“An orange cake?” cried Uncle Wiggily, his pink nose twinkling. “How nice! Where did you get the oranges?”
“Up on the Orange Mountains, to be sure,” answered the muskrat lady, with a laugh. “I have made two orange cakes, to tell the exact truth, which I always do. There is one for us and I wanted to send one to Dr. Possum, who was so good to cure you of the rheumatism, when the cow with the crumpled horn pulled the hard cork out of the medicine bottle for us.”
“Send an orange cake to Dr. Possum? The very thing! Oh, fine!” cried the bunny uncle. “I’ll take it right over to him. Put it in a basket, so it will not take cold, Nurse Jane.”
The muskrat lady wrapped the orange cake in a clean napkin, and then put it in the basket for Uncle Wiggily to carry to Dr. Possum.
Off started the old rabbit gentleman, over the woods and through the fields—oh, excuse me just a minute. He did not go over the woods this time. He only did that when he had his airship, which he was not using to-day, for fear of spilling the oranges out of the cake. So he went over the fields and through the woods to Dr. Possum’s office.
“Well, I wonder if I will have any adventure to-day?” thought the old rabbit gentleman, as he hopped along. “I hope I do, for——”
And then he suddenly stopped thinking and listened, for he heard a dog barking, and a voice was sadly saying:
“Oh, dear! It’s too bad, I know it is, but I can’t help it. It’s that way in the book, so you’ll have to go hungry.”
Then the dog barked again and Uncle Wiggily said:
“More trouble for some one. I hope it isn’t the bad dog who used to bother me. I wonder if I can help any one?”