Down they flew, perching on the bare limbs of trees in the wood not far from the bunny's hollow stump bungalow.
"How do you do, Crows!" greeted the rabbit. "I called you because I want you to take a few Christmas presents to some boys who, otherwise, will not get any. Their chimneys are choked with black soot!"
"Black soot will not bother us," said the largest crow of all. "We don't mind going down the blackest chimney in the world!"
"I thought you wouldn't," said Uncle Wiggily. "That's why I called you. Now, of course, I know that the kind of presents that Santa Claus will bring to the animal children will not all be such as real boys and girls would like. But still there are some which may do."
"I can get willow whistles, made by Grandpa Lightfoot, the old squirrel gentleman. I can get wooden puzzles gnawed from the aspen tree by Grandpa Whackum, the beaver. Grandpa Goosey Gander and I will gather the round, brown balls from the sycamore tree, and the boys can use them for marbles."
"Those will be very nice presents, indeed," cawed a middle-sized crow. "The boys ought to like them."
"And will you take the things down the black chimneys?" asked Uncle Wiggily. "I'll give you some of Nurse Jane's thread so you may easily carry the whistles, puzzles, wooden marbles and other presents."
"We'll take them down the chimneys!" cawed the crows. "It matters not to us how much black soot there is! It will not show on our black wings."
So among his friends Uncle Wiggily gathered up bundles of woodland presents. And in the dusk of Christmas eve the black crows fluttered silently in from the forest, gathered up in their claws the presents which the bunny had tied with thread, and away they flapped, not only to the houses of the two boys, but also to the homes of some girls, about whom Uncle Wiggily had heard. Their chimneys, too, it seemed, were choked with soot.