“Well, we’d better get along once more,” said Uncle Wiggily to the prickly porcupine, after he had thanked the dog-policeman.  So the two friends set off together through the woods, and the next day something else happened to them.

I’ll tell you what it was on the next page, when, in case the iceman brings me some hot chocolate to put on my bread and butter, the bedtime story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the chickie.

STORY XXIV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CHICKIE

“Well, what shall we do to-day?” asked the second cousin to Grandfather Prickly Porcupine, as he crawled out of his bed of dried leaves, and looked over to where Uncle Wiggily was washing his whiskers.  “Are we going to travel some more?”

“Oh, yes,” answered the old gentleman rabbit, “we must still keep on, for I have yet to find my fortune.”

“What are you going to do with your fortune when you find it?” asked the porcupine.  “Will you buy a million ice cream cones with the money?”

“Oh, my goodness sakes alive, and a pot of mustard, no!” replied Uncle Wiggily.  “If I ate as many cones as that I would have indigestion, as well as rheumatism.  When I find my fortune I am going back home, and I’ll buy something for Sammie and Susie Littletail, and for Johnnie and Billie Bushytail, and for all my other animal friends, including Grandfather Goosey Gander.  That’s what I’ll do when I find my fortune.”

“Very good,” said the porcupine, and then he got up and washed his face and paws.  And he wiped them on the towel after the old gentleman rabbit, instead of before him, for you see when the porcupine soaked up the water off his face he left some of his stickery-stockery quills sticking in the towel, and if Uncle Wiggily had used it then he might have been scratched.  But, as it was, the rabbit didn’t even get tickled, and very glad of it he was, too.  Oh, my, yes, and some pepper hash in addition.

Well, Uncle Wiggily and the porcupine had their breakfast and then they started off.  They hadn’t gone very far before they met a locust sitting on the low limb of a tree.  And this locust was buzzing his wings like an electric fan, and making more noise than you could shake your handkerchief at on a Tuesday morning.

“Why do you do that?” asked the rabbit.

“To keep myself cool,” said the locust.  “I am fanning myself with my buzzy wings for it is going to be a very hot day.”

“Then we must keep in the shade as we travel along,” said the porcupine, and that is what he and the old gentleman rabbit did.  And it is a good thing they did so, for, as they walked along where it was cool and dark, beneath clumps of ferns, and under big, tall trees, they passed by a place where a bad snake lived.

“Look out!  There’s the snake’s hole!” cried Uncle Wiggily, and he jumped to one side.

“Ha!  I’m ready for him!” called the porcupine, and he got some of his stickery quills ready to jab into the snake.  But the snake was out on a big rock, sunning himself in the hot sun, though when he heard the rabbit and porcupine talking he made a jump for them and tried to catch them.