“I wonder if I shall have any adventures to-day?” thought the bunny uncle, as he hopped and skipped along through the woods. “I haven’t had one since I found Tommie Tinker’s dog.”
But Mr. Longears reached the store without anything having happened to him, and, buying the cake of soap and the scrubbing brush, back he started for his hollow-stump bungalow.
“Nurse Jane said there was no hurry,” spoke the rabbit gentleman to himself, “but I want to get the house-cleaning over with as soon as I can. So I’ll hurry back with the soap and brush.”
All of a sudden, and just as Mr. Longears was wondering if he would have time to call on Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goat children, he heard a rustling in the bushes, and a voice said:
“Oh, dear! However did it happen? Oh, how too bad it is! You’re nothing at all like Mother Goose’s book says you should be. Oh, whatever am I to do?”
Uncle Wiggily looked around the corner of a tree, and there he saw a little girl, and beside her stood a little lamb, as black as a coal, or a barrel of tar. I don’t know which is blacker.
“Ha! This looks like trouble,” whispered Uncle Wiggily. Then: “That surely is Mary,” he said, out loud.
“Yes, I’m Mary,” spoke the little girl, “and I know you. Jack Horner told me about you, and how you helped him pull his thumb out of his plum pie. I wish you could help me.”
“What is the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll help you if I can.”
“It’s him,” said Mary, pointing to the little baby sheep. “You know how it goes in the book: