just finished it. I was about to call a messenger-boy cat and
send it home, but now you are here you may take it. And here is some
cloth I had left over. Nurse Jane might want it if ever she tears a
hole in her dress."

Uncle Wiggily put the extra pieces of cloth in his pocket, and then
Mrs. Spin-Spider wrapped Nurse Jane's dress up nicely for him in
tissue paper, as fine as the web which she had spun for the silk,
and the rabbit gentleman started back to the hollow-stump bungalow.

Mrs. Spin-Spider lived on Second Mountain, and, as Uncle Wiggily's
bungalow was on First Mountain, he had quite a way to go to get
home. And when he was about half way there he passed a little house
near a gray rock that looked like an eagle, and in the house he
heard a voice saying:

"Oh, dear! Oh, isn't it too bad? Now I can't go!"

"Ha! I wonder who that can be?" thought the rabbit gentleman. "It
sounds like some one in trouble. I will ask if I can do anything to
help."

The rabbit gentleman knocked on the door of the little house, and a
voice said:

"Come in!"

Uncle Wiggily entered, and there in the middle of the room he saw a
pussy cat lady holding up a dress with a big hole burned in it.

"I beg your pardon, but who are you and what is the matter?"
politely asked the bunny uncle, making a low bow.

"My name is Pussy Cat Mole," was the answer, "and you can see the
trouble for yourself. I am Pussy Cat Mole; I jumped over a coal,
and----"

"In your best petticoat burned a great hole," finished Uncle
Wiggily. "I know you, now. You are from Mother Goose's book and I
met you at a party in Belleville, where they have a bluebell flower
on the school to call the animal children to their lessons."

"That's it!" meowed Pussy Cat Mole. "I am glad you remember me,
Uncle Wiggily. It was at a party I met you, and now I am going to
another. Or, rather, I was going until I jumped over a coal, and in
my best petticoat burned a great hole. Now I can't go," and she held
up the burned dress, sorrowful like and sad.

"How did you happen to jump over the coal?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"Oh, it fell out of my stove," said Pussy Cat Mole, "and I jumped
over it in a hurry to get the fire shovel to take it up. That's how
I burned my dress. And now I can't go to the party, for it was my
best petticoat, and Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady, asked me to be
there early, too; and now--Oh, dear!" and Pussy Cat Mole felt very
badly, indeed.

"Mrs. Wib