Now, if our cook makes some nice watermelon sandwiches, with maple syrup on them, for supper, I'll tell you in the next story about Uncle Wiggily and old dog Percival, and why Percival cried.
STORY XVI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND PERCIVAL
Now I'm going to tell you, before I forget it, why old dog Percival was crying that time when he came to the little stone house where the hedgehog lived, and where Uncle Wiggily gave him some cherry pie. And the reason Percival was crying, was because he had stepped on a sharp stone, and hurt his foot.
"But I don't in the least mind now," said Percival, after he had eaten about sixty-'leven pieces of the pie. "My foot is all better."
"I should think that cherry pie would make almost any one better," said the hedgehog, laughing with joy, for he felt better, too. "I know some bad boys to whom I'm going to give some cherry pie, and I hope it makes them better. And to think I threw away the good part of the cherries and cooked the stones in the pie. Oh, excuse me while I laugh again!"
And the hedgehog laughed so hard that he spilled some of the red cherry pie juice on his shirt front, but he didn't care, for he had another shirt.
Well, Uncle Wiggily and Percival, the old circus dog, stayed for some days at the home of the hedgehog, and they had cherry pie, or fritters with maple syrup, at almost every meal. Then, finally, Uncle Wiggily said:
"Well, I guess I must travel on. I can't find my fortune here. I must start off to-morrow."