So as soon as Uncle Wiggily saw that it was Mr. Hedgehog who was speaking he wasn’t a bit afraid, for he knew him.

“Oh, it’s you, is it?” asked the rabbit.  “I’m real glad to see you.  I was going to travel on, but——­”

“Don’t say another word!” cried the hedgehog heartily.  “You can stay in my cave all night.  I have two beds, and it’s a good thing I have, for if you slept with me you might get full of my stickery-stickers.”

“Yes, I guess I had better sleep alone,” said Uncle Wiggily, with a laugh.  “But it seems to me, Mr. Hedgehog, that you are not looking well.”

“I’m not,” answered the porcupine, as he shivered so that several of his quills fell out on the grass.  “I’m suffering for some cherry pie.  Oh, cherry pie!  If I only had some I know I’d feel better at once.  I just love it!”

“Why don’t you make some yourself?” asked Uncle Wiggily.

“I have tried,” replied the hedgehog.  “I’ve tried and tried again, but, somehow, it never comes out right.  Here, I’ll show you.  I made a cherry pie just before I looked out of the door and saw you.  I’ll show it to you.”

He went into his little stone house, and Uncle Wiggily went with him.

“There’s the pie—­it’s no good!” cried the porcupine, as he pointed to something on the table.  Well, as soon as Uncle Wiggily saw it he laughed so hard that his ears waved back and forth.

“What’s the matter?  I don’t see anything funny,” asked Mr. Hedgehog, shivering so that more quills fell out.

“Why, you’ve gone and put the cherry pits into the pie instead of the cherries,” said the rabbit.  “That’s no way to do.  You must take out the stones from inside the cherries and put the outside part of them inside the pie, and throw the inside or stony part of the cherries away.”

“Oh, good land!” cried the hedgehog, “no wonder I couldn’t eat the pie.  You see, I thought cherries were like peanuts.  For you know you throw away the outside part of the peanut, and eat the inside.”

“Yes, and cherries are just the opposite,” said the rabbit, laughing again.  “For you eat the outside of a cherry and throw away the pit or stone that is inside.  Now, I’ll make you a cherry pie.”

“I wish you would,” said the porcupine.  “I’ll go get the cherries.”

So he went out in the orchard, and he shot his sharp stickery quills, like little arrows at the cherries on the tree, and they fell down, so he could pick them up in a basket.  I mean the cherries fell down, though of course the quills did also though the hedgehog didn’t pick them up.

And while he was doing that Uncle Wiggily was making the pie crust.  He took flour and lard and water, and mixed them together, and then he put in other things—­Oh, well, you just ask your mamma or the cook what they were, for I might get it wrong—­and soon the pie crust was ready.  Then Uncle Wiggily built a hot fire in the stove, and he waited for Mr. Hedgehog to come in with the cherries.