“I hope it’s something good,” he said, “to make up for not having an adventure.”

“Don’t you call that an adventure—­lifting the stone off the Jack-in-the-Pulpit so he could grow?” asked a bird, sitting up in a tree.

“Well, that was a little adventure.” said Uncle Wiggily.  “But I want one more exciting; a big one.”

And he is going to have one in about a minute.  Just you wait and you’ll hear all about it.

The sun was shining hotter and hotter, and Uncle Wiggily was thinking that it was about time to get out his extra-thin fur coat when, all of a sudden, he felt something very hot behind him.

“Why, that sun is really burning!” cried the bunny.  Then he heard a little ant boy, who was crawling on the ground, cry out: 

“Fire!  Fire!  Fire!  Uncle Wiggily’s bundle of groceries is on fire!  Fire!  Fire!”

“Oh, my!” cried the bunny uncle, as he felt hotter and hotter, “The sun must have set fire to the box of matches.  Oh, what shall I do?” He dropped his bundle of groceries, and looking around at them he saw, surely enough, the matches were on fire.  They were all blazing.

“Call the fire department!  Get out the water bugs!” cried the little ant boy.  “Fire!  Water!  Water!  Fire!”

“That’s what I want—­water,” cried the bunny uncle.  “Oh, if I could find a spring of water.  I could put the blazing matches, save some of them, perhaps, and surely save the bread and crackers.  Oh, for some water!”

Uncle Wiggily and the ant boy ran here and there in the woods looking for a spring of water.  But they could find none, and the bread and crackers were just beginning to burn when a voice cried: 

“Here is water, Uncle Wiggily!”

“Where?  Where?” asked the rabbit gentleman, all excited like.  “Where?”

“Inside my pulpit,” was the answer, and Uncle Wiggily saw, not far away, the Jack-plant he had helped from under the stone.

“When it rained a while ago, my pitcher-pulpit became filled with water,” went on Jack.  “If you will just tip me over, sideways, I’ll splash the water on the blazing matches and put them out.”

“I’ll do it!” cried Uncle Wiggily, and he quickly did.  The pulpit held water as good as a milk pitcher could, and when the water splashed on the fire that fire gave one hiss, like a goose, and went out.

“Oh, you certainly did me a favor, Mr. Pulpit-Jack,” said Uncle Wiggily.  “Though the matches are burned, the bread and crackers are saved, and I can get more matches.”  Which he did, so Nurse Jane could make a fire in the stove.

So you see Uncle Wiggily had an adventure after all, and quite an exciting one, too, and if the lemon drop doesn’t fall on the stick of peppermint candy and make it sneeze when it goes to the moving pictures, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the violets.

STORY VI