“Oh!  I have only just begun to grow,” was the answer.  “And I never would have been a flower if you had not taken the stone from me.  You see, when I was a baby flower, or seed, I was covered up in my warm bed of earth.  Then came the cold winter, and I went to sleep.  When spring came I awakened and began to grow, but in the meanwhile this stone was put over me.  I don’t know by whom.  But it held me down.

“But now I am free, and my pale green leaves will turn to dark green, and soon I will blossom out into a flower.”

“How will all that happen?” Uncle Wiggily asked.

“When the sunbeam shines on me,” answered the blossom.  “That is why I wanted to get above the stone—­so the sunbeam could shine on me and warm me.”

“And I will begin to do it right now!” exclaimed the sunbeam, who had been playing about on the leaves of the trees, waiting for a chance to shine on the green plant and turn it into a beautiful flower.  “Thank you, Uncle Wiggily, for taking the stone off the leaves so I could shine on them,” went on the sunbeam, who had known Uncle Wiggily for some time.  “Though I am strong I am not strong enough to lift stones, nor was the flower.  But now I can do my work.  I thank you, and I hope I may do you a favor some time.”

“Thank you,” Uncle Wiggily said, with a low bow, raising his tall silk hat.  “I suppose you sunbeams are kept very busy shining on, and warming, all the plants and trees in the woods?”

“Yes, indeed!” answered the yellow sunbeam, who was a long, straight chap.  “We have lots of work to do, but we are never too busy to shine for our friends.”

Then the sunbeam played about the little green plant, turning the pale leaves a darker color and swelling out the tiny buds.  Uncle Wiggily walked on through the woods, glad that he had had even this little adventure.

It was a day or so after this that the bunny uncle went to the store for Nurse Jane Fuzzy Wuzzy, the muskrat lady, who kept his hollow stump bungalow so nice and tidy.

“I want a loaf of bread, a yeast cake and three pounds of sugar,” said Nurse Jane.

“It will give me great pleasure to get them for you,” answered the rabbit gentleman politely.  On his way home from the store with the sugar, bread and yeast cake, Uncle Wiggily thought he would hop past the place where he had lifted the stone off the head of the plant, to see how it was growing.  And, as he stood there, looking at the flower, which was much taller than when the bunny uncle had last seen it, all of a sudden there was a rustling in the bushes, and out jumped a bad old fox.

“Ah, ha!” barked the fox, like a dog.  “You are just the one I want to see!”

“You want to see me?” exclaimed Uncle Wiggily.  “I think you must be mistaken,” he went on politely.

“Oh, no, not at all!” barked the fox.  “You have there some sugar, some bread and a yeast cake; have you not?”