“The very same,” was the answer. “I’m that Peter-Peter.”
“Then you must be a friend of Mother Goose,” said the bunny uncle, smiling down one side of his pink twinkling nose.
“I am,” answered Peter-Peter.
“Then I am more than ever anxious to help you,” spoke Mr. Longears. “I always help the friends of Mother Goose. What is the trouble?”
“I have spilled all my pumpkin seeds,” was the answer of Peter-Peter. “You see I was scooping out my pumpkin shell, making it hollow to keep my wife in, as it says in the Mother Goose book. When I had the seeds all scooped out my wife said it would be a good thing to take them over to Mrs. Bushytail, the squirrel lady, as she and her two boys, Johnnie and Billie, could eat them.”
“I guess they would be glad to get them,” said Uncle Wiggily. “In fact, I like roasted pumpkin seeds myself.”
“But the trouble is,” said Peter-Peter, “that when I had put the seeds in a bag, and was on my way to the Bushytail home with them, I came through these woods. The prickly briar bush caught my bag, tore holes in it, and out fell the pumpkin seeds. They are scattered all over the ground here, and, oh, dear! I’ll never be able to pick them up.”
“Oh, yes, you will,” said Uncle Wiggily, with a jolly laugh. “I’ll help you, and I’ll get my friends, Dickie and Nellie Chip-Chip, the sparrows, to help. They are great at picking up seeds.”
So Uncle Wiggily whistled for Dickie and Nellie Chip-Chip, and when the sparrow boy and girl came, with their sharp bills, they soon picked up most of the pumpkin seeds; Uncle Wiggily and Peter-Peter helping, of course.
And when they were all picked up Uncle Wiggily pasted some postage stamps over the holes in Peter-Peter’s bag, so it was as good as ever. Then the little man started off with it over his shoulder to the Bushytail squirrel house.