"Did I do what?" asked the bird.
"Did you stick the kittie, and make it cry?"
"Oh, no," answered the bird. "I made that cat-crying noise myself. I am a cat-bird, you know," and surely enough that bird went "Mew! Mew! Mew!" three times, just like that, exactly as if a cat had cried under your window, when you were trying to go to sleep.
"Ha! That is very strange!" exclaimed the rabbit. "So you are a cat-bird."
"Yes, and my little birds are kittie-birds," was the answer. "I'll show you."
So the bird went "Mew! Mew! Mew!" again, and a lot of the little birds came flying around and they all went "Mew! Mew!" too, just like kitties. Oh, I tell you cat-birds are queer things! and how they do love cherries when they are ripe! Eh?
"That is very good crying, birdies," said Uncle Wiggily, "and I think I'll give you something to eat, to pay for it." So he took out from his valise some peanuts, that Percival, the circus dog, had given him, and Uncle Wiggily fed them to the cat-bird and her kittie-birds.
"You are very kind," said the mamma bird, "and if we can ever do you a favor we will."
And now listen, as the telephone girl says, those birds are going to do Uncle Wiggily a favor in a short time—a very short time indeed.
Well, after the birds had eaten all the peanuts they flew away, and Uncle Wiggily started off once more. He hadn't gone very far before he came to a fountain. You know what that is. It's a thing in a park that squirts up water, just like when you fill a rubber ball with milk or lemonade and squeeze it. Only a fountain is bigger, of course.