It did not take Uncle Wiggily and Baby Bunty long to get to the duck house, and there Mrs. Wibblewobble had the sugar wrapped up in a paper bag for them. Then, once more, Mr. Longears and Bunty started through the dark woods.
“Oh, what’s that?” suddenly asked the little rabbit girl, stopping and pointing ahead.
“Nothing but an old stump,” said Uncle Wiggily. “Come on!” They went along a little farther, and Baby Bunty all of a sudden cried:
“Oh, look! There’s a giant!”
“Nonsense!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “That’s only a big rock that looks like a giant. Hop along!”
They hopped along a little farther, and, all at once, Baby Bunty gave a backward jump, bunked into Uncle Wiggily so hard that she burst the paper bag, letting the sugar spill out, and she cried:
“Oh, what’s that big, tall, white thing waving its arms at us on the path? Oh, Uncle Wiggily! What is it? What is it?”
Baby Bunty snuggled close up against the rabbit gentleman. Uncle Wiggily looked once, he looked twice and he looked three times at the white thing. Truly it did seem to be waving its arms in the dark. Then Uncle Wiggily laughed.
“Why, that is only a white birch-bark tree, Baby Bunty,” he said. “You mustn’t be afraid of a white birch tree. And I’m glad we came to this one. With some of the loose bark I can make a new bag for the sugar. And I’ll be glad to do it, for the sugar is running down my leg and it tickles like sand at the seashore.”
So Uncle Wiggily made a bag from the white birch bark, put the sugar in it, and he and Baby Bunty were soon safe in the hollow stump bungalow. And if the cough drop doesn’t fall off toadstool and tickle rice pudding under the chin when they’re in the moving pictures, I’ll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the little pond.