guess I can find some work for you after all. You can get up a dinner for me!" and then the savage creature, who had opened the door, made a grab for the rabbit and nearly caught him. Only Uncle Wiggily jumped away, just in time, and the wolf, for he it was who had called out, caught his own tail in the crack of the door and howled most frightfully.
"Come back! Come back!" cried the wolf, but, of course, Uncle Wiggily wouldn't do such a foolish thing as that, and the wolf couldn't chase after him, for his tail was fast in the door hinge.
"My, I must be more careful after this how I knock at doors, and ask for work," the old gentleman rabbit thought. "I was nearly caught that time. I'll try again, and I may have better luck."
So he walked along through the woods, and pretty soon he heard a voice singing, and this is the song, as nearly as I can remember it: