So Uncle Wiggily dug in the dirt in many places, but no gold did he find.
"Perhaps you can tell me where my fortune is?" he said to a tailor-bird who was sewing some leaves together to make a nest.
"It might be up in the air," said the tailor-bird. "If I were you I should hop up into the air and look for it."
Well, Uncle Wiggily hopped up, but you know how it is with rabbits. They're not made to fly, and he couldn't stay up in the air long enough to do any good, so he couldn't find any gold that way.
"Oh, dear! I guess I'll never find my fortune," said the rabbit sadly-like. Then he saw a little blue flower, shaped just like a bell, hanging on a stem over a small babbling brook of water.
"Ah, there is a bluebell!" said the rabbit. "Perhaps she knows where my fortune is. I'll ask her, for flowers are very wise."
"No, I can't tell you where there is any gold," said the bluebell when Uncle Wiggily had asked her most politely. "All I do is to swing backward and forward here all day long, and I ring my bell and I am happy. I do not need gold."
"I wish I didn't have to have it, but I do. I need it to make my fortune, and then I can go home," said the rabbit.
"Very well," spoke the blue flower, as she rang her bell, oh so sweetly! so that it seemed to the rabbit as if she played a song about the blue skies, and birds singing and fountains spouting upward in the sun while pretty blossoms grew all around. "Go on, Uncle Wiggily, but if you don't find your fortune come back here, and I will sing you to sleep," she added.
"I will," spoke the rabbit, as he hopped away.