“Well, tell Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear gentleman, to leave us an extra large piece of ice to-morrow, if it going to be so hot,” said Uncle Wiggily. Then he went over to call on Grandfather Goosey Gander, the goose gentleman, who was out raking up his corn meal garden, so he could have pancakes for breakfast.
The next day was indeed very hot. Nurse Jane arose very early, and the first thing she did was to put out, on the front porch of the hollow stump bungalow, a card which had printed on it, in large letters, the word:
ICE.
“There!” exclaimed Nurse Jane, as she gave the rose geranium flower a drink of buttermilk, “Mr. Whitewash, the polar bear gentleman, will see that sign and bring us a nice large cake of ice.”
But nothing ever turns out, in this world, the way you think it is going to. At least it never does for me. Many a time I have made up my mind, in the morning, that in the evening I would go to a moving picture show. But, when evening came, time and time again, I have had to go to a baseball game. Still one cannot help it. I only mention that to show that you never can tell what will happen.
Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy could not, either. When she put out the ice sign she certainly thought Mr. Whitewash would bring in a nice, large cake. But he did not. In fact, Mr. Whitewash did not even see the sign.
What happened was this: Soon after Nurse Jane put out the cardboard notice, along came Billie Bushytail, the boy squirrel, and his brother Johnnie.
“Oh, Johnnie,” cried Billie, pointing with his paw. “There’s a fine piece of cardboard to make a lemonade sign for us. We can write on the back of it, ‘LEMONADE: FIVE CENTS A GLASS,’ and put it up over our stand.”
“So we can!” exclaimed Billie. Then the squirrel boys, not meaning to do anything wrong, you understand, took down the ice sign Nurse Jane had hung out on Uncle Wiggily’s porch. And those squirrel boys made another sign on the back of the piece of pasteboard, advertising their lemonade sale, which they held on their lawn. I’ll tell you about that in another story.
Well, it got warmer and warmer, and it was nearly noon. The small piece of ice in Nurse Jane’s refrigerator had melted and she needed more.