“All right,” said the bunny uncle.  “That’s what we’ll do.  I’ll go as far as the Wibblewobble duck house with you and leave you there at the party.”

This made Susie very glad and happy, and soon she and Uncle Wiggily were going through the woods together.  Susie’s new dress was very fine and she kept looking at it as she hopped along.

All of a sudden, as the little rabbit girl and the bunny uncle were going along through the woods, they came to a mud puddle.

“Look out, now!” said Uncle Wiggily.  “Don’t fall in that, Susie.”

“I won’t,” said the little rabbit girl.  “I can easily jump across it.”

But when she tried to, alas!  Likewise unhappiness.  Her hind paws slipped and into the mud puddle she fell with her new dress.  “Splash!” she went.

“Oh, dear!” cried Susie.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily.

“Look at my nice, new dress,” went on Susie.  “It isn’t at all nice and new now.  It’s all mud and water and all splashed up, and—­oh, dear!  Isn’t it too bad!”

“Yes, besides two it is even six, seven and eight bad,” said Uncle Wiggily sadly.  “Oh, dear!”

“I can’t go to the Wibblewobble party this way,” cried Susie.  “I’ll have to go back home to get another dress, and it won’t be my new one—­and oh, dear!”

“Perhaps I can wipe off the mud with some leaves and moss,” Uncle Wiggily spoke.  “I’ll try.”

But the more he rubbed at the mud spots on Susie’s dress the worse they looked.

“Oh, you can’t do it, Uncle Wiggily!” sighed the little rabbit girl.

“No, I don’t believe I can,” Uncle Wiggily admitted, sadly-like and sorry.

“Oh, dear!” cried Susie.  “Whatever shall I do?  I can’t go to a party looking like this!  I just must have a new dress.”

Uncle Wiggily thought for a minute.  Then, through the woods, he spied a tree with white, shiny bark on, just like satin.

“Ha!  I know what to do!” he cried.  “That is a white birch tree.  Indians make boats of the bark, and from it I can also make a new dress for you, Susie.  Or, at least, a sort of dress, or apron, to go over the dress you have on, and so cover the mud spots.”

“Please do!” begged Susie.

“I will!” promised Uncle Wiggily, and he did.

He stripped off some bark from the birch tree and he sewed the pieces together with ribbon grass, and some needles from the pine tree.  And when Susie put on the bark dress over her party one, not a mud spot showed!

“Oh, that’s fine, Uncle Wiggily!” she cried.  “Now I can go to the Wibblewobbles!”

And so she went, and the bad bear never came out to so much as growl, nor did the fox, so the popgun was not needed.  And all the girls at the party thought Susie’s dress that Uncle Wiggily had made was just fine.

So if the rain drop doesn’t fall out of bed, and stub its toe on the rocking chair, which might make it so lame that it couldn’t dance, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and Tommie’s kite.