"I cannot thank you enough!" she said to the rabbit. "Is there anything I can do for you to pay you?"
"Well, my valise is down a hole," said Uncle Wiggily, "but I don't see how you can get it up. I need it, though."
"I can fly down, tie the string to the satchel and you can pull it up," said the birdie. And she did so, and the rabbit pulled up his valise as nicely as a bucket of water is hoisted up from the well. Then some bad boys and a man came along to see if there was anything in the hole-trap, or the string-trap they had made; but when they saw the bird flying away and the rabbit hopping away through the woods they were very angry. But Uncle Wiggily and the yellow bird were safe from harm, I'm glad to say.
And the rabbit had another adventure soon after that, and what it was I'll tell you soon, when the story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the skyrockets. It will be a Fourth of July story, if you please; that is if the bean bag doesn't fall down the coal hole and catch a mosquito.
STORY V
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE SKY-CRACKER
Let me see, I think I promised to tell you a story about Uncle Wiggily and the skyrocket, didn't I? Or was it to be about a firecracker, seeing that it soon may be the Fourth of July? What's that—a firecracker—no? A skyrocket? Oh, I'm all puzzled up about it, so I guess I'll make it a sky-cracker, a sort of half-firecracker and half-skyrocket, and that will do.
Well, after Uncle Wiggily had gotten the little yellow bird, that looked like gold, out from the string-trap in the tree, the old gentleman rabbit spent two nights visiting a second cousin of Grandfather Prickly Porcupine, who lived in the woods. Then Uncle Wiggily got up one morning, dressed himself very carefully, combed out his whiskers, and said:
"Well, I'm off again to seek my fortune."