“I’ll go look for them,” promised the old rabbit gentleman. So taking his red, white and blue rheumatism crutch, off he started over the fields and through the woods. Mrs. Purr went back home to get supper, in case her kittens, with their pie-soiled mittens, should come back by themselves before Uncle Wiggily found them.
On and on went the old rabbit gentleman. He looked on all sides and through the middle for any signs of the lost kittens, but he saw none for quite a while. Then, all at once, he heard a mewing sound over in the bushes, and he said:
“Ha! There is the first little kitten!” And there, surely enough she was—Fuzzo!
“Oh, dear!” Fuzzo was saying, “I don’t believe I’ll ever get them clean!”
“What’s the matter now?” asked the rabbit gentleman, though he knew quite well what it was, and only pretended he did not. “Who are you and what is the matter?” he asked.
“Oh, I’m in such trouble,” said the first little kitten. “My sisters and I ate some pie in our new mittens. We soiled them badly with the red pie-juice. Weren’t we naughty kittens?”
“Well, perhaps just a little bit naughty,” Uncle Wiggily said. “But you should not have run away from your mamma. She feels very badly. Where are Muzzo and Wuzzo?”
“I don’t know!” answered Fuzzo. “They ran one way and I ran another. I’m trying to get the pie-juice out of my mittens, but I can’t seem to do it.”
“How did you try?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.
“I am rubbing my mittens up and down on the rough bark of trees and on stones,” answered Fuzzo. “I thought that would take the pie stains out, but it doesn’t.”