The rabbit glanced up, but he was down in the sand hole and he couldn't get out quickly on account of his rheumatism. Right toward him the fox was springing, and then, all at once, the slippery eel--for it was he who had called to the rabbit--the kind eel wiggled up out of the ocean. Up along the beach he crawled quickly, until he was right in front of the rabbit in the hole. Then the eel stretched out like a piece of rope and waited.
And then the fox came down on his four feet, but, instead of landing on Uncle Wiggily he landed right on the slippery eel, and that eel was truly as slippery as a piece of ice. Right out from under him slipped the feet of the old fuzzy fox, and down he fell. Slippery, sloppery, slappery he went, sliding along on the eel until he slid all the way off and plumped into the ocean, where he was nearly drowned, for the water got in his nose and mouth and eyes.
"Now, you can get away, Uncle Wiggily," said the eel, and the rabbit kindly thanked the slippery creature, and grabbed up the shining thing he had dug out of the sand, for he thought it was a diamond. Then the fox slunk away, taking his wet and bushy tail with him, and Uncle Wiggily was safe for that time, anyhow, and the eel wiggled along after the old gentleman rabbit, who thought he had better look for a good place to sleep.
But he soon had another adventure, and I'll tell you what it was on the next page, when, in case the parlor lamp doesn't go out to a moving picture show and melt all the ice in the gas stove, the bedtime story will be about Uncle Wiggily and the horseshoe crab.
STORY XI
UNCLE WIGGILY AND THE CRAB
"My, that was a narrow escape!" said the rabbit to the slippery eel, after the fuzzy fox had gone away, as I told you in the last story. "I never can thank you enough."
"Oh, that is a mere nothing!" said the slippery eel, as he dug his tail down in the sand, modest-like. "I am always happy to do a kindness for my friends."