"Juggerjook" is a short story by L. Frank Baum, an animal fable first published in St. Nicholas Magazine in its December 1910 issue. The story was later reprinted in Famous Tales and Laughter Stories (1912) and The Boys' and Girls' Bookshelf (1920). It was also reprinted in The Baum Bugle in 1977 and 1978. The original St. Nicholas text was illustrated by C. Barnes.
Summary[]
Two young animal friends — Fuzzy Wuz, a white rabbit, and Chatter Chuk, a red squirrel — go for a walk through the forest. Though they have been told not to, they spy on the den of the powerful magician Juggerjook. After seeing the opening of his cave, littered with the bleached skulls of animal victims, the two flee in fear.
Fuzzy Wuz smells carrots, and follows the smell to the bait in a box trap. Unfamiliar with the danger, he gets caught in the trap as he knocks away the peg and the box falls down on him. Chatter Chuk runs home.
Mrs. Wuz, distraught when her only child does not return that night, seeks out Chatter Chuk early the next morning. The squirrel confesses what has happened, and the two set out to rescue the white bunny. Mrs. Wuz cannot dig underneath the box, since it is set on a flat rock; she instructs Chatter Chuk to gnaw through the box's wood. While they are attempting this, they are caught in a net thrown by the hunter. He and his son have come to check their trap, and are pleased to see that they have caught three animals instead of one.
Carefully observing the scene and noting the evidence, the boy figures out what was happening; and the two humans are struck by the spectacle of animal co-operation and compassion before them. The boy prevails upon his father to release the animals to the wild again.
As for the rabbits and the squirrel, they blame the whole affair on the malign influence of Juggerjook.