“Oh, that will be fine, if you can do it,” spoke the bunny uncle.  “Can you?”

“We’ll try,” the ants said.  Then, about fourteen thousand six hundred and twenty-two black ants took each a long, sharp pine needle, and threading it with grass, they began to sew up the rips and tears in Uncle Wiggily’s coat.  And in places where they could not easily sew they stuck the cloth together with sticky gum from the pine tree.  So, though the pine tree was to blame, in a way, for Uncle Wiggily’s fall, it also helped in the mending of his coat.

Soon the coat was almost as good as new and you could hardly tell where it was torn.  And Uncle Wiggily, kindly thanking the ants, went on to Grandpa Goosey’s party and had a fine time and also some ice cream.

And if the egg beater doesn’t take all the raisins out of the rice pudding, so it looks like a cup of custard going to the moving pictures, the next story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the sycamore tree.

STORY XXX

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SYCAMORE TREE

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily, I’m going to a party!  I’m going to a party!” cried Nannie Wagtail, the little goat girl, as she pranced up in front of the hollow stump bungalow where Mr. Longears, the rabbit gentleman, lived with Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper.

“Going to a party?  Say, that’s just fine!” said the bunny gentleman.  “I wish I were going to one.”

“Why, you can come, too!” cried Nannie.  “Jillie Longtail, the little mouse girl, is giving the party, and I know she will be glad to have you.”

“Well, perhaps, I may stop in for a little while,” said Mr. Longears, with a smile that made his pink nose twinkle like the frosting on a sponge cake.  “But when is the party going to take place, Nannie?”

“Right away—­I’m going there now; but I just stopped at your bungalow to show you my new shoes that Uncle Butter, the circus poster goat, bought for me.  Aren’t they nice?” And she stuck out her feet.

“Indeed, they are!” cried Uncle Wiggily, as he looked at the shiny black shoes which went on over Nannie’s hoofs.  “So the party is to-day, is it?”,

“Right now,” said Nannie.  “Come on, Uncle Wiggily.  Walk along with me and go in!  They’ll all be glad to see you!”

“Oh, but my dear child!” cried the bunny gentleman.  “I haven’t shaved my whiskers, my ears need brushing, and I would have to do lots of things to make myself look nice and ready for a party!”

“Oh, dear!” bleated Nannie Wagtail.  “I did so want you to come with me!”

“Well, I’ll walk as far as the Longtail mouse home,"’ said the bunny uncle, “but I won’t go in.

“Oh, maybe you will when you get there!” And Nannie laughed, for she knew Uncle Wiggily always did whatever the animal children wanted him to do.

So the bunny uncle and Nannie started off through the woods together, Nannie looking down at her new shoes every now and then.