Jimmie and his sisters didn"t need an umbrella, for, you know, water always runs off a duck"s back, and doesn"t do a bit of harm. It rained when the duck children got home from school, and it was still raining when Mrs. Wibblewobble said:
"My dears, I don"t like to ask you to go out in the storm again, but I do wish you would run over to Grandfather Goosey-Gander"s house. He is ill, and I want to send him some hot watercress tea."
Now Alice didn"t want to go because her foot, that she once had cut on a stone, pained her. And Jimmie, well, no sooner had he gotten in the house, and taken some bread and b.u.t.ter, with jam on it, than he had run out in the rain again, to play with Bully, the frog. That left only Lulu to go to Grandfather Goosey-Gander"s house, but she said she didn"t mind in the least, and afterward she was very glad she went, for she saw a most wonderful sight. Just you wait, and I"ll tell you about it.
So Mrs. Wibblewobble put the hot tea in a tin pan, and covered it over with a burdock leaf, to keep the rain out, and then she put some cold potatoes in a dish, for she thought the old gentleman duck might like them as well. Then Lulu started off through the woods to go to her grandfather"s house. It was still raining, but she didn"t mind, and pretty soon, oh, maybe in about ten quacks, she came to where Mr. Gander lived.
Well, you would have felt sorry for him if you could have seen him. There he was, sitting on a stool, with his feet in a pail of hot water, and seven bottles of medicine on a table at his right wing, and six bottles of pills on a table at his left wing, and there was a blanket up around his neck, and he had a nightcap on, and he was groaning something terrible; yes, really he was.
"Oh, grandfather!" cried Lulu. "Are you very sick?"
"Yes," he replied, "I am very sick. I think I have the pip, or maybe the epizoodic."
"Which is worse?" asked Lulu, as she set the hot tea and the cold potatoes on the table.
"They are both worse," answered the old gentleman duck. "That is, they seem so, when you have them both at once. But I think I would feel better if I had a hot cornmeal poultice on the back of my neck. Only I can"t make it and put it there, for I can"t take my feet out of the hot water, and I don"t know where the cornmeal is, and I"m home all alone, for my wife has gone shopping."
"Oh, I"ll make it for you," said Lulu very kindly. "I know where the cornmeal is." So she went to get some, and, on the way to the meal box she began to think:
"Wouldn"t it be lovely if a blue fairy, or a green one or a purple one, or even a skilligimink colored one would appear now? I would ask her to make grandfather better. But I don"t s"pose one will come, for I never have any luck seeing fairies," and she sighed three times as she opened the cornmeal box.
Then, all of a sudden, as she lifted the cover, as true as I"m telling you, if she didn"t see something all glittering and shining down in one corner of the box. At first she thought it was the yellow meal, but then she saw that it was a little creature, all gold, with shimmering wings, like those of a humming bird.
"Oh!" cried Lulu, "are you a fairy?"
"Yes," replied the little creature, "I am the golden cornmeal fairy. I have been shut up here for ever and ever so long, and I thought I would never get out. But, since you have let me out, I will do anything in the world for you," and she waved her golden wings, and sang a jolly, golden song about diamonds.
"Will you?" cried Lulu. "Then please make my grandfather better, for he is very sick and has to take thirteen kinds of medicine."
"I will make him well," said the fairy, as she flew out of the box, "and it is very kind of you to ask that, instead of something for yourself.
Now, you make a nice hot poultice of this meal, which is magical, and put it on the back of his neck.
"Then you say this fairy word: Bibbilybab-bilyb.o.o.bily-bag," and see what happens. But don"t tell your grandfather I am a fairy; in fact, say nothing to any one about it, for we fairies are going away for a time, but we may come back later." Then the golden fairy waved her wings and disappeared.
But Lulu did just as she had been told, even to saying that magical word, and, my gracious! if Grandfather Goosey-Gander didn"t get all well in a second, and he thanked Lulu very much. She felt sorry about the fairy disappearing so suddenly, but you can"t always have fairies, you know.
Now, if you girls don"t lose your pink hair ribbon I"ll tell you to-morrow night about Jimmie and the black cow.
STORY XXVI
JIMMIE AND THE BLACK COW
Lulu Wibblewobble felt quite proud of having seen the golden fairy in the corn meal box. In fact she was the only one of her family who saw a fairy for ever and ever so long after that, because the fairies happened to go away from that part of the country.
Of course, Lulu wondered how the tiny creature got into the meal box, and she wondered if she might tell Alice and Jimmie about having seen her, but she decided she had better not.
Now it was about a week after Lulu had taken Grandfather Goosey-Gander the hot tea and the cold potatoes, that something happened to Jimmie Wibblewobble.
It was one afternoon when he was on his way home from school, and he was all alone, for he had been kept in for missing his spelling lesson, and all the other children had gone on. You see he couldn"t spell "vinegar."
Of course that"s an easy word, I know, but Jimmie didn"t like sour things, and I suppose that"s why he missed vinegar. He put the "x" and a "k" of the word in the wrong places. Anyway he was kept in, and he had to write "ketchup" on his paper fifty times.
Well, after he was let out Jimmie started off through the woods and over the fields. Pretty soon, right after he was pa.s.sing along a deep, dark, dingly dell, which is a sort of little valley, with flowers and ferns growing in it, he heard a bell ring. "Ding-dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!"
went the bell. At first Jimmie thought he was near a church, but just then the bell rang differently.
This time it went: "Tinkle-tankle! Tinkle-tankle! Tinkle-tank--" just like that.
"Why!" exclaimed Jimmie. "I wonder what that can be?"
Then he went on a little farther, and he came out of the deep, dark dingle-dell, and he heard the bell more plainly still. This time it rang very rapidly, and right after it Jimmie heard a loud voice calling: "Moo!
Moo! Moo! Help me, will you; will you?"
"Why!" cried Jimmie. "That"s a cow!"
Then, in another moment he came from behind a big tree, and what should he see but a big, black cow, standing in a swamp. The cow was shaking her head and shaking her horns at the same time, and ringing the bell, which was fastened around her neck by a strap, and she was mooing as hard as she could moo.
"Why, what"s the matter?" asked Jimmie, wobbling up quite close to her.
"What ever is the matter?"
"Lots and lots is the matter," answered the cow. "But aren"t you afraid of me, little boy duck; afraid of me and my sharp horns?"
"Why no," answered Jimmie, after he had thought it over for a minute or two. "I don"t believe I am afraid of you. Why should I be afraid?"
"No reason at all; none in the world," replied the cow. "But since I"m in trouble so many creatures seem to be afraid of me. I saw a frog hopping past, and I asked him to help me, but I guess he was afraid I"d step on him, so he wouldn"t come near, but hopped off as far as he could."
"That must have been Bully," said Jimmie. "He"s afraid of lots of things.
But maybe he was in a hurry," he added, for he did not want to say that Bully was afraid if the frog wasn"t frightened, you know.
"Well," agreed the cow, "maybe he was. Then a rabbit boy hopped past, and I asked him to help me, but he was afraid, too."
"That must have been Sammie Littletail," said Jimmie. "But I don"t believe he was afraid. Sammie is very brave. Maybe he was in a hurry."
"Well," admitted the cow, "maybe he was. But then two little squirrel boys came along, and I asked them to help me, but they ran away, frisking their tails. I guess they were afraid."
"No," answered Jimmie, "they weren"t afraid. They were Billie and Johnnie Bushytail, and the reason they ran was to get some one to help you, for they are very kind. Maybe Bully and Sammie will bring some one to help you, also. But what seems to be the matter?"
"My foot is caught under a stone," said the cow, and she blinked her big brown eyes as fast as she could. In fact, they opened and shut so rapidly that big tears came from them, and splashed down her nose.
"Oh! I am so sorry!" cried Jimmie. "Your foot caught under a stone!"
"Wait a minute! Hold on!" exclaimed the cow. "That is not the worst of it!
You have not heard all! My foot is under a stone, and the stone is under water, so I can"t see to get my foot out. That"s why I feel so badly about it. You can see for yourself, Johnnie--"
"My name is Jimmie," said the little boy duck quickly.
"Well, Jimmie, then," went on the cow. "You can see for yourself how it is, or, rather, you can"t see, for the water is in the way," and then Jimmie noticed that one of the cow"s hoofs was down in a puddle of water, and no matter how hard she pulled she couldn"t get loose from that stone; no, sir, any more than you can tie a string to one of your teeth and get the tooth loose--that is, not counting a tooth that needs pulling, of course.