“Oh, oh! We’ll see about that!” said Uncle Wiggily. “Now you run out and play while I eat, and then we’ll see what happens. Did you have your breakfast?”
“Oh, yes, Baby Bunty was up as soon as I was,” said Nurse Jane.
Uncle Wiggily ate his breakfast slowly and carefully. He didn’t like to hurry except when the Pipsisewah was chasing him. And after he had eaten some carrot pancakes, Uncle Wiggily felt sort of lazy like and comfortable.
“I’ll play a little trick on Baby Bunty,” he thought. “I don’t believe it will do my old bones good to go off in the damp woods so early in the morning to gather flowers. I’ll wait until the sun is warmer. I’ll just stay here and go to sleep. She’ll forget all about me.”
So Uncle Wiggily curled up in the easy chair, thinking how good it felt to rest his tired bones and joints. But, all of a sudden, as he was sort of dozing off to sleep, he heard Nurse Jane cry:
“Oh, Uncle Wiggily! Come here! Come quickly! There goes Baby Bunty off on her skates.”
“Baby Bunty? Going off on her skates! Why, she hasn’t any skates!” cried the rabbit gentleman, suddenly waking up! “She’s too little to have roller skates, and it isn’t the time of year for ice skates. How you talk, Nurse Jane!”
“Well, there she goes, anyhow!” said the muskrat lady. “She’s a lively little tyke, is Baby Bunty. She made herself a pair of roller skates out of some old round clothespins, and there she goes on them, skating down the woodland path. You’d better run after her, Uncle Wiggily, or a bad fox may catch her!”
“That’s so!” cried Uncle Wiggily. Then he forgot all about his stiff joints, and how he used to have rheumatism and all that. Away he hopped and ran and leaped and jumped after Baby Bunty. And away the little Bunty went on her clothespin roller skates.
“Come on, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried to him. “See if you can catch me!”