“Oh, my goodness me sakes alive, and three teaspoonsfull of corn meal with pepper in!” cried Grandfather Goosey-Gander.  “Lulu is stuck in the mud!  We must pull her out.  Quick!” That’s just the way he said it.

And, would you believe me, Lulu was held fast in the mud by her dear little bill!  Oh, how terribly frightened Jimmie and Alice were.  They squawked and they quacked, and they tried to pull Lulu out, but she was stuck too fast.

Then all the other ducks came swimming up to see what the trouble was, and they tried to pull her out, but they couldn’t, and, all the while her feet were wiggling as fast as they could wiggle, almost like Sammie Littletail’s nose.

Then Grandfather Goosey-Gander called out:  “What ho!  Make way there!  I will save her!” And with that, what do you think he did?  Why, he dived right down under the water, yes, sir, right down in the mud, and he pushed, and he pulled, and he hauled and he splashed, and he yanked, and he rooted, and he twisted, and he turned, and he shoved, and then, all alone, brave old grandfather that he was, he got Lulu up from the mud, where she had been stuck by her little bill!

And it was almost time, too, let me tell you, for her breath was nearly gone.  But she soon got better, and she never put her head so far down under water again.

Then all the ducks said:  “Quack, Quack, Quack!” three times, they were so glad, and they swam around in a circle, and the old rooster stood on the bank and crowed, just as if he had done it all!  Oh, how glad Papa and Mamma Wibblewobble were that Lulu was saved!

Now, if you do not get your feet wet, I shall tell you, to-morrow night, how Jimmie rode in an automobile.

STORY II

JIMMIE WIBBLEWOBBLE IN AN AUTO

One day, well, it must have been about a week after Lulu Wibblewobble got caught in the mud, she and Jimmie were out swimming around the pond.

“Come on,” said Lulu, “let’s go over and see Mrs. Greenie, the frog.  She always has some candied sweet-flag root hidden away, and perhaps she will give us some.”

“I don’t believe there’s any left,” spoke Jimmie, “for Bully, the boy frog, is so fond of it that he eats all he can get.”

“Well, we’ll go, anyhow,” went on Lulu.  Just then she heard her mother calling: 

“Jimmie!  Lulu!  Where are you going?”

“We are going over to see Mrs. Greenie,” replied Jimmie.

“Wait for Alice,” called Mamma Wibblewobble.  “She will go with you.  She is just putting a clean apron on.”

“Oh, dear!” cried Lulu.  “Why does Alice always make us wait while she puts on something clean?”

“I suppose,” answered Jimmie, and he scratched his bill with his left leg, “I suppose it is because she wants to look nice.”

“Yes,” agreed Lulu, with a sort of quacking-sigh, “I suppose I ought to want to look nice, too; but, somehow I don’t—­ever.  I always seem to be in such a hurry.”