“Why, that looks just like my old friend, Grandfather Goosey Gander,” Uncle Wiggily thought to himself. “I wonder why he is flying so high? He hardly ever goes up so near the clouds.
“And he seems to have some one on his back,” spoke Uncle Wiggily out loud this time, sort of talking to the loaf of bread and the pound of sugar. “A lady, too,” went on the bunny uncle. “A lady with a tall hat on, something like mine, only hers comes to a point on top. And she has a broom with her. I wonder who it can be?”
And when the big white bird came nearer to the airship Uncle Wiggily saw that it was not Grandfather Goosey Gander at all, but another big gander, almost like his friend, whom he often went to see. And then the bunny uncle saw who it was on the bird’s back.
“Why, it’s Mother Goose!” cried Uncle Wiggily Longears. “It’s Mother Goose! She looks just like her pictures in the book, too.”
“Yes, I am Mother Goose,” said the lady who was riding on the back of the big, white gander.
“I am glad to meet you, Mother Goose,” spoke Mr. Longears. “I have often heard about you. I can see, over the tree tops, that Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper, is getting dinner ready. I can tell by the smoke. Will you not ride home with me? I will make my airship go slowly, so as not to get ahead of you and your fine gander-goose.”
“Alas, Uncle Wiggily,” said Mother Goose, scratching her chin with the end of the broom handle, “I cannot come home to dinner with you much as I would like it. Alas! Alas!”
“Why not?” asked the bunny uncle.
“Because I have bad news for you,” said Mother Goose. “That smoke, which you saw over the tree tops, was not smoke from your chimney as Nurse Jane was getting dinner.”
“What was it then?” asked Uncle Wiggily, and a cold shiver sort of ran up and down between his ears, even if he did have warm, red mittens on his paws. “What was that smoke?”