ry away
the hammock, I'll tell you another adventure Uncle Wiggily had. It will be
a story of the old gentleman rabbit and the bad dog.

STORY IX

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE DOG

Uncle Wiggily's rheumatism was quite bad after he got wet in the fountain,
as I told you in the other story, and when he thanked the mamma cat-bird
and her kitten-birds for saving him, he found that he could hardly walk,
much less carry his heavy valise.

"Oh, we'll help you," said Mrs. Cat-Bird. "Here, Flitter and Flutter, you
carry the satchel for Uncle Wiggily, and we'll take him to our house."

"But, mamma," said Flutter, who was getting to be quite a big bird-boy,
"Uncle Wiggily can't climb up a tree to our nest."

"No, but we can make him a nice warm bed on the ground," said the mamma
bird. "So you and Flitter carry the satchel. Put a long blade of grass
through the handle, and then each of you take hold of one end of the grass
in your bills, and fly away with it. Skimmer, you and Dartie go on ahead,
and get something ready to eat, and I'll show Uncle Wiggily the way."

So Flitter and Flutter, the two boy birds, flew away with the satchel, and
Skimmer and Dartie, the girl birds, flew on ahead to set the table, and
put on the teakettle on the stove to boil, and Mrs. Cat-Bird flew slowly
on over Uncle Wiggily, to show him the way.

Well, pretty soon, not so so very long, they came to where the birds
lived. And those good children had already started to make a nest on the
ground for the old gentleman rabbit. They had it almost finished, and by
the time supper was ready it was all done. Then came the meal, and those
birds couldn't do enough for Uncle Wiggily, because they liked him so.

When it got dark, they covered him all up, with soft leaves in the nest on
the ground, and there he slept until morning. His rheumatism wasn't quite
so bad when, after breakfast, he had sat out in the warm sun for a while,
and after a bit he said:

"Well, I think I'll travel along now, and see if I can find my fortune
to-day. Perhaps I may, and if I do I'll come back and bring you more
peanuts."

"Oh, that'll be fine and dandy!" cried Flitter and Flutter, and Skimmer
and Dartie. So they said good-by to the old gentleman rabbit, and once
more he started off.

"My! I'm certainly getting to be a great traveler," he thought as he
walked along through the woods and over the fields. "But I don't ever
seem to get to any place. Something always happen