"Oh, no, you can't do that," said Uncle Wiggily firmly.
"Why not?" asked the rat, surprised-like. "Who will stop me?"
"I will!" bravely cried Uncle Wiggily, and with that he raised his crutch, and he tickled that rat right on the end of his long tail. And the rat was so surprised that he thought he had been struck by a policeman's club. So he jumped around, and, as he did so, Uncle Wiggily threw a piece of cherry pie at him, and it was all soft and squashy like, and the juice ran down in the rat's eyes, and so blinded him that he couldn't see to bite the rabbit, or even a piece of cheese.
"Now, you get right out of this tent, and don't you dare to harm the birds!" cried the old gentleman rabbit, and that rat went right out, taking his long thin tail with him, but forgetting his lightning bug lantern, which he left on the ground.
So Uncle Wiggily looked out to make sure that the rat didn't go near the birds' nest and the bad creature didn't, but he scurried back to his hole in the rocks, feeling quite savage-like and more disappointed than ever.
Next the rabbit took the cork out of the rat's bottle-lantern and he let the poor lightning bugs go, and they were very thankful. And then the rabbit stretched out on the leaves again, and went to sleep until morning and nothing more disturbed him.
Now if the knives and forks don't jump up and down on the table, and upset the sugar bowl, so that it scares the vinegar bottle, I'll tell you next about Uncle Wiggily on a raft.
Uncle Wiggily and the Big River Rat