Hopping along under the bushes one day, near the edge of the forest nearest to where lived the real boys and girls, Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, heard two boys talking together. "We'll put a tick-tack on her window," said the First Boy.
"And she'll be scared stiff!" said the Second Boy. "Oh, what fun we'll have this Hallowe'en!"
"Hum!" thought the bunny rabbit gentleman to himself, after hearing this. "It may be fun for you, but how about whoever it is you're going to scare stiff? I only hope it isn't my nice muskrat lady housekeeper, Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy!"
Uncle Wiggily twinkled his pink nose, and listened with both ears.
"Yes," went on the First Boy, "we'll have a lot of fun this Hallowe'en with tick-tacks and the like of that! And we'll put on false faces so the Little Old Lady of Mulberry Lane won't know us!"
"Oh ho! So that's the one they're going to play tricks on; is it?" thought Uncle Wiggily to himself. "The Little Old Lady of Mulberry Lane! I know her—poor creature; she lives all alone, and she may have a cupboard, like Old Mother Hubbard, [Pg 137] but she hasn't a dog or a bone. I suppose," thought Uncle Wiggily, "that Jackie or Peetie Bow Wow would stay with her, if she wanted them. I must see about it."
"But, first of all, I must plan some way so these mischievous boys won't put a tick-tack on the window of the Little Old Lady of Mulberry Lane. I know what tick-tacks are!"
And well Uncle Wiggily knew, for sometimes the boys and girls of Woodland, near the Orange Ice Mountains, where the bunny had built his hollow stump bungalow, put one of the scary things on his window. That is, they were scary if you didn't know what they were, but Uncle Wiggily did.
Oftentimes Sammie Littletail, the rabbit, or Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, would take some string, a pin and an old nail, or little stone, and make a tick-tack. They fastened a short piece of string to the pin, and on the other end of the string they tied a dangling stone. When it grew dark the animal chaps would sneak up to Uncle Wiggily's window, and stick the pin in the wooden sash so the stone, or nail, hung dangling down against the glass. Then they would tie the long string, or thread, about half way down on the short cord and hide off in the bushes, with one end of the long string in their paws.
From their hiding place the animal boys would pull the long string. The pebble, or stone, would rattle against Uncle Wiggily's window, making a sound like:
"Tick! Tack!"
That's how it got its name, you see.
"So they are going to play tick-tack on the Little Old Lady of Mulberry Lane; are they?" said Uncle Wiggily to himself, as the two boys walked away. "Well, I must try to stop them!"
[Pg 138] Mulberry Lane was a street near the forest where the bunny gentleman lived in his hollow stump bungalow, and the Little Old Lady was the only one whose house was built there. The bunny liked the Little Old Lady, for in winter she scattered crumbs for the birds.
Uncle Wiggily hopped home to his hollow stump, and from the attic he took down one of his old, tall silk hats.
"What in the world are you doing, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane. "Do you think it is April Fool, and are you going to wear an old hat so the animal boys won't play tricks on you?"
"Well, not exactly," the bunny answered. "I'll tell you later, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy—if it works."
"Hum!" said the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw Mr. Longears put in his pocket some pieces of white paper and a pot of paste. "I do believe he's going to fly a kite—and on Hallowe'en of all nights!"
For it quickly became Hallowe'en night. As soon as the dusky shadows of evening began to fall, strange figures flitted to and fro, not only in the woods of the animal folk, but on the other side, in the village where the real boys and girls lived.
Real boys, with the heads of wolves, the faces of clowns and some as black as the charcoal-man skipped here and there, ringing doorbells, outlining in chalk on the steps something that looked like an envelope, or else they tapped on windows with long sticks so that when the windows were opened no one could be seen.
Uncle Wiggily, hopping off through the darkness toward the edge of the forest, carried with him one of Nurse Jane's old brooms,[Pg 139] an old, tall silk hat and a coat............