“Oh, don’t worry about that, Uncle Wiggily,” said Jimmie, the boy duck. “Sammie and Susie are all right. I met them running down a woodland path a little while ago, as I came along, and they were talking of what fun they had had in the leaves. They got tired and ran away when you weren’t looking. That’s why you can’t find them under the leaves. But, oh, dear! Two, sixteen-eleven bad!”
“Why, what’s the matter with you?” asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “Are you in trouble, Jimmie?”
“I am, Uncle Wiggily.”
“What kind of trouble, Jimmie, my duck boy?”
“Feather-trouble,” answered the Wibblewobble chap.
“Feather-trouble?” repeated Uncle Wiggily, sort of surprised like and astonished. “Feather-trouble?”
“Yes. You see my mother sent me with a bag of our best duck feathers for Mother Goose to make a feather bed from. Well, all at once, some strong March wind came dancing by, turned the bag inside out and blew away every feather! And, what to do I don’t know, for there are no more feathers at our coop. And if Mother Goose doesn’t have feathers for her bed she will feel badly. Oh, dear! Such trouble!”
Uncle Wiggily thought for a moment. Then he said:
“Ho, Jimmie! I see a way out of your trouble. Fill your bag with some of these soft, dried leaves. They will be nearly as good as feathers for Mother Goose, and, at the same time, you will be doing me a favor by taking away the leaves, so the flowers can grow.”
“Oh, fine!” cried Jimmie. So he took a big bag of the leaves, which Mother Goose said were as good to sleep on as feathers, and thus everything came out just right, you see, and Sammie and Susie weren’t lost under the leaves after all, for which Uncle Wiggily was very glad.