After taking the milk home for Susie, and drying out his hat at Mrs. Littletail’s fire, Uncle Wiggily started off again with Uncle Butter. They reached the duck pond where a monkey doodle gentleman let them get in his boat to have a ride. All of a sudden, when they were a long way from shore, the monkey stopped rowing and cried: “Oh, we are sinking! There’s a leak in the boat and I can’t dip out the water!”
“What’s that?” cried the bunny gentleman. “A leak in the boat!” The monkey sorrowfully said there was. “What can we use to dip out the water while we row to shore?” asked Uncle Butter. “Why, my tall silk hat, of course!” laughed Uncle Wiggily. “If it holds milk it will hold water.” So he bailed out the boat while the goat and monkey rowed to shore, and Jackie Bow Wow watched them.
Uncle Wiggily’s hat was so useful dipping the water out of the leaking boat that it did not sink, and the bunny and goat were soon safely on shore. But there they found more trouble. Jackie Bow Wow’s bag of sugar had burst, and the sweet grains were running out on the ground. “Oh, Uncle Wiggily! What shall I do?” asked the puppy dog boy. “Mother will scold me for spilling her cake sugar!”
“Quick, Uncle Butter!” cried the rabbit gentleman, as he saw what had happened. “You hold up the bag of sugar and I’ll catch the grains in my hat. We’ll save most of it!” So the goat gentleman held the bag, which Jackie handed him, and Uncle Wiggily thrust his hat under the stream of sugar. The wind and hot sun had soon dried the bunny’s hat so the sugar wouldn’t be sticky. Everything was fine!
Uncle Wiggily took his hat full of sugar to Jackie’s house for the little doggie boy, and Mrs. Bow Wow, the dog lady, thanked the bunny. “I never knew how useful a tall silk hat could be,” she said. “Nor I,” agreed Uncle Butter. “I rather made fun of Uncle Wiggily, but I never will again.” Then the two animal gentlemen went to call on Mrs. Twistytail, the pig lady, who had been picking flowers.