“Oh, that is easy,” said the bird.  “Just pick some of those thick, green leafy ferns and make yourself a hat of them.”

“The very thing!” cried Uncle Wiggily.  Then he fastened some woodland ferns together and easily made himself a hat that would keep off the sun, if it would not keep off the rain.  But then it wasn’t raining.

“There you are, Uncle Wiggily!” called the tailor bird at last.  “Your silk hat is ready to wear again.”

“Thank you,” spoke the bunny uncle, as he laid aside the ferns, also thanking them.  “Now I am like myself again,” and he hopped on through the woods, wondering whether or not he was to have any more adventures that day.

Mr. Longears had not gone on very much farther before he heard a rustling in the bushes, and then a sad little voice said: 

“Oh, dear!  How sad!  I don’t believe I’ll go to the party now!  All the others would make fun of me!  Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!”

“Ha!  That sounds like trouble!” said the bunny uncle.  “I must see what it means.”

He looked through the bushes and there, sitting on a log, he saw Lulu Wibblewobble, the little duck girl, who was crying very hard, the tears rolling down her yellow bill.

“Why, Lulu!  What’s the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

“Oh, dear!” answered the little quack-quack child.  “I can’t go to the party; that’s what’s the matter.”

“Why can’t you go?” Uncle Wiggily wanted to know.  “I saw your mother a little while ago, and she said you were going.”

“I know I was going,” spoke Lulu, “but I’m not now, for the wind blew my nice new hat into the puddle of muddy water, and now look at it!” and she held up a very much beraggled and debraggled hat of lace and straw and ribbons and flowers.

“Oh, dear!  That hat is in a bad state, to be sure,” said Uncle Wiggily.  “But don’t cry, Lulu.  Almost the same thing happened to me and the tailor bird made my hat as good as ever.  Mine was all mud, too, like yours.  Come, I’ll take you to the tailor bird.”

“You are very kind, Uncle Wiggily,” spoke Lulu, “but if I go there I may not get back in time for the party, and I want to wear my new hat to it, very much.”

“Ha!  I see!” cried the bunny uncle.  “You want to look nice at the party.  Well, that’s right, of course.  And I don’t believe the tailor bird could clean your hat in time, for it is so fancy he would have to be very careful of it.

“But you can do as I did, make a hat out of ferns, and wear that to Nannie Wagtail’s party.  I’ll help you.”

“Oh, how kind you are!” cried the little duck girl.

So she went along with Uncle Wiggily to where the ferns grew in the wood, leaving her regular hat at the tailor bird’s nest to be cleaned and pressed.

Uncle Wiggily made Lulu the cutest hat out of fern leaves.  Oh, I wish you could have seen it.  There wasn’t one like it even in the five and ten-cent store.