Part 6 (1/2)
CHAPTER VII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND LITTLE BO PEEP
”What are you going to do, Nurse Jane?” asked Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, as he saw the muskrat lady housekeeper going out in the kitchen one morning, with an ap.r.o.n on, and a dab of white flour on the end of her nose.
”I am going to make a chocolate cake with carrot icing on top,”
replied Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy.
”Oh, good!” cried Uncle Wiggily, and almost before he knew it he started to clap his paws, just as Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children, might have done, and as they often did do when they were pleased about anything. ”I just love chocolate cake!” cried the bunny uncle, who was almost like a boy-bunny himself.
”Do you?” asked Nurse Jane. ”Then I am glad I am going to make one,”
and, going into the kitchen of the hollow-stump bungalow, she began rattling away among the pots, pans and kettles.
For now Nurse Jane and Uncle Wiggily were living together once more in their own hollow-stump bungalow. It had burned down, you remember, but Uncle Wiggily had had it built up again, and now he did not have to visit around among his animal friends, though he still called on them every now and then.
”Oh, dear!” suddenly cried Nurse Jane from the kitchen. ”Oh, dear!”
”What is the matter, Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy?” asked the bunny uncle. ”Did you drop a pan on your paw?”
”No, Uncle Wiggily,” answered the muskrat lady. ”It is worse than that. I can't make the chocolate cake after all, I am sorry to say.”
”Oh, dear! That is too bad! Why not?” asked the bunny uncle, in a sad and sorrowful voice.
”Because there is no chocolate,” went on Nurse Jane. ”Since we came to our new hollow-stump bungalow I have not made any cakes, and to-day I forgot to order the chocolate from the store for this one.”
”Never mind,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. ”I'll go to the store and get the chocolate for you. In fact, I would go to two stores and part of another one for the sake of having a chocolate cake.”
”All right,” spoke Nurse Jane. ”If you get me the chocolate I'll make one.”
Putting on his overcoat, with his tall silk hat tied down over his ears so they would not blow away--I mean so his hat would not blow off--and with his rheumatism crutch under his paw, off started the old gentleman rabbit, across the fields and through the woods to the chocolate store.
After buying what he wanted for Nurse Jane's cake, the old gentleman rabbit started back for the hollow-stump bungalow. On the way, he pa.s.sed a toy store, and he stopped to look in the window at the pop-guns, the spinning-tops, the dolls, the Noah's Arks, with the animals marching out of them, and all things like that.
”It makes me young again to look at toys,” said the bunny uncle.
Then he went on a little farther until, all at once, as he was pa.s.sing a bush, he heard from behind it the sound of crying.
”Ha! Some one in trouble again,” said Uncle Wiggily. ”I wonder if it can be Little Boy Blue?” He looked, but, instead of seeing the sheep-boy, whom he had once helped, Uncle Wiggily saw a little girl.
”Ha! Who are you?” the bunny uncle asked, ”and what is the matter?”
”I am Little Bo Peep,” was the answer, ”and I have lost my sheep, and don't know where to find them.”
”Why, let them alone, and they'll come home, wagging their tails behind them,” said Uncle Wiggily quickly, and he laughed jolly like and happy, because he had made a rhyme to go with what Bo Peep said.
”Yes, I know that's the way it is in the Mother Goose book,” said Little Bo Peep, ”but I've waited and waited, and let them alone ever so long, but they haven't come home. And now I'm afraid they'll freeze.”