"What sort of an adventure do you think you will have to-day, Uncle Wiggily?" asked the muskrat lady housekeeper of the bunny rabbit as he hopped away from the hollow stump bungalow one morning. "Well, Nurse Jane, I hardly know," was the answer. "I may meet with some of those queer circus animals again."
"I hope you do," Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy said, as she tied her whiskers in a bow knot, for she was going to dust the furniture that day. "The circus animals are very kind to you. And it is strange, for some of them are such savage jungle beasts."
"Yes," spoke the bunny gentleman, "I am glad to say the circus animals were kind and gentle. More so than the Pipsisewah or Skeezicks. But then, you see, the circus animals have been taught to be kind and good—that is, most of them."
"I hope you never meet the other sort—the kind that will want to nibble your ears!" exclaimed Nurse Jane as Uncle Wiggily put his tall silk hat on front-side before and started off with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch under his paw.
"I hope nothing happens to him," sighed Nurse Jane as she went in to put the dishes to bed in the china closet.
But something was going to happen to Uncle Wiggily. You shall hear all about it.
[Pg 222] On and on through the woods hopped the bunny rabbit gentleman, looking first on one side of the path and then on the other for an adventure. He was beginning to think he would never find one when, all of a sudden, he heard a rustling in the bushes, and a voice said:
"Oh, dear! I can't go a hop farther! I'm so tired, and my bundle is so heavy. I guess I'm getting old!"
"Ha! That sounds like trouble of the old-fashioned sort!" murmured Uncle Wiggily to himself. "I may be able to give some help, as long as it isn't the fox or wolf, and it doesn't sound like them."
The bunny gentleman peered through the trees and, sitting on a flat stump, he saw an old gentleman cat, looking quite sad and forlorn.
"Hello, Mr. Cat!" called Uncle Wiggily, cheerfully, as he hopped over toward the stump. "What's the trouble?"
"Oh, lots of trouble!" mewed the cat. "You see I'm a peddler. I go about from place to place selling pins and needles and things the lady animals need when they sew. Here is my pack," and he pointed to a large bundle on the ground near the stump.
"But what is the matter?" asked the bunny gentleman. "Don't the animal ladies buy your needles, pins and spools of thread? Just step around and see Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper. She is always sewing and mending. She'll buy things from your pack."
"Oh, it isn't selling them that's the trouble," said Mr. Cat. "But I am getting so old and stiff that I can hardly carry the pack on my back any longer. I have to sit down and rest because [Pg 223] my back aches so much. Oh, how tired I am! What a weary world this is!"
"Oh, don't say that!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, who felt quite cheerful that morning. "See how the sun shines!"
"It only makes it so much hotter for me to carry the pack on my back," sighed the cat.
"Ha! That is where I can help you!" exclaimed Mr. Longears. "I am quite well and strong, except for a little rheumatism now and then. That, however, doesn't bother me now, so I'll carry your peddler's pack for you."
"Will you? That's very kind!" said the cat. "Perhaps I may be able to do you a favor some day."
"Oh, that will be all right!" laughed the bunny, as he twinkled his pink nose. "Come along, we'll travel together and perhaps find an adventure."
Uncle Wiggily slung the cat-peddler's pack up on his back, the pussy carried the bunny's crutch, and so off they started together through the woods. They had not gone very far, and the bunny was wondering whether he could not sell Nurse Jane a lot of pins to help the poor cat when, all of a sudden, a loud, snarling sort of voice cried out:
"Oh, where can I find some water? Oh, how much I need a drink! I can go without one for seven days, but this is the eighth and if I don't see some water soon I don't know what will happen!"
"I wonder who that is?" asked the peddler cat.
"I don't know, but we'll soon find out," spoke Mr. Longears.
They looked through the bushes and there they saw a very strange animal, and not what you would call pretty, either. [Pg 224] This animal had a long neck, bent like the letter U, and his face looked as though he had rolled over on it in his sleep. But the queerest part of all was his back, on which were two humps, like little mountains, running up to peaks.
"Oh, what a queer chap!" mewed the peddler cat.
"Hush, don't let him hear you!" whispered Uncle Wiggily. "I think this is an animal from the circus."
"You are right—I am!" exclaimed the two-humped chap, looking toward the bushes behind which Uncle Wiggily and the cat were standing. "I heard what you said, too, Mr. Cat," the odd chap went on. "But I don't mind. I'm a camel, and I'm used to hearing folks say how queer I look. But I am in trouble now. Oh, dear!"
"What's the matter?" asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
"I'm so thirsty," the camel said. "You see, I took a long drink before I ran away from the circus, which I did, very foolishly, as I wanted some adventures. Well, I'm having them, all right! I've been lost in the woods, and, though I had enough to eat I couldn't find a thing to drink. On the desert, where I came from, I could find water once in a while............