UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SECOND KITTEN
"Well, where are you going now, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane
Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, of the rabbit gentleman,
one day as she saw him starting out of his hollow-stump bungalow,
after he had found the first of the little kittens who had soiled
their mittens.
"I am going to look for the second little lost kitten," replied the
bunny uncle, "though where she may be I don't know. Her name is
Muzzo."
"Why, her name is almost like mine, isn't it?" asked Nurse Jane
Fuzzy Wuzzy.
"A little like it," said Uncle Wiggily. "Poor little Muzzo! She and
the other two kittens ran off after they had soiled their mittens,
eating cherry pie when their mother, Mrs. Purr, was not at home."
"It is very good of you to go looking for them," said Nurse Jane.
"Oh, I just love to do things like that," spoke the rabbit
gentleman. "Well, good-by. I'll see if I can't find the second
kitten now."
Away started the rabbit gentleman, over the fields and through the
woods, looking on all sides for the second lost kitten, whose name
was Muzzo.
"Where are you, kittie?" called Uncle Wiggily. "Where are you,
Muzzo? Come to me! Never mind if your mittens are soiled by
cherry-pie-juice. I'll find a way to clean them."
But no Muzzo answered. Uncle Wiggily looked everywhere, under bushes
and in the tree tops; for sometimes kitty cats climb trees, you
know; but no Muzzo could he find. Then Uncle Wiggily walked a little
farther, and he saw Billie Wagtail, the goat boy, butting his head
in a snow-bank.
"What are you doing, Billie?" asked the rabbit gentleman.
"Oh, just having some fun," answered Billie, standing up on his hind
legs.
"You haven't seen a little lost kitten, with cherry-pie-juice on her
new mittens, have you?" asked the rabbit gentleman.
"No, I am sorry to say I have not," said Billie, politely. "Did you
lose one?"
"No, she lost herself," said Uncle Wiggily, and he told about Muzzo.
"I'll help you look for her," offered the goat boy, so he and Uncle
Wiggily started off together to try to find poor little lost Muzzo,
and bring her home to her mother, Mrs. Purr.
Pretty soon, as the rabbit gentleman and the goat boy were walking
along they heard a little mewing cry behind a pile of snow, and
Uncle Wiggily said:
"That sounds like Muzzo now."
"Perhaps it is. Let's look," said Billie Wagtail.
He and the bunny uncle looked over the pile of snow, and there,
surely enough, they saw a little white pussy cat sitting on a stone,
looking at her mittens, which were all covered with red pie-juice.
"Oh, dear!" the little pussy was saying. "I don't know how to get
them clean! What shall I do? I can't go home with my mittens all
soiled, or my mamma will whip me."
Of course, Mrs. Purr, the cat lady, would not do anything like that,
but Muzzo thought she would.
"What are you trying to do to clean your mittens, Muzzo?" asked
Uncle Wiggily.
"Oh, how you surprised me!" exclaimed the second little lost kitten.
"I did not know you were here."
"Billie Wagtail and I came to look for you," said Uncle Wiggily.
"But what about your mittens?"
"Oh, I have been dipping them in snow, trying to clean them," said
Muzzo. "Only the pie-juice will not come out."
"Of course not," spoke Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh. "It needs hot
soap-suds and water to clean them. You come home to my bungalow and
we will get some."
"Oh, I am so cold and tired I can't go another step," said the
second little kitten, who had run away from home after she soiled
her mittens. "I just can't."
"Well, then, I don't know how you are going to get your mittens
washed, out here in the cold and snow," said the rabbit gentleman.
"Ha! I know a way!" said Billie Wagtail, the goat boy.
"How?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"I'll get an empty tomato can," spoke Billie. "I know where there is
one, for I was eating the paper off it, to get the paste, just
before you came along."
Goats like to eat paper off tomato cans, you know, because the paper
is stuck on with sweet paste, and that is as good to goat children
as candy is to you.
"I'll go get the tomato can," said Billie, "and you can make a fire,
Uncle Wiggily."
"And then what?" asked the rabbit gentleman.
"Then we will melt some snow, and make some hot water," went on
Billie. "I have a cake of soap in my pocket, that I just bought at
the store for my mother.
"With the hot water in the can, and the soap, we can make a suds,
and wash Muzzo's mittens out here as well as at your bungalow."
"So we can, Billie!" cried the bunny uncle. "You go get the empty
tomato tin and I'll make the fire. You needn't try to wash your
soiled mittens in the snow any more, Muzzo," he said to the second
lost kittie. "We will do it for you, in soapy water, which is
better."
Soon Uncle Wiggily made a fire. Back came Billie Wagtail with the
tomato can. Some snow was put in it, and it was set over the blaze.
Soon the snow melted into water, and then when the water was hot
Uncle Wiggily made a soapy suds as Nurse Jane had done.
"Now I can wash my mittens!" cried Muzzo, and she did. And when they
were nice and clean she went home with them, and oh! how glad her
mother was to see her!
"Never run away again, Muzzo," said the cat lady.
"I won't," promised the kitten. "But where is Wuzzo?"
"She is still lost," said Mrs. Purr.
"But I will go find her, too," said Uncle Wiggily.
And if the apple pie doesn't go out snowballing with the piece of
cheese, and forget to come back to dinner, I'll tell you next about
Uncle Wiggily and the third little kitten.