The Furniture Catalogue, 4

I thought I'd share another one of the Uncle Wiggly stories my grandmother, Victoria Rosser Paul, clipped out of the newspaper to save to read to her children. Howard Garis, the author, together with his wife, Lillian Garis, wrote over 15000 Uncle Wiggly stories between 1910 and 1947. The stories were originally written as a daily column in the Newark Daily News and were later synicated and published nationally. Mr. Garis also wrote some of the Tom Swift stories, under the pseudonym of Victor appleton, Bobbsey Twin stories as Laura Lee Hope, Motor Boys stories as Clarence Young, and Basketball Joe stories as Lester Chadwick, and too many more to list. He might be the most prolific writer of children's fiction of all time. I would guess this story was from the twenties, since that's when most of Grandmother's scrapbook entries were made.  

 

                                      A Bedtime Story, by Howard R Garis

                                         Uncle Wiggly and the Stove Ashes

 

 

Woozie Wolf

 

          "Uncle Wiggly, oh Uncle Wiggly! called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy in the hollow stump bungalo one morning. "Will you please take them out? Take them out as soon as you can!"

          "Eh! What's that? What's the matter?" asked the bunny gentleman, jumping up from the easy chair where he was reading the cabbage leaf newspaper. "Are the Pipsisewah and Skeezicks in my bungalo, making trouble for you? "Indeed I'll take them out at once, Nurse Jane! Hi there, you Pip and Skee!" cried Uncle Wiggly, as he made his pink nose twinkle upside down. "Let Nurse Jane alone!"

          "Oh, they aren't bothering me. They aren't even here!" said the muskrat lady with a laugh. "What I want you to take out, Uncle Wiggly, are the stove ashes, and you might shovel some on the front walk, as it is very slippery with ice this morning."

          "Oh, the stove ashes," laughed Uncle Wiggly when he had heard what Nurse Jane said. "So you want me to take out the stove ashes? And I thought you were calling me to drive out the Pip and Skee! Well I'm glad those bad chaps aren't in my hollow stump bungalo."

          "So am I," said Nurse Jane, and then Uncle Wiggly put on his oldest, tall silk hat to take out the stove ashes.

          The bunny rabbit gentleman put the ashes in a box, and then taking the fire shovel, he started out to sprinkle some of the ashes on the slippery sidewalk in front of his hollow stump bungalo.

          Up and down on the places Uncle Wiggly scattered the ashes, and now and then, the wind blew some of them on his pink twinkling nose, and he had to sneeze.

          "But I shouldn't mind a little thing like that," said Uncle Wiggly. "For I am helping Nurse Jane by taking out the stove ashes for her. And I am also making the walk so it isn't so slippery. I don't want any of my friends to fall down and get hurt."

          And, just as he said this to himself, Uncle Wiggly looked up toward the end of the walk, and he saw his dear old friend, Grandfather Goosey Gander, come stepping carefully along, slipping and sliding on places where, as yet, Uncle Wiggly had spread no ashes.

          "Wait a moment, Grandpa Goosey. Wait a moment!" called Uncle Wiggley. "Stand where you are, and I'll scatter some ashes under your webbed feet so you won't slip."

          "Ah, that is very kind of you," quacked the old gentleman gander, as he stepped on the ash-covered ice which wasn't slippery any more. "You are very kind, Uncle Wiggly. I wish everyone would put ashes on their slippery walks."

          "Yes, it would be a good thing," said the bunny.

          "Did you see anything of the Woozie Wolf or the Fuzzy Fox today, Uncle Wiggly?" asked Grandpa Goosey, as he waddled on, taking little short steps, so he wouldn't fall.

          "The Fox and the Wolf? Gracious sakes alive! I should hope not!" cried Uncle Wiggley. "Why do you ask?"

          "Because," answered Grandpa Goosey, "on my way here I caught the sound of howling and yowling in the woods, and I think it may have been those bad animals."

          "I hope not," said Uncle Wiggley, and he kept on putting ashes over the slippery places on the walk in front of his hollow stump bungalo.

          There were still many slippery spots to be covered on the walk, and Uncle Wiggly was going in his bungalo to get more ashes when, all of a sudden, he saw at the top end of his path, a big animal in a fur coat coming slowly along taking short steps in order not to slip.

          "I wonder if that is my old friend, Mr. Stubtail, the bear gentleman?" thought Uncle Wiggly.

          The bunny uncle was just going to hurry to sprinkle what few ashes he had left in his box on the ice near the big animal when all of a sudden this animal cried:

          "Ah, ha! Now I have you, Uncle Wiggly!"

          And then, instead of being good Mr. Stubtail, it was only the bad Woozie Wolf. He had wrapped himself in his biggest fur coat to look like Mr. Stubtail.

          "I want you! Uncle Wiggly, I want you!" cried the Woozie Wolf, "I want to nibble your ears for my New Year's dinner!"

          But, just as he said that the Wolf's paws slipped on the ice covered walk, and he would have fallen only that he caught hold of the fence.

          "My! how slippery it is!" howled the Wolf. "You didn't put any stove ashes here, Uncle Wiggly!"

          "No, I missed that place!" laughed the bunny, and he had to laugh and twinkle his pink nose as he saw the paws of the bad wolf slipping out from under him.

          "Here! You stop laughing at me!" Howled the wolf. "Come and put some ashes under my paws as you did for Grandpa Goosey! Then I won't slip."

          "Well, the very idea," cried Uncle Wiggly. "As if I would put ashes on slippery places for you, so you can get to me to nibble on my ears! I guess not!"

          "Well, I'll eat you anyhow - ashes or no ashes!" Howled the Woozie Wolf. Well he tried to walk along to get Uncle Wiggly, but the next moment the paws of the Wolf slipped on the ice and he went down ker-bunk and ker-bang, and he bumped his nose and skinned his toes and he felt so ashamed of himself that he turned a back somersault and a front peppersault, and slid on the back of his head away down to the end of the street, where he couldn't get Uncle Wiggly.

          "It's a good thing I didn't have ashes all over my walk when the Wolf came along," laughed the bunny gentleman. And then, with the Wolf out of the way, Mr. Longears sprinkled more ashes, until all his walk was covered, and no one else slipped down that day.

          And if the Jumping Jack doesn't take the legs off the dining room table to fasten them on the kitchen stove so it can run along the boardwalk, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggly and the barn owl.

 

 

These are the stories Grandmother read to my mother when she was little. I think it's interesting that the wolf is trying to eat Uncle Wiggly, but not the bear, and I thought Geese honked instead of quacking, but little children aren't that critical. I remember begging my mother to tell me stories. I think that she was a little shy about making up stories because it took a lot of begging sometimes to get her started. The stories my mother told were about the adventures of a character she made up by the name of "Elfy." I loved them.

 

This story is obviously set in an early day. Uncle Wiggly wears a stove top hat, and his housekeeper, Nurse Jane, cooks on a wood burning stove. My mother told me she used to have the job of gathering kindling and taking out the ashes from Grandmother's stove. She said that she especially hated the job in the winter.