Well, it was coming on toward evening, one afternoon, and the old gentleman rabbit was tramping along the road, wondering where he would sleep, when all of a sudden something came bursting out of the bushes toward the rabbit, and a voice cried out: 

“Hide!  Hide!  Uncle Wiggily.  Hide as quickly as you can!”

“Why should I hide?” asked the old gentleman rabbit.  “Is there a giant coming after me?”

“Worse than a giant,” said the voice.  “It is a bad wolf that jumped out of his cage from the circus, and he is just ready to eat up anything he sees,” and the July bug, for it was he who had fluttered out of the bushes, to tell Uncle Wiggily, made his wings go slowly to and fro like an electric palm-leaf fan.

“A wolf, eh?” cried the old gentleman rabbit.  “And do you think he will eat me?”

“He surely will,” said the July bug.  “I happened to fly past his house, and I heard him say to his wife that he was going out to see if he could find a rabbit supper.  So I know he’s coming for you.  You’d better hide.”

“Oh! where can I hide?” asked the rabbit, as he looked around for a hollow stump.  But there wasn’t any, and there were no holes in the ground, and he didn’t know what to do.

Then, all at once there was a crashing in the bushes and it sounded like an elephant coming through, breaking all the sticks in his path.

“There’s the wolf!  There’s the wolf!” cried the July bug.  “Hide, Uncle Wiggily,” and then the bug perched on the high limb of a tree where the wolf couldn’t catch him.

Well, the poor old gentleman rabbit looked for a place to hide himself away from the wolf but he couldn’t seem to find any, and he was just going to crawl under a stone and maybe hurt himself, when all at once he heard a voice say: 

“Jump up here, Uncle Wiggily.  I’ll hide you from the wolf.”

So the rabbit traveler looked up, and there he saw a flower called Jack-in-the-pulpit looking down on him.  I’ve told you about them before, how the frog once took his bath in one, and how, when you pick a wood-bouquet you put them in with some ferns to make the bouquet look pretty.  They are a flower like a vase, with a top curling over, and a thing standing up in the centre whose name is “Jack.”

“Jump in here,” said the Jack.  “I’ll fold my top down over you like an umbrella, and the wolf can’t find you.”

“But you are so small that I can’t get inside,” said the rabbit.

“Oh, I’ll make myself bigger,” cried the Jack, I and he took a long breath, and puffed himself up and swelled himself up, until he was large enough for Uncle Wiggily to jump down inside.  Then the Jack-in-the-pulpit closed down the umbrella top over the rabbit, and he was hidden away as nice and snug as could be wished.

Pretty soon that bad savage wolf came prancing along, and he looked all over for the rabbit.  Then he sniffed and cried: