“Oh, dear! I don’t know what to do,” said the lady, who lived in a shoe. “I guess Toodles will have to sleep out in the woods to-night.”
“No! Wait! I have it!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “When my foot would not go in my new tight shoe the monkey put talcum powder in it and used a shoe-horn. I’ll do that to Toodles.” And so he did. And when the little boy was sprinkled with sweet smelling talcum powder, and when the shiny, slippery shoe-horn was slipped into the top of the crowded shoe, in on that slid Toodles as nicely as you please, and everything was all right. There’s always room for one more, even in a shoe, you know.
“Thank you, Uncle Wiggily,” said the Shoe Lady, and then she gave Toodles his make-believe whipping, he made believe cry, he ate his real broth and went to his real bed. And that’s where you must go if it’s time.
But if the butter doesn’t slide off the slice of bread, and go coasting down the cake plate hill with a bun that ought to be sitting beside the custard, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Jack-be-Nimble.
CHAPTER IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND JACK-BE-NIMBLE
“Uncle Wiggily! Uncle Wiggily!” called Sammie Littletail, the little rabbit boy, one Saturday morning, as he hopped up to the hollow-stump bungalow, where the nice, old bunny uncle lived. “Come on out and play, Uncle Wiggily. Please do!”
“Oh, hop away, Sammie!” called Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, looking out of the kitchen window. “Here, take this cabbage jam tart and run away. Uncle Wiggily can’t bother to play with you to-day.”
“I haven’t any one else to play with,” said Sammie. “Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels, are taking their nut-gnawing lesson, and Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the puppies, are taking their bone-gnawing lessons.”