“Wishing-Gate! Wishing-Gate!” hooted the owl, very angry. “Winks and naps! how dare you disturb me for such a thing as that? Do you take me for a mile-stone? Follow your nose, sir, follow your nose!”—and, ruffling up his feathers, the owl was asleep again in a moment.
But how could Blunder follow his nose? His nose would turn to the right, or take him through the woods, whichever way his legs went, and “what was the use of asking the owl,” thought Blunder, “if this was all?” While he hesitated, a chipmunk came scurrying down the path, and, seeing Blunder, stopped short with a little squeak.
“Good Mrs. Chipmunk,” said Blunder, “can you tell me the way to the Wishing-Gate?”
“I can’t, indeed,” answered the chipmunk, politely. “What with getting in nuts, and the care of a young family, I have so little time to visit anything! But if you will follow the brook, you will find an old water-sprite under a slanting stone, over which the water pours all day with a noise like wabble! wabble! who, I have no doubt, can tell you all about it.”
So Blunder went on up the brook, and, seeing nothing of the water-sprite, or the slanting-stone, was just saying to himself, “I am sure I don’t know where he is,—I can’t find it,” when he spied a frog sitting on a wet stone.
“Mr. Frog,” asked Blunder, “can you tell me the way to the Wishing-Gate?”
“I cannot,” said the frog. “I am very sorry, but the fact is, I am an artist. Young as I am, my voice is already remarked at our concerts, and I devote myself so entirely to my profession of music that I have no time for general information. But in a pine-tree beyond, you will find an old crow, who, I am quite sure, can show you the way, as he is a traveler, and a bird of an inquiring turn of mind.”
“I don’t know where the pine is,—I am sure I can never find him,” answered Blunder, discontentedly; but still he went on up the brook, till, hot and tired, and out of patience at seeing neither crow nor pine, he sat down under a great tree to rest. There he heard tiny voices squabbling. And looking about him, Blunder spied a bee, quarreling with a morning-glory elf, who was shutting up the morning-glory in his face.
“Elf, do you know which is the way to the Wishing-Gate?” asked Blunder.
“No,” said the elf, “I don’t know anything about geography. I was always too delicate to study. But if you will keep on in this path, you will find a Dream-man, coming down from fairyland, with his bags of dreams on his shoulder; and if anybody can tell you about the Wishing-Gate, he can.”