Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, walked out in front of his burrow¹ house one morning, and looked at his new airship. He limped a little, for you know he had had a fall the day before, tumbling down almost out of the clouds. But he fell on some sofa cushions, that the monkey gentleman had put in the clothes basket part of the airship, so Mr. Longears was not much hurt—only his rheumatism² was sort of twisted.

 

I guess I told you, did I not, how Uncle Wiggily made himself an airship out of some toy balloons, a clothes basket, and an electric fan? He thought he would fly through the air for a while, instead of riding around in his automobile³.

 

But Mother Goose had accidentally dropped a lot of pins on the toy balloons that lifted up the airship, and when the balloons burst, with loud “pops,” the airship came down “ker-floppo!”—if you will kindly⁵ excuse me for saying so.

 

[Pg 17]

 

So Uncle Wiggily walked out in front of his burrow, or underground house, and looked at his broken airship.

 

“I’m afraid it will never sail again!” said Uncle Wiggily, sadly, as he noticed the burst balloons and the clothes basket, which had quite a dent⁴ in one of the handles. The electric fan was not hurt at all, I am glad to say, only it had stopped whizzing around, of course.

 

“It’s too bad!” Uncle Wiggily went on. “My nice airship, that I thought would take me sailing all over, is broken. I can’t go riding in it again.”

 

“What!” cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat⁶ lady, who kept house for the rabbit gentleman. “You don’t mean to tell me that you would ever go sailing again in an airship, after what happened; would you?”

 

“I certainly would,” answered Uncle Wiggily, as he combed out his whiskers with a

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