want to see me?" exclaimed Uncle Wiggily. "I think you must be
mistaken," he went on politely.

"Oh, no, not at all!" barked the fox. "You have there some sugar, some
bread and a yeast cake; have you not?"

"I have," answered Uncle Wiggily.

"Well, then, you may give me the bread and sugar and after I eat them I
will start in on you. I will take you off to my den, to my dear little
foxes. Eight, Nine and Ten. They have numbers instead of names, you
see."

"But I don't want to give you Nurse Jane's sugar and bread, and go with
you to your den," said the rabbit gentleman. "I don't want to! I
don't like it!"

"You can't always do as you like," barked the fox. "Quick now--the
sugar and bread!"

"What about the yeast cake?" asked Uncle Wiggily, as he held it out,
all wrapped in shiny tinfoil, like a looking-glass. "What about the
yeast cake?"

"Oh, throw it away!" growled the fox.

"No, don't you do it!" whispered a voice in Uncle Wiggily's ear, and
there was the sunbeam he had met the other day. "Hold out the yeast
cake and I will shine on it very brightly, and then I'll slant, or
bounce off from it, into the eyes of the fox," said the sunbeam. "And
when I shine in his eyes I'll tickle him, and he'll sneeze, and you can
run away."

So Uncle Wiggily held out the bright yeast cake. Quick as a flash the
sunbeam glittered on it, and then reflected itself into the eyes of the
fox.

"Ker-chool!" he sneezed. "Ker-chooaker-choo!" and tears came into the
fox's eyes, so he could not see Uncle Wiggily, who, after thanking the
sunbeam, hurried safely back to his bungalow with the things for Nurse
Jane.

So the fox got nothing at all but a sneeze, you see, and when he had
cleared the tears out of his eyes Uncle Wiggily was gone. So the
sunbeam did the bunny gentleman a favor after all, and if the coal man
doesn't put oranges in our cellar, in mistake for apples when he brings
a barrel of wood, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the puff
ball.

STORY XXIV

UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE PUFF BALL

"Are you going for a walk to-day, as you nearly always do, Uncle
Wiggily?" asked Nurse Jane Fuzzy, the muskrat lady housekeeper, of the
rabbit gentleman, as he got up from the breakfast table in the hollow
stump bungalow one morning.

"Why, yes, Janie, I am going for a walk in the woods very soon,"
answered Uncle Wiggily. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

"There is," said the muskrat lady. "Som