United States or Guam ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Oh, that sounds like the toe nails of the burglar-fox, running around the house!" said the rabbit. Then he listened more carefully, and suddenly he laughed: "Ha! Ha!" Then he got up and looked out of the window. "Why, it's only the rain drops pit-pattering on the roof," he said. "Isn't it jolly to be in a house when it rains, and you can't get wet?
Bright and early next morning Uncle Wiggily got up, and he took a careful look around to see if there were any signs of the burglar-fox, about whom I told you in another story. "I guess he's far enough off by this time," said Billie Goat, as he polished his horns with a green leaf. "Yes, indeed," spoke Uncle Wiggily. "It is a good thing that Nannie knew how to make a paper lantern."
Then the burglar-fox started in breaking down the door, so that he could get in, and still Mr. Goat couldn't find his gun. "Oh, we'll all be killed!" cried Mrs. Goat. "Oh, if some one would only help us!" "Ha! I will help you!" cried Uncle Wiggily jumping out of bed. "I'll scare that fox so that he'll run away." "But I can't find my gun," said Mr. Goat. "No matter," answered the brave rabbit.
"I guess I won't make too many windows or doors," thought Uncle Wiggily, "for a savage bear or a burglar-fox might come along in the night, and try to get in." So he only made one door, and one window in the house. But he made a little fireplace out of stones, and built a little fire in it, to cook his supper.
"I'm a burglar-fox!" was the answer. "I'm coming to rob you." "Oh, my!" cried Mrs. Goat, when she heard that. "Get a gun, and shoot him, Mr. Goat." And at that Billie and Nannie began to cry, for they were afraid of burglars, and Uncle Butter got up, and began looking for a whistle, with which to call a policeman dog, but he couldn't find it.
"Ha! What is that?" asked Mrs. Goat. "I guess it was the cats," said Mr. Goat, getting ready to go to sleep again. "No, I'm sure it was a burglar-fox!" said the lady goat. "Please get up and look." Well, of course, Mr. Goat had to do so, after his wife asked him like that. So he poked his head out of the upstairs window, over the front door, and he called out: "Who is down there?"
And all the while the burglar-fox was banging on the door, and crying out: "Let me in! Let me in!" "Quick! is the lantern ready?" Asked Uncle Wiggily, jumping around in a circle like "Ring Around the Rosie." "Here it is," said Nannie. So the rabbit gentleman took it, all nicely made as it was, and inside of it he put a hot, blazing candle.
"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."
Then Uncle Wiggily tied the lantern to a string, and he lowered it right down out of the window; down in front of the burglar-fox, and the hot candle in the lantern burned the fox's nose, and he thought it was a policeman climbing down out of a tree to catch him, and before you could count forty-'leven the bad burglar-fox ran away, and so he didn't rob the goats after all.
Word Of The Day