UNCLE WIGGILY’S SILK HAT
or
A TALL SILK HAT MAY BE STYLISH AND ALSO USEFUL
and
HOW UNCLE WIGGILY BROUGHT HOME COMPANY WITHOUT TELLING NURSE JANE
also
HOW UNCLE WIGGILY TRIED TO MAKE SALT WATER TAFFY

TEXT BY

HOWARD R. GARIS

Author of THREE LITTLE TRIPPERTROTS and BED TIME STORIES

PICTURED BY

LANG CAMPBELL

NEWARK, N. J.

CHARLES E. GRAHAM & CO.

NEW YORK

So if the spoon holder doesn’t go down cellar and take the coal shovel away from the gas stove, you may read

1

UNCLE WIGGILY’S AUTO SLED.

2

UNCLE WIGGILY’S SNOW MAN.

3

UNCLE WIGGILY’S HOLIDAYS.

4

UNCLE WIGGILY’S APPLE ROAST.

5

UNCLE WIGGILY’S PICNIC.

6

UNCLE WIGGILY’S FISHING TRIP.

7

UNCLE WIGGILY’S JUNE BUG FRIENDS.

8

UNCLE WIGGILY’S VISIT TO THE FARM.

9

UNCLE WIGGILY’S SILK HAT.

10

UNCLE WIGGILY, INDIAN HUNTER.

11

UNCLE WIGGILY’S ICE CREAM PARTY.

12

UNCLE WIGGILY’S WOODLAND GAMES.

13

UNCLE WIGGILY ON THE FLYING RUG.

14

UNCLE WIGGILY AT THE BEACH.

15

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PIRATES.

16

UNCLE WIGGILY’S FUNNY AUTO.

17

UNCLE WIGGILY ON ROLLER SKATES.

18

UNCLE WIGGILY GOES SWIMMING.

One day Uncle Wiggily, dressed in his best, started out to look for an adventure. The rabbit met Uncle Butter, the goat gentleman, who never cared much for style. “Why do you wear a tall silk hat, Uncle Wiggily?” the goat gentleman asked. “What’s the use of being so fancy?” Uncle Wiggily twinkled his pink nose. “A tall silk hat may stylish be, and also useful, as you shall see,” he answered.

Just as Uncle Wiggily told the goat gentleman that tall silk hats were useful, along came Susie Littletail the rabbit girl. “Oh, boo hoo!” sobbed Susie. “There’s a hole in the pail and all the milk is running out!” Uncle Wiggily took off his nice shiny hat and said: “Never mind, Susie! I’ll save the milk for you!” Uncle Butter gave a loud bleat. “Mr. Longears!” cried the goat, “what are you doing?”

“I am going to save Susie’s milk, that’s what I’m going to do,” answered the rabbit gentleman. He placed his tall silk hat on the ground, and into his hat he poured the milk from the leaky pail. “There you are, Susie!” cried jolly Uncle Wiggily. “Only a little of your milk ran out. I’ll take the rest home for you, and then Uncle Butter and I are going to have a boat ride on the duck pond.”

After taking the milk home for Susie, and drying out his hat at Mrs. Littletail’s fire, Uncle Wiggily started off again with Uncle Butter. They reached the duck pond where a monkey doodle gentleman let them get in his boat to have a ride. All of a sudden, when they were a long way from shore, the monkey stopped rowing and cried: “Oh, we are sinking! There’s a leak in the boat and I can’t dip out the water!”

“What’s that?” cried the bunny gentleman. “A leak in the boat!” The monkey sorrowfully said there was. “What can we use to dip out the water while we row to shore?” asked Uncle Butter. “Why, my tall silk hat, of course!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “If it holds milk it will hold water.” So he bailed out the boat while the goat and monkey rowed to shore, and Jackie Bow Wow watched them.

Uncle Wiggily’s hat was so useful dipping the water out of the leaking boat that it did not sink, and the bunny and goat were soon safely on shore. But there they found more trouble. Jackie Bow Wow’s bag of sugar had burst, and the sweet grains were running out on the ground. “Oh, Uncle Wiggily! What shall I do?” asked the puppy dog boy. “Mother will scold me for spilling her cake sugar!”

“Quick, Uncle Butter!” cried the rabbit gentleman, as he saw what had happened. “You hold up the bag of sugar and I’ll catch the grains in my hat. We’ll save most of it!” So the goat gentleman held the bag, which Jackie handed him, and Uncle Wiggily thrust his hat under the stream of sugar. The wind and hot sun had soon dried the bunny’s hat so the sugar wouldn’t be sticky. Everything was fine!

Uncle Wiggily took his hat full of sugar to Jackie’s house for the little doggie boy, and Mrs. Bow Wow, the dog lady, thanked the bunny. “I never knew how useful a tall silk hat could be,” she said. “Nor I,” agreed Uncle Butter. “I rather made fun of Uncle Wiggily, but I never will again.” Then the two animal gentlemen went to call on Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, who had been picking flowers.

“Oh, I am so glad to see you gentlemen!” grunted Mrs. Twistytail as Uncle Wiggily and Uncle Butter came up the steps. “I wish I had a vase in which to put these blossoms.” Uncle Wiggily took off his hat. “Use this,” he said. “Fill it with water and put the blossoms in. It’s a regular vase!” Mrs. Twistytail said it was. Uncle Butter suddenly ran away. “I’m going to buy me a tall silk hat!” he called back.

One day, when Uncle Wiggily was out walking in the woods, he met Mr. Hedgehog Porcupine. “Ah, good morning, Mr. Hedgehog,” said the bunny uncle, with a low and polite bow of his tall silk hat. “You are looking quite happy, and not at all fretful to-day.” Mr. Hedgehog also made a polite bow. “No, I am not fretful, and my stickery quills are not sticking up just now,” the Porcupine said. “Will you do me the favor to come home with me?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “We’ll run away from that bear!”

“Well, as I am hungry, I will come home to dinner with you,” said Mr. Hedgehog. He and Uncle Wiggily walked through the woods until they reached the bunny’s hollow stump bungalow. As Nurse Jane opened the door Uncle Wiggily said: “My dear Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, I have brought home company for dinner.” And then, all of a sudden, the quills of the Porcupine stuck up straight. “Oh, my goodness!” cried Nurse Jane. “Don’t be afraid!” spoke Mr. Hedgehog. “I am just a bit fretful because of the bear I saw in the woods.”

“Aren’t you going to ask Mr. Hedgehog to dinner, Nurse Jane?” said Uncle Wiggily. “Of course,” spoke the muskrat lady. “But I’m worried about that bear, and I haven’t my breakfast dishes washed yet, on account of helping Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, can some corn.” Mr. Hedgehog laughed. “Don’t worry about that bear. I’ll fix him. As for your breakfast things, I’ll help you. I’m one of the best dish drainers that ever was.” So Nurse Jane washed the dishes, drained them between Mr. Hedgehog’s quills, and then dried them.

After the dishes had been drained and dried Nurse Jane got dinner for Mr. Hedgehog, who was Uncle Wiggily’s company. But still the muskrat lady was quite fussed. “Though, to be sure, Mr. Hedgehog did help a lot with the dishes,” she said to herself. After dinner Uncle Wiggily said: “Please shoot me one of your quills for a toothpick, Mr. Hedgehog.” The porcupine said: “That is all a mistake. I can not shoot my quills, but I can make them loose in my skin, so they come out easily. Please help yourself to a toothpick.”

After dinner Uncle Wiggily sat down to read the paper, and Nurse Jane took her sewing basket to mend a hole in one of the bunny’s socks. “Oh, but dear me!” suddenly cried the muskrat lady. “There isn’t a sewing needle in the bungalow! I forgot to get some.” Mr. Hedgehog gave a low and polite bow and made his quills stick out all sorts of ways. “Please help yourself to one of my quills. You I can use it as a needle,” he said, and Nurse Jane did. Meanwhile the bad old bear softly raised the window to get Uncle Wiggily.

All of a sudden, after Nurse Jane had finished mending the hole in Uncle Wiggily’s sock, with one of Mr. Hedgehog’s quill needles, the bear began to climb in. “Oh my!” screamed Nurse Jane. “I knew something would happen!” Uncle Wiggily’s pink nose twinkled. “Quick!” cried Mr. Hedgehog. “You and Nurse Jane hide in the closet, Uncle Wiggily. The bear isn’t looking just now. I’ll lock the door.” The bunny and Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy quickly hid. Nurse Jane was worried about Mr. Hedgehog. “I’ll fix the bear,” said he.

The bad old bear walked over toward the closet door, behind which Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane had hidden. “This is the time I catch Uncle Wiggily,” growled the shaggy, furry chap. Then he looked down to the floor where Mr. Hedgehog had rolled himself up in a lump, with all his quills stickin’ out. “Hello!” growled the bear, “Nurse Jane must have put this croquet ball here so I’d stumble over it and not catch Uncle Wiggily. But she can’t fool me! I’ll knock that ball out of the way with my paw!”

The bad old bear raised his left paw and right paw and he struck at what he thought was a croquet ball on the floor. “Out of my way, so I can get Uncle Wiggily!” growled the bear. But the next minute he gave a howl. For the loose, stickery, prickery quills of Mr. Hedgehog Porcupine came loose in the bad bear’s paws and hurt like needles, or slivers. “Oh wow! Oh lollypops!” growled the bear. “Look out and see if Mr. Hedgehog is being hurt,” said Nurse Jane. Uncle Wiggily looked. “Mr. Hedgehog is laughing,” he said.

The bad bear’s paws were so full of Mr. Hedgehog’s stickers, and they hurt him so, that the unpleasant chap howled louder than ever and jumped head first out of the window. “I’ve got to go see a doctor!” he whined. Nurse Jane ran out in the kitchen and got her potato masher. “I’ll teach you to come in my bungalow without being invited!” cried the muskrat lady as she banged the bear with the masher. And Uncle Wiggily and Mr. Hedgehog felt so happy they danced around the room. But the bear didn’t dance for a week.

Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane were going along the board walk at the seashore one day, when they saw a Monkey Doodle gentleman pulling molasses taffy. “Here, where are you going?” cried Nurse Jane, as she saw Uncle Wiggily hop toward the candy booth. “You can’t help him pull it!” Uncle Wiggily tried to get his coat tails away from the muskrat lady. “I just want to ask how he makes it,” he said.

As soon as he reached the summer cottage, where he and Nurse Jane were stopping, Uncle Wiggily put on the stove in a kettle, a lot of sugar, molasses, butter, cocoanut and all such things as go into taffy. “I’m going to have a taffy pull myself!” laughed Mr. Longears, as he invited many animal boys and girls. “There’s going to be a terrible time here soon,” sighed Nurse Jane, rocking to and fro. “Terrible!”

“Well, I guess the taffy has boiled long enough now,” said Uncle Wiggily after a while. The kitchen was filled with delicious smells. “Now be careful!” called Nurse Jane. Uncle Wiggily said he would, but in carrying the kettle over to the table, he spilled some on the floor. “Oh, we can pry this up and eat it when it gets cold!” cried Sammie and Susie the rabbits. Nurse Jane cried: “Look out!”

“Accidents will happen!” laughed Uncle Wiggily as he poured the taffy from the kettle into a buttered pan, and waited for it to cool. “A little on the floor doesn’t matter.” Then he took up the lump of partly-cooled candy, and started to hang it on the stove poker he had bent into a hook like the Monkey Doodle’s. But, all of a sudden, the bunny gentleman found his paws stuck fast in the sticky taffy.

Nurse Jane put butter on Uncle Wiggily’s paws, and at last he got the lump of taffy off, and placed it on the poker hook for pulling. “Now we’ll soon have real salt water taffy!” he told the animal children. “Hurray!” bleated Billie the goat. Nurse Jane stood ready with a pitcher of water and a long spoon filled with butter, in case the bunny got stuck again. Uncle Wiggily pulled out a long candy strand.

Everything seemed to be going nicely, but all of a sudden, as Uncle Wiggily tried to throw a loop of candy rope around the hook, to pull it out again, he slung it around Nurse Jane. “Oh, I’m caught in the sticky candy!” cried the muskrat lady. “Uncle Wiggily lassoed Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy just like in a Wild West show!” barked Jackie Bow Wow. “Dear me! I didn’t mean to do this!” cried the bunny.

For a time it seemed that they would have to send for Dr. Possum. But at last Uncle Wiggily and the animal children got Nurse Jane free from the sticky candy rope. “Now I’ll try to pull the taffy again,” said the bunny. He threw another loop of the sticky stuff at the poker hook, but it tangled around the horns of Billie Wagtail. “Baa-aa-aa! Maa-aa-aa!” bleated Billie. “Dear me!” said the bunny.

After some little time Nurse Jane managed to get Billie loose from the sticky candy. “You’d better give up trying to make taffy,” she told the bunny. “This time I’ll make it,” he said, as he slung a big lump of the sticky stuff at the hook. But the poker came loose from the wall, down fell the candy and Uncle Wiggily sat right down in it! “Help! Help!” cried the bunny, and they all rushed to help him get up.

By using a kettle of warm water Nurse Jane managed to get Uncle Wiggily loose from the candy on the floor. The animal children with shovels, hoes and croquet-mallets also helped. Uncle Wiggily washed and dressed himself in his best. “Where are you going?” asked Nurse Jane as he hopped out the door. “I’m going to buy some taffy,” answered Mr. Longears. “It’s easier than making it.”