Putting aside his book, down stairs the rabbit gentleman went, and he saw the muskrat lady in the yard, stretching a dusty carpet out on the green grass.
“Ahem! Pray pardon and excuse me, Nurse Jane,” said Uncle Wiggily, “but may I ask when tea will be ready?” You see he said tea to be more polite like.
“Tea!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “Why, I can not give you your supper, Wiggy, until I have beaten all the dust out of this dusty carpet. And it will take me some time, Wiggy.” You see she called him Wiggy for short, because she was very busy at house cleaning.
“No supper until that carpet is beaten?” cried Uncle Wiggily, sad and disappointed like.
“No, indeed,” answered Nurse Jane. Then, with her long tail, which was like a carpet beater stick, the muskrat lady began to whip the dust out of the dusty carpet to make it clean.
“Oh, my! That is going to take a long time!” thought the rabbit gentleman. “I shall be very hungry indeed before I get any supper this evening, if I can’t get it until that carpet is beaten.”
So he waited and waited, and Nurse Jane kept on beating the dusty carpet with her long tail, and Uncle Wiggily was getting more and more hungry, when, all of a sudden, he heard some voices shouting:
“That’s the way to run! Throw the ball! Slide to home base! Put him out! Over the fence! Hurray! A home run!”
“Ha! Animal boys playing ball!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “I have an idea! I’ll give them five cents each, and get them to beat the dusty carpet with the baseball bats! Then Nurse Jane will not have to do it and can get supper for me!”
Out he went to the vacant lot where the animal boys were playing ball. Charlie, the chicken chap, was at the bat.