"Please do not jump in, or drink until I come. Alice from Wonderland."
"Ha! That is strange," thought Uncle Wiggily. "Alice must have been here and put up that sign. But I wonder why she did it? If she knew how warm and thirsty I was she would not make me wait until she came to get a drink. Perhaps it is all a joke, and not her writing at all. One of the bad skillery-scalery alligators or the fuzzy fox may have put up the sign to fool me."
But when the rabbit gentleman took a second look at the birch bark sign he saw that it really was Alice's writing.
"Well, she must have some reason for it," said the bunny, with a sigh. "She dreamed right about two fat boys—Tweedledum and Tweedledee—saving me from the alligators, so she must have some reason for asking me to wait until she comes. But I am very thirsty."
Uncle Wiggily sat down on the green, mossy bank beside the spring of water and looked at it. And it seemed so cool and wet, and he was so thirsty, that it was all he could do to keep from jumping in and having a bath, as well as drinking all he wanted.
The sun grew hotter and more hot, and the rabbit gentleman more and more thirsty, and he didn't know what to do when, all of a sudden, out from the bushes jumped a bad old black bear.
"Ah, ha!" growled the bear. "I am just in time, I see!" and he ran his red tongue over his white teeth as though giving it a trolley ride in a baby carriage.
"In time for what?" asked Uncle Wiggily, casual like and make-believe indifferent.
"In time for lunch," answered the bear. "I was afraid I'd be a little late. I hope I haven't kept you waiting."