“Indeed I do, very much!” exclaimed Beckie.
“Then she is yours—take her,” went on the little rabbit girl. “I’m sure she is meant for you.”
“But who could have left her here?” asked Beckie wonderingly.
But Susie did not know this, nor did Beckie. But it would not surprise me the least bit if Santa Claus himself had dropped that doll in the hollow stump. You know he often comes around a few days before Christmas to see how things are getting on and to find out what boys and girls and animal children need. So I think it’s safe to say that Santa Claus left that doll in the hollow stump for Beckie.
Anyhow, the little bear girl clasped in her paws the lovely wax doll, and then she and Susie looked at her and made her open and shut her eyes, and they felt of the soft wax in the doll’s pink cheeks, and they were both happy, especially Beckie.
“Let’s go home!” exclaimed Susie. “I’ll get my wax doll and we’ll play house.”
So she and Susie, the little rabbit girl, started back through the woods, Beckie carrying her new wax doll. Well, they hadn’t gone very far before, all of a sudden, out from behind a tree, sprang the bad old skillery-scalery alligator, and he popped out into the path, in front of Beckie and Susie, and he wound his long double-jointed tail around them so they couldn’t move and there he had them fast.
“Ah, ha!” cried the bad old alligator, blinking his fishy eyes, “now I have you both, and a little baby, too.”
You see the alligator thought the doll that Beckie carried was a real baby, and honestly it did look like one. Of course the alligator didn’t know any better, you see.
“Yes, now I’ve got you two animal girls, and also the baby,” went on the bad creature. “Oh, ho! This is a lucky day for me!” and he blinked his fishy eyes real sassy-like.
“What—what are you going to do with us?” Beckie asked, trying to be brave and not afraid.
“What am I going to do with you?” repeated the alligator. “Why, I am going to carry you off to my cave and there I’ll keep you for a year and a day. And after that—ha, hum—let me see. Why, I guess I’ll keep you there forever.”
“Oh, dear! That will be terrible,” cried Susie, as she thought she might never see her little brother Sammie any more, nor Uncle Wiggily, either.