Tiptoes Lightly lives in an acorn high in the branches of a Great Oak Tree. Her tiny house has no furniture-except for two downy feathers Lucy the Goose gave her to sleep on. Her friends, Pine Cone and Pepper Pot the gnomes, decide to make her a birthday present of one table and three chairs. They search the forest for the perfect branch and enlist the help of forest folk to make the furniture: Ompliant the Elephant to carry the wood, Carpenter Ants to shape the branch and Spinalot the Spider to spin the webbing for the chairs. Unfortunately, Pepper Pot sits down on one of the chairs while the spider web is still fresh and becomes hopelessly flyed. When, at last, he is freed Pine Cone and Pepper Pot row down Running River to collect wax from the bees to finish the table and chairs. Hauling the table and chairs up the Tiptoes' oak tree presents a host of unexpected difficulties. Finally, at a surprise birthday party arranged by Jemima Mouse, Tiptoes receives her beautiful presents. At the request of the Mouse children she tells the tale of how she was born from Mother Wind and Father Sun.

The book is rounded out with a short separate story, 'The Tale of None', in which little None (a ladybug with no spots, none at all!) goes to India, America and Africa to find her spots. These she receives from a spotted cow, a freckled girl and the king of spottiness himself, the leopard.