“Oh, of course!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “The jam tarts are for Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble, the duck children. I remember now. I’ll take them right over.”
“They are all nicely wrapped up in a clean napkin,” went on the muskrat lady, “so be careful not to squash them and squeeze out the jam, as they are very fresh.”
“I’ll be careful,” promised the old rabbit gentleman, as he put on his fur coat and took down off the parlor mantle his red, white and blue striped barber-pole rheumatism crutch, made of a corn-stalk.
“Oh, wait a minute, Uncle Wiggily! Wait a minute!” cried Mrs. Littletail, the bunny mother of Sammie and Susie, the rabbit children, as Mr. Longears started out. “Where are you going?”
“Over to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady’s house, with some jam tarts for Lulu, Alice and Jimmie,” answered Uncle Wiggily.
“Then would you mind carrying, also, this little rubber plant over to her?” asked Mrs. Littletail. “I told Mrs. Wibblewobble I would send one to her the first chance I had.”
“Right gladly will I take it,” said Uncle Wiggily. So Mrs. Littletail, the rabbit lady, wrapped the pot of the little rubber plant, with its thick, shiny green leaves, in a piece of paper, and Uncle Wiggily, tucking it under one paw, while with the other he leaned on his crutch, started off over the fields and through the woods, with the jam tarts in his pocket. Over toward the home of the Wibblewobble duck family he hopped.
Mr. Longears, the nice old rabbit gentleman, had not gone very far before, all at once, from behind a snow-covered stump, he heard a voice saying:
“Oh, dear! I know I’ll never find him! I’ve looked all over and I can’t see him anywhere. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! What shall I do?”
“My! That sounds like some one in trouble,” Uncle Wiggily said to himself. “I wonder if that is any of my little animal friends? I must look.”