Some one came pattering along behind me. I turned around and saw Evan Henny-Penny with his long staff.
“Is that you, Henny-Penny?” I called.
“You’ll fall into the water if you sit there,” said Evan.
“Shall I really, Henny-Penny?”
He came nearer, right to where I was sitting. I got up hastily. I am not in the least afraid of Evan, but for all that, it made me feel queer to have him come so close to me with that long staff of his.
As you can well understand, I hadn’t a clear conscience with regard to Evan, so horrid as I had always been to him with my teasing and calling him names.
When I had run a few steps away from him, I got hold of a little stick and began to tease him. I danced round and round him, poked him with the stick and sang a nonsense song that always made him frightfully angry:
“Anna Pelanna with light blue beard,
If you live till summer
You’ll lay an egg,