Imperial Valley Press

Bed-Time Stories
By HOWARD E. GARIS
Copyright, 1927, by McClure Newspaper Syndicate

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BRUSH PILE

One day after Uncle Wiggily had hopped out of his hollow stump bungalow to go adventuring, he heard a voice calling, just as he passed an old pile of brush that stuck up through the snow.

"Hold on! Wait a minute if you please! Why are you in such a hurry?" the voice asked.

"Dear! There's one of the Bad Chaps now!" said Uncle Wiggily to himself. "And I am hardly out of sight of my bungalow," he added, for the old stump, which he had made over into a cute little house, was just beyond the top of the hill.

"Wait a minute!" the voice went on.

"Sounds like the Bob Cat or the Fox, I can't tell which," murmured Mr. Longears to himself. "But there's one thing sure. I'm not going to wait here to be nibbled! Luckily I am not far from home. I can hop back and lock myself in before they catch me."

The rabbit gentleman was just going to do this when he heard the voice again, and this time it was very sad as it said:

"Please help me, as you helped the Old Rail Fence to become happy. I'll do you a favor if I can, but I don't know how. Please stop and speak to me!"

"Well, upon my pink, twinkling nose!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, very much surprised. "That isn't one of the Bad Chaps after all. Unless I am much mistaken, it is the Brush Pile speaking to me."

"You are not mistaken," said the voice. "I am this pile of old brush—odds and ends of twigs, branches and brambles, piled here for no good at all in this world, as far as I can see. I wish I was burned!"

"Tut! Tut! Don't talk that way!" warned the rabbit gentleman.

"Oh, but I am so sad and discouraged!" went on the Brush Pile, speaking in much the same sort of voice as had the Old Fence a day or two back. "Can't you cheer me up, Uncle Wiggily? Show me how I can be useful, as the Fence was when it dropped a lot of its rails on the Bob Cat and held him back from catching you. I want to be happy!"

"Yes, we all ought to be happy in this world," said the bunny. "But this is the first time I ever knew a Brush Heap to be sad."

"I guess you'd be sad, too, if you had to stay out here all winter, with nothing to do but feel the cold wind sweep through you, and be covered with snow and ice," said the Brush Pile. "That's why I say I might as well be burned."

"Hush! Tut, tut, again!" whispered Uncle Wiggily. "Don't say that! It may happen."

"I have an idea I was piled here just for that," went on the Brush Heap. "What good am I, anyhow? The farmer chopped off twigs and branches from his logs of firewood, he trimmed his apple trees and rose bushes, and threw the brambles and briars here. That's all I am, a bunch of briars and brambles. Can't you make me useful and happy, Uncle Wiggily?"

The rabbit gentleman did not know what to say. He wanted to be kind. But, after all, what is a Brush Pile for except to be burned?

"I'll tell you what I'll do," said the bunny after awhile. "I'll hop along and if I can think of something useful for you to do, I'll come back and tell you about it."

"Please do! Then I shall be happy!" sighed the Brush Pile.

Uncle Wiggily hopped along and along, and, all of a sudden, out from behind a big rock leaped the Woozie Wolf.

"Ah, ha! A fat rabbit for my dinner!" howled the Wolf and he ran after Uncle Wiggily. But Uncle Wiggily turned and ran back toward his bungalow. As he neared the straggling, rough pile of brambles and briars, the rabbit called:

"Here I come, Brush Pile! Open a place for me to hide under so the Wolf can't get me!"

"I will. Come on!" invited the Brush Pile.

He made a leap into the pile of sticks and brush. The wind blew a hole, like a door beneath one end of the pile. Into this opening, partly under the snow, Uncle Wiggily leaped with a running dive.

Soon he was creeping along safely beneath the Brush Heap which was so rough and scratchy that no animal, as large as a Wolf, could crawl under without being torn to tatters.

"Just my luck!" growled the hungry Wolf, as he slunk away. "No use trying to get a rabbit out from beneath a heap of brush. Gurr!"

So Uncle Wiggily was saved and the Brush Pile was no longer sad, for it found itself of some use in this world. Uncle Wiggily said when summer came he would plant morning glory seeds around the brush so it would become a pile of beautiful flowers. Then the Brush Pile was happier than ever before. So this is the end of the story. But if the clothes wringer doesn't pinch the tail of the shirt when it's passing through I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the cold pump kin.