Uncle Wiggily was going along past Old Mother Hubbard’s house, and past the place where Mother Goose lived, when, coming to a place near a big tree, Uncle Wiggily saw another house. And from inside the house came a crying sound.
“Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?” sobbed a voice.
“Ah, ha! More trouble!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I seem to be finding lots of people in trouble lately. Well, now to see who this is!”
Going up to the house, and peering in a window, Uncle Wiggily saw a little girl sitting before a fireplace. And this little girl was crying.
“Hello!” called Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice, as he opened the window. “What is the matter? Are you Little Bo Peep, and are you crying because you have lost your sheep?”
“No, Uncle Wiggily,” answered the little girl. “I am crying because I have spoiled my nice new dress, and when my mother comes home and finds it out she will whip me.”
“Oh, no!” cried the bunny uncle. “Your mother will never do that. But who are you?”
“Why, don’t you know? I am little Polly Flinders, I sat among the cinders, warming my pretty little toes. ‘And her mother came and caught her, and she whipped her little daughter, for spoiling her nice new clothes.’
“That’s what it says in the Mother Goose book,” said Polly Flinders, “and, of course, that’s what will happen to me. Oh, dear! I don’t want to be whipped. And I didn’t really spoil quite all my nice new clothes. It’s only my dress, and some hot ashes got on that.”
“Well, that isn’t so bad,” said Uncle Wiggily. “It may be that I can clean it for you.” But when he looked at Polly’s dress he saw that it could not be fixed, for, like Pussy Cat Mole’s best petticoat, Polly’s dress had been burned through with hot coals, so that it was full of holes.