“Now, children, hop just as I do.  Take a long breath and then hop, and be very careful where you go.”

Then Uncle Wiggily looked down in the grass, and he saw a mamma hoptoad and a whole lot of her little toads hopping along.  The mamma toad was giving the little ones their morning lesson.  And I just wish you could have seen how nicely those tiny toads could hop.  One little chap, named Sylvester, hopped over a big stone, and his little sister, named Clarabella, leaped over a stick with a nail in it and didn’t get hurt a bit.

“Ha!  That is very good hopping!  Very fine, indeed!” cried Uncle Wiggily, waving his ears back and forth.  “I could hardly do better myself.”

“Oh, it’s very kind of you to say so,” said the mamma toad.  “Now, children, give a big hop for Uncle Wiggily.”

Well, they all took long breaths, and they were just going to hop when the old gentleman rabbit suddenly called: 

“Look out!  Hold on!  Don’t jump!”

They all stopped quickly, and the mamma toad wanted to know what was the matter.

“Why, there is a big cow walking along,” said the rabbit, for he could see over the top of the grass better than could the toads, and could watch the big cow coming.  “If that cow stepped on you, why, you would never hop again,” said the rabbit, and then he led the toads out of danger.

“Oh, I’m ever so much obliged to you,” said the mamma toad to the rabbit.  “You saved our lives.”

Then she had all the little toads thank the old gentleman rabbit, and the mamma toad asked him to come to her house for dinner.  Uncle Wiggily went, but the toad’s house was so small that he couldn’t get in, until he had made it bigger by scratching away some of the dirt around the front door.

Then he had a very good dinner, and he stayed all night at the toad family’s house and watched the little ones hop some more, and he and the papa toad talked about the weather.

Well, in the morning when Uncle Wiggily got up and washed his face and paws, and combed out his whiskers, he suddenly heard all the little toads crying.

“Hum!  Suz!  Dud!” he exclaimed, “some of them must have the toothache.”  So he went down stairs, and there all the toad family were sitting around the breakfast table, but they weren’t eating.

“What’s the matter?” asked Uncle Wiggily, sadly-like.

“Why,” said the papa toad, “the milkman hasn’t come, and the children have no milk for their oatmeal, and I have none for my coffee, and I’m in a hurry to get down to the store where I work.”

“That’s too bad,” said the rabbit.  “Can’t you use condensed milk?”

“We haven’t any,” spoke the mamma toad.

[Illustration]

“Well, I’ll hop out and see if I can see the milkman coming,” said the rabbit, “for I can see a long distance.”  So he went out and he hopped up and down the street, and he looked up and down, but no milkman could he see.  And the little toads were getting hungrier and hungrier every minute and they cried a lot, yes, indeed!