Uncle Wiggily Longears, the nice, old gentleman rabbit, started out from his hollow-stump bungalow one day, to take a walk. He hopped over the fields and through the woods, wondering whether or not he might meet with an adventure, when, after a little while, he came to the House that Jack Built.
And there, nicely wrapped up in a bag, the bunny uncle saw the malt that lay in the House that Jack Built. Malt, you know, is a sort of flour, out of which they make buckwheat cakes.
“My goodness!” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily, as he scratched his pink, twinkling nose, “I did not think I had come this far.”
He stood in front of the House that Jack Built, wondering whether or not he ought not go in and say “howdy do,” when he saw coming out of the house the rat that ate the malt, and the cat that caught the rat, and the dog that worried the cat that caught the rat that ate the malt that lay in the House that Jack Built.
“Well, this is very strange,” said Uncle Wiggily to himself. “They all seem to be running away!” And indeed they were. For the cat was chasing the rat and the dog was chasing the cat and the rat was chasing after its own shadow, so as to get away from the cat, and then, all of a sudden, out came Mother Goose herself.
“Oh, have you seen her, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Mother Goose. “I am so worried about her!”
“Seen whom? About whom are you worried?” asked the rabbit gentleman, politely.
“The jumping cow,” answered Mother Goose. “She’s gone!”
“I guess you mean the cow with the crumpled horn, don’t you?” asked the bunny uncle. “She’s the one, you know, that tossed the dog that worried the cat that caught the rat that ate the malt that lay in the House that Jack Built.”
“No, I don’t mean that cow,” answered Mother Goose. “I mean the jumping cow. She’s the worst cow for jumping you ever saw. She jumps over all the fences and stone walls and when we want her to give some milk for Little Tommie Tucker’s supper she isn’t to be found. I’ve looked everywhere for her, but I can’t find her. Oh, dear! Such trouble! I thought she might be here, in the House that Jack Built, with the Crumpled-Horn Cow. But she isn’t.”
“Ha! Just you leave it to me, if you please,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “I’ll find the jumping cow for you. I can start off in my automobile, with the bologna sausage tires, that go faster when you sprinkle pepper on them or in my clothes-basket airship, with toy circus balloons on the handles.”
“You had better take your airship,” said Mother Goose. “A jumping cow would be found up in the air, I think.”
“I think so myself,” said Uncle Wiggily. So he hurried back to the hollow-stump bungalow and got out his airship. In that he sailed over the woods and fields, looking for the jumping cow.
“Do, please, ask her to hurry back,” said Mother Goose. “For she has all the milk for supper, and Tommie Tucker and the Children of the Old Woman who Lives in a Shoe, are so hungry they don’t know what to do.”
“I’ll get her,” promised Uncle Wiggily.
On and on he sailed in his airship. But he could not see the jumping cow. Up high he sailed and down low, and finally, when he came close to the ground, near the place where Sammie Littletail, the boy rabbit, lived with his sister Susie and his father and mother, Uncle Wiggily heard Jollie Longtail, the mouse boy, singing a song that went like this:
“Hi-diddle-diddle!
The cat’s in the fiddle!
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed
To see so much sport,
And the dish ran away with the spoon.”
“Hello, what’s that!” cried Uncle Wiggily, bringing his airship to a sudden stop and sailing down to earth. “What cow is that Jollie, that jumped over the moon?”
“Oh, Mother Goose’s cow,” answered the little mouse boy. “You see, Joie Kat, the little kitten boy, crawled inside the fiddle, having a game of tag with Tommie, his brother. And when Jack Sprat tried to play music on the fiddle it made such a funny noise that the cow, who was waiting for Little Boy Blue to blow his horn, gave a big jump, and away up over the moon she went. That’s the way it was,” said Jollie Longtail.
“I see,” answered Uncle Wiggily. “Well, in that case, I suppose I must go sailing up to the moon to find the jumping cow. She is needed to bring home the milk for Little Tommie Tucker’s supper.”
Just then along came Mother Goose once more.
“Oh, look!” she cried, pointing her broom up to the sky. “There’s my nice jumping cow now. She’s falling down from her jump over the moon. Oh, she’ll break her horns, surely. Oh, dear! What shall I do?”
“Do? Do nothing,” said Uncle Wiggily, kindly. “I will do it myself. See, I have my airship. I’ll sail up and catch the jumping cow before she has time to fall. Then everything will be all right.”
“Oh, please do!” begged Mother Goose.
Up in his clothes-basket airship went Uncle Wiggily Longears, the rabbit gentleman.
up.
and
up
and
up
The cow was falling
down
and
down
and
down.
“Oh, dear!” cried Mother Goose, on the earth below. “That cow should have known better than to jump over the moon!”
“I think so myself,” said the Man in the Moon. “I tried to stop her, but I couldn’t.”
“Never mind,” said Uncle Wiggily. “It will be all right, I’m sure.”
Then he steered his airship right under the falling cow, who was no longer jumping. Instead, she was sailing toward the earth, with a piece of green cheese on one horn. She really had jumped over the moon, but she slipped, and that’s how the green cheese got on the tip of her horn.
“Here you are!” cried Uncle Wiggily, in his jolly voice, just like a trolley car conductor. “Plenty of room up in front.”
Then the jumping cow landed gently in the rabbit gentleman’s airship, and he brought her down to earth as lightly as a feather, and the cow was just in time with the milk for Little Tommie Tucker’s supper.
