CHAPTER VII.
THE HISTORY OF THE SEVEN YOUNG GEESE.
When the seven young Geese began to travel, they went over a large plain, on which there was but one tree, and that was, a very bad one.
So four of them went up to the top of it, and looked about them; while the other three waddled up and down, and repeated poetry, and their last six lessons in arithmetic, geography, and cookery.
Presently they perceived, a long way off, an object of the most interesting and obese appearance, having a perfectly round body exactly resembling a boiled plum-pudding, with two little wings, and a beak, and three feathers growing out of his head, and only one leg.
So, after a time, all the seven young Geese said to each other, "Beyond all doubt this beast must be a Plum-pudding Flea!"
On which they incautiously began to sing aloud,
"Plum-pudding Flea, Plum-pudding Flea, Wherever you be, Oh! come to our tree, And listen, oh! listen, oh! listen to me!"