"Thank you kindly," said the rabbit gentleman to the little girl, and then she went in wading, and a wave splashed up all over her, no matter if her dress was above her knees, and her mamma called to her to be more careful, and not to get so wet.
So Uncle Wiggily began to dig. Deeper and deeper he dug in the sand, while the grasshopper watched him. And every few minutes Uncle Wiggily would look down the hole to see if there was any gold among the grains of sand, but there wasn't any.
All around were children having lots of fun. One boy made a tunnel, and then he played that some sticks of wood were steam cars and he pushed them through the tunnel and puffed out his cheeks to pretend it was the engine choo-chooing.
And a little girl made a garden in the sand, with seaweed for flowers and clam-shells for a house, and she and another little girl had a play-party. Oh, it was great fun!
Then a big boy stretched out on the sand, and another boy covered him all up, from the tips of his toes to the tips of his nose, and he left his nose out so the boy could breathe. Well, the grasshopper and Uncle Wiggily looked at all this fun going on and they were happy as they could be. And the rabbit kept on digging the hole down in the sand, hoping he would soon come to the gold.
And then all of a sudden, before you could count up to forty-'leven, the hole which Uncle Wiggily was digging filled up with water, just like a well.
"Oh, my!" exclaimed the rabbit. "This is certainly bad luck. Now I can't find any gold. What am I to do?"
"I guess you'll have to dig another hole," said the grasshopper. "But perhaps there is gold at the bottom of this one, after all. Let's get a pail and dip out the water, then we may see the gold."
So the little girl who had loaned the rabbit her shovel let Uncle Wiggily take her pail to dip out the water. But the funny part of it was that the faster he dipped out the water the more came in, until there was enough for two wells. Then even the grasshopper helped dip out the water with another little pail, but it did no good.
The rabbit and the grasshopper were both so interested in what they were doing that they didn't notice a big crab crawling up behind them, and the first thing they knew Uncle Wiggily felt some one pinch him on his little short tail.