"I thought that was a hunter-man's gun," whispered Uncle Wiggily. "But I guess it was some boy setting off a fire-cracker. I need not have been afraid."
He was just going to hop along a little farther, before turning back to his hollow stump bungalow when, all at once he saw a hammock swinging between two trees near the edge of the wood.
In the hammock lay a boy with a thin, pale face, and beside him sat a nurse, gently pulling on a rope that caused the little nest-like swinging bed to sway to and fro.
"Oh ho!" thought Uncle Wiggily. "A sick boy! I'm sorry for him! He won't be able to run around and have fun on Fourth of July as Jackie and Peetie Bow Wow will."
And then the bunny heard the boy in the hammock speaking. And, being able, as he was of late, to understand the talk of real persons, Uncle Wiggily heard the boy say:
"Do you think I'll ever be able to run around again, and have fun, and shoot off fire-crackers?"
"Of course you will," the nurse answered cheerfully.
"But I can't have any fire-crackers now, can I?" asked the boy, timidly, as though knowing what the answer would be.
"No, Buddie! You are not quite well enough," the nurse gently replied. "No fire-crackers for you!"