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 t