“No more hailstones can bother me!” cried the rabbit gentleman. “See, I am going to fasten an umbrella over my toy balloons, and then no hailstones can hit them.” And he whistled more cheerfully than before.
“Well, I do declare!” exclaimed Nurse Jane. “You are surely odd!”
Uncle Wiggily really was fastening a Japanese umbrella over his funny clothes basket airship.
“The umbrella will keep off the sun as well as the rain and hail,” he said happy-like.
Well, the old gentleman rabbit was just getting ready to go up in his airship again, when, from among the leaves of a tree that grew in his garden, he heard a voice saying:
“Now, birdies, it is time you learned to fly. Stand on the limb, where our nest is built, flutter your wings as I do, and jump off. Keep your wings fluttering and you will be flying.”
“Oh, but we are afraid!” cried several tiny chirping voices.
“Ha! That is a mother bird teaching her little ones to fly,” said Uncle Wiggily, as he looked up. “I must watch this. I love little birds.”
“Don’t be afraid,” said the mamma bird to the children birds. “You will not fall. When I was a little bird I was afraid, too, but nothing happened to me and I have been flying ever since. Come now, jump off the tree branch into the air.”