“My, my!” growled the giant.  “To think that I can’t have a rabbit supper after all.  Oh, I’m so hungry that I could eat fourteen thousand, seven hundred and eighty-seven rabbits, and part of another one.  But I guess I’ll have to take a barrel of milk and a wagon load of crackers for my supper.”

So that’s what he did, and my how much he ate!

Well, after the giant had gone away, Uncle Wiggily crawled out from under the sand, and he said to the ants: 

“I guess I’d better not stay around here, for it is too dangerous.  I’ll never find my fortune here, and if that giant were to see me he’d step on me, and make me as flat as a sheet of paper.  I’m going.”

“But wait,” said the biggest ant of all.  “You know there are two giants around here.  One is a good one, and one is bad.  Now if you go to the good giant I’m sure he will help you find your fortune.”

“I’ll try it,” said the rabbit.  “Where does the good giant live?”

“Just up the hill, in that house where you see the flag,” said the big ant, as she ate two crumbs of bread and jam.  “That’s where the good giant lives.  You must go where you see the fluttering flag, and you may find your fortune.”

“I will,” said Uncle Wiggily, “I’ll go in the morning, the first thing after breakfast.”

So the next morning he started off.  But in the night something had happened and the rabbit didn’t know a thing about it.  After dark the bad giant got up, and he went over, and took the flag from the pole in front of the house of the good giant, and hoisted it up over his own house.

“I haven’t any flag of my own,” said the bad giant, “so I will take his.”  For you see, the two giants lived not far apart.  In fact they were neighbors, but they were very different, one from the other, for one was kind and the other was cruel.

So it happened, that when Uncle Wiggily started to go to the giant’s house he looked for the fluttering flag, and when he saw it on the bad giant’s house he didn’t know any better, but he thought it was the home of the good giant.

Well, the old gentleman rabbit walked on and on, having said good-by to the ants, and pretty soon he was right close to the bad giant’s house.  But, all the while, he thought it was the good giant’s place—­so don’t forget that.

“I wonder what sort of a fortune he’ll give me,” thought the rabbit.  “I hope I soon get rich, so I can stop traveling, for I am tired.”

Well, as he came near the place where the bad giant lived he heard a voice singing.  And the song, which was sung in a deep, gruff, grumbling, growling voice, went something like this: 

    “Oh, bing bang, bung! 
    Look out of the way for me. 
      For I’m so mad,
      I feel so bad,
    I could eat a hickory tree!

    Oh, snip, snap, snoop! 
    Get off my big front stoop,
      Or I’ll tear my hair
      In wild despair,
    And burn you with hot soup!”