Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute. Then he cried:
“I have it! I’ll pull some leaves off the rubber plant I am taking to Mrs. Wibblewobble. We’ll put the leaves in the bottom of the sieve, and, being of rubber, water can’t get through them. Then the sieve will hold water, or milk either, and you can bring it to your mother.”
“Oh, fine!” cried Simple Simon, licking the sticky squeegee jam off his fingers. So Uncle Wiggily put some rubber plant leaves in the bottom of the sieve, and Simple Simon, filling it full of water, carried it home to his mother, and not a drop ran through, which, of course, wasn’t at all like the story in the book.
“But that isn’t my fault,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he took the rest of the jam tarts to the Wibblewobble children. “I just had to help Simple Simon.” Which was very kind of Uncle Wiggily, I think; don’t you? It didn’t matter if, just once, something happened that wasn’t in the book.
And Mrs. Wibblewobble didn’t at all mind some of the leaves being off her rubber plant. So you see we should always be kind when we can; and if the canary bird doesn’t go to sleep in the bowl with the goldfish, and forget to whistle like an alarm clock in the morning, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the crumple-horn cow.
CHAPTER XIV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CRUMPLE-HORN COW
“Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit gentleman starting out from his hollow-stump bungalow one day. He was back again from his visit to Sammie and Susie Littletail.
“Oh, I’m just going for a walk,” answered Mr. Longears. “I have not had an exciting adventure since I carried the valentines for Jack and Jill, before they tumbled down hill, and perhaps to-day I may find something else to make me lively, and happy and skippy like.”
“Too much hopping and skipping is not good for you,” the muskrat lady said.