"Now, try that with your sled, Squeaky-Eeky," said the bunny uncle.
And the little cousin mouse did. She put her sled on the slanting
tree, sat down and Jillie gave her a little push. Down the slippery
elm tree went Squeaky as fast as anything, coming to a stop in a pile
of soft leaves.
"Oh, what a lovely slide!" cried Squeaky. "You try it, Jillie." And
the little mouse girl did.
"Who would think," she said, "that you could slide down a slippery elm
tree? But you can."
Then she and Squeaky took turns sliding down hill, even though there
was no snow, and the slippery elm tree didn't mind it a bit, but rather
liked it.
And if the coal man doesn't take away our gas shovel to shoot some
tooth powder into the wax doll's pop gun, I'll tell you next about
Uncle Wiggily and the sassafras.
STORY IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SASSAFRAS
"Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Get up!" called Nurse Jane Fuzzy
Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she stood at the foot of the
stairs of the hollow stump bungalow and called up to the rabbit
gentleman one morning.
"Hurry down, Mr. Longears," she went on. "This is the last day I am
going to bake buckwheat cakes, and if you want some nice hot ones, with
maple sugar sauce on, you'd better hurry."
No answer came from the bunny uncle.
"Why, this is strange," said Nurse Jane to herself. "I wonder if
anything can have happened to him? Did he have an adventure in the
night? Did the bad skillery-scalery alligator, with humps on its tail,
carry him off?"
Then she called again:
"Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily! Aren't you going to get up? Come down
to breakfast. Aren't you going to get up and come down?"
"No, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy," replied the bunny uncle, "not to give you a
short answer, I am not going to get up, or come down or eat breakfast
or do anything," and Mr. Longears spoke as though his head was hidden
under the bed clothes, which it was.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily, whatever is the matter?" asked Nurse Jane,
surprised like and anxious.
"I don't feel at all well," was the answer. "I think I have the
epizootic, and I don't want any breakfast."
"Oh, dear!" cried Nurse Jane. "And all the nice cakes I have baked. I
know what I'll do," she said to herself. "I'll call in Dr. Possum.
Perhaps Uncle Wiggily needs some of the roots and herbs that grow in
the woods--wintergreen, slippery elm or something like that. I'll call
Dr. Possum."
And when the anim
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