Well, it was a few days after Percival had come to pay a little visit to the Pigg family that something happened to Buddy, and I'm going to tell you about it.
You see, it had been raining pretty hard for a week or more—yes, nearly two weeks, and it didn't seem as if it was ever going to stop. There had been thunder showers and lightning showers and hail showers and just plain rain showers, and they were all more or less wet; and when it did finally stop raining there was a lot of water all over.
One day, the first day, in fact, after it stopped raining, Buddy was taking a walk, and glad enough he was to be out of the pen. He strolled along, letting the warm sun and the gentle wind dry his black and white fur, and he was thinking of, oh! ever so many things, when, all at once, he came to a little pond; only this time it was a great big pond, because it had so much water in it. And on the shore of the pond was a boat that some boys had been playing with.
"Oh, fine!" cried Buddy Pigg. "I'll get in and make believe I'm a sailor, just as Billie and Johnnie Bushytail and Jennie Chipmunk did once. I've always wanted a ride in a boat, and now's my chance!"
So he climbed into the boat, and he made believe he was sailing away off to China, where they make firecrackers and fans, and then, when he was half-way there (make believe, you know), why, he turned around and sailed for India, where it's very hot; but all this while the boat was partly on the bank and partly in the water, and Buddy only rocked it from side to side, pretending it was moving.
Well, after he reached India, what did he do but find it so hot there that he turned around at once and sailed for the North Pole, so he could be nice and cool.
Then, all at once, as quickly as you can eat an ice cream cone on a hot day, if something didn't happen. Buddy looked up, after reaching the North Pole, and he found that the boat was adrift, floating off across the big pond, with the wind blowing it faster, and faster, and faster.
At first Buddy thought it was fun; then, as he saw that he was getting farther and farther from shore, he became frightened. He looked for something with which to send the boat back to land, but there was no sail in it, and no oars; and, if there had been, the little guinea pig boy couldn't have used them, I don't suppose. Well, there he was, really sailing off to some unknown country this time, in earnest, and not make believe.
Then he began to cry, and he called out as loudly as he could:
"Help! Help! Help!" and who should come running down to the shore but Peetie and Jackie Bow Wow, the two puppy dogs. They hadn't gone to Asbury Park yet, you see, but they were going soon.