“I am Little Bo Peep,” was the answer, “and I have lost my sheep, and don’t know where to find them.”
“Why, let them alone, and they’ll come home, wagging their tails behind them,” said Uncle Wiggily quickly, and he laughed jolly like and happy, because he had made a rhyme to go with what Bo Peep said.
“Yes, I know that’s the way it is in the Mother Goose book,” said Little Bo Peep, “but I’ve waited and waited, and let them alone ever so long, but they haven’t come home. And now I’m afraid they’ll freeze.”
“Ha! That’s so. It is pretty cold for sheep to be out,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he looked across the snow-covered field, and toward the woods where there were icicles hanging down from the trees.
“Look here, Little Bo Peep,” went on the bunny uncle. “I think your sheep must have gone home long ago, wagging their tails behind them. And you, too, had better run home to Mother Goose. Tell her you met me and that I sent you home. And, if I find your sheep, I’ll send them along, too. So don’t worry.”
“Oh, but I don’t like to go home without my sheep,” said Bo Peep, and tears came into her eyes. “I ought to bring them with me. But to-day I went skating on Crystal Lake, up in the Lemon-Orange Mountains, and I forgot all about my sheep. Now I am afraid to go home without them. Oh, dear!”
Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute, then he said:
“Ha! I have it! I know where I can get you some sheep to take home with you. Then Mother Goose will say it is all right. Come with me.”
“Where are you going?” asked Bo Peep.
“To get you some sheep.” And Uncle Wiggily led the little shepherdess girl back to the toy store, in the window of which he had stopped to look a while ago.