"Stop!" Johnnie cried. "Take your[p. 102] time and don't get excited! If you keep motioning with all your legs at once you can't expect me to understand what you mean."
Soon after that Daddy became quieter, though it was only because he grew tired from his efforts to escape. But he was so angry and so worried that one of his legs kept twitching; and it felt so queer that Daddy Longlegs had to stretch it again and again.
"Ah! That's better!" Johnnie Green exclaimed then. "Now you're pointing plainly enough. I know now that you're trying to tell me to walk right towards the sweet apple tree if I want to find my knife. And I'm obliged to you, Mr. Daddy Longlegs! Thank you very much!"
Then Johnnie let go his prisoner, who crept quickly into a crevice of the stone wall, where he stayed for a long time.
[p. 103]As for Johnnie Green, he scrambled spryly over the wall and began to move in a bee line toward the sweet apple tree. He walked slowly and searched the ground with great care. But he saw no sign of his precious knife.
Beneath the sweet apple tree Johnnie paused mournfully.
"He was only fooling me!" he exclaimed. "That old Daddy Longlegs played a trick on me!"
Johnnie just couldn't help feeling disappointed. And he just couldn't help feeling hungry as well. Luckily there were apples on the old tree. So he began to shin up into its branches.
And then all at once he saw his beautiful knife sticking into the tree-trunk right before his eyes.
Johnnie remembered then that he had visited the sweet apple tree soon after[p. 104] breakfast that very day, when he had happened to feel hungry. And he had stuck the knife there himself and gone off and forgotten it.