And, surely enough, hardly had the bunny spoken than there was a cracking sound, the ice broke beneath the boy's feet and into the dark, cold water he fell.
"Oh! Oh!" cried the boy. "Help me, somebody! Oh! Oh!"
"Ha! It's a good thing Nurse Jane saw him!" said Uncle Wiggily. "Quick now, Toodle and Noodle! I brought you along because you have such good, sharp teeth—much sharper and better than mine are for gnawing down trees. I can gnaw off the bark, but you can nibble all the way through a tree and make it fall."
"Is that what you want us to do?" asked Toodle.
"Yes," answered Uncle Wiggily. "We'll go close to shore, where the boy has fallen in. Near him is a tree. You'll gnaw that so it will fall outward across the ice, and he can reach up, take hold of it and pull himself out of the hole."
By this time the poor boy was floundering around in the cold water. He tried to get hold of the edges of the ice around the hole through which he had fallen, but the ice broke in his hands.
"Help! Help!" he cried.
"We're going to help you," answered Uncle Wiggily, but, of course, he spoke animal language which the boy did not understand. But Toodle and Noodle understood, and quickly running to the edge of the shore they gnawed and gnawed and gnawed very extra fast at an overhanging tree until it began to bend and break. Uncle Wiggily gnawed a little, also, to help the beaver boys.
Then, just as the real boy was almost ready to sink down under water, the tree fell on the ice, some of its branches close enough so the boy skater could grasp them.
"Oh, now I can pull myself out!" he said. "This tree fell just in time! Now I'll be saved!"