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.

"Wear that to Nannie's party, Lulu," said the rabbit gentleman, and
Lulu did, the hat being fastened to her feathers with a long pin made
from the stem of a fern. And when Lulu reached the party all the
animal girls cried out:

"Oh, what a sweet, lovely, cute, dear, cunning, swell and stylish hat!
Where did you get it?"

"Uncle Wiggily made it," answered Lulu, and all the girls said they
were going to get one just like it. And they did, so that fern hats
became very fashionable