He followed April Fool out of the summer-house into a narrow path leading on and on and on between green hedgerows full of blossoms. Overhead the birds sang sweetly, and the sky was blue. Kenneth began to feel very happy. At last, in the distance, he caught sight of the kitchen garden, as he well remembered it, with its tall pie-fruit trees, its cooky bushes, its eclair plants, and its ice-cream fountains. The glimpse made him so hungry that he could hardly wait to be there, and he ran ahead, outstripping April Fool himself.
“That is right! Hurry, my boy!” cried the imp heartily. And Kenneth skipped on happily. But suddenly bump! went his head and his knee against something hard, and he came to a dizzy stop, hardly knowing what had happened. There lay the kitchen garden just beyond, but something had stopped him and would not let him pass, something which he could not see.
“Ha! ha! April Fool again!” laughed the imp, holding his sides for merriment. “Don’t you see through this joke? Why, it is perfectly transparent.”
Sure enough! Kenneth put out his hand, and found that it was a wall of glass, which stretched across the path from hedge to hedge; a gateless wall which he could by no means climb over, but through which he could plainly see all the dainties on the other side. Kenneth groaned. “Oh, I am so hungry! What a cruel, cruel joke!”
“Jokes do seem cruel sometimes,” admitted April Fool; “but they are such fun! Oh, my, oh, my! How queer you did look when you bumped against that wall!” and he burst out laughing once more.
“Well, are you going to let me in?” asked Kenneth, trying to keep his temper, though he thought the joke in very poor taste, like most of April Fool’s tricks.
KENNETH FOUND THAT IT WAS A WALL OF GLASS
“Oh, no, we cannot enter here,” said the imp. “This is only an impracticable window. We shall have to go around by another way, a détour of some miles. But this time I really promise to take you to the kitchen garden.”
Kenneth was very angry, but he began to suspect that he must let April Fool have his own way on this night. They turned back down the narrow path and began a long, tiresome journey round about and round about to the garden which they had already seen so near.