Uncle Wiggily, a rabbit gentleman, buys new shoes and learns from the monkey shopkeeper to use talcum powder and a shoe-horn to put them on easily when they are tight. Later, he encounters the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe (the Shoe Lady) and learns her children only pretend to cry when she pretends to scold them, following the nursery rhyme. When one child, Toodles, returns late and can't fit into the crowded shoe house, Uncle Wiggily cleverly uses his new talcum powder and shoe-horn to help the boy slide safely inside, demonstrating resourcefulness and applying a recently learned solution to a new problem.