UNCLE WIGGILY AND HUMPTY DUMPTY
“UNCLE WIGGILY, would you mind bringing me some glue when you come home
from your walk this afternoon?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the
muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit gentleman leaving his
hollow-stump bungalow one day.
“Glue?” asked Uncle Wiggily, curious like. “I hope you are not going to
put it in my chair, so when I sit down I will stick fast, and not be
able to get up again.”
“Oh, no!” laughed Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, “though if you keep on going out so
often, the way you do, I’ll need a bit of sticky fly paper, or something
like that, to keep you at home.”
“Oh! I have to go off to have adventures now and then,” said the bunny
uncle, smiling so that his nose twinkled like a moonbeam shining in the
water. “But I’ll bring you the glue all right, Nurse Jane. What is it
you want to stick together?”
“A broken teacup,” answered the muskrat lady. “I knocked a breakfast
teacup off the table, and it broke. But I can stick the pieces together
with glue, and it will be almost as good as new.”
“Good!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “That’s the way to do it!” Then he set off
over the fields and through the woods to get the glue.
He found some in the doll doctor’s toy shop, where the monkey-doodle
toy-mender used it to fasten together all the playthings the animal boys
and girls broke.
“That’s just the glue for Nurse Jane’s cup,” said the doll doctor. “It
will mend anything.”
“That’s what we want,” said Uncle Wiggily.
Well, the old gentleman rabbit was going along, hoping he would meet
with an adventure before he reached his hollow-stump bungalow, when, all
at once, he heard a sort of crowing noise and a clucking, and then a sad
voice said:
“Oh, dear, I might have known it would happen! I should never have let
you sit on top of the wall, Humpty. Now look what you’ve done! Oh, what
will my mother say?”
“Ha! That sounds like Charlie Chick, the little rooster chap,” said
Uncle Wiggily. “I wonder what has happened to him, and who Humpty can
be? I guess I’ll look and see.”
The bunny uncle went on a little farther and, coming to a stone wall, he
saw, on one side of it, Charlie Chick; and the little rooster chap’s
tail feathers were all squeezed sideways and crooked, as though he were
in great trouble, indeed.
“Why, Charlie!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What’s the matter? Is Arabella,
your sister, lost?”
“Oh, no, Uncle Wiggily!” answered Charlie. “But I had Humpty Dumpty with
me, and he sat up on the wall, just as he did when he was out with
Mother Goose. But he fell off and now he’s broken, and oh, dear! I fear
he never will be himself again.”
“My! My! What’s all this?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “I never heard of Humpty
Dumpty, or his fall from the wall. And why can’t he be himself again? If
it’s anything that is broken I can mend it, for I have some glue to mend
Nurse Jane’s broken cup, and I can mend Humpty Dumpty.”
“Oh, it’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” said Charlie, politely, “but it
can’t be done. You see Humpty Dumpty is an egg. My mother, Mrs.
Cluck-Cluck, sent me to take him to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady.
But on the way I stopped here to rest and I let Humpty sit upon the
wall.”
“Well, what happened then?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as Charlie stopped, to
give a little crow, and flap his wings.
“It happened just as it tells about in the Mother Goose book,” went on
Charlie. “This is the way it was:
“‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Cannot put Humpty together again.’”
“Why can’t they put him together again?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Where is
Humpty? Let me have a look at him. If his shell is only cracked I can
mend it with glue. Where is he?”
“On the other side of the stone wall,” answered Charlie. “He fell over
or rolled backward, and he must be all broken up by now.”
“Let us hope for the best,” said the rabbit gentleman. “He may be only
cracked, Humpty Dumpty may be, and if the glue I have for Nurse Jane
will mend a cracked cup, it will mend a cracked egg. I must have a
look.”
Up on top of the wall jumped the rabbit gentleman. Then he hopped down
on the other side. He looked around for Humpty Dumpty.
Uncle Wiggily saw some broken egg shells. Then he looked some more and
rubbed his eyes.
“This is queer,” he said. “If the egg broke, the white and yellow inside
ought to have run out on the ground. But I don’t see any. That must have
been a hollow egg.”
Just then the rabbit gentleman heard:
“Peep! Peep! Peepity-peep-cheep-cheep!”
“My goodness me sakes alive and some corn-meal pudding!” cried the bunny
uncle. “Who is that?”
“It is I, Humpty Dumpty,” was the answer, and out from under a bush ran
a cute, little, fluffy, downy chicken.
“Are you Humpty Dumpty?” cried Uncle Wiggily.
“Of course,” peeped the little chicken. “I was inside the eggshell all
the while, just waiting to come out. And when Charlie set me on the wall
I rolled off, cracked my shell and here I am. I popped out!
“Of course, it isn’t just like in the book,” said the baby chick, “but
it’s better. For though I sat on the wall and had a great fall, I don’t
need all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put Humpty together
again.”
“No, and you don’t need any of my glue,” said Uncle Wiggily, with a
laugh. “There is no use mending a broken eggshell out of which has come
a chicken. Oh, I say, Charlie!” cried the bunny uncle. “Fly over the
wall. It’s all right. Humpty is here, only he is different from what you
thought you would find him. Here he is; a new, little chicken brother
for you.”
And wasn’t Charlie surprised? Well, I guess yes! But he loved Humpty
Dumpty very much and Humpty loved him. So this time, once more,
everything came out all right, just as Mother Goose would have it.
And if the collar button doesn’t go to a necktie party all by itself and
leave the comb to play tag with the brush, I’ll tell you next about
Uncle Wiggily and Old King Cole.
[Illustration]
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