“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 as have room for me.
“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.
“So you are the first little pig, eh?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “How many of you are there altogether?”
“Three, if you please,” grunted the first little pig. “I have two brothers, and they are the second and third little pigs. Don’t you remember reading about us in the Mother Goose book?”
“Oh, of course I do!” cried Uncle Wiggily, twinkling his nose. “And so you are the first little pig. But what are you going to do with that bundle of straw?”
“I’m going to build me a house, Uncle Wiggily, of course,” grunted the piggie boy. “Don’t you remember what it says in the book? ‘Once upon a time there were three little pigs, named Grunter, Squeaker and Twisty-Tail.’ Well, I’m Grunter, and I met a man with a load of straw, and I asked him for a bundle to make me a house. He very kindly gave it to me, and now, I’m off to build it.”
“May I come?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “I’ll help you put up your house.”
“Of course you may come—glad to have you,” answered the first little pig. “Only you know what happens to me; don’t you?”
“No! What?” asked the rabbit gentleman. “I guess I have forgotten the story.”
“Well, after I build my house of straw, just as it says in the Mother Goose story book, along comes a bad old wolf, and he blows it down,” said the first little pig.
“Oh, how dreadful!” cried Uncle Wiggily, “but maybe he won’t come to-day.”
“Oh, yes, he will,” said the first little pig. “It’s that way in the book, and the wolf has to come.”
“Well, if he does,” said Uncle Wiggily, “maybe I can save you from him.”
“Oh, I hope you can!” grunted Grunter. “It is no fun to be chased by a wolf.”
So the rabbit gentleman and the piggie boy went on and on, until they came to the place where Grunter was to build his house of straw. Uncle Wiggily helped, and soon it was finished.
“Why, it is real nice and cozy in here,” said Uncle Wiggily, when he had made a big pile of snow back of the straw house to keep off the north wind, and had gone in with the little piggie boy.
“Yes, it is cozy enough,” spoke Grunter, “but wait until the bad wolf comes. Oh, dear!”
“Maybe he won’t come,” said the rabbit, hopeful like.
“Yes, he will!” cried Grunter. “Here he comes now.”
And, surely enough, looking out of the window, the piggie boy and Uncle Wiggily saw a bad wolf running over the snow toward them. The wolf knocked on the door of the straw house and cried:
“Little pig! Little pig! Let me come in.”
“No! No! By the hair of my chinny-chin-chin. I will not let you in!” answered Grunter, just like in the book.
“Then I’ll puff and I’ll blow, and I’ll