"Why, what can be the matter?" he cried. "I'm all in the dark! Let's see where was I? Oh, I remember, I found a cabbage, and I began to eat it, and I went inside it—And land sakes, goodness me and a trolley car! I'm inside it now!" he cried, as he smelled the cabbage. "I'm shut in the cabbage just as if I was shut in a closet! However did it happen?" and he tried to turn around, and make his way out, but he couldn't, because the stone which the fox had stuffed in the hole closed it up too tight.
"I'm locked in!" cried Buddy Pigg. "Locked in a cabbage! Isn't it terrible!" and of course it was, and no fooling, either.
Well, Buddy Pigg was a brave little chap, and instead of sitting down and crying there in the dark, he began to think of how he could get out. He thought of all sorts of ways, but none of them seemed any good, and at last he decided to try to burst the cabbage open. But it was too strong and thick, and he couldn't do it.
He soon discovered, however, that, wiggling around inside it as he did, made the cabbage wiggle too, and the first thing you know the cabbage began to roll down the hill, just like a man in a barrel.
Faster and faster went the cabbage down the hill, over and over, with Buddy inside, and he began to get dizzy, for he didn't know what was happening.
Then, at that moment, who should come along but that bad fox and his wife. The cabbage seemed to be rolling straight at them.
"My sakes alive!" cried Mrs. Fox. "What is that, Oscar?" You see her husband's name was Oscar.
"I don't know," he replied, "but don't bother about it. We'll go and get that guinea pig." So they kept on, but just then the cabbage bounded over a little clod of dirt, went up in the air, and nearly hit Mr. Fox, and that scared him so that he ran away, and his wife ran after him.
Well, the cabbage, with Buddy inside, kept on rolling, and the first thing you know it began to roll down hill in front of the guinea pigs' pen. It made quite a noise, and Matilda ran out to see what it was.
"Oh, mamma!" she cried. "Here is a cabbage rolling down hill."