"A fox isn't white," Uncle Wiggily said to himself, "at least not the foxes around here. That must be something else." So he took another careful look, and he saw three nice little duck children—I guess you remember their names—Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble. And as soon as they saw the old gentleman rabbit, those three duck children exclaimed:
"Oh, joy! Oh, happiness!" and they didn't think about the slivers and the bruises and the cuts in their feet any more.
"My goodness me sakes alive and a potato pancake!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "What are you children doing so far away from home? You must be lost."
"We are lost," said Jimmie Wibblewobble, "all three of us."
"Yes," went on Lulu, "we are certainly lost, and it's Jimmie's fault, for he asked us to come."
"Oh! it's not all Jimmie's fault," said Alice gently, as she looked at her brother. "You see, Uncle Wiggily, we are visiting our Aunt Lettie, the old lady goat, who lives in the country near here. We are at her house for our vacation, and to-day we started to go to the woods to have a good time, but we took the wrong path and we are lost, and I have a big sliver in my foot."
"Yes, and I stepped on a stone, and have a big bruise," whimpered Jimmie.
"And I've cut both feet on a piece of glass," cried Lulu Wibblewobble, "and Oh, we are all so miserable!"
"Well, well!" exclaimed the rabbit in a jolly voice, "this is too bad. I must see what I can do for you. First we will take the sliver out of Alice's foot," and he did so with a sharp needle. It hurt a little, but Alice never cried.
"Now for Jimmie's bruise," said the rabbit, and he took some soft green leaves, and made a plaster of them, and with some ribbon-grass for a string he tied the plaster on Jimmie's foot, and that was almost well. Then Uncle Wiggily made a little salve, from some gum out of a cherry tree, and bound up the glass cuts on Lulu's feet.