"No, it isn't that," was the answer. "But I am so sick that I don't know what to do, and I'm far from my home, and from my friends, the Wibblewobble family, and, oh, dear! it's just awful."
"Let me look at your tongue," said the rabbit, and when Grandfather Goosey Gander stuck it out, Uncle Wiggily said:
"Why, you have the epizootic very bad. Very bad, indeed! But perhaps I can cure you. Let me see, I think you need some bread and butter, and a cup of catnip tea. I'll make you some."
So Uncle Wiggily made a little fire of sticks, and then he found an empty tin tomato can, and he boiled some water in it over the fire, and made the catnip tea. Then he gave some to Grandfather Goosey Gander, together with some bread and butter.
"Well, I feel a little better," said the old gentleman duck-drake, when he had eaten, "but I am not well yet. It seems to me that if I could have some cherry pie I would feel better."
"Perhaps you would," agreed Uncle Wiggily, "but, though I know how to make nice cherry pie, and though I made some for the hedgehog, I don't see any cherry trees around here, so I can't make you one. There are no cherry trees."
"Yes, there is one over there," said the duck-drake, and he waved one foot toward it, while he quacked real faint and sorrowful-like.
"Sure enough, that is a cherry tree," said Uncle Wiggily, as he hopped over and looked at it. "And the cherries are ripe, too. Now, if I could only get some of them down I could make a cherry pie, and cure Grandfather Goosey Gander."
But it wasn't easy to get the cherries off the tree, and Uncle Wiggily couldn't climb up after them. So he sat down and looked up at them, hoping some would fall off the stems. But none did.
"Oh, dear, I wonder how I'm going to get them?" sighed the rabbit. "Perhaps I can knock off some with a stone."