But, by this time, the fire was so hot that, when Mr. Littletail had the water, he could not get near enough to toss it on the blaze.
“Oh, what shall we do!” cried his wife. “Our house will burn down! Oh, I must save what I can!”
So she threw the clock and a lot of her best dishes out of the window, and they were broken, I am sorry to say. Then Mrs. Littletail carefully carried out the feather bed. You see she was so excited that she did things backwards. She should have thrown the feather bed out of the window, for that would not break. And she ought to have carried the clock and dishes down stairs in her apron.
Hotter and hotter grew the fire, and the rabbit house was beginning to smoke and blaze.
“Call out the water bug fire department!” shouted Grandfather Goosey Gander. But the water bugs had gone away on an excursion, and could not come.
“Oh, my lovely house will burn!” cried Mrs. Littletail.
“No, I know how to save it!” shouted Sammie. “I’ll go get Uncle Wiggily Longears in his airship. We can go up in the air over the fire and spill a pail of water on it. He won’t be burned as he will be so high up, but the water will put out the fire.”
“Go and get him quickly then!” shouted Mr. Littletail hopping up and down on his big ears.
Uncle Wiggily came sailing along in his airship right away when Sammie called him. The rabbit gentleman took up with him many pails of water, and when he had steered his airship high up over the fire, where he was out of danger, Uncle Wiggily spilled down the water, just like rain from the clouds, and the fire hissed like a snake, and went out.
The brush was all burned up, of course, and the Littletail house was scorched on the roof, but not very much. Uncle Wiggily had put it out just in time.