"It"s a big boy!"
"What"s he doing?" asked Alice.
"I guess he"s going fishing," said Lulu, "for he has a fish pole over his shoulder."
And, sure enough, that boy was going fishing! He walked on a little farther, stepping on sticks and breaking them, and then he sat down on the edge of the little brook and began to fish. Then the duck children weren"t so much afraid, and they watched him.
Pretty soon the boy pulled up his line with a jerk, but there wasn"t anything on it. Then he said:
"Oh, dear! That was a big fish, but he got away."
"I"m glad it got away," whispered Alice, "for I don"t like to see the poor fish caught."
Then, in about two quacks and a waddle, the boy pulled up his pole again, and this time he didn"t have anything on the hook, either. So he said again:
"Oh, dear me, and an angle worm! That"s two big fish that have gotten loose."
Then he threw in his line again, and the next time when he pulled it up something came with it. Something wiggily, and black and yellow and red-spotted with wrinkly legs and a long snaky neck and head.
"Ker-thump!" it landed on the bank and the boy ran up to it. "Why, I"ve caught a mud turtle!" he cried.
"I am not!" the mud turtle called out, only he couldn"t speak very plainly, for the hook was in his mouth. "I"m a fairy prince, and you had no right to catch me," he said.
Now, of course, the boy couldn"t hear this, for he didn"t understand the language used by the fairy prince. But Alice heard him, and so did Lulu and Jimmie.
"Oh, dear!" cried Alice. "That bad boy has caught the fairy prince! Let"s run out and make him let the prince go!"
"Oh, no!" answered Lulu, "the boy might catch us then."
"I know what let"s do," whispered Jimmie. "We"ll get in the bushes right behind that boy, and quack and squawk as loud as we can: That will scare him and make him run away. I don"t believe the mud turtle is fairy prince, but I don"t want to see him hurt. Come on, girls. Now when I say: "ready,"
quack real loud."
So the three duck children went softly up to a bush right behind where that fisherman--I mean fisherboy--was sitting.
All this while the fairy prince was talking to the boy, and asking to be let go, for the hook hurt him. The boy finally did take the hook out, not hurting the mud-turtle any more than he could help, for he was not a bad boy.
Then, in an instant, or maybe in an instant and a half, Jimmie cried, "Ready!" and he and his sisters quacked as loudly as possible, or even louder. The boy was just going to put the mud turtle into the basket, but when he heard the quacking, coming right out of the bushes behind him, he was so frightened that he dropped the fairy prince on the ground.
And the fairy prince crawled off as fast as he could, let me tell you.
Then the boy saw that it was the duck children who had frightened him, and he laughed; but they didn"t care, not a bit.
Then the boy said: "Oh, I guess there is no good fishing here. I"m going to try a new place," so he walked away.
Then Alice went right up to the mud turtle and said: "O fairy prince, art thou much hurt?"
"I am hurt considerable," said the mud turtle. "I am hurt in two ways. My mouth hurts where the hook went in, and my feelings are hurt because the boy didn"t believe I was a fairy prince."
"Well, if you are a fairy prince," asked Jimmie, "why didn"t you turn him into an elephant or a lion and scare him, or why didn"t you change him into a bug or a mosquito, so he could fly away? Why didn"t you do that, eh?"
"There are several reasons," replied the mud turtle.
"Oh, wilt thou tell them to us?" asked Alice, romantically.
"Not now," replied the fairy prince, "but I will later. Return here to-morrow and I will tell you," and he stretched first one wrinkly leg, and then the other, and went to sleep.
"We will return," said Alice, and then the duck children hurried home, and to-morrow night you shall hear about a magic trick and why the fairy prince didn"t turn that boy into an elephant or a lion. That is, if the Thanksgiving turkey doesn"t go to a football game.
STORY XVIII
THE FAIRY PRINCE DOES A MAGIC TRICK
One day, after they had been out roller skating, Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble suddenly remembered that it was time they went back to the woods to meet the fairy prince, who was to tell them why he didn"t turn that fisher-boy into a lion or an elephant. So they took off their skates and hurried to the place, and by and by, after awhile, not so very long, they got there. Then they stopped and looked around.
"Hu!" exclaimed Jimmie. "He isn"t here. I _thought_ he was fooling us."
"Hush!" begged Alice. "He may be only hiding to test us, to see if we really believe in him. He may appear any moment in a big balloon or on the back of a great bird."
"Somebody"s coming now," said Lulu, suddenly, for she heard a rustling in the bushes. They all turned around, and whom do you think they saw coming right out of the woods? Why, Uncle Wiggily Longears! The old gentleman rabbit was limping along, making his nose go up and down and sideways at the same time, the way you have seen all the bunnies do, you know.
"Ha! Ha!" he exclaimed. "What have we here? Why, I do declare! If it isn"t Jimmie Wibblewobble and his sisters! What are you doing here, little ones?"
"We came here to meet the fairy prince," replied Jimmie. "He was going to tell us about why he didn"t change a boy into an elephant. But he isn"t here."
"Who--the fairy prince, the boy or the elephant?" asked Uncle Wiggily, gently rubbing a horse chestnut on his left hind leg, that had the worst rheumatism in it.
"Neither one," said Alice, "but the fairy prince is sure to come."
"Stuff and nonsense. Nonsense and stuff, also snuff and red pepper!" cried Uncle Wiggily. "Fairy prince indeed! There"s no such thing!"
"Oh, yes, there is!" said Alice. "Pray do not speak so loudly. He might hear you."
"Thank you, my dear, for trusting in me!" exclaimed a voice suddenly, and honestly, you may not believe me, but if there wasn"t that mud turtle!
Yes, sir, as true as I"m telling you, he appeared right from behind a bush!
"Thank you, my dear, for believing me," said the fairy prince to Alice again. "As for this--ahem!--this person!" and the mud turtle looked very severely at Uncle Wiggily, very severely indeed, "as for this person, I will soon show him! Oh, my, yes! and a tortoisesh.e.l.l comb in addition," he said; and then the turtle stuck out its long neck, straight at the old rabbit, until Uncle Wiggily thought it was a snake.
"Fairy prince, we salute thee!" exclaimed Alice, making a low bow.
"Good, very good," remarked the mud turtle. "I believe I promised you I would tell you why I did not change the boy, who caught me, into something strange, say an elephant or a lion."
"Yes," replied Jimmie, "you did promise us. Go ahead, please."
"That"s not the way to talk to a fairy prince," objected Alice. "You should speak more politely."
"Never mind him, he doesn"t know any better," went on the mud turtle. "I will now give you my reasons. In the first place I did not want to scare that boy after the way you frightened him. He had been punished enough, I thought. Besides, if I had turned him into a lion or an elephant he would have run through the woods, scaring every one he met, and that would not have been right. And the reason I didn"t change him into a bug or a mosquito was because he might fly away, and then, when the magic spell had pa.s.sed off, and he was changed back into a boy again, the transformation might have happened in the air, and he would fall right down on somebody"s head, and that would never do, never, never, not in a year and a half. So I concluded not to do anything to him."