Christmas had come and gone, and the next holiday for the boys and girls who lived in the village outside of Uncle Wiggily's forest was to be New Year's Day. I call it Uncle Wiggily's forest for on one edge of it the bunny rabbit gentleman had built himself a hollow stump bungalow. There he lived with Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, his muskrat lady housekeeper. On the farther side of the wood was the village where many real boys and girls had their homes. To them, as I say, Christmas had come and gone, bringing to most of them presents which they liked very much.
"I'm going to have a lot of fun on New Year's," said one boy to another as they were coasting on the hill the last day of the old year.
"What are you going to do?" asked the other boy.
"I'm going to blow the Old Year out and the New Year in," was the answer.
"Gracious me sakes alive!" thought Uncle Wiggily Longears, the bunny rabbit gentleman, who happened to be resting under a bush near where the boys were coasting down hill. "I hope he doesn't blow the Old Year so far away that the New Year will be afraid to come in," said Mr. Longears to himself. Then he listened again, for the boys were talking further.
[Pg 185] "How you going to blow?" one lad wanted to know.
"With my Christmas horn," was the answer. "I got a dandy horn for Christmas. To-night is New Year's eve. My father said I could stay up late. At twelve o'clock the Old Year goes away and the New Year comes, and we're going to have a party at our house, and I'm going to blow my horn like anything!"
"So'm I," said several other boys.
"Where does the Old Year go when you blow it away?" asked a lad who had red hair and freckles.
"Oh, I don't know," answered the boy who had first talked of his Christmas horn. "It just goes—that's all! It disappears same as the hole in a doughnut when you eat it."
"You don't eat the hole!" declared another boy.
"Well, you eat all around it," was the answer, "and then there isn't any hole any more. It's the same with the Old Year. After twelve o'clock on December 31 there isn't any Old Year any more. It's January the first, and it's the New Year. I'm going to blow my horn loud! All the fellows are!"
"We will, too!" cried the rest of the boys.
But one lad, who had a clumsy, home-made sled on the hill, did not say he was going to blow the New Year in. He turned away as the other lads talked of their coming fun. Someone asked him:
"Are you going to watch the Old Year out, Jimmy?"
"No, I guess not," was the answer. "I'm going to sleep."
"The noise will wake you up," someone suggested.
"Well, then I'll go to sleep again," was the answer.
"I guess the reason Jimmy won't blow the Old Year out and the New Year in is because he hasn't any horn," said a boy with [Pg 186] a fine new blue sled. "He didn't get hardly anything for Christmas."
"That's too bad!" softly spoke the lad who had first mentioned about blowing in the New Year. "Maybe I can find an old horn at my house, and I'll take it to him. If I could find two I'd take another to his sister. But I don't believe I can."
"Oh, won't we have fun, blowing the New Year in?" cried the boys, as they walked to the top of the hill so they might coast down. But Jimmy did not join in the joyous shout. He was a poor boy, and, as the others had said, he had not found much in his stocking at Christmas. Certainly there was no bright tooting horn!
"This is too bad!" thought Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped back to his hollow stump bungalow, after the coasting boys were out of the way so they would not see him. "I wonder how I could get a New Year's horn for that poor boy?"
The bunny gentleman was wondering about this, but he could not seem to think of any plan, when, as he was about to hop up his bungalow steps, he saw Billie Wagtail, the goat boy.
"Oh, Uncle Wiggily!" bleated Billie. "See my new horns!"
"Your new horns!" exclaimed Mr. Longears, turning toward the goat chap. "Are you going to blow the New Year in, also?"
"Yes, but not with these horn............