STORY XV UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE POPGUN

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was out in the yard back of his house, blowing hot air in the toy circus balloons of his airship. The balloons would then lift the airship up in the air, and Uncle Wiggily could sail around near the clouds, like a bird.

 

“Aren’t you afraid the airship will some day go up without you in it?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat¹ lady, who kept house for the rabbit gentleman.

 

“Oh, no, for I always tie my airship fast to the fence, or a tree, or something like that, until I am ready to get in it!” he answered.

 

This time Uncle Wiggily tied his airship, with a clothesline, to the grape arbor², and he went on getting the red, green, blue and yellow balloons more and more full of hot air. The rabbit gentleman blew the hot air in with a putty blower.

 

Soon the airship was tugging³ and tugging[Pg 97] away at the clothesline, wanting to sail up in the air, and take the old gentleman rabbit with it for a sail in the clothes basket, which was filled with soft cushions. These were taken along so, in case Uncle Wiggily fell, he would not be bounced too hard.

 

But the airship could not go up until the rabbit gentleman loosed the rope that held it fast.

 

“And that I’ll do as soon as I go in and wash my paws and get a carrot sandwich,” the rabbit gentleman said, when he had finished fixing the balloons. “Then I’ll go off and see if I can find an adventure.”

 

An adventure, you know, is something that happens to you, like being late for school, and getting kept in. But I hope you have no such unpleasant adventure as that. I’d rather you had a nice one, like finding an ice cream cone⁴ rolling up hill.

 

Well, Uncle Wiggily went into the house to wash his paws. He soaped them nicely and also his face, but, when he went to dry them, he could not find the towel.

 

“Oh, Nurse Jane!” he cried. “Come quickly and get me a towel! There’s some soap in my eyes!”

 

“Oh, my goodness me sakes alive and some apple pudding!” cried Nurse Jane. Then she[Pg 98] ran in to get a towel for Uncle Wiggily, leaving the airship in the yard all alone.

 

And now something is going to happen.

 

Along came Jocko Kinkytail, the little monkey boy, on his way to school. Jocko was going to be late, too. He almost always was late, and the reason was that he stopped too often along the road to play and to look at the things he saw.

 

“Oh, my goodness!” cried Jocko, when he saw Uncle Wiggily’s airship in the yard, all ready to sail. “I must look at that!”

 

Over the fence he scrambled⁵, and he began looking at the airship, made of a clothes basket, some toy balloons, a Japanese umbrella and an electric fan.

 

“Say! This is fine!” cried Jocko. “I wonder what keeps it from going up when no one is in it?” Then he noticed the clothesline rope holding it down, and he said, “Ah, I see!”

 

Now Jocko was very curious, and when the monkey chap saw a knot tied in the holdingdown rope he at once tried to loosen it. And with his cunning little fingers Jocko did loosen the knot.

 

And then——

 

Up shot the airship into the air, nearly knocking the monkey boy down, so suddenly did it leave the earth.

 

[Pg 99]

 

“Oh, my!” cried Jocko.

 

“Oh, now you have done it!” exclaimed Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, as she came running out of the house, after having gotten Uncle Wiggily a towel to wipe the soap out of his eyes.

 

“What has happened?” asked the rabbit gentleman himself, as he came hopping⁶ out, with his red white and blue striped barber pole crutch⁷ that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy had gnawed⁸ for him out of a cornstalk.

 

“I am very sorry,” spoke⁹ Jocko politely, “but your airship has run away.”

 

“Run away?” cried Uncle Wiggily.

 

“Yes, run away. I loosened the knot in the rope, and up it went—the airship went up, I mean—not the rope,” said Jocko politely.

 

“Yes, so I see,” remarked Uncle Wiggily, looking upward. And there his airship was floating high above the trees, and no one was in it, except the sofa cushions, to bring it down again, and they could not do it.

 

“I am very sorry,” said Jocko. “I will see if I can’t get it down for you.” So he climbed the tallest tree there was, but still the airship was far above his reach.

 

“You can never get it!” cried Nurse Jane sadly.

 

“Perhaps I can help you,” spoke an elephant[Pg 100] gentleman coming along just then. “I used to be a cowboy in a Wild West show, and perhaps I can throw my rope lasso up high enough to get it around the airship and pull it down.”

 

So he threw his rope lasso with his trunk, but the airship was still too high for him to reach.

 

“You will have to get an eagle bird to fly up and bring it down,” said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy.

 

“Ha! No! I have a better plan than that!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “Run over to Sammie Littletail’s house and get his popgun,” said the rabbit gentleman to the monkey boy. “I will put some beans in the popgun, shoot them at the balloons, burst holes in them to let out the hot air, and down my airship will come of itself.”

 

And that’s exactly what Uncle Wiggily did. With Sammie’s popgun he shot the balloons full of holes, knowing he could easily mend them again, and when there was no hot air in them to hold them up, down came the airship, fluttering slowly to the earth.

 

“Thank goodness!” cried Nurse Jane. “You have your airship again, Uncle Wiggily. Don’t you ever do that again, Jocko Kinkytail.”

 

“I guess he won’t,” spoke Uncle Wiggily kindly¹⁰, as he began to mend the burst balloons. And Jocko never did.

 

[Pg 101]

 

And if the rubber plant in our yard doesn’t stretch over the fence and pick a rose off the gooseberry bush, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the butterfly.

 

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 arbor   

n.凉亭；树木

参考例句：

• They sat in the arbor and chatted over tea.他们坐在凉亭里，边喝茶边聊天。
• You may have heard of Arbor Day at school.你可能在学校里听过植树节。

3 tugging   

n.牵引感v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Tom was tugging at a button-hole and looking sheepish. 汤姆捏住一个钮扣眼使劲地拉，样子显得很害羞。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• She kicked him, tugging his thick hair. 她一边踢他，一边扯着他那浓密的头发。 来自辞典例句

4 cone   

n.圆锥体，圆锥形东西，球果

参考例句：

• Saw-dust piled up in a great cone.锯屑堆积如山。
• The police have sectioned off part of the road with traffic cone.警察用锥形路标把部分路面分隔开来。

5 scrambled   

v.快速爬行( scramble的过去式和过去分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Each scrambled for the football at the football ground. 足球场上你争我夺。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• He scrambled awkwardly to his feet. 他笨拙地爬起身来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 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。

7 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。

8 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。

9 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。

10 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。