Still there was nothing else to be done. If it had been spring he could have gotten some sweet maple sugar sap from a tree, but the sap had stopped running.
“I guess molasses is what she’ll have to use,” said the bunny, as he hopped around the back way into his hollow stump bungalow. “I’ll take one last look at my red tulip,” he said. He wanted to put off, as long as possible, telling Nurse Jane the bad news.
Uncle Wiggily reached the garden. His red tulip had closed up its petals. Just as he had expected, until the blossom looked more like a bud than a full flower. And, as Uncle Wiggily looked at the red tulip he heard, coming from it, a voice which said:
“Let me out! Oh, please, let me out!”
“Who are you and where are you?” asked the rabbit gentleman in surprise.
“I am a buzzing bee and I am inside the red tulip,” was the answer. “I was getting a bit of yellow pollen on my legs, to help make wax, when the tulip flower suddenly closed its petals and I’m caught.”
“Yes, that is just what happened,” said the red tulip. “I’m sorry, but it couldn’t be helped. I’d open my petals and let you out, my dear bee, but I can not, I can not open my petals until morning.”
“Ah, but I can open them and I will, and I’ll let the bee out,” said Uncle Wiggily. “But I’ll do so very gently, my dear red tulip. I will not hurt you.”
Very carefully Uncle Wiggily opened the red tulip and out flew the buzzing bee.
“Thank you, Uncle Wiggily,” it said. And then it went on: “But why do you look so sad and worried?”