"That may be a bear, or a burglar fox talking that way just to catch me," he whispered to himself. "I had better go slowly. I'll just peek through the bushes, before I go any closer, and see who it is."
Then Jumpo looked through the bushes. And whom do you s'pose he saw, sitting on a stump near a little spring of water? Well, I don't believe you'd ever guess, so I'm going to tell you. It was Uncle Wiggily Longears, the old gentleman rabbit, and Uncle Wiggily was looking at the spring of water and saying: "Oh, dear!" so many times that Jumpo couldn't count them.
"Ha! There is no danger for me now!" exclaimed the green monkey boy. "I must go and help him. Why, what is the matter, Uncle Wiggily?" asked Jumpo as he walked toward him.
"Oh, it is you; is it, Jumpo?" spoke the rabbit. "Well, I am very glad to see you. But, oh dear! how thirsty I am. I ate some salted muskmelon with pepper cabbage sauce on it for dinner, and I am so thirsty that I don't know what to do."
"But why don't you drink, when you are so close to a spring of water?" asked Jumpo.
"Ah, why indeed?" said Uncle Wiggily. "Well, the truth of the matter is that I have no drinking cup; so how can I get a drink?"
"That is easy," said Jumpo. "Do as we boys do. Lie down flat on your face, and sip up the water. Here, I'll show you," and Jumpo stretched out on the ground, and took a long drink from the spring.
"Very fine—for you," said Uncle Wiggily. "I tried that way, but every time I began to sip up the water it squirted up my nose, and that tickles me, and I have to sneeze, and when I sneeze I can't drink. No one could. You just try it. Sneeze, please."
So Jumpo did, and surely enough he couldn't drink and sneeze at the same time.
"Did you try to dip up some in the top of your hat?" asked Jumpo.