But that isn't what I mean.

Did you ever fall into a mud puddle when you had on your very best clothes, with white stockings that showed every speck² of mud? If anything like that ever happened to you, when you were going to Sunday-school, or to a little afternoon tea party, why, you know how dreadfully unhappy you felt! To say nothing of the pain in your knees!

Well, now for a story of how a little boy named Tommie fell in a mud puddle, and how Uncle Wiggily helped him scrub the mud off his white stockings—off Tommie's white stockings I mean, not Uncle Wiggily's.

Tommie was a little boy who lived in a house on the edge of the wood, near where Uncle Wiggily had built his hollow stump³ bungalow⁴. No, Tommie wasn't the same little boy who had the toothache. He was quite a different chap.

One day the postman rang the bell at Tommie's house, and gave Tommie a cute little letter.

"Oh, it's for me!" cried Tommie. "Look, Mother! I have a letter!"

[Pg 19] "That's nice," said Mother. "Who sent it to you?"

"I'll look and tell you," answered the little boy. The writing in the letter was large and plain, and though Tommie had not been to school very long he could read a little. So he was able to tell that the letter was from a little girl named Alice, who wanted him to come to a party she was going to have one afternoon a few days later.

"Oh, may I go?" Tommie asked his mother.

"Yes," she answered.

"And wear my best clothes?"

"Surely you will put on your best clothes to go to the party," said Mother. "And I hope you have a nice time!"

Tommie hoped so, too. But if only he had known what was going to happen! Perhaps it is just as well he did not, for it would have spoiled his fun of thinking about the coming party. And half the fun of nearly everything, you know, is thinking about it beforehand, or afterward⁵.

At last the day came for the tea party Alice was to give at her home, which was a little distance down the street from Tommie's house.

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