“Because I wished Uncle Wiggily were here to chase me, or play tag, or something! I’m so afraid he’ll get old and stiff.”
“Well, why don’t you hop off in the woods and meet him?” asked Nurse Jane of the lively little rabbit girl. Baby Bunty could hardly ever keep still. “If you go to meet him you’ll see him hopping along with the molasses jug,” went on the muskrat lady, “and then he’ll chase you, or play tag or let you help him carry the sweet stuff I’m going to put in a cake.”
“I’ll do that,” said Baby Bunty, and away she hopped with her rubber doll named Beatrice Ethelmore Lemonsqueezer.
As she was hopping through the woods to meet Uncle Wiggily, all of a sudden Baby Bunty heard, near a little spring of water, a sad voice crying:
“Oh, I’m so wet! Oh, if some one would only help me out of the water!”
“Some one is drowning!” said Baby Bunty. “I wonder if I could save them?”
On a bed of soft, green moss, she put her wax doll, Sarah Ann Belinda Washbasin, and hurried to the side of the little spring. There Baby Bunty saw a poor honey bee splashing in the water.
“I’ll save you!” kindly said the little rabbit girl. With a long stick she fished the half-drowned bee out of the pool, and placed him on a leaf in the sun where his wings could dry.
“Thank you for saving me,” buzzed the bee, when he had shaken off some of the water. “I shall be glad to do you a favor, if I may. Do you want me to make you some honey?”
“Oh, thank you, no; not now,” answered Baby Bunty. “Uncle Wiggily is bringing home the molasses jug. But some other time we may want your honey.”