"Oh, please don't run over me!" the voice cried. "Please be careful!" And, looking down, Sammie saw a little black cricket on the path just ahead of the auto, which Uncle Wiggily was now making go very slowly.
"Why don't you get out of the way if you don't want to be run over?" asked Susie, politely, for the cricket just stood still there, looking at them, and not making a move.
"Oh, I'm so stiff from the cold that I can't hop about any more," said the cricket, "or else I would hop out of the way. You know I can't stand cold weather."
"That's too bad," said Uncle Wiggily as he stopped the auto. "I'll give you a ride, and perhaps I can find some warm place for you to spend the winter."
So the old gentleman rabbit kindly picked up the cold and stiff cricket and gave it to Susie, and Susie gently put it in the warm pocket of her jacket, and there it was so nice and cozy-ozy that the cricket went fast to sleep.
And then, in about forty-'leven squeak-squawk toots of the big mooley-cow automobile horn, there they were at the home of Johnnie and Billy Bushytail, the squirrel brothers.
"Toot! Toot!" tooted Uncle Wiggily on his tooter-tooter mooley-cow horn.
"There! I guess that will bring out the boys if they are in the house," said the old gentleman rabbit.
And then, all of a sudden, something happened. Susie and Sammie were looking at the front door, expecting Johnnie and Billie to come out, when Susie saw a great big bear's face up at one window of the squirrel house.