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Lulu, Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble

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<h2>STORY XVII</h2> <h3>HOW THE FAIRY PRINCE WAS CAUGHT</h3> Aunt Lettie, the nice old lady goat, wanted Lulu and Alice and Jimmie to have a good time, so one day she fixed them up a basket of lunch to take off in the woods and eat. She made some jam tarts—oh, such lovely, flaky ones!—and there were cookies and bread and butter and I don't know what all. I just wish I had that basket of lunch now, don't you? But, of course, we wouldn't want to take it away from the duck children, would we? So they started off, and as they passed by Nero, he opened one eye—only one, mind you, and looked at them. And he said: "I am feeling a little hungry, but I don't s'pose you have anything for me." "Yes," said Lulu, "you may have a jam tart because you saved our house from burning up." So they gave Nero one tart, and he gobbled it up as quickly as you can cross your "t" or dot your "i" when you're writing in school. Pretty soon, well, not so very long, you know, the three duck children came to the woods. Oh, the woods were the nicest place you ever saw! There was a little brook running in and out among the trees, and it sounded like music when it went over the stones. Well, they sat down on the grass, near a mossy old stump, and ate their lunch, until there wasn't even so much as a crumb of a jam tart left. They had just gotten through when, all of a sudden, they heard a big noise. It was like some one stamping his feet down and breaking sticks. The duck children were terribly frightened, for they thought maybe it was an elephant or a rhinoceros coming along, but Jimmie peeked through the bushes and whispered to his sisters: "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. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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