“Let’s throw stones at him!” they cried.  And they did, but I’m glad to say that none of them hit Uncle Wiggily.  Isn’t it queer how mean some boys can be?  But perhaps they were never told any better, so we’ll forgive them this time.

“Well, it is now night,” said the rabbit gentleman as he hopped on through the woods, “so I think I will sit under this tree and wait for the moon to come up.  And while I’m waiting I’ll eat my supper.”

So Uncle Wiggily ate his supper, which the kind farmer lady had put up for him, and then he sat and waited for the moon to rise, and pretty soon he heard a funny noise, calling like this: 

“Who?  Who?  Who-tu-tu-tu.”

“Oh, you know who I am all right, Mr. Owl,” said the rabbit.  “You can see very well at night.  You can see me.”

“My goodness, if it isn’t Uncle Wiggily!” cried the owl in surprise.  “What are you doing out so late, I’d like to know?”

“Waiting for a moon-beam, so I can see if there is any gold for my fortune at the end of it,” was the answer.  “Is the moon coming up over the trees, Mr. Owl?”

“Yes, here it comes,” said the owl, “and now I must fly off to the dark woods, for I don’t like the light,” and he fluttered away.

Then the moon came up, all silver and glorious; shining over the tree tops like a shimmering ball, and soon the moon-beams fell to the ground in slanting rays, but they fell so softly, like feathers, that they did not get hurt at all.

“Well, I guess I’ll follow that big one,” said the old gentleman rabbit, as he picked out a nice, broad, large, shiny moon-beam.  “That must have gold at the end, and, if I find it, my fortune is made.”  So off he started to follow the moon-beam to where it came to an end.

It seemed to go quite a distance through the dark woods, and Uncle Wiggily traveled on for several hours, and he didn’t seem to be any nearer the end by that time than he was at first.

“My land, this is a very long beam,” he exclaimed.  “It is almost big enough to make a church steeple from.  But I’ll keep on a little longer, for I’m not a bit sleepy yet.”

Well, all of a sudden, just as he was turning the corner around a big stone, the rabbit gentleman heard a funny noise.

It wasn’t like any one crying, yet it sounded as if some one was in trouble, for the voice said: 

“Oh, dear!  I’ll never get it big enough, I know I can’t!  I’ve combed it and brushed it, and done it up in curl papers to make it fluffy, but still it isn’t like theirs.  What shall I do?”

“Hum, I wonder who that can be?” thought Uncle Wiggily.  “Perhaps it is some little lost child; but no children would be out in the woods at night.  I’ll take a look.”

So he hopped softly over, and peered around the edge of the stone, and what do you think he saw?

Why, there was a nice, little, red squirrel-girl, and she had a comb and a brush, and little looking-glass.  And the glass was stuck up on a stump where the moon-beam that Uncle Wiggily was following shone on it and reflected back again.  And by the light of the moon-beam the red squirrel was combing and brushing out her tail as hard as she could comb and brush it.