“Uncle Wiggily, would you mind bringing me some glue when you come home from your walk this afternoon?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, as she saw the rabbit gentleman leaving his hollow-stump bungalow one day.
“Glue?” asked Uncle Wiggily, curious like. “I hope you are not going to put it in my chair, so when I sit down I will stick fast, and not be able to get up again.”
“Oh, no!” laughed Miss Fuzzy Wuzzy, “though if you keep on going out so often, the way you do, I’ll need a bit of sticky fly paper, or something like that, to keep you at home.”
“Oh! I have to go off to have adventures now and then,” said the bunny uncle, smiling so that his nose twinkled like a moonbeam shining in the water. “But I’ll bring you the glue all right, Nurse Jane. What is it you want to stick together?”
“A broken teacup,” answered the muskrat lady. “I knocked a breakfast teacup off the table, and it broke. But I can stick the pieces together with glue, and it will be almost as good as new.”
“Good!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “That’s the way to do it!” Then he set off over the fields and through the woods to get the glue.
He found some in the doll doctor’s toy shop, where the monkey-doodle toy-mender used it to fasten together all the playthings the animal boys and girls broke.
“That’s just the glue for Nurse Jane’s cup,” said the doll doctor. “It will mend anything.”
“That’s what we want,” said Uncle Wiggily.
Well, the old gentleman rabbit was going along, hoping he would meet with an adventure before he reached his hollow-stump bungalow, when, all at once, he heard a sort of crowing noise and a clucking, and then a sad voice said:
“Oh, dear, I might have known it would happen! I should never have let you sit on top of the wall, Humpty. Now look what you’ve done! Oh, what will my mother say?”
“Ha! That sounds like Charlie Chick, the little rooster chap,” said Uncle Wiggily. “I wonder what has happened to him, and who Humpty can be? I guess I’ll look and see.”
The bunny uncle went on a little farther and, coming to a stone wall, he saw, on one side of it, Charlie Chick; and the little rooster chap’s tail feathers were all squeezed sideways and crooked, as though he were in great trouble, indeed.
“Why, Charlie!” cried Uncle Wiggily. “What’s the matter? Is Arabella, your sister, lost?”
“Oh, no, Uncle Wiggily!” answered Charlie. “But I had Humpty Dumpty with me, and he sat up on the wall, just as he did when he was out with Mother Goose. But he fell off and now he’s broken, and oh, dear! I fear he never will be himself again.”
“My! My! What’s all this?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “I never heard of Humpty Dumpty, or his fall from the wall. And why can’t he be himself again? If it’s anything that is broken I can mend it, for I have some glue to mend Nurse Jane’s broken cup, and I can mend Humpty Dumpty.”
“Oh, it’s very kind of you, I’m sure,” said Charlie, politely, “but it can’t be done. You see Humpty Dumpty is an egg. My mother, Mrs. Cluck-Cluck, sent me to take him to Mrs. Wibblewobble, the duck lady. But on the way I stopped here to rest and I let Humpty sit upon the wall.”
“Well, what happened then?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as Charlie stopped, to give a little crow, and flap his wings.
“It happened just as it tells about in the Mother Goose book,” went on Charlie. “This is the way it was:
“‘Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men,
Cannot put Humpty together again.’”
“Why can’t they put him together again?” asked Uncle Wiggily. “Where is Humpty? Let me have a look at him. If his shell is only cracked I can mend it with glue. Where is he?”
“On the other side of the stone wall,” answered Charlie. “He fell over or rolled backward, and he must be all broken up by now.”
“Let us hope for the best,” said the rabbit gentleman. “He may be only cracked, Humpty Dumpty may be, and if the glue I have for Nurse Jane will mend a cracked cup, it will mend a cracked egg. I must have a look.”
Up on top of the wall jumped the rabbit gentleman. Then he hopped down on the other side. He looked around for Humpty Dumpty.
Uncle Wiggily saw some broken egg shells. Then he looked some more and rubbed his eyes.
“This is queer,” he said. “If the egg broke, the white and yellow inside ought to have run out on the ground. But I don’t see any. That must have been a hollow egg.”
Just then the rabbit gentleman heard:
“Peep! Peep! Peepity-peep-cheep-cheep!”
“My goodness me sakes alive and some corn-meal pudding!” cried the bunny uncle. “Who is that?”
“It is I, Humpty Dumpty,” was the answer, and out from under a bush ran a cute, little, fluffy, downy chicken.
“Are you Humpty Dumpty?” cried Uncle Wiggily.
“Of course,” peeped the little chicken. “I was inside the eggshell all the while, just waiting to come out. And when Charlie set me on the wall I rolled off, cracked my shell and here I am. I popped out!
“Of course, it isn’t just like in the book,” said the baby chick, “but it’s better. For though I sat on the wall and had a great fall, I don’t need all the king’s horses and all the king’s men to put Humpty together again.”
“No, and you don’t need any of my glue,” said Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh. “There is no use mending a broken eggshell out of which has come a chicken. Oh, I say, Charlie!” cried the bunny uncle. “Fly over the wall. It’s all right. Humpty is here, only he is different from what you thought you would find him. Here he is; a new, little chicken brother for you.”
And wasn’t Charlie surprised? Well, I guess yes! But he loved Humpty Dumpty very much and Humpty loved him. So this time, once more, everything came out all right, just as Mother Goose would have it.
