"The very thing!" cried Edna, the little afraid mousie girl. So Curly Tail got a nice, big board for a boat, and pushed it into the water. Then he got a pole to shove himself and the mousie girl across the river, and they both got on the boat.
"Now mind!" exclaimed Curly Tail. "Keep looking up, and you won't be afraid."
Off they started, and Edna wasn't much afraid. When they were about halfway across, and she felt real glad that she would soon see her grandmother, she said:
"Oh, I guess I'm brave enough to look at the water now. I think I'm not afraid with you, Curly Tail."
"All right," spoke the little piggie boy, and he was just going to tell the mousie girl to look down if she wanted to, when, all at once, after the boat, with his big jaws open, and his tongue going over his teeth like a nutmeg grater, came the bad skillery-scalery old alligator, with a double hump on his tail.
"Oh, my!" thought Curly Tail. "If she looks down now, and sees that alligator, she'll surely be so afraid that she'll faint, and maybe fall into the water, and then I'll have to jump in to save her, and the alligator will get us both. What shall I do?"
Well, the mousie girl was just going to look down, and she would surely have seen the 'gator, when Curly Tail cried:
"Don't look! Don't look! Oh, lobster salad! don't look!"
"Why not?" asked the mousie girl.
"Because—because it's—it's a surprise!" was all Curly could think of to say.