And then everybody ate up his piece of cake as fast as he could to find the little gold ring. "I've got it! I've got it!" screamed Timmy Chipmunk. But, oh, dear me. It wasn't the ring at all. It was only a hard nut.
And the little chipmunk was so disappointed that he ran home to tell his mother all about it, and she gave him one she had found when she was a little girl in the toe of her stocking one happy Christmas morning. And in the next story you'll be surprised to hear who got the ring after all.
STORY XXXII.
BILLY BUNNY AND THE LOST RING.
Something's going to happen;
I feel it in the air.
But what it is you soon shall know,
So hold your breath and stare.
You remember in the last story I told you about Billy Bunny's birthday party and promised to tell you who found the little gold ring in the frosted cake.
Well, just as the little rabbit said, "I've found it!" Daddy Fox sprang from behind a bush and grabbed the piece of cake right out of the little rabbit's paw.
And then he jumped over the Luckymobile and ran off to his den to give it to Slyboots or Bushy Tail, his two little sons, you know, but which one got it I can't remember, for everybody was so excited that they forgot to ask the naughty old fox before he got away.
"That's too bad," said kind Uncle Lucky; "I'll have to get you another one," so he said good-by to everybody and took Billy Bunny down to the 3 and 10 cents store, where they bought a lovely gold ring with a big ruby in it. Wasn't that nice?
And then they came back to the woods, but everybody had gone home and there was no more birthday cake anywhere to be seen, not even a little piece of candle.