“Or snow,” said the muskrat lady, looking to see if the hair ribbon had come off the end of her tail, but it had not, I’m glad to say.
“Well, I guess I’ll be back before it storms,” went on Uncle Wiggily. “I’m only going over to Grandfather Goosey Gander’s pen house to see if he wants to play checkers with grains of corn. I won’t be very long,” and with that Uncle Wiggily hopped away.
Over the fields and through the woods hopped the bunny uncle to the house, or pen, of the old gentleman goose. Uncle Wiggily was thinking what a nice visit he would have when, all of a sudden, he heard from behind a scratchy briar bush a sad voice saying:
“Oh, dear! They’re all spilled! I’ll never be able to pick them up; never! There are too many of them! Oh, dear!”
“Ha! That is funny talk. It sounds as though some one were in trouble,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself. “I wonder if I can help them? I’ll just take a peek first, for it might be the skillery-scalery alligator, with humps on his tail, or the bad fox or wolf, and they would help themselves to catch me rather than have me help them. I’ll take a peek first.”
So Uncle Wiggily peeked out and there, on the other side of the bush he saw a little man, bending down and picking something up off the ground.
Now, as a rule, the bunny uncle didn’t like men, for most of them were hunters, with dogs and bang-bang guns, who came after the animal people. But this man was so little, and so kind-looking and, withal, Uncle Wiggily could see he had no gun, so Mr. Longears knew it would be all right.
“Excuse me,” said Uncle Wiggily, speaking a language that animals and little men can understand. “But can I help you?”
“Oh, hello, Uncle Wiggily,” exclaimed the small chap. “Why, maybe you can help me. You see, I am Peter-Peter, and——”
“What, not Peter-Peter, the Pumpkin-Eater?” asked the rabbit gentleman, surprised like.