"Matches, Uncle Wiggily! Matches!" cried Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy one morning, as the bunny rabbit gentleman was hopping down the forest path, away from his hollow stump bungalow. "What's that? Patches?" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "Did I put on my garden trousers that have patches?" and he tried to twist his neck like a corkscrew, so he could look behind him.
"No, I didn't say 'patches'!" laughed Nurse Jane. "I said matches. Don't forget to bring me some matches to light the fire, when you come back from looking for an adventure."
"Oh! Matches!" repeated the bunny. "I'll get some for you, Nurse Jane."
Over the fields and through the woods hopped the bunny rabbit gentleman. He looked here, there and everywhere for an adventure, but could not seem to find one. The Woozie Wolf nor the Fuzzy Fox did not chase him to nibble his ears. Not that Uncle Wiggily wanted them to, but, if they had, that would have been an adventure.
"Well, perhaps I shall find one when I come back," said the bunny gentleman as he hopped along to the seven and eight cent store, where he bought a box of matches.
Carrying these fire-sticks in his paw, Uncle Wiggily was hopping through the forest, on his way back to the hollow stump [Pg 216] bungalow when, all at once, the bunny gentleman felt the ground trembling, and he heard a sound like a big horn being blown, and then a loud voice said:
"Oh, dear! I can't get it out!"
"Well, what can this be?" thought Uncle Wiggily. "That horn sounds like the big brass one I heard in the circus. From the way the earth shakes I'd say a big automobile truck was coming along. And as for someone who can't get something out—well, that sounds like trouble! I'd like to help, but first I must see who it is."
Uncle Wiggily looked through the bushes, and at first he thought he saw the side of some big house moving behind the trees. Then he noticed something like a great leaf flapping in the wind, and a moment later something long, like a fire hose, was thrust forward.
"Why, it's an elephant!" exclaimed the bunny, as he caught sight of the big chap.
"An elephant is just who I am," was the answer in a rumbling voice, coming through the rubber hose of a trunk. "I'm from the circus, and I wish I might be back there this minute, eating my hay!"
"Oh, so you have run away from the circus also, like the lion and tiger?" questioned the bunny.
"Yes," answered the elephant, "I did. But what do you know of my friends, the lion and tiger?"
"Oh, I have met them," answered Mr. Longears. "But is that your only sorrow—wishing you were back in the circus?"
"Indeed it is not," the elephant answered. "I have stepped on a loose stone, and it is fast between the toes of my left hind [Pg 217] foot. I can't get it loose by stamping on the ground, and I can't reach so far back with my trunk. I'm in great pain and trouble!"
"That is too bad," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "I guess your stamping on the ground is what I thought was an auto truck coming along."
"Perhaps," admitted the big circus elephant. "I wish I could get that stone out from between my toes," he went on, stamping so hard that he shook the very trees, making them rustle as though a wind had blown them.
"Maybe I can help you," said Uncle Wiggily most kindly. "I have with me my red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch. With that I may be able to poke out the stone that hurts you."
"I wish you'd try," begged the elephant.
It did not take the bunny gentleman long to loosen the stone from between the elephant's toes, for the foot of an elephant is not like that of a horse or cow—he really has toes and toe-nails, just as you have, only a little larger, of course. Well, I should say so!
"A............