ifted up, and whirled
around, and then came a clap of thunder, and then it all got still, and
quiet, and a little bird began to sing. Then the fairy's voice asked:

"Well, Uncle Wiggily, how is your rheumatism now?"

"Why!" exclaimed the old rabbit, "it is all gone. It certainly is. I
never would have believed it," and, honestly, the pain was all gone, and
he didn't need his crutch for a long time after that. Then he believed
that the red lady was a fairy, and he hurried home to tell Sammie and
Susie, while the little red lady and the golden ball flew back into the
tree. "Oh!" cried Susie, when she heard the story, "I wish I could see a
fairy!" And, listen, she did! The very next day; and, if nothing
happens, the story to-morrow night will be about Susie Littletail and
the blue fairy.

Now listen, Uncle Wiggily felt so good at being cured of his rheumatism
that he asked the red fairy if some boys and girls, who had been very
good, couldn't stay up after they had heard the bedtime story to-night.

"I want to make them happy because I am happy," said Uncle Wiggily.

"Yes, they stay up if their papas and mammas will let them," answered
the red fairy, so now you just ask, but be very polite about it, and see
what happens. But don't stay up too late, you know, for that would never
do, never at all.

XXVI

SUSIE AND THE BLUE FAIRY

They were talking about Uncle Wiggily's visit to the red fairy, in the
rabbits' burrow the next day, when Susie remarked:

"Well, if I saw a fairy, I think I'd ask for something more magical than
having my rheumatism cured."

"No you wouldn't," said her uncle, as he nibbled a bit of
chocolate-covered carrot that Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy had made. "You
think you would, but you wouldn't. In the first place, you never had
rheumatism, or you'd be glad to get the first fairy you saw to cure it.
And in the second place, when you see a fairy it makes you feel so
funny you don't know what you are saying. But I am certainly glad I met
that one. I never felt better in all my life than I do since my
rheumatism is cured. I believe I'll dance a jig."

"Oh, no, don't," begged Mamma Littletail.

"Yes, I shall to," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "Begging your pardon, of course,
Alvinah." You see, Mamma Littletail's first name was Alvinah. So Uncle
Wiggily danced a jig, and did it fairly well, considering everything.

That afternoon Susie Littletail went for a walk in the woods. She was
all alone, for S