"I'm afraid I'll have indigestion," the cow lady answered. "And that will make my milk bad and sour. Oh, dear! I wish I knew where my cud was!"
"How did you come to lose it—or miss it?" asked the bunny.
"Why, I was watching Bully and Bawly No-Tail, the two frog boys, hopping down by the brook," the cow lady said. "They were playing leap-toad, you know—or, perhaps, it was leap-frog; and Bully made such a funny jump over Bawly's back that I laughed right out loud. I was chewing my cud at the time, and when I stopped laughing I missed it. Now whether I swallowed it, or whether it dropped in the brook, I don't know. Isn't that dreadful?"
"Can't you tell by the way you feel—inside, you know," asked the bunny, "what became of your cud?"
"Not for some little time," answered the cow lady, "and then it will be too late. Oh, if only I could find my cud somewhere in this meadow I'd know I hadn't swallowed it, and I'd be all right."
"I know just how you feel," said Uncle Wiggily. "Once, when Susie Littletail, the rabbit, was a tiny baby, her mother gave her a big cake spoon to play with. She went out of the room, leaving Susie to play with the spoon, and when she came back it was gone."
"What was gone?" asked the cow lady, "Susie or the spoon?"
"The spoon," answered the bunny gentleman. "And as Susie was too little to talk, and tell where it was, her mother didn't know whether she had hidden, or dropped the spoon somewhere, or whether she had swallowed it."
"Just fancy!" mooed the cow. "How exciting! But what happened?"
"Why, finally," said Uncle Wiggily, "after I had hopped over to help, we found the spoon behind the piano where Susie had thrown it. Then we knew she hadn't swallowed it."