Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard | Page 3

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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 build a new home."
"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 gander, "you can go stay with Old
King Cole! He's a jolly old soul!"
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, and surely we can find room
for you."
"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 Woodland with Uncle
Wiggily.
"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 was on fire."

"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