ome on!"

"Ha! I must go, too!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "Maybe I can scare away
the foxes, and save Jackie and Peetie."

So the foxes ran and Uncle Wiggily also ran, and pretty soon the rabbit
gentleman came to a place in the woods where grew a tree with big white
blossoms on it, and in the center the blossoms were colored a dark red.

"Ha! There are the puppy boys under that tree!" cried one fox, and,
surely enough, there, right under the tree, Jackie and Peetie were
crouched, trembling and much frightened.

"We'll get them!" cried the other fox. "Come on!"

And then, all of a sudden, as the foxes leaped toward the poor little
puppy dog boys, that tree began to hark and growl and it cried out loud:

"Get away from here, you bad foxes! Leave Jackie and Peetie alone!
Wow! Bow-wow! Gurr-r-r-r!" and the tree barked and roared so like a
lion that the foxes were frightened and were glad enough to run away,
taking their tails with them. Then Jackie and Peetie came safely out,
and thanked the tree for taking care of them.

[Illustration: The tree barked and roared so like a lion that the foxes
were frightened and were glad enough to run away.]

"Oh, you are welcome," said the tree. "I am the dogwood tree, you
know, so why should I not bark and growl to scare foxes, and take care
of you little puppy chaps? Come to me again whenever any bad foxes
chase you." And Peetie and Jackie said they would.

So Uncle Wiggily, after also thanking the tree, took the doggie boys
home, and they told him how the foxes had chased them soon after they
came from school, so they had to run.

But everything came out all right, you see, and if the black cat
doesn't dip his tail in the ink, and make chalk marks all over the
piano, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the hazel nuts.

STORY XVIII

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE HAZEL NUTS

"Going out again, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, one
morning, as she saw the rabbit gentleman taking his red, white and
blue-striped rheumatism crutch down off the clock shelf.

"Well, yes, Janie, I did think of going out for a little stroll in the
forest," answered the bunny uncle, talking like a phonograph. What he
meant was that he was going for a walk in the woods, but he thought
he'd be polite about it, and stylish, just for once.

"Don't forget your umbrella," went on Nurse Jane. "It looks to me very
much as though there would be a storm."

"I think you're right,