," said Uncle Wiggily.

So he listened to the rain drops, and he thought how nice it was not to be
wet, and he went to sleep again. And pretty soon he woke up once more, for
he heard another noise. This time it was a sniffing, snooping, woofing
sort of a noise, and Uncle Wiggily knew that it wasn't the rain.

"I'm sure that's the burglar-fox," he said. "What shall I do? He can smash
my paper house with his teeth and claws, and then eat me. I should have
built a wooden house. But it's too late now. I know what I'll do. I'll dig
a cellar underneath my paper house, and I'll hide there, in case that fox
smashes the roof."

So Uncle Wiggily got up very softly, and right in the middle of the dirt
floor of his paper house he began to burrow down to dig a cellar. My, how
his paws made the sand and gravel fly, and soon he had dug quite a large
cellar, in which to hide.

And all this time the sniffing, snooping sound kept on, until, all of a
sudden a voice cried:

"Let me in!"

"Who are you?" asked Uncle Wiggily.

"I'm the bad alligator," was the answer, "and if you don't let me in, I'll
smash down your paper house with one swoop of my scalery-ailery tail."

"You can't come in!" cried the rabbit, and then that bad alligator gave
one swoop of his tail, and smashed Uncle Wiggily's nice paper house all to
pieces!

But do you s'pose the rabbit was there? No, indeed. He just grabbed up his
crutch and valise, and ran down into his cellar as far and as fast as he
could run, just as the roof fell in. And the cellar wasn't big enough for
the alligator to get in, and so he had to stay outside, and he couldn't
get Uncle Wiggily.

And then it rained, and thundered and lightninged, and the alligator got
scared, and ran off, but the rabbit gentleman was safe down in his cellar,
and he didn't get a bit wet, and went to sleep there for the rest of the
night. Now, please go to bed, and in case my toothbrush, doesn't go out
roller skating, and fall down and get bald-headed, I'll tell you next
about Uncle Wiggily and the paper boat.

STORY XXI

UNCLE WIGGILY IN A PAPER BOAT

When the morning dawned, after he had slept all night in the cellar under
his paper house, that the alligator, with his swooping scalery-ailery
tail, had knocked down, Uncle Wiggily awakened, brushed the dirt from his
ears, and crawled out.

"My!" he exclaimed as he saw the paper house all flat on the ground, like
a pancake, "Nannie Goat would certainl