"Oh, please don't cry any more!" called Uncle Wiggily.
"Why not?" asked the elephant, sadly-like, and he cried harder than before.
"Because if you do," replied the rabbit, "I will have to get a pair of rubber boots, in which to wade out to see you."
"I'll try to stop," said the big animal, but, instead, he cried harder than before, boo-hooing and hoo-booing, until you would have thought it was raining, and Uncle Wiggily wished he had an umbrella.
"Why, whatever is the matter?" asked the rabbit.
"Oh, I stepped on a tack," answered the elephant, "and it is sticking in my foot. I can't walk, and I can't dance and I can't get back to the circus. Oh, dear! Oh, dear me, suz-dud and a red balloon! Oh, how miserable I am!"
"Too bad," said Uncle Wiggily. "Was it a large tack that you stepped on?"
"Was it?" asked the elephant, sort of painful-like. "Why, it feels as big as a dishpan in my foot. Here, you look, and perhaps you can pull it out."
He raised up one of his big feet, which were about as large as a washtub full of clothes, on Monday morning, and he held it out to Uncle Wiggily.
"Why, I can't see anything here," said the rabbit, looking at the big foot through his spectacles.
"Oh, dear! It's there all right!" cried the elephant. "It feels like two wash tubs now," and he began to cry some more.
"Here! Hold on, if you please!" shouted Uncle Wiggily. "I'll have to make a boat, if you keep on shedding so many tears, for there will be a lake here. Wait, I'll look once more."
So he looked again, and this time he saw just the little, tiniest, baby-tack you can imagine—about the size of a pinhead—sticking in the elephant's foot.
"Wait! I have it! Was this it?" suddenly asked the rabbit, as he took hold of the tack in his paw and pulled it out.
"That's it!" exclaimed the elephant, waving his trunk. "It's out! Oh, how much better I feel. Whoop-de-doodle-do!" and then he felt so fine that he began to dance. Then, all of a sudden, he began to cry once more.
"Why, what in the world is the matter now?" asked Uncle Wiggily, wishing he had a pail, so that he might catch the elephant's salty tears.
"Oh, I feel so happy that I can't help crying, because my pain is gone!" exclaimed the big creature. Then he cried about forty-'leven bushels of tears, and a milk bottle full besides, and there was a little pond around him, and Uncle Wiggily was in it up to his neck.
Then, all of a sudden, in came swimming the alligator, right toward the rabbit.
"Ah, now I'll get you!" cried the skillery-scalery beast.
"No you won't!" shouted the elephant, "Uncle Wiggily is my friend!" So he put his trunk down in the water, and sucked it all up, and then he squirted it over the trees. That left the alligator on dry land, and then the elephant grabbed the alligator up in his strong trunk, and tossed him into the briar bushes, scalery-ailery tail and all, and the alligator crawled away after a while.
So that's how Uncle Wiggily was saved from the alligator by the crying elephant, and the rabbit and elephant traveled on together for some days. Now, as I see the sand man coming, I must stop.
But, in case I don't fall into the washtub with my new suit on, and get it all colored sky-blue-pink, so I can't go to the picnic, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the cherry tree.
STORY XXIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CHERRY TREE
Uncle Wiggily Longears and the crying elephant were walking along together one day, talking about the weather, and wondering if it would rain, and all things like that. Only the elephant wasn't crying any more, for the rabbit had pulled the tack that was hurting him, out of the big beast's foot, you remember.
"We'll travel on together to find our fortune, and look for adventures," said the elephant, as he capered about, and stood on his hind legs, because he felt so jolly. "Won't we have fun, Uncle Wiggily?"
"Well, we may," spoke the old gentleman rabbit, "but I don't see how we are going to carry along on our travels enough for us to eat. Of course, I don't need much, but you are such a big chap that you will have to have quite a lot, and my valise is small."
"Don't worry about that," replied the elephant. "Of course you might think I could carry a lot of pie and cake and bread and butter in my trunk, but really I can't you know, for about all that my trunk will hold is water. However, I think I can pick what hay and grass I want from along the road."
"Yes, and perhaps we may meet a man with a hot peanut wagon, once in a while," suggested Uncle Wiggily, "and he may give you some peanuts."
"Oh, joy! I hope he does!" cried the big fellow. "I just love hot peanuts!" Well, they went on together for some time, when, all of a sudden a man jumped out from behind the bushes, and exclaimed:
"Ha, Mr. Elephant! I've been looking for you. Now you come right back with me to the circus where you belong." And he went up to the elephant and took hold of his trunk.
"Oh, I don't want to go," whined the tremendous creature. "I want to stay with Uncle Wiggily, and have some fun."
"But you can't," said the man. "You are needed in the circus. A lot of boys and girls are waiting in the tent, to give you peanuts and popcorn."
"Well, then, I s'pose I'd better go back," sighed the wobbly animal with the long tusks. "I'll see you again, Uncle Wiggily." So the elephant said good-bye to the rabbit, and went back to the circus with the man, while the rabbit gentleman hopped on by himself.
He hadn't gone very far before he heard a loud "Honk-honk!" in the bushes.
"Oh, there is another one of those terrible automobiles!" thought the rabbit. But it wasn't at all. No, it was Grandfather Goosey Gander, and there he sat on a flat stone, "honk-honking" through his yellow bill as hard as he could, and, at the same time crying salty tears that ran down his nose, making it all wet.
"Why, whatever is the matter?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as he went up to his friend, the duck-drake gentleman. "Have you stepped on a tack, too?"
"No, it isn't that," was the answer. "But I am so sick that I don't know what to do, and I'm far from my home, and from my friends, the Wibblewobble family, and, oh, dear! it's just awful."
"Let me look at your tongue," said the rabbit, and when Grandfather Goosey Gander stuck it out, Uncle Wiggily said:
"Why, you have the epizootic very bad. Very bad, indeed! But perhaps I can cure you. Let me see, I think you need some bread and butter, and a cup of catnip tea. I'll make you some."
So Uncle Wiggily made a little fire of sticks, and then he found an empty tin tomato can, and he boiled some water in it over the fire, and made the catnip tea. Then he gave some to Grandfather Goosey Gander, together with some bread and butter.
"Well, I feel a little better," said the old gentleman duck-drake, when he had eaten, "but I am not well yet. It seems to me that if I could have some cherry pie I would feel better."
"Perhaps you would," agreed Uncle Wiggily, "but, though I know how to make nice cherry pie, and though I made some for the hedgehog, I don't see any cherry trees around here, so I can't make you one. There are no cherry trees."
"Yes, there is one over there," said the duck-drake, and he waved one foot toward it, while he quacked real faint and sorrowful-like.
"Sure enough, that is a cherry tree," said Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped over and looked at it. "And the cherries are ripe, too. Now, if I could only get some of them down I could make a cherry pie, and cure Grandfather