Even at that very moment Daddy Longlegs was frantically crying "Help! help!" But his thin, weak voice was quite muffled by the great heap of shoes that buried him.
[p. 41]After waiting for a few minutes Jimmy Rabbit closed—and locked—his door, and went skipping off to Farmer Green's garden, where the cabbages grew.
IX
LOCKED IN!
Poor Daddy Longlegs! Buried as he was under dozens of shoes—all of them many times bigger than he was—he couldn't help being alarmed when he heard Jimmy Rabbit walk out of the shoe shop and lock the door behind him.
Daddy wished that he had told Mrs. Ladybug in the beginning that he wouldn't help Farmer Green with his harvesting. Then he would never have started on his long journey to the oat field and worn out his shoes. And if he hadn't worn out his shoes, of course he would never have visited Jimmy Rab[p. 43]bit's shoe shop and got himself into such terrible trouble.
He soon saw that he might call for help until his voice was cracked worse than ever without its doing him the least bit of good. So he stopped shouting and began to climb out of the pile of shoes that surrounded him. And he was very glad, then, that he had eight long legs to help him. But when he found himself free of the shoes he seemed but little better off than before. There he was, a prisoner in the shoe shop! And the daylight was fast fading.
If Daddy Longlegs had been half as wise as his neighbors believed him he wouldn't have stayed in his prison two minutes. But after trying the door and the two windows and finding that he couldn't open them he made up his mind that there was nothing for him to do ex[p. 44]cept to wait until Jimmy Rabbit came back the following day.