CHAPTER XX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE TARTS
“Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, as she saw the rabbit gentleman starting out of the hollow-stump bungalow one morning.
“Oh, just for a walk, over the fields and through the woods,” he answered. “This is the Spring of the year, now, you know, since the four-and-twenty blackbirds jumped out of Old King Cole’s pie, and I want to see if the grass and flowers have begun to spring up.”
“I think it is a little early for them,” spoke Nurse Jane.
“Well, I’ll go for a walk, anyhow,” said Uncle Wiggily.
So the bunny uncle hopped on and on, sometimes leaning on his red, white and blue-striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a corn-stalk, and again he would carry it under his paw.
Pretty soon Uncle Wiggily came to the palace where Old King Cole lived. He was thinking of going inside, and perhaps playing a game of checkers, as he used to do with Grandfather Goosey Gander, when, all at once, the bunny uncle saw a lady looking at him from the kitchen window.
The lady had on a silk dress, all spangled over with red hearts, like a valentine. And on her head was a cap, and that had blue hearts on, so she looked very pretty indeed.