"But I can"t go if my new dress doesn"t come," went on Nurse Jane.
"That is, I don"t want to."
"Look here!" said the bunny uncle, "I"ll tell you what I"ll do, Nurse Jane, I"ll go for your dress myself and bring it home. I have nothing to do. I"ll go get your dress at the dressmaker"s."
"Will you, really?" cried the muskrat lady. "That will be fine! Then I can curl my whiskers and tie a new pink bow for my tail. You are very good, Uncle Wiggily."
"Oh, not at all! Not at all!" the rabbit gentleman said, modest like and shy. Then he hopped out of the hollow-stump bungalow and across the fields and through the woods to where Nurse Jane"s dressmaker made dresses.
"Oh, yes, Nurse Jane"s dress!" exclaimed Mrs. Spin-Spider, who wove silk for all the dresses worn by the lady animals of Woodland. "Yes, I have just finished it. I was about to call a messenger-boy cat and send it home, but now you are here you may take it. And here is some cloth I had left over. Nurse Jane might want it if ever she tears a hole in her dress."
Uncle Wiggily put the extra pieces of cloth in his pocket, and then Mrs. Spin-Spider wrapped Nurse Jane"s dress up nicely for him in tissue paper, as fine as the web which she had spun for the silk, and the rabbit gentleman started back to the hollow-stump bungalow.
Mrs. Spin-Spider lived on Second Mountain, and, as Uncle Wiggily"s bungalow was on First Mountain, he had quite a way to go to get home. And when he was about half way there he pa.s.sed a little house near a gray rock that looked like an eagle, and in the house he heard a voice saying:
"Oh, dear! Oh, isn"t it too bad? Now I can"t go!"
"Ha! I wonder who that can be?" thought the rabbit gentleman. "It sounds like some one in trouble. I will ask if I can do anything to help."
The rabbit gentleman knocked on the door of the little house, and a voice said:
"Come in!"
Uncle Wiggily entered, and there in the middle of the room he saw a p.u.s.s.y cat lady holding up a dress with a big hole burned in it.
"I beg your pardon, but who are you and what is the matter?"
politely asked the bunny uncle, making a low bow.
"My name is p.u.s.s.y Cat Mole," was the answer, "and you can see the trouble for yourself. I am p.u.s.s.y Cat Mole; I jumped over a coal, and----"
"In your best petticoat burned a great hole," finished Uncle Wiggily. "I know you, now. You are from Mother Goose"s book and I met you at a party in Belleville, where they have a bluebell flower on the school to call the animal children to their lessons."
"That"s it!" meowed p.u.s.s.y Cat Mole. "I am glad you remember me, Uncle Wiggily. It was at a party I met you, and now I am going to another. Or, rather, I was going until I jumped over a coal, and in my best petticoat burned a great hole. Now I can"t go," and she held up the burned dress, sorrowful like and sad.
"How did you happen to jump over the coal?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, it fell out of my stove," said p.u.s.s.y Cat Mole, "and I jumped over it in a hurry to get the fire shovel to take it up. That"s how I burned my dress. And now I can"t go to the party, for it was my best petticoat, and Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, asked me to be there early, too; and now--Oh, dear!" and p.u.s.s.y Cat Mole felt very badly, indeed.
"Mrs. Wibblewobble"s!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Why, Nurse Jane is going there to a little tea party, too! This is her new dress I am taking home."
"Has she burned a hole in it?" asked the p.u.s.s.y cat lady.
"No, she has not, I am glad to say," the bunny uncle replied. "She hasn"t had it on, yet."
"Then she can go to the party, but I can"t," said p.u.s.s.y Cat Mole, sorrowfully. "Oh, dear!"
"Yes, you can go!" suddenly cried Uncle Wiggily. "See here! I have some extra pieces of cloth, left over when Mrs. Spin-Spider made Nurse Jane"s dress. Now you can take these pieces of cloth and mend the hole burned by the coal in your best petticoat. Then you can go to the party."
"Oh, so I can," meowed the p.u.s.s.y cat. So, with a needle and thread, and the cloth she mended her best petticoat.
All around the edges and over the top of the burned hole the p.u.s.s.y cat lady sewed the left-over pieces of Nurse Jane"s dress which was almost the same color. Then, when the mended place was pressed with a warm flat-iron, Uncle Wiggily cried:
"You would never know there had been a burned hole!"
"That"s fine!" meowed p.u.s.s.y Cat Mole. "Thank you so much, Uncle Wiggily, for helping me!"
"Pray do not mention it," said the rabbit gentleman, bashful like and casual. Then he hurried to the hollow-stump bungalow with Nurse Jane"s dress, and the muskrat lady said he had done just right to help mend p.u.s.s.y Cat Mole"s dress with the left-over pieces. So she and Nurse Jane both went to Mrs. Wibblewobble"s little tea party, and had a good time.
And so, you see, it came out just as it did in the book: p.u.s.s.y Cat Mole jumped over a coal, and in her best petticoat burned a great hole. But the hole it was mended, and my story is ended. Only never before was it known how the hole was mended. Uncle Wiggily did it.
And, if the apple doesn"t jump out of the peach dumpling and hide in the lemon pie when the knife and fork try to play tag with it, I"ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Jack and Jill, and it will be a Valentine story.
CHAPTER X
UNCLE WIGGILY AND JACK AND JILL
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, was asleep in an easy chair in his hollow-stump bungalow one morning when he heard some one calling:
"Hi, Jack! Ho, Jill! Where are you? Come at once, if you please!"
"Ha! What"s that? Some one calling me?" asked the bunny uncle, sitting up so suddenly that he knocked over his red, white and blue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, had gnawed for him out of a corn-stalk. "Is any one calling me?" asked Mr. Longears.
"No," answered Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy. "That"s Mother Goose calling Jack and Jill to get a pail of water."
"Oh! is that all?" asked the rabbit gentleman, rubbing his pink eyes and making his nose twinkle like the sharp end of an ice cream cone.
"Just Mother Goose calling Jack and Jill; eh? Well, I"ll go out and see if I can find them for her."
Uncle Wiggily was always that way, you know, wanting to help some one. This time it was Mother Goose. His new hollow-stump bungalow was built right near where Mother Goose lived, with all her big family; Peter-Peter Pumpkin-Eater, Little Jack Horner, Bo Peep and many others.
"Ho, Jack! Hi, Jill! Where are you?" called Mother Goose, as Uncle Wiggily came out of his hollow stump.
"Can"t you find those two children?" asked the rabbit gentleman, making a polite good morning bow.
"I am sorry to say I cannot," answered Mother Goose. "They were over to see the Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe, a while ago, but where they are now I can"t guess, and I need a pail of water for Simple Simon to go fishing in, for to catch a whale."
"Oh, I"ll get the water for you," said Uncle Wiggily, taking the pail. "Perhaps Jack and Jill are off playing somewhere, and they have forgotten all about getting the water."
"And I suppose they"ll forget about tumbling down hill, too," went on Mother Goose, sort of nervous like. "But they must not. If they don"t fall down, so Jack can break his crown, it won"t be like the story in my book, and everything will be upside down."
"So Jack has to break his crown; eh?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "That"s too bad. I hope he won"t hurt himself too much."
"Oh, he"s used to it by this time," Mother Goose said. "He doesn"t mind falling, nor does Jill mind tumbling down after."
"Very well, then, I"ll get the pail of water for you," spoke the bunny uncle, "and Jack and Jill can do the tumbling-down-hill part."