Faster and faster down the hill rolled the melon, with Uncle Wiggily in it, and then the bear saw one of the rabbit's paws sticking out of a crack.
"Oh, ho! You have fooled me!" cried the bear to the grasshopper. "Now, I'll chase after that melon and get the rabbit, too!"
So the bear started down the hill after the melon, but his foot slipped and he slid down, oh, so fast, that he got to the bottom of the hill first. There he stood waiting for Uncle Wiggily. But a queer thing happened. The melon hit a stone, burst open and out flew the rabbit on a pile of soft sand. But the pieces of the melon hit the bear on his soft and tender nose, and he thought he was surely killed, and off he ran to the woods howling and growling. So that's how Uncle Wiggily escaped from the bear, for the old gentleman rabbit wasn't hurt a bit for all his tumble.
Then he washed the pieces of melon off his clothes, and traveled on again, with the grasshopper, to seek his fortune. And he had another advantage soon. I'll tell you about it very shortly, when, in case the ice man doesn't go skating and forget to leave us a loaf of bread, the next Bedtime story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the Katy-Did.
STORY XV
UNCLE WIGGILY AND KATE-DID
"Well, what are we going to do to-day?" asked the grasshopper of Uncle Wiggily, as they sat down to breakfast one sunny morning, after a rain the night before.
"Oh, I suppose I must keep on searching for some gold or diamonds for my fortune," answered the old gentleman rabbit. "But I am getting quite tired of going around so much and finding nothing. I'll keep it up a week or so longer, and then, if I don't find any money, I'm going back home, anyhow. I'm quite lonesome for Sammie and Susie Littletail and all of my friends."