On through the woods he went, holding poor Buddy tightly in his hands, and, would you believe me, that boy never noticed that Buddy had a basket of groceries!  You see, the basket, of course, was guinea pig size, and so was the loaf of bread and the butter and the sweet sugar.  They were so small that the boy didn’t notice them, but this was partly because Buddy hid the basket under his paws, for he didn’t want anything to happen to the things for which his mother had sent him to the store, you know.

Well, as the boy kept going on through the woods, carrying Buddy farther and farther away from his home, the poor little guinea pig was more frightened than ever.

“Oh, how will I ever get away!” he thought, “I’ll never see my mamma, nor Brighteyes, nor my papa, Dr. Pigg, any more!  Oh, dear!  Oh, dear!”

No sooner had Buddy said this than he heard a funny little noise in the trees above his head, and, looking up, he saw Billie Bushytail bounding along.  There was the squirrel, and he saw right away what the trouble was.  And he could talk to Buddy without the boy knowing it, you see; so Billie said: 

“Hey, Buddy, take some of the bread, crumble it all up, and toss the crumbs up in the air.”

“What for?” asked Buddy.

“Do it, and you’ll see,” answered Billie.  “That will help you to escape.”

Now Buddy didn’t like to spoil the nice, new loaf of bread he had bought for his mamma, but he thought maybe it would do some good, and he didn’t want to be carried away by that boy.

So he broke open the loaf, crumbled some of the white part in his paws, and tossed it high up in the air, so that it fell down in a shower, all around the boy’s head, and listen, the boy hadn’t noticed Buddy toss up the crumbs.

“My!” exclaimed the boy.  “Why, I do declare, if it isn’t snowing!  Who ever heard of such a thing!” and he really thought the falling bread crumbs were snow flakes.  So he turned up his coat collar to keep warm, and began to run, for he didn’t want to get snowed under in the woods.  But Buddy kept on tossing up the bread crumbs, until the loaf was all gone.

“What shall I do next?” the guinea pig called to Billie Bushytail, who was following along in the trees overhead.

“Open the bag of sugar and throw that up in the air the same way,” directed the squirrel, and when Buddy did this the boy heard the sugar rattling down on the leaves and some of it got down his neck, and scratched him.

“Why, I do declare.  It’s hailing!” he cried.  “Who ever heard of such a thing!” So he hurried on faster than ever.

Well, when the sugar was all tossed up, and the boy was running real fast, Billie Bushytail called to Buddy: 

“Now throw the pound of butter down in front of the boy!” Which Buddy did as quick as a wink, and lossy-me and a pancake! if that boy didn’t slip down in the slippery butter, and fall and hurt his nose, and he had to let go of Buddy Pigg.