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"What was it then?" asked Uncle Wiggily, and a cold shiver sort of ran up and down between his ears, even if he did have warm, red mittens on his paws. "What was that smoke?"
"The smoke from your burning bungalow," went on Mother Goose. "It caught fire, when Nurse Jane was getting dinner, and now -- -- "
"Oh! Don't tell me Nurse Jane is burned!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Don't say that!"
"I was not going to," spoke Mother Goose, kindly. "But I must tell you that your hollow-stump bungalow is burned to the ground. There is nothing left but some ashes," and she made the gander, on whose back she was riding, fly close alongside of Uncle Wiggily's airship.
"My nice bungalow burned!" exclaimed the rabbit gentleman. "Well, I am very, very sorry for that. But still it might be worse. Nurse Jane might have been hurt, and that would have been quite too bad. I dare say I can get another bungalow."
"That is what I came to tell you about," said Mother Goose. "I was riding past when I saw your Woodland hollow-stump house on fire, and I went down to see if I could help. It was too late to save the bungalow, but I said I would find a place for you and Nurse Jane to stay to-night, or as long as you like, until you can...
"That is very kind of you," said Uncle Wiggily. "I hardly know what to do."
"I have many friends," went on Mother Goose. "You may have read about them in the book which tells of me. Any of my friends would be glad to have you come and live with them. There is the Old Woman Who Lives in a Shoe, for instance."
"But hasn't she so many children she doesn't know what to do?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as he remembered the story in the book.
"Yes," answered Mother Goose, "she has. I suppose you would not like it there."
"Oh, I like children," said Uncle Wiggily. "But if there are so many that the dear Old Lady doesn't know what to do, she wouldn't know what to do with Nurse Jane and me."
"Well, you might go stay with my friend Old Mother Hubbard," said Mother Goose.
"But if I went there, would not the cupboard be bare?" asked Uncle Wiggily, "and what would Nurse Jane and I do for something to eat?"
"That's so," spoke Mother Goose, as she reached up quite high and brushed a cobweb off the sky with her broom. "That will not do, either. I must see about getting Mother Hubbard and her dog something to eat. You can stay with her later. Oh, I have it!" suddenly cried the lady who was riding on the back of the white gan...
Uncle Wiggily shook his head.
"Thank you very much, Mother Goose," he said, slowly. "But Old King Cole might send for his fiddlers three, and I do not believe I would like to listen to jolly music to-day when my nice bungalow has just burned down."
"No, perhaps not," agreed Mother Goose. "Well, if you can find no other place to stay to-night come with me. I have a big house, and with me live Little Bo Peep, Little Boy Blue, who is getting to be quite a big chap now, Little Tommie Tucker and Jack Sprat and his wife. Oh, I have many other friends living with me, an...
"Thank you," answered Uncle Wiggily. "I will think about it."
Then he flew down in his airship to the place where the hollow-stump bungalow had been, but it was not there now. Mother Goose flew down with her gander after Uncle Wiggily. They saw a pile of blackened and smoking wood, and near it stood Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, and many other animals who lived in Woo...
"Oh, I am so sorry!" cried Nurse Jane. "It is my fault. I was baking a pudding in the oven, Uncle Wiggily. I left it a minute while I ran over to the pen of Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, to ask her about making a new kind of carrot sauce for the pudding, and when I came home the pudding had burned, and the bungalow...
"Never mind," spoke Uncle Wiggily, kindly, "as long as you were not burned yourself, Nurse Jane."
"But where will you sleep to-night?" asked the muskrat lady, sorrowfully.
"Oh," began Uncle Wiggily, "I guess I can -- -- "
"Come stay with us!" cried Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbit children.
"Or with us!" invited Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, the squirrels.
"And why not with us?" asked Nannie and Billie Wagtail, the goat children.
"We'd ask you to come with us," said Jollie and Jillie Longtail, the mouse children, "only our house is so small."
Many of Uncle Wiggily's friends, who had hurried up to see the hollow-stump bungalow burn, while he was at the store, now, in turn, invited him to stay with them.
"I, myself, have asked him to come with me," said Mother Goose, "or with any of my friends. We all would be glad to have him."
"It is very kind of you," said the rabbit gentleman. "And this is what I will do, until I can build me a new bungalow. I will take turns staying at your different hollow-tree homes, your nests or your burrows underground. And I will come and visit you also, Mother Goose, and all of your friends; at least such of them a...
"Yes, that is what I'll do. I'll visit around now that my hollow-stump home is burned. I thank you all. Come, Nurse Jane, we will pay our first visit to Sammie and Susie Littletail, the rabbits."
And while the other animals hopped, skipped or flew away through the woods, and as Mother Goose sailed off on the back of her gander, to sweep more cobwebs out of the sky, Uncle Wiggily and Nurse Jane went to the Littletail burrow, or underground house.
"Good-bye, Uncle Wiggily!" called Mother Goose. "I'll see you again, soon, sometime. And if ever you meet with any of my friends, Little Jack Horner, Bo Peep, or the three little pigs, about whom you may have read in my book, be kind to them."
"I will," promised Uncle Wiggily.
And he did, as you may read in the next chapter, when, if the sugar spoon doesn't tickle the carving knife and make it dance on the bread board, the story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the first little pig.
Chapter II
Uncle Wiggily And The First Pig
Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice old gentleman rabbit, came out of the underground burrow house of the Littletail family, where he was visiting a while with the bunny children, Sammie and Susie, because his own hollow-stump bungalow had burned down.
"Where are you going, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Sammie Littletail, the rabbit boy, as he strapped his cabbage leaf books together, ready to go to school.
"Oh, I am just going for a little walk," answered Uncle Wiggily. "Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, asked me to get her some court plaster from the five and six cent store, and on my way there I may have an adventure. Who knows?"
"We are going to school," said Susie. "Will you walk part of the way with us, Uncle Wiggily?"
"To be sure I will!" crowed the old gentleman rabbit, making believe he was Mr. Cock A. Doodle, the rooster.
So Uncle Wiggily, with Sammie and Susie, started off across the snow-covered fields and through the woods. Pretty soon they came to the path the rabbit children must take to go to the hollow-stump school, where the lady mouse teacher would hear their carrot and turnip gnawing lessons.
"Good-by, Uncle Wiggily!" called Sammie and Susie. "We hope you have a nice adventure,"
"Good-by. Thank you, I hope I do," he answered.
Then the rabbit gentleman walked on, while Sammie and Susie hurried to school, and pretty soon Mr. Longears heard a queer grunting noise behind some bushes near him.
"Ugh! Ugh! Ugh!" came the sound.
"Hello! Who is there?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Why, if you please, I am here, and I am the first little pig," came the answer, and out from behind the bush stepped a cute little piggie boy, with a bundle of straw under his paw.