“Well, don’t stay too late,” said Nurse Jane, and Uncle Wiggily promised that he would not. Out into the night he went, but it was not very dark, for there was a moon shining. And as the rabbit uncle was hopping along through the woods he suddenly stepped upon something round, which rolled from under his paw and almost threw him down.
“Ha! I wonder what that can be?” Uncle Wiggily said. He looked and saw a brass candlestick on the ground. “This is queer,” went on the bunny uncle. “I did not know that candlesticks grew in the woods. Some one must have dropped it. I’ll take it with me, and perhaps Mr. Longtail will know whose it is.”
With the candlestick in one paw and his rheumatism crutch in the other, Uncle Wiggily once more hopped on. Pretty soon he saw a little light flickering through the trees.
“Why, that looks just like a lightning bug,” said the bunny uncle, “only they are not out this time of the year. I wonder what that can be?”
Then he heard a tummity-tum-tum, drumming sound, and a voice sang:
“Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub;
The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker,
And the baker has taken the hot baked potato.”
“Why, that must be the last of the three, queer Mother Goose men, who went sailing a race in washtubs, when the weather was rainy,” said Uncle Wiggily. “And this one must be the candlestick maker, for I have met the other two.
“But if this is the candlestick maker I don’t see how he can be sailing in his tub when the rain has stopped, and there are no little rivers, lakes or even puddles in the woods,” went on the rabbit gentleman. “Everything is frozen over. I don’t see how he can.”