Well, Uncle Wiggily cooked his supper, frying some carrots in a little tin frying pan he had with him, and then he said his prayers, and went to bed. Soon he was fast, fast asleep.
Well, in the middle of the night, Uncle Wiggily was awakened in his paper house by hearing a funny noise outside.
"Ha! I wonder what that can be?" he exclaimed, sitting up, and reaching out for his crutch. The noise kept on, "pitter-patter; pitter-patter-patter-pitter; pat-pit-pat-pit."
"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? After this every night I'm going to always build a waxed-paper house," said Uncle Wiggily.
So he listened to the rain drops, and he thought how nice it was not to be wet, and he went to sleep again. And pretty soon he woke up once more, for he heard another noise. This time it was a sniffing, snooping, woofing sort of a noise, and Uncle Wiggily knew that it wasn't the rain.
"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."
So Uncle Wiggily got up very softly, and right in the middle of the dirt floor of his paper house he began to burrow down to dig a cellar. My, how his paws made the sand and gravel fly, and soon he had dug quite a large cellar, in which to hide.
And all this time the sniffing, snooping sound kept on, until, all of a sudden a voice cried:
"Let me in!"
"Who are you?" asked Uncle Wiggily.