"It isn't so much fun as you imagine," said Uncle Wiggily, as he thought of the time he went sailing into the air on the sky-cracker. "But don't you like being a July bug?"
"Not very much. You see I'm the only one there is, and all the others are June bugs. The June bugs won't speak to me, nor let me play with them, so I'm very lonesome. I heard you talking about a picnic you were going to have, and so I offered to call all your friends to it. I thought perhaps if I did that you would let me come to it also."
"To be sure!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "You may gladly come, but how are you going to send word to all of my friends?"
"I will fly through the air and tell them to come," was the answer. "I am a very swift flyer. Watch me," and then and there the July bug buzzed around so fast that Uncle Wiggily and the pussy couldn't see his wings go flip-flop-flap.
Well, they decided it would be a good plan to have the July bug act as a postman, so Uncle Wiggily wrote out the invitations on little pieces of white birch bark, and gave them to the bug. Off he flew into the air waving one leg at Uncle Wiggily and the pussy.
"Well, now we must get ready for the picnic—get the things to eat—for that bug flies so fast that soon all my friends will be here," said the rabbit, so he and the pussy began to get the lunch ready.
Uncle Wiggily had some food in his valise, but they got more good things from a kind old monkey who lived in the woods. He used to work on a hand organ, but when he got old he bought him a nest in the woods with the pennies he had saved up, and he lived in peace and quietness, and played a mouth organ on Sundays.
Well, you will hardly believe me, but it's true, no sooner had Uncle Wiggily and the pussy put up the lunch, wrapping some for each visitor in nice, green grape leaves, than the first ones of the picnic party began to arrive. They were Dickie and Nellie Chip-Chip, the sparrows, for they could fly through the air very quickly, and so they came on ahead.
"We got your invitation that the July bug left us, Uncle Wiggily, and we came at once," said Dickie.
"Where are the others?" asked the old gentleman rabbit.