Uncle Wiggily and Old Mother Hubbard | Page 6

you remember how it reads in
the Mother Goose book? 'Once upon a time there were three little pigs,
named Grunter, Squeaker and----'"
"Oh, yes, I remember!" Uncle Wiggily said. "I met your brother
Grunter yesterday, and helped him build his straw house."
"That was kind of you," spoke Squeaker. "I suppose the bad old wolf
got him, though. Too bad! Well, it can't be helped, as it is that way in
the book."
[Illustration: "Little pig! Little pig! Let me come in!"]
Uncle Wiggily didn't say anything about having saved Grunter, for he
wanted to surprise Squeaker, so the rabbit gentleman just twinkled his
nose again and asked:
"May I have the pleasure of helping you build your house of wood?"
"Indeed you may, thank you," said Squeaker. "I suppose the old wolf
will be along soon, so we had better hurry to get the house finished."
Then the second little pig and Uncle Wiggily built the wooden house.
When it was almost finished Uncle Wiggily went out near the back
door, and began piling up some cakes of ice to make a sort of box.
"What are you doing?" asked Squeaker.
"Oh, I'm just making a place where I can put these jam tarts I have for
Nannie and Billie Wagtail," the rabbit gentleman answered. "I don't

want the wolf to get them when he blows down your house."
"Oh, dear!" sighed Squeaker. "I rather wish, now, he didn't have to
blow over my nice wooden house, and get me. But he has to, I s'pose,
'cause it's in the book."
Still, Uncle Wiggily didn't say anything, but he just sort of blinked his
eyes and twinkled his pink nose, until, all of a sudden, Squeaker looked
across the snowy fields, and he cried:
"Here comes the bad old wolf now!"
And, surely enough, along came the growling, howling creature. He ran
up to the second little pig's wooden house, and, rapping on the door
with his paw, cried:
"Little pig! Little pig! Let me come in!"
"No, no! By the hair on my chinny-chin-chin I will not let you in," said
the second little pig, bravely.
"Then I'll puff and I'll blow, and I'll puff and I'll blow, and blow your
house in!" howled the wolf.
Then he puffed out his cheeks, and he took a long breath and he blew
with all his might and main and suddenly:
"Cracko!"
Down went the wooden house of the second little piggie, and only that
Uncle Wiggily and Squeaker jumped to one side they would have been
squashed as flat as a pancake, or even two pancakes.
"Quick!" cried the rabbit gentleman in the piggie boy's ear. "This way!
Come with me!"
"Where are we going?" asked Squeaker, as he followed the rabbit
gentleman over the cracked and broken boards, which were all that was
left of the house.

"We are going to the little cabin that I made out of cakes of ice, behind
your wooden house," said Uncle Wiggily. "I put the jam tarts in it, but
there is also room for us, and we can hide there until the bad wolf goes
off."
"Well, that isn't the way it is in the book," said the second little pig.
"But----"
"No matter!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Hurry!" So he and Squeaker hid in
the ice cabin back of the blown-down house, and when the bad wolf
came poking along among the broken boards, to get the little pig, he
couldn't find him. For Uncle Wiggily had closed the door of the ice
place, and as it was partly covered with snow the wolf could not see
through.
"Oh, dear!" howled the wolf. "That's twice I've been fooled by those
pigs! It isn't like the book at all. I wonder where he can have gone?"
But he could not find Squeaker or Uncle Wiggily either, and finally the
wolf's nose became so cold from sniffing the ice that he had to go home
to warm it, and so Uncle Wiggily and Squeaker were safe.
"Oh, I don't know how to thank you," said the second little piggie boy
as the rabbit gentleman took him home to Mother Goose, after having
left the jam tarts at the home of the Wagtail goats.
"Pray do not mention it," spoke Uncle Wiggily, modest like, and shy.
"It was just an adventure for me."
He had another adventure the following day, Uncle Wiggily did. And if
the dusting brush doesn't go swimming in the soap dish, and get all
lather so that it looks like a marshmallow cocoanut cake, I'll tell you
next about Uncle Wiggily and the third little pig.
CHAPTER IV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE THIRD PIG

Uncle Wiggily Longears sat in the burrow, or house under the ground,
where he and Nurse Jane