“Why he came home from the five-and-ten-cent store—I guess it must have been,” explained Aunt Piffy, “and he gave me a box to open. He asked me if I didn’t want a new side hair comb, and of course I did. Well, when I opened the box out popped a green snake. I was so scared that I ran down cellar and hid, and I nearly lost my breath, and could hardly find it again. Oh, dear!” and Aunt Piffy fanned herself with her apron, she was so warm.
“Well,” said Uncle Wigwag, and he stopped laughing long enough to talk. “I really didn’t say there was a side comb in the box, Aunt Piffy. Besides, it wasn’t really a snake, you know,” he said, turning to Neddie and Beckie. “It was only a snake made of paper, with a spring inside like a jack-in-the-box.”
“Oh, I know,” said Neddie. “Where is it? Let me take it, and I’ll play a joke on some of the fellows at school.”
“Take it!” exclaimed Aunt Piffy. “I don’t want to see it again. And mind you!” she said to Uncle Wigwag, shaking her paw at him, “if you joke with me any more—no maple sugar on your fried eggs for breakfast.”
“Oh, I’ll be good,” said the old bear gentleman.
But it was very hard for Uncle Wigwag to stop playing jokes. A little later that afternoon he gave Beckie what she thought was a candy egg, and when she tried to bite into it, thinking it was nice and sweet, the egg popped open, and a little chicken inside, made of paper and feathers, crowed just like a rooster, and Beckie nearly jumped out of her hair ribbon, she was so surprised.
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Uncle Wigwag. “That was a good joke!”
“I don’t think so,” said Beckie, sort of sorrowful-like.
“Don’t you? Well, maybe it wasn’t,” spoke Uncle Wigwag. “Anyhow, here’s a penny for you to buy some real candy.” Uncle Wigwag was always that way—first he’d play a joke on you and then he’d do you a kindness. He was quite nice after all.
And a little later Neddie was looking for a pencil to write down some of his home school-work on his paper pad.
“Here’s a good pencil,” said Uncle Wigwag, taking one from his pocket. Neddie didn’t think anything, and started to write with the pencil. But, as soon as he did so, it bounced out of his paw and jumped around on the floor. For inside it was a jumping-jack. It was a trick pencil, you know, and Uncle Wigwag had played another joke.