go
away."

Well, it was about a week after this that Grandpa Croaker, the old
gentleman frog, put on his best dress. Oh, dear me! Just listen to that,
would you! I mean he put on his best suit and started out, taking his
gold-headed cane with him.

"Where are you going?" asked Mrs. No-Tail.

"Oh! I think I'll go over and play a game of checkers with Uncle Wiggily
Longears," replied the old gentleman frog. "The last game we played he
won, but I think I can win this time."

"Well, whatever you do, Grandpa," spoke Bully, "please don't go past the
pond where the bad alligator is."

"No, indeed, for he might bite you," said Bawly, and their Grandpa
promised that he would be careful.

Well, he went along through the woods, Grandpa Croaker did, and pretty
soon, after a while, not so very long, he came to where Uncle Wiggily
lived, with Sammie and Susie Littletail, and their papa and mamma and
Miss Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy, the muskrat nurse. But to-day only Uncle Wiggily
was home alone, for every one else had gone to the circus.

So the old gentleman goat--I mean frog--and the old gentleman rabbit sat
down and played a game of checkers. And after they had played one game
they played another, and another still, for Uncle Wiggily won the first
game, and Grandpa Croaker won the second, and they wanted to see who
would win the third.

Well, they were playing away, moving the red and black round checkers
back and forth on the red and black checker board, and they were talking
about the weather, and whether there'd be any more rain, and all things
like that, when, all of a sudden Uncle Wiggily heard a noise at the
window.

"Hello! What's that?" he cried, looking up.

"It sounded like some one breaking the glass," answered Grandpa Croaker.
"I hope it wasn't Bawly and Bully playing ball."

Then he looked up, and he saw the same thing that Uncle Wiggily saw, and
the funny part of it was that Uncle Wiggily saw the same thing Grandpa
Croaker saw. And what do you think this was?

Why it was that savage skillery, scalery alligator chap who had poked
his ugly nose right in through the window, breaking the glass!

"Ha! What do you want here?" cried Uncle Wiggily, as he made his ears
wave back and forth like palm leaf fans, and twinkled his nose like two
stars on a frosty night.

"Yes, get right away from here, if you please!" said Grandpa Croaker in
his deepest, hoarsest, rumbling, grumbling, thunder-voice. "Get away, we
want to