“Ha!” exclaimed the bad dog.  “A duck!  The very idea!  Of all things I love ducks!  I just dote on ’em!  I love ’em just like you love jam tarts, I expect.  But why aren’t you larger, Lulu?  I like big ducks.”

“Oh!” cried the little duck girl, “are you going to eat me up?”

“Yes,” replied the dog, “I am.”

“Then,” went on Lulu, very bravely, for she was trying to think of a way to get out of the deep, dark woods, “if you will wait a year or two, I will be larger.”

“No,” said the dog.  “I can’t wait.  I’m in a hurry.  I must have you now.”

Then he growled some more, and rushed right at Lulu, and I suppose he would have eaten her up, feathers and all, only for what happened.

Now, what do you suppose prevented him?  Why, just as he was about to grab the little duck girl there was a crashing and a smashing in the bushes and who should appear but dear Aunt Lettie, the old lady goat!  As soon as she laid eyes on that dog she knew what he was going to do, and without speaking a word, she rushed right at him and lowered her horns.

Now, it’s a good thing for that dog that the sharp ends of Aunt Lettie’s horns had been sawed off.  So, you see, when she stuck them in that dog’s ribs, they only tickled him and he had to laugh, instead of sticking right through him.  Oh, how hard he laughed!  But he didn’t want to, not a bit.

Then Aunt Lettie just lowered her head, and then she raised it up, and over her back that bad dog went, right up in the air, and he was tossed in some briars and brambles that scratched him well.

But he wasn’t satisfied yet, and he rushed back at Lulu, but Aunt Lettie tickled him in the ribs again, and he laughed:  “Ha!  Ho!” though he didn’t want to at all, and over into the briars and brambles he was tossed once more.

Then he had had enough, and he ran off, howling instead of laughing, and that’s the way it was that Aunt Lettie saved Lulu.  You see the old lady goat happened to be walking in the woods, when she heard the dog growl and she ran up just in time.  Then she went home with Lulu, and Jimmie said if he ever saw that dog he would throw a stone at him, and I wouldn’t blame him, would you?

Now to-morrow night I think the story is going to be about how Alice cut her foot, and what happened after it.  But I can’t tell it unless I happen to see a grasshopper standing on his head and eating jam tarts.

STORY XXII

HOW ALICE CUT HER FOOT

Did you ever go barefooted in the summer time?  I suppose you have, and I don’t blame you a bit, especially on hot days, or when you are at Asbury Park or Ocean Grove.  Now, to go barefooted, you know, you have to take off your shoes and stockings, and that’s quite a bother at times.

Well, Alice Wibblewobble didn’t have to do this when she wanted to go barefooted, for, you know, she never wore shoes and stockings in summer.  You see it would be too much trouble to take them off every time she went in swimming with Lulu and Jimmie, so that’s why it was arranged that she never had to wear any.