“What are you going to do when you finish shoveling that path, Uncle Wiggily?” asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper. “Oh, nothing special,” answered the bunny rabbit. “Then perhaps you will take this pail of rice pudding over to Mr. Twistytail, the pig gentleman?” asked Nurse Jane. “He isn’t feeling very well, and maybe some rice pudding will do him good.” “I’ll take it over as soon as I finish cleaning off the snow,” said the rabbit gentleman.
“Well, where are you going, Floppy and Curly?” asked Uncle Wiggily, as he met the two piggie boys with their snow plow when he was on his way to take Nurse Jane’s rice pudding to Mr. Twistytail. “Oh, we were just making a path to your bungalow,” answered Floppy. “Well, I am going to your house, to take your father some rice pudding, because he is ill,” said the rabbit gentleman. “Good!” grunted Floppy and Curly. “We’ll ride you there on our snow plow.”
Curly and Floppy gave Uncle Wiggily a nice ride to their pen-house. When the rabbit gentleman saw Mr. Twistytail sitting near the fire, wrapped in a bed quilt, and with his feet in a tub of hot water, Mr. Longears was very sorry for his friend. “Eat some of Nurse Jane’s rice pudding. That will make you feel better.” Mr. Twistytail gave Floppy and Curly each a taste of the pudding. “Oh, I wish there was a whole lot of it!” grunted Curly! and Floppy said the same thing. “I’ll make a pudding,” promised Uncle Wiggily.
“Oh, will you really make us a pudding?” asked Floppy. “I’ll make you a snow pudding. Just ask your mother to let me take some eggs, sugar, molasses, nutmeg and a few things like that. Then I’ll easily make a snow pudding.” Curly and Floppy clapped their feet in delight. “But our mother isn’t home,” said Floppy. She went to the store for some medicine for Daddy’s cold. Mr. Longears said Mrs. Twistytail didn’t really need to be home. “We’ll go to the kitchen and make the pudding ourselves,” he added.
“Let me see now,” said Uncle Wiggily, as the pudding was almost finished. “I have put in the sugar, milk, eggs and cocoanut. And you put in the snow, to make it like ice cream, didn’t you, Curly, my boy?” The little piggie chap said he had put in plenty of snow. “And now I have forgotten how to put in the nutmegs to make the pudding spicy. I forget whether you put them in whole like hickorynuts, or grate them up fine, like powder. I really have forgotten. I guess I’ll put them in whole.”
At last the snow pudding was finished. Uncle Wiggily dropped into it the box full of whole, hard, round nutmegs. “They ought to give it a fine flavor—just like lemonade,” said the rabbit gentleman, as he set the pudding out in the snow of the back porch to cool and freeze, like ice cream. Curly and Floppy were sure they would. “We’ll give daddy some of the nice snow pudding when he wakes up,” said Floppy. “And we’ll save some to give mother when she comes home,” spoke Curly.
“Hello! What have we here?” asked the Pipsisewah, as he and the Skeezicks jumped over the snow drift and sneaked up to the piggie boys’ house. The Skeezicks gave a grunt: “I was just wondering that myself. I saw Uncle Wiggily set it out. It must be something good.” They took a sniff and the Pip cried: “It’s a pudding! Hurray! Lucky I have this long-handled spoon! I’ll dip it in and we’ll take turns eating this pudding. If we can’t get Uncle Wiggily’s souse we’ll have his pudding. Come on!”
“Here you are, my friend,” said the Pipsisewah, as he dipped up a large spoonful of the snow pudding, and held it out toward the skinny Skeezicks. “Have a big bite.” The Skeezicks saw something dropping from the spoon the Pip had just used. “What are those things?” asked the Skee. “Oh, just large, fat juicy raisins, I guess,” the Pip answered. “Take a hard bite now, and I’ll do the same.” As the Pip and Skee were eating the pudding Uncle Wiggily opened the door and saw them. He and the boys were surprised.
“Ha! Ha!” laughed Uncle Wiggily as he saw the Pip and Skee run away. “Ho! Ho! That’s the time I fooled them!” They saw the bad chaps running away, holding their jaws. “They bit too hard on the nutmegs in our pudding,” said the bunny rabbit. “I remember, now, I should have grated the nutmeg. It’s just as well I didn’t, or else the Pip and the Skee would have eaten it all. I can pick out the whole nutmegs, grate one, and our pudding will be as good as ever.” And it was.
