Around the pump;
Now we'll say good-by."
"Why, what in the world did you say that for?" asked Uncle Wiggily of the grasshopper as the insect finished his song. "There is no one here to whom we can say good-by, and not a sign of a pump."
"I know it, but you see I'm just making believe," replied the cheerful little fellow, turning one somersault and part of another one.
"Oh, then that's different," agreed the old gentleman rabbit, as he stooped over to take a stone out of his shoe. And, just as he did so there came bouncing down out of a tall tree a big green hickory nut, and it almost hit Uncle Wiggily on the end of his twinkling nose.
"Hum!" exclaimed the grasshopper, as he crawled under a big leaf in order to be out of danger, "some one is throwing things at us. I wonder who it can be?"
"I don't know," answered the rabbit, and then he and the grasshopper looked up in a tree, but they could see no one. So they went on a little farther, and pretty soon Uncle Wiggily got another stone in his shoe. He stooped over to take it out when slam-bang! down came a green butternut this time, and it struck him on the end of his left ear.
"This must stop!" cried the old gentleman rabbit. "If it doesn't, the first thing we know there will be cocoanuts falling down on us and then we will be hurt."
"Oh, I think there are no monkeys around here to throw cocoanuts at us," said the grasshopper, "but this is certainly very strange. Perhaps it is the alligator or the fuzzy fox up in a tree trying to hurt us by throwing the little nuts."
"Perhaps," agreed Uncle Wiggily. "Well, we will hurry on, and get out of these woods." So they hurried all they could, but as it happened the grasshopper got a big wooden splinter in his left front leg and it took him and Uncle Wiggily quite a while to get it out, and when at last they did so, it was almost night.