STORY IV UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BAD BOY

 Once upon a time there was a bad boy. He lived on the edge of the wood in which Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, had built his hollow stump¹ bungalow². The bad boy did not know Uncle Wiggily, but Mr. Longears knew about the bad boy, and so did Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the bunny's muskrat³ lady housekeeper⁴.

"Don't ever go near that bad boy's house," said Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy one morning, as the rabbit gentleman started out with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism⁵ crutch⁶.

"Why not?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"Because," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, "that boy will throw stones at you, and maybe hit you on your pink, twinkling nose."

"He can't throw stones now," said Uncle Wiggily. "He can't find any. The ground is covered with snow."

"Then he'll throw snowballs at you," said the muskrat lady housekeeper. "Please keep away from him."

"I'll think about it," promised the bunny gentleman, as he hopped⁷ away, with his tall, silk hat on his head.

Now you know why, once upon a time, there was a bad boy. He was bad because he threw stones and snowballs at rabbits and other animals. There were more things bad about him than this, but one is enough for a story.

[Pg 27] Uncle Wiggily hopped on and on, across the fields and through the woods, and soon he came to the house of the bad boy. It was a regular house, not a hollow stump bungalow, such as that in which Mr. Longears lived.

"I wonder if there isn't any way of making that bad boy good?" thought the bunny rabbit gentleman. "Bad boys aren't of much use in the world, but good boys, or girls, who put out crumbs⁹ for the hungry birds to eat in winter—they are of great use in the world! I wonder if I could make that bad boy good?"

But, no sooner had Uncle Wiggily began to wonder in this fashion, than, all of a sudden, he heard a loud voice shouting:

"Hi! There he is! A rabbit! I'm going to throw a snowball at him!"

Uncle Wiggily looked over his shoulder and saw the bad boy rushing out of his house, followed by another boy.

"Oh, what a nice, funny rabbit!" cried the second boy. "He looks as if he came from a circus—all dressed up!"

"I'll make him turn a somersault if I can whang him with a snowball!" shouted the bad boy, running toward the bunny gentleman.

"Perhaps I had better be going," said Uncle Wiggily, who could understand boy and girl talk, though he could not speak it himself. "I'll wait until some other day about trying to make this boy good."

Mr. Longears started to run, but he had not taken many hops¹⁰ before, all of a sudden, he felt a sharp, thumping¹¹ pain in his side, and he was almost knocked over by a snowball thrown by the bad boy.

[Pg 28] "Hi there! I hit him! I hit him!" howled the bad boy, dancing up and down.

"Yes," sadly said the other chap. "You hit him, but what good did it do?"

"It shows I'm a straight shot!" proudly answered the other. "Maybe I can catch that rabbit now."

He ran over the snow. But though Uncle Wiggily had been knocked down by the ball thrown by the bad boy, the rabbit gentleman managed to get to his feet, and away he hopped on his rheumatism crutch—so fast that the bad boy could not get him.

Then the bad boy and the other chap, who was not so bad, played in the snow, until it was time to go home. Uncle Wiggily hopped to his hollow stump bungalow, but he said nothing to Nurse Jane about the pain in his side.

"If I tell her she won't let me go out to the movies to-night with Grandpa Goosey," thought Mr. Longears.

So, though his side pained him, Uncle Wiggily said never a word, but early that evening he hopped over to Grandpa Goosey's home in the duck pen. And on the way Uncle Wiggily had to pass the house of the bad boy.

"But it is getting dark, and he will not see me," thought the bunny gentleman. "I guess it will be safe."

Now it happened that, just as Uncle Wiggily was hopping¹² under the window of the bad boy's house, the bunny heard a voice inside saying:

"Oh, dear! How my ear aches! Oh, what a pain! Can't you do something to stop it, Mother?"

"If I had some soft cotton I could put a little warm oil on it [Pg 29] and that, in your ear, would make it feel better," answered a lady's voice. "But I have no cotton in the house. If you'll wait until I go to the drug store——"

"No! No!" howled the voice of the bad boy. "I don't want you to go to the store and leave me alone! Can't you get some cotton without going to the store?"

"No," answered the mother. "You shouldn't have played out in the cold, and thrown snowballs at the rabbit. You must have gotten some snow in your ear to make it ache!"

"Oh, do something to make it stop!" cried the bad boy. "Oh, why haven't we some cotton?"

Uncle Wiggily, outside under the window, heard all this talk. Now the bunny gentleman knew where to find something like cotton without going to the drug store. Inside each of the big brown buds of the horse-chestnut tree is a little wad of cotton. Mother Nature puts the cotton there to keep the bud warm through the winter, so green leaves will come out in the spring.

Uncle Wiggily looked around and saw, lying on the snow, a branch which the wind had broken from a horse-chestnut tree. Hopping across the newly-fallen spring snow to this branch, Uncle Wiggily gnawed¹³ off some of the buds. Breaking these open with his teeth, he took out some of the soft, fluffy¹⁴ cotton.

"I'll just leave this on the bad boy's doorstep," thought the bunny. "I'll tap with my crutch and hop⁸ away."

So the bunny gentleman, with the wad of cotton, skipped up the front steps of the house when no one saw him. His paws made funny little marks in the soft snow. Uncle Wiggily put [Pg 30] the cotton on the sill, tapped once, twice, three times with his rheumatism crutch, and then hopped away.

"Somebody's at the door!" said the bad boy. "Maybe that's daddy coming home, so he can go to the drug store and get that cotton for my aching ear."

"Maybe," said his mother. "I hope it is."

She opened the door, and when she saw there the bunch of cotton—just what she wanted—you can imagine how surprised she was!

"Why, who could have left it?" asked the bad boy, when his mother told him what had happened. "Who do you s'pose did?"

"I don't know," she answered. "But I saw some rabbit tracks in the snow on our steps."

"Rabbit tracks?" repeated the boy, wonderingly, as his mother softly put some warm cotton and oil in his ear, making the pain almost stop.

"Yes, rabbit tracks," said Mother. "And, if I were you, I'd never throw any more snowballs at rabbits."

The boy (I'll not call him bad any more) put his head down on the pillow of his bed. He could go to sleep now, as the pain in his ear had almost stopped.

"I wonder if that funny rabbit, dressed up like a little old man, could have brought me the cotton?" said the boy.

"I wonder, too," softly spoke¹⁵ Mother with a smile.

"Anyhow, I won't ever throw stones or snowballs at rabbits any more," promised the boy.

"Or cats or dogs, either?" his mother asked.

"Or cats or dogs, either," added the boy.

[Pg 31] Then he went to sleep, and Uncle Wiggily, picking the bits of fuzzy horse-chestnut tree cotton off his tall, silk hat, hopped on to Grandpa Goosey's house and went to the movies.

So that's the story of the bunny gentleman and the bad boy, and I hope you liked it. But if the rag doll's go-cart doesn't race with the baby carriage and slip on the banana skin as though it had on roller skates, I'll tell you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily and the good boy.

 

1 stump   

n.残株，烟蒂，讲演台；v.砍断，蹒跚而走

参考例句：

• He went on the stump in his home state.他到故乡所在的州去发表演说。
• He used the stump as a table.他把树桩用作桌子。

2 bungalow   

n.平房，周围有阳台的木造小平房

参考例句：

• A bungalow does not have an upstairs.平房没有上层。
• The old couple sold that large house and moved into a small bungalow.老两口卖掉了那幢大房子，搬进了小平房。

3 muskrat   

n.麝香鼠

参考例句：

• Muskrat fur almost equals beaver fur in quality.麝鼠皮在质量上几乎和海獭皮不相上下。
• I saw a muskrat come out of a hole in the ice.我看到一只麝鼠从冰里面钻出来。

4 housekeeper   

n.管理家务的主妇，女管家

参考例句：

• A spotless stove told us that his mother is a diligent housekeeper.炉子清洁无瑕就表明他母亲是个勤劳的主妇。
• She is an economical housekeeper and feeds her family cheaply.她节约持家，一家人吃得很省。

5 rheumatism   

n.风湿病

参考例句：

• The damp weather plays the very devil with my rheumatism.潮湿的天气加重了我的风湿病。
• The hot weather gave the old man a truce from rheumatism.热天使这位老人暂时免受风湿病之苦。

6 crutch   

n.T字形拐杖；支持，依靠，精神支柱

参考例句：

• Her religion was a crutch to her when John died.约翰死后，她在精神上依靠宗教信仰支撑住自己。
• He uses his wife as a kind of crutch because of his lack of confidence.他缺乏自信心，总把妻子当作主心骨。

7 hopped   

跳上[下]( hop的过去式和过去分词 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• He hopped onto a car and wanted to drive to town. 他跳上汽车想开向市区。
• He hopped into a car and drove to town. 他跳进汽车，向市区开去。

8 hop   

n.单脚跳，跳跃；vi.单脚跳，跳跃；着手做某事；vt.跳跃，跃过

参考例句：

• The children had a competition to see who could hop the fastest.孩子们举行比赛，看谁单足跳跃最快。
• How long can you hop on your right foot?你用右脚能跳多远？

9 crumbs   

int. (表示惊讶)哎呀 n. 碎屑 名词crumb的复数形式

参考例句：

• She stood up and brushed the crumbs from her sweater. 她站起身掸掉了毛衣上的面包屑。
• Oh crumbs! Is that the time? 啊，天哪！都这会儿啦？

10 hops   

跳上[下]( hop的第三人称单数 )； 单足蹦跳； 齐足（或双足）跳行； 摘葎草花

参考例句：

• The sparrow crossed the lawn in a series of hops. 那麻雀一蹦一跳地穿过草坪。
• It is brewed from malt and hops. 它用麦精和蛇麻草酿成。

11 thumping   

adj.重大的，巨大的；重击的；尺码大的；极好的adv.极端地；非常地v.重击(thump的现在分词)；狠打；怦怦地跳；全力支持

参考例句：

• Her heart was thumping with emotion. 她激动得心怦怦直跳。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He was thumping the keys of the piano. 他用力弹钢琴。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

12 hopping   

n. 跳跃 动词hop的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The clubs in town are really hopping. 城里的俱乐部真够热闹的。
• I'm hopping over to Paris for the weekend. 我要去巴黎度周末。

13 gnawed   

咬( gnaw的过去式和过去分词 )； （长时间） 折磨某人； （使）苦恼； （长时间）危害某事物

参考例句：

• His attitude towards her gnawed away at her confidence. 他对她的态度一直在削弱她的自尊心。
• The root of this dead tree has been gnawed away by ants. 这棵死树根被蚂蚁唼了。

14 fluffy   

adj.有绒毛的，空洞的

参考例句：

• Newly hatched chicks are like fluffy balls.刚孵出的小鸡像绒毛球。
• The steamed bread is very fluffy.馒头很暄。

15 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。