"You are very kind," remarked Mr. Longears. "But I must hop on with the needle and thread, and the piece of white flannel Nurse Jane is going to use to make herself a new petticoat."
So on hopped the bunny, while the mother cat sat down to knit some new mittens for her kittens. And Uncle Wiggily had not gone very far before, all of a sudden, he heard another sad mewing sound and a voice said:
"Dear me! The hole goes all the way through! I shall never be able to go to see Old Mother Hubbard this way! Oh, what an accident!"
"That sounds like more trouble," thought Uncle Wiggily, and, looking over the top of a stone wall, he saw a pussy cat lady sitting on a stump, sadly looking at her skirt.
"What is the matter?" asked Mr. Longears.
"Oh! How you surprised me!" mewed the cat lady. "But here is the trouble. I'm Pussy Cat Mole. I jumped over a coal, and in my best petticoat burned a great hole!" and she showed the edge of her petticoat where, surely enough, a hole was burned through.
"And I ought to be at Mother Hubbard's now, to go with her to the movies," said Pussy Cat Mole. "But, alas, I can not go!"
"Oh, yes, you can!" said Uncle Wiggily.
"Not with this big burned hole in my petticoat!" mewed the cat.