“Are they too tight?” asked the monkey-doodle, as the bunny gentleman stepped around the store, practicing.
“No, they’re just right,” said Uncle Wiggily. “They go on a bit hard, but once I have put them on with the shoe-where the shoe-horn they are very nice. I’ll take them.”
“And you may have some talcum powder and the shoe-horn to take with you, to put your shoes on easily whenever you wish,” said the monkey. For you know Uncle Wiggily pulled the shoe-horn out of his shoe, once he had his foot in. They couldn’t both be there at the same time, you see.
Away hopped the rabbit gentleman in his new shoes and with the shoe-horn and the slippery-sliding talcum powder in his pocket.
“Well, now I have my new shoes I wonder if I will meet with an adventure to-day?” thought Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped on. And he did. I’ll tell you about it.
Pretty soon he came to a great, big shoe, standing in the middle of the woods. The shoe had a roof over it, with a chimney sticking out of the top. There was a door to the shoe, and windows. In fact, it was a house, made out of a great, big shoe which a giant used to wear.
“Ha! This is where the Old Woman lives,” said Uncle Wiggily. “The Shoe Lady. I wonder if she is at home?”
He was going to knock on the door and ask how all the children were, when, from inside the shoe there came the sound of crying; children crying; many of them.
“Ha! I wonder if that means trouble?” asked Uncle Wiggily of himself. “I had better see if I can do anything to help.”
He knocked on the door, and the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, or Shoe Lady, as I call her for short, opened it.