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 play checkers.”
But he couldn’t scare the alligator that way, and the first thing he and Uncle Wiggily knew, that savage creature poked his nose still farther into the room.
“Oh, ho!” the alligator cried. “Checkers; eh? Now, do you know I am very fond of checkers?” And with that, what did he do but put out his long tongue, and with one sweep he licked up the red checkers and the black checkers and the red and black squared checker board at one swallow, and down his throat it went, like a sled going down hill.
“Ah, ha!” exclaimed the alligator. “Those were very fine checkers. I think I won that game!” he said, smiling a very big smile.
“Yes, I guess you did,” said Uncle Wiggily, sadly, as he looked for his cornstalk crutch. When he had it he was just going to hop away, and Grandpa Croaker was going with him, for they were afraid to stay there any more, when the alligator suddenly cried: