He hadn't gone very far before he noticed a grasshopper moving along so swiftly that the old gentleman rabbit could hardly see the legs go flip-flap. My, but that grasshopper did hippity-hop!
"Hold on there, if you please!" called Uncle Wiggily. "What is your hurry. Are you late for school?"
"There is no school now," said the grasshopper, as he sat on a daisy flower, "but I am hopping along to get out of danger."
"Danger? What danger is there around here?" asked the rabbit. "Do you see a fox, or anything like that?"
"No, but don't you hear that dreadful noise?" asked the grasshopper. "Listen, and you will hear it. It scared me so that I went away as fast as I could."
So Uncle Wiggily listened, and sure enough he heard, away off in the woods, a voice shouting:
"Help! Help! Help! Oh, won't some one please help me, or I'll be killed!"
"There, did you hear it?" asked the grasshopper, as he shivered and got ready to flit away again, "he said he was going to kill us."
"Oh, no! Nonsense!" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "That is some poor animal caught in a trap, and he's afraid of being killed himself. I'm going to see who it is. Perhaps it is a friend of mine."
"Oh, no! Don't you go!" begged the grasshopper. "For it may be the alligator with the skillery-scalery-railery tail."