Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard | Page 4

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