“Oh, if you can, that will be just fine!” cried the little goat girl.  “For when the buttons came off my new shoes they flew every which way—­I mean the buttons did—­and I couldn’t find a single one.”

“Never mind,” Uncle Wiggily kindly said.  “I’ll sew on some of the buttons from the sycamore tree, and everything will be all right.”

With a thorn for a needle, and some long grasses for thread, Uncle Wiggily soon sewed the buttons from the sycamore, or button-ball, tree on Nannie’s new shoes, using the very smallest ones, of course.  Then Nannie put on her shoes again, having rested her feet on a velvet carpet of moss, while Uncle Wiggily was sewing, and together they went on to the Longtail mouse party.

“Oh, what nice shoes you have, Nannie!” cried Susie Littletail, the rabbit girl.

“And what lovely stylish buttons!” exclaimed Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck.

“Yes, Uncle Wiggily sewed them on for me,” said Nannie.

“Oh, is Uncle Wiggily outside!” cried the little mousie girl.  “He must come in to our party!”

“Of course!” cried all the other animal children.  And so Uncle Wiggily, who had walked on past the house after leaving Nannie, had to come in anyhow, without his whiskers being trimmed, or his ears curled.  And he was so jolly that every one had a good time and lots of ice cream cheese to eat, and they all thought Nannie’s shoes, and the button-ball buttons, were just fine.

And if the ham sandwich doesn’t tickle the cream puff under the chin and make it laugh so all the chocolate drops off the cocoanut pudding, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the red spots.

STORY XXXI

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE RED SPOTS

Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman, was hopping along through the woods one fine day when he heard a little voice calling to him: 

“Oh, Uncle Wiggily!  Will you have a game of tag with me?”

At first the bunny uncle thought the voice might belong to a bad fox or a harum-scarum bear, but when he had peeked through the bushes he saw that it was Lulu Wibblewobble, the duck girl, who had called to him.

“Have a game of tag with you?  Why, of course, I will!” laughed Uncle Wiggily.  “That is, if you will kindly excuse my rheumatism, and the red, white and blue crutch which Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, my muskrat lady housekeeper, gnawed for me out of a cornstalk.”

“Of course, I’ll excuse it, Uncle Wiggily,” said Lulu.  “Only please don’t tag me with the end of your crutch, for it tickles me, and when I’m tickled I have to laugh, and when I laugh I can’t play tag.”

“I won’t tag you with my crutch,” spoke Uncle Wiggily with a laugh.  “Now we’re ready to begin.”

So the little duck girl and the rabbit gentleman played tag there in the woods, jumping and springing about on the soft mossy green carpet under the trees.