STORY VII UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MOTH BALLS

“There it goes! Get it!” suddenly cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat¹ lady, one night, making a jump up from the rocking chair where she was sitting, sewing up the holes in the coffee strainer.

 

“My goodness me sakes alive and some cheese pudding!” cried Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, who was reading the evening paper in his hollow stump² bungalow³ near the underground house. “Have you dropped your ball of yarn⁴, Nurse Jane, or did you see Jilly Longtail, the mousie?”

 

“Neither one,” answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, who kept house for Uncle Wiggily. “Oh, there’s another! Hit it quick before it gets upstairs!” she cried, making a grab for something in the air.

 

“Well, this is certainly surprising!” Uncle Wiggily exclaimed. “I see nothing!”

 

He looked at Nurse Jane, who was making[Pg 48] funny motions in the air, waving her paws about and clapping them together.

 

“You don’t see anything?” the muskrat lady cried. “Why, the place is full of moths⁵. They will eat everything up!”

 

“Will they eat up my turnip⁷ sandwich?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.

 

“Oh, not that,” replied Nurse Jane. “They are not like foxes, or bears. Moths are little things that first flit about like butterflies. Then they find a nice, cosy⁸, soft bed in your fur coat, or your flannel⁹ shirts, and they lay eggs. Then out of the egg comes a little insect that eats up the fur and flannel. They even eat pianos!”

 

“My gracious!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “They must be regular giants to eat pianos! I never heard of such a thing!”

 

“Well, of course they don’t exactly eat the whole piano,” said Nurse Jane, as she made another grab in the air, trying to catch the moth⁶-butterfly. But she missed it and knocked off Uncle Wiggily’s spectacles. Very luckily, however, the glasses fell on the soft back of Kittie Kat, who had come over to Uncle Wiggily’s house to borrow a cup of flour to make a bouquet¹⁰ for her school teacher, and so the glasses were not broken.

 

[Pg 49]

 

“Moths must be terrible things!” said Uncle Wiggily, as he put on his spectacles again. “Fancy, now; eating pianos!”

 

“Well, I mean they eat the felt cloth inside the pianos, and so spoil them for playing,” went on Nurse Jane. “But we must get busy, Uncle Wiggily. To-morrow you must go up in your airship and buy me some moth balls.”

 

“I didn’t know moths played ball,” said the rabbit gentleman. “They certainly are strange creatures, to eat pianos and play ball!”

 

“Oh, of course, moths don’t play ball!” Nurse Jane said. “How silly you are, Wiggily. Moth balls are white balls that smell very strongly of camphor and other things that moths do not like. If you put moth balls in your fur and flannels¹¹ the moths will go away.”

 

“Where will they go?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

 

“I don’t know. Please don’t ask so many questions,” Nurse Jane answered, as she tried to catch another moth. And this time she stepped on Kittie’s tail and the little cat girl meaowed: said:

 

“Oh, dear! I guess I had better go home.”

 

“Oh, please excuse me!” begged Nurse Jane. “But I must get these moths out of the way.”

 

“I’ll get the moth balls to-morrow,” Uncle Wiggily promised, “and if there are any balls[Pg 50] left over I will give them to Sammie Littletail to play marbles with.”

 

“Well, the next day the old rabbit gentleman started off in his airship to get the moth balls for Nurse Jane. He found them in a drug store, and the monkey gentleman who kept the place put the white balls in a box for Uncle Wiggily, so he could easily carry them.

 

“I hope you have no trouble, going back in your airship,” said the monkey gentleman, politely.

 

“Thank you,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I think I shall be all right.” Then he sailed back toward his house with the moth balls, and on the way he heard down below him some voices saying:

 

“Oh, dear! Isn’t it too bad?”

 

“Yes, if we only had some marbles we could have a nice game!”

 

“But we haven’t any!” cried a third voice, sadly.

 

Uncle Wiggily looked down, and in the schoolyard, over which he was flying in his airship, he saw Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, Bully¹² and Bawly No-Tail, the frogs, Jackie and Peetie Bow-Wow, the puppies, and many other animal friends. They wanted to have a game of marbles, but could not.

 

“I’ll just drop them down a few of the moth[Pg 51] balls; I have plenty,” said Uncle Wiggily. So he did, taking care not to let any of the balls fall on the animal boys.

 

“Oh joy!” the little chaps cried, when they saw the white balls. “These will make fine marbles!” And they had a great game.

 

A little farther along Uncle Wiggily saw some toy wooden soldiers who were going to shoot their pop guns at a mark for practice, so that they might become good marksmen in time of war.

 

“Oh, but alas¹³ and alack!” cried the captain. “I forgot to bring any bullets. What shall I do?”

 

“Ha! Perhaps these will answer!” cried Uncle Wiggily, and the rabbit gentleman dropped down some more moth balls from his airship.

 

“Oh, how kind are you!” cried the soldier captain. Then his soldiers loaded their guns with the white moth ball bullets and shot at the mosquito targets as much as they pleased.

 

Then, a little farther on, Uncle Wiggily saw a bad old lion chasing after a poor little dog. And the lion was going to pull the doggie’s tail, for all I know. Mind, I’m not saying for sure, but maybe.

 

“Ha! This will never do!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “I must stop that lion.”

 

[Pg 52]

 

So he threw the rest of the moth balls out of his airship at the lion. And the balls hit the bad creature on the nose and the lion cried, “Wow! Wow! Wow!” three times, just like that, and then he had to go to the dentist’s to have his nose fixed¹⁴. So he didn’t chase the doggie any more.

 

“But where are the moth balls?” asked Nurse Jane, when Uncle Wiggily reached home in his airship. And when he told her what he had done with them she said: “Well, you were very kind, of course, but I guess I had better get the moth balls myself next time.”

 

And she did, and she put Uncle Wiggily’s fur coat away in them, and no moths tried to eat it at all. And, in the next story, if the stovepipe takes the refrigerator out to see the circus elephant jump over the back fence, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the dentist.

1 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。

2 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。

3 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。

4 yarn   

n.纱，纱线，纺线；奇闻漫谈，旅行轶事

参考例句：

• I stopped to have a yarn with him.我停下来跟他聊天。
• The basic structural unit of yarn is the fiber.纤维是纱的基本结构单元。

5 moths   

n.蛾( moth的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The moths have eaten holes in my wool coat. 蛀虫将我的羊毛衫蛀蚀了几个小洞。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The moths tapped and blurred at the window screen. 飞蛾在窗帘上跳来跳去，弄上了许多污点。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

6 moth   

n.蛾，蛀虫

参考例句：

• A moth was fluttering round the lamp.有一只蛾子扑打着翅膀绕着灯飞。
• The sweater is moth-eaten.毛衣让蛀虫咬坏了。

7 turnip   

n.萝卜，芜菁

参考例句：

• The turnip provides nutrition for you.芜菁为你提供营养。
• A turnip is a root vegetable.芜菁是根茎类植物。

8 cosy   

adj.温暖而舒适的，安逸的

参考例句：

• We spent a cosy evening chatting by the fire.我们在炉火旁聊天度过了一个舒适的晚上。
• It was so warm and cosy in bed that Simon didn't want to get out.床上温暖而又舒适，西蒙简直不想下床了。

9 flannel   

n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服

参考例句：

• She always wears a grey flannel trousers.她总是穿一条灰色法兰绒长裤。
• She was looking luscious in a flannel shirt.她穿着法兰绒裙子，看上去楚楚动人。

10 bouquet   

n.花束，酒香

参考例句：

• This wine has a rich bouquet.这种葡萄酒有浓郁的香气。
• Her wedding bouquet consisted of roses and ivy.她的婚礼花篮包括玫瑰和长春藤。

11 flannels   

法兰绒男裤； 法兰绒( flannel的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Erik had been seen in flannels and an imitation Panama hat. 人们看到埃里克身穿法兰绒裤，头戴仿制巴拿马草帽。
• He is wearing flannels and a blue jacket. 他穿着一条法兰绒裤子和一件蓝夹克。

12 bully   

n.恃强欺弱者，小流氓；vt.威胁，欺侮

参考例句：

• A bully is always a coward.暴汉常是懦夫。
• The boy gave the bully a pelt on the back with a pebble.那男孩用石子掷击小流氓的背脊。

13 alas   

int.唉(表示悲伤、忧愁、恐惧等)

参考例句：

• Alas!The window is broken!哎呀！窗子破了！
• Alas,the truth is less romantic.然而，真理很少带有浪漫色彩。

14 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。