"Yes, we'll help you!" called a little voice on the ground, and, looking down the rabbit saw the angle worm. And, crawling along with him were about a million other worms, some larger and some smaller than he. "Run along as fast as you can," said the first angle worm, "and we'll twine ourselves in knots around the alligator's legs so that he can't chase you any more. Run! Run!"
Well, you may be sure Uncle Wiggily ran as hard as he could.
"I'll get you!" cried the alligator, and he made a jump after the rabbit, but it was the last jump the skillery-scalery creature made that day. For the next instant those million angle worms just tied themselves in hard knots, and sailor knots, and bow knots, and double knots, and true lovers' knots and all sorts of knots around the tail and legs of the alligator, and he couldn't move another inch.
"Now's your chance! Hop away, Uncle Wiggily!" cried the first worm. "We'll hold the alligator here because you were so kind to me."
And the rabbit hopped safely away, and the ugly 'gator couldn't even wiggle his double-jointed tail. Then, when the rabbit was safe at the monkey's house, all the angle worms untied their knots off the alligator, and they scurried down into the ground before he could bite them. So that's how it all happened, just as true as I'm telling you. And that 'gator was so angry that he almost bit a piece out of his own tail. Then he went off in the woods and wasn't seen again for some time.
But this wasn't the last of Uncle Wiggily's adventures; no, indeed. In case the fish-hook doesn't catch the baseball and make the lamp chimney all smoky, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily and the black beetle.
STORY XXVII
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE BEETLE