Uncle Wiggily took some carrot soup and some lettuce tea out to the lion, but though the tawny creature said he was not hungry, he ate nearly all there was in the bungalow, for his appetite was much larger than that of the muskrat lady or Mr. Longears.
"And now I would like to do you and Nurse Jane a favor," went on the circus chap, licking the soup off his whiskers with his red tongue. "Couldn't I help wash the dishes or make the beds?"
"I'm afraid not!" laughed Uncle Wiggily, thinking how funny it would look to see a lion making a rabbit's bed.
"Yes, I suppose I am too large to get in the bungalow," went on the roaring chap, in as gentle a voice as he could make come from his throat. "But I know one way in which I can help!"
"How?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"With my tail," said the lion. "That isn't too large to put through one of your windows. And on the end of my tail is a tuft of fluffy hair, just like a dusting brush. Please let me stick my tail in through the different windows. Then I can switch it around, and dust the furniture for Nurse Jane."
"Do you think you can?" asked the bunny, doubtful like.
"Of course!" said the lion. "True, I never before have dusted furniture in a bunny's hollow stump bungalow, but that is no reason for not trying. Please give me a chance!"
So Uncle Wiggily opened all the windows. The lion backed up, and thrust his tail first in one and then in another. When his tail was in the parlor he switched it around—I mean he switched his tail around—and the fluffy tuft of hair on the end knocked all the dust off the chairs, table and piano. Soon the parlor was as nicely dusted as Nurse Jane could have done it herself.
In this way, with his tail, the lion dusted all the rooms in the bungalow, even the one where Nurse Jane was lying down with a headache. And when the muskrat lady saw the lion's fluffy tail switching around on her chairs in such a funny way, she laughed, and then, in a little while, her headache was all better.