"Ha! Ha!" laughed Jackie. "What a joke on that bear! I didn't have a real gun at all. It's only a wooden one, with which I was playing hunt Indians. But he thought it was a real one, and he was so scared that he let you go. Ha! Ha! Ho! Ho!"
"It's a good thing you came along when you did," said his brother Peetie. "We were just looking for grandpa's house. I was lost, you know, and couldn't find my way back."
"I know you were and I was looking for you," spoke Jackie. Then Peetie told him about the alligator and where he had been with Uncle Wiggily, and Jackie was very glad to see his brother and the old gentleman rabbit again, and he was soon ready to show them the way to his grandpa's house.
But they had forgotten about the grasshopper in the Jack-in-the-Pulpit, and a very curious thing happened to that poor insect. I'll tell you about it on the next page, when the Bedtime Story will be named "Uncle Wiggily and the Red Monkey;" that is, if the rubber ball doesn't bounce into the rice pudding and scatter it all over the clean tablecloth.
STORY XIX
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE MONKEY
Uncle Wiggily, with Peetie and Jackie Bow-Wow, was walking along the road toward the puppy dogs' grandpa's house, and they were talking how Jackie had made the black bear run away by pointing a make-believe wooden gun at the savage creature. All at once the old gentleman rabbit exclaimed:
"That grasshopper!"