UNCLE WIGGILY AND BAA-BAA BLACK SHEEP
"My goodness! But it's cold to-day!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily
Longears, the nice rabbit gentleman, as he came down to breakfast in
his hollow-stump bungalow one morning. "It is very cold."
"Indeed it is," said Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady
housekeeper, as she put the hot buttered cabbage cakes on the table.
"If you go out you had better wear your fur coat."
"I shall," spoke the bunny uncle. "And I probably shall call on
Mother Goose. She asked me to stop in the next time I went past."
"What for?" Nurse Jane wanted to know.
"Oh, Little Jack Horner hurt his thumb the last time he pulled a
plum out of his Christmas pie, and Mother Goose wanted me to look at
it, and see if she had better call in Dr. Possum. So I'll stop and
have a look."
"Well, give her my love," said Nurse Jane, and Uncle Wiggily
promised that he would.
A little later he started off across the fields and through the
woods to the place where Mother Goose lived, not far from his own
hollow-stump bungalow. Uncle Wiggily had on his fur overcoat, for it
was cold. It had been warm the day before, when he had taken
Diller-a-Dollar, the ten o'clock scholar, to school, but now the
weather had turned cold again.
"Come in!" called Mother Goose, when Uncle Wiggily had tapped with
his paw on her door. "Come in!"
The bunny uncle went in, and looked at the thumb of Little Jack
Horner, who was playing marbles with Little Boy Blue.
"Does your thumb hurt you much, Jack?" asked Uncle Wiggily.
"Yes, I am sorry to say it does. I'm not going to pull any more
plums out of Christmas pies. I'm going to eat cake instead," said
Jack Horner.
"Well, I'll go get Dr. Possum for you," offered Uncle Wiggily. "I
think that will be best," he remarked to Mother Goose.
Wrapped in his warm fur overcoat, Uncle Wiggily once more started
off over the fields and through the woods. He had not gone very far
before he heard a queer sort of crying noise, like:
"Baa! Baa! Baa!"
"Ha! That sounds like a little lost lamb," said the bunny uncle,
"only there are no little lambs out this time of year. I'll take a
look. It may be some one in trouble, whom I can help."
Uncle Wiggily looked around the corner of a stone fence, and there
he saw a sheep shivering in the cold, for most of his warm, fleecy
wool had been sheared off. Oh! how the sheep shivered in the cold.
"Why, what is the matter with you?" asked Uncle Wiggily, kindly.
"I am c-c-c-c-cold," said the sheep, shiveringly.
"What makes you cold?" the bunny uncle wanted to know.
"Because they cut off so much of my wool. You know how it is with
me, for I am in the Mother Goose book. Listen!
"'Baa-baa, black sheep, have you any wool?
Yes, sir; yes, sir; three bags full.
One for the master, one for the man,
And one for the little boy who lives in the lane.'
"That's the way I answered when they asked me if I had any wool,"
said Baa-baa.
"And what did they do?" asked the bunny uncle.
"Why they sheared off my fleece, three bags of it. I didn't mind
them taking the first bag full, for I had plenty and it was so warm
I thought Spring was coming. And it doesn't hurt to cut off my
fleecy wool, any more than it hurts to cut a boy's hair. And after
they took the first bag full of wool for the master they took a
second bag for the man. I didn't mind that, either. But when they
took the third----"
"Then they really did take three?" asked Uncle Wiggily, in surprise.
"Oh, yes, to be sure. Why it's that way in the book of Mother Goose,
you know, and they had to do just as the book says."
"I suppose so," agreed Uncle Wiggily, sadly like.
"Well, after they took the third bag of wool off my back the weather
grew colder, and I began to shiver. Oh! how cold I was; and how I
shivered and shook. Of course if the master and the man, and the
little boy who lives in the lane, had known I was going to shiver
so, they would not have taken the last bag of wool. Especially the
little boy, as he is very kind to me.
"But now it is done, and it will be a long while before my wool
grows out again. And as long as it is cold weather I will shiver, I
suppose," said Baa-baa, the black sheep.
"No, you shall not shiver!" cried Uncle Wiggily.
"How can you stop me?" asked the black sheep.
"By wrapping my old fur coat around you," said the rabbit gentleman.
"I have two fur overcoats, a new one and an old one. I am wearing
the new one. The old one is at my hollow-stump bungalow. You go
there and tell Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy to give it to you. Tell her I
said so. Or you can go there and wait for me, as I am going to get
Dr. Possum to fix the thumb of Little Jack Horner, who sat in a
corner, eating a Christmas pie."
"You are very kind," said Baa-baa. "I'll go to your bungalow and
wait there for you."
So he did, shaking and shivering all the way, but he soon became
warm when he sat by Nurse Jane's fire. And when Uncle Wiggily came
back from having sent Dr. Possum to Little Jack Horner, the rabbit
gentleman wrapped his old fur coat around Baa-baa, the black sheep,
who was soon as warm as toast.
And Baa-baa wore Uncle Wiggily's old fur coat until warm weather
came, when the sheep's wool grew out long again. So everything was
all right, you see.
And now, having learned the lesson that if you cut your hair too
short you may have to wear a fur cap to stop yourself from getting
cold, we will wait for the next story, which, if the pencil box
doesn't jump into the ink well and get a pail of glue to make the
lollypop stick fast to the roller-skates, will be about Uncle
Wiggily and Polly Flinders.