“How do you like it?” asked Johnnie.

“Fine!” cried Jimmie.  “Quack!  Quack!  Quack!” Now when a duck says “quack” three times, you may know he is very much pleased indeed.  Oh, what a fine view Jimmie had, but he didn’t dare frisk around as Billie and Johnnie did, for he was a trifle dizzy.  Then, after he had been up there some time, he thought he had better go down, for the wind was blowing the treetop, and he wasn’t used to it.  So, after Billie and Johnnie had sung their song again, Jimmie started for the ground.

Well, you know how it is yourself, if you have ever climbed a tree.  It’s easy to go up, but it’s hard to get down.  The limb for your feet is never where you think it is.  Poor Jimmie tried, and Billie and Johnnie helped him, but he didn’t dare turn around to go down, backward, and that’s the only way you can get down a tree, unless you’re a squirrel.

Then Jimmie began to get frightened.  He knew it was time for him to go home, but it began getting darker and darker and darker, and there he was right in the top of the tree, as far away from the ground as ever.  He tried once more, but he didn’t dare let go of one branch with his bill, while he put his foot down on another limb below, and there he was.  Oh, what an unpleasant situation to be in, to say the least!

“Oh, I’ll never get down!” cried Jimmie.  “I wish I’d stayed on the ground!”

Billie and Johnnie began to get frightened, too, for it was partly their fault, and they were just going off for some kind of help, though what kind they didn’t know, when they heard a noise.

It was a swishing, swooping, swoshing noise, and who should fly down out of the sky but that good, kind fishhawk, who once carried Billie and Johnnie on his big back to Lincoln Park.  As soon as the squirrels saw him they cried out: 

“Oh, please help Jimmie Wibblewobble down!  He’s in a tall tree and can’t reach the ground.”

“Why, of course, to be sure,” replied the kind fishhawk, and he alighted in the tree, and Jimmie got upon his strong, broad back, and the fishhawk flew gently to the earth, and that’s how Jimmie got down.  And maybe he wasn’t glad of it!  I know I am, anyhow.

Now, listen:  the moving man didn’t get my typewriter, after all, so if we have cocoanut-chocolate-mustard-apple-pie cake for supper, I can tell you a story to-morrow night, and it will be about the party Alice and Lulu had, and what happened at it.  Something wonderful, too, let, me tell you.

STORY XXIV

THE WIBBLEWOBBLES’ PARTY

There was great excitement in the duck pen.  And the reason for it was that Lulu and Alice were going to have a party.  It was the first party they had ever had, and it was on their birthday.  You see, it was this way:  Lulu and Alice both had the same birthday; that is, they, were twins.  Jimmie was a day older than they were, and he wasn’t a twin.  There, now I’ve explained it all to you, and I’ll get on with the story.