“Let me think a minute,” said the rabbit.  So he thought for maybe half a minute, and then exclaimed:  “Oh!  I know a good thing to do.”

“What?” asked Percival.  “Say it quickly, Uncle Wiggily, for those wolves are creeping up on us, and it’s so dark we can’t see to run away.”

And surely enough, those wolves were sneaking up, with their red tongues hanging out longer than ever, for all the world just as if they had eaten cherry pie.

“We must do some funny tricks!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily.  “You know how, Percival, for you were once in a circus, and I learned some when I was with the monkey, and with Fido Flip-Flop.  Do some tricks, and maybe these wolves will feel so good-natured that they won’t bite us.”

So brave Uncle Wiggily stood up on one ear and waved his feet in the air.  Then he stood on his nose and turned a somersault.  Next he went around and around as fast as a pinwheel, and he whistled a funny tune about a little rubber ball that flew into the air, and when it landed on the ground it would not stay down there.

But I wish you could have seen the tricks Percival did.  He jumped through between Uncle Wiggily’s long ears, and he walked on his hind legs, and on his front ones.  Then he stood on his head, and he made believe he was begging for something to eat, and Uncle Wiggily fed him a carrot, and a piece of pie.  Then he put a piece of bread on his nose, tossed it up into the air—­tossed the bread, I mean, not his nose—­and when it came down he caught it and ate it.  Oh, it was great!

Well, those wolves were too surprised for anything.  They had never seen tricks like those.  First they smiled a bit.  Then they smiled some more.  Then one laughed, then the other laughed, and finally, when Uncle Wiggily and Percival took turns jumping over each other’s backs, the wolves thought it so funny that they had to lie down on the leaves and roll over and over because they were laughing so hard.

And, of course, after that they didn’t feel like hurting Uncle Wiggily or Percival.  And just then the big alligator came along and chased the wolves away, so the rabbit and dog had no one to bother them except the alligator, and, as he had just had his supper, he wasn’t hungry, so he didn’t eat them.

So Uncle Wiggily and Percival went to sleep, and so must you, and if the vegetable man brings me a pumpkin Jack o’ Lantern, with a pink ribbon on the end of the stem, I’ll tell you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily in a well.

STORY XVII

UNCLE WIGGILY IN A WELL

Well, I didn’t get the pumpkin Jack o’ Lantern with the pink ribbon on, but some one mailed me an ice cream cone, so it’s just as well.  That is, I suppose it was an ice cream cone when it started on its journey, but when I got it there was only the cone part left.  Maybe the postman took out the ice cream, with which to stick a stamp on the letter.