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.
“Please let us go!” cried the little rabbit girl.
“No, I will not!” growled the bad old skillery-scalery alligator.
Then Susie and Beckie tried as hard as they could to get away, but the alligator only wound his double-jointed, stretchy, rubbery tail the more tightly about them. Then he began to drag them off to his dark cave, to keep them forever and a day, and then—and then——
All of a sudden something happened. Beckie felt her new wax doll wiggling in her arms, and the doll seemed to be trying to get away. Beckie held the doll tightly, but the wax creature only wiggled the more.
Then all at once that doll grew up into a great big giant lady, as tall as a tree in the woods, taller and bigger and stronger than the old alligator, and then that wax doll just took her two strong arms, and with them she unwound the alligator’s tail from about Beckie and Susie. And then the doll lady cried: