“Have you any more string, Uncle Wiggily?” asked the kitten boy, after a bit.

“String, Tommie?  What for?”

“Well, I want to make my kite string longer so it will go up higher.  But if you have none I’ll run home and get some myself.  Will you hold the kite while I’m gone?”

“To be sure I will,” said Uncle Wiggily.  So he took hold of the string of Tommie’s kite, which was now quite high in the air.  And, sitting down on the ground, Uncle Wiggily held the kite from running away while Tommie went for more string.

It was a nice, warm, summer day, and so pleasant in the woods, with the little flies buzzing about, that, before he knew it Uncle Wiggily had fallen asleep.  His pink nose stopped twinkling, his ears folded themselves down like a slice of bread and jam, and Uncle Wiggily’s eyes closed.

All of a sudden he was awakened by feeling himself being pulled.  At first he thought it was the skillery-scalery alligator, or the bad fox trying to drag him off to his den, and Uncle Wiggily, opening his eyes, cried: 

“Here!  Stop that if you please!  Don’t pull me so!”

But when he looked around he could see no one, and then he knew it was Tommie’s kite, flying up in the air, that was doing the pulling.

The wind was blowing hard now, and as Uncle Wiggily had the kite string wound around his paws, of course he was pulled almost off his feet.

“Ha!  That kite is a great puller!” said the bunny uncle.  “I must look out or it might pull me up to the clouds.  I had better fasten the string to this old stump.  The kite can’t pull that up.”

So the rabbit gentleman fastened the kite cord to the stout old stump, winding it around two or three times, and he kept the loose end of the string in his paw.

Uncle Wiggily was just going to sleep again, and he was wondering why it took Tommie so long to find more string for the kite, when, all of a sudden, there was a rustling in the bushes, and out jumped the bad old babboon, who had, once before, made trouble for the bunny uncle.

“Ah, ha!” jabbered the babboon.  “This time I have caught you.  You can’t get away from me now.  I am going to take you off to my den.”

“Oh, please don’t!” begged Uncle Wiggily.

“Yes, I shall, too!” blabbered the babboon.  “Off to my den you shall go—­you shall go—­you shall go.  Off to my den.  Oh, hold on!” cried the bad creature.  “That isn’t the song I wanted to sing.  That’s the London Bridge song.  I want the one about the dinner bell is ringing in the bread box this fine day.  And the dinner bell is ringing for to take you far away, Uncle Wiggily.”

“Ah, then I had better go to my dinner,” said the bunny uncle, sadly.

“No!  You will go with me!” cried the babboon.  “Come along now.  I’m going to take you away.”

“Well, if I must go, I suppose I must,” Uncle Wiggily said, looking at the kite string, which was pulling at the stump very hard now.  “But before you take me away would you mind pulling down Tommie’s kite?” asked the bunny uncle.  “I’ll leave it for him.”