What shall he eat?
Jam and bread and butter.’”
“Well?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Why don’t you sing?”
“I—I can’t!” answered Tommie. “That’s the trouble. I have caught such a cold that I can’t sing. And if I don’t sing Mother Goose won’t know it is I, and she won’t give me any supper. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! And I am so hungry!”
“There now, there! Don’t cry,” kindly said the bunny uncle, patting Tommie Tucker on the head. “I’ll soon have you singing for your supper.”
“But how can you when I have such a cold?” asked the little boy. “Listen. I am as hoarse as a crow.”
And, truly, he could no more sing than a rusty gate, or a last year’s door-knob.
“Ah, I can soon fix that!” said Uncle Wiggily. “See, here I have Susie Littletail’s talking and singing doll, which I have just had mended. Now you take the doll in your pocket, go to Mother Goose, and when she asks you to sing for your supper, just push the button in the doll’s back. Then the doll will sing and Mother Goose will think it is you, and give you bread and jam.”
“Oh, how fine!” cried Tommie Tucker. “I’ll do it!”
“But afterward,” said Uncle Wiggily, slowly shaking his paw at Tommie, “afterward you must tell Mother Goose all about the little joke you played, or it would not be fair. Tell her the doll sang and not you.”