[CHAPTER XII]
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE LOBSTER
"You'll be home to supper, won't you?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw her friend, Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, hopping down off the front porch of the hollow stump bungalow one morning.
"Oh, yes, I'll be home," he answered, "I'm just going to look for a little adventure."
Then, not having been on the board walk in quite a while, Uncle Wiggily went down to the ocean seashore beach.
"For," said the old rabbit gentleman to himself, "I have not had a seashore adventure in some time. And, perhaps, my friend, Alice, from Wonderland, may be down there. I know in her story book there are many curious things that happen near the sea."
So down to the shore went Uncle Wiggily and as he was walking along, looking at the funny marks his feet made in the wet sand, all of a sudden he came to a pile of damp, green seaweed, and from underneath it he heard a voice calling:
"Oh, help me out! Please help me out!"
"Ha! That sounds like some one in trouble!" Uncle Wiggily said. "I must help them." Then with his red, white and blue striped rheumatism crutch that Nurse Jane had gnawed for him out of a lollypop stick, the bunny poked away the seaweed, and underneath it, all tangled up so he could hardly move, was a Lobster gentleman.
"Oh, it was so good of you to get me out," said the Lobster as he gave a flip-flap with his tail. "An old crab, who doesn't like me, piled the seaweed over my back as I was taking a nap in the sun. My long thin legs were all tangled in it, and even with my big pinching claws I could not get loose, and I was so afraid I'd be late."