“My!” cried the pussy, “it’s a good thing we had the camp fire, or we would have been eaten up.”

“Indeed it is,” said the rabbit.  “I’ll keep it blazing all night.”  So he did this, and no more wushky-woshkys came to bother them.  And in the morning the pussy and the rabbit traveled on together and they had quite an adventure.

What it was I’ll relate to you almost immediately, when, in case a little girl named Elizabeth learns how to swim by standing on one toe and holding a red balloon under water, I’ll tell you about Uncle Wiggily and the cowbird.

STORY XXX

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE COWBIRD

“Do you think you can help me find my way back home again?” asked the pussy of Uncle Wiggily as they awakened the next morning, after having spent the night in the woods by the camp fire.

“Oh, I’m sure I can,” answered the rabbit.  “As soon as we have our breakfast we’ll start off to look for your clothespin house.”

Then Uncle Wiggily made up the camp fire again, putting on some more wood, and he boiled the coffee, in a tomato can, and fried some pieces of bacon he had in his valise.  The way he cooked them was to take a sharp stick and put a piece of bacon on the end of it, and then he held the bacon up in front of the blaze, where it sizzled away, and got nice and curly and brown, and oh! how good it did smell, and so did the coffee!  Oh! it’s great to cook over a camp fire when the smoke doesn’t get in your eyes and when it doesn’t rain.

“Now we must put out the fire,” said the rabbit, as he and the pussy were ready to go look for the clothespin house.

“Why must we do that, Uncle Wiggily?”

“Oh, so that it will not set fire to the woods, and burn down the nice trees after we are gone.  Always put out your camp fire when you leave it,” said the rabbit, as he threw water on the blaze, making clouds of steam.

Well, he and the pussy traveled on for some time longer together, but somehow or other they couldn’t seem to find the place where the pussy lived, and the little cat was beginning to be sorry that she had gone camping in the woods.

“Oh, I know I’ll never find my home again!” she cried.

“Oh, yes, we will,” said the rabbit kindly.  “Don’t worry.”

And just then they heard some one else crying, a little, tiny, sobbing voice.

“What’s that?” exclaimed the pussy.  “Perhaps it is one of the skillery-scalery alligator’s children.”

“No, I do not think so,” said the rabbit.  “It sounds to me as if some one else were lost in the woods, and I may have to find their home, too.  We’ll take a look.”

So they looked all around, but they couldn’t seem to find any one, though the crying was still to be heard.

“That’s queer,” said the rabbit, “I’ll call to them.”

So he called as loudly as he could like this: