"Wait for Alice," called Mamma Wibblewobble. "She will go with you. She is just putting a clean apron on."
"Oh, dear!" cried Lulu. "Why does Alice always make us wait while she puts on something clean?"
"I suppose," answered Jimmie, and he scratched his bill with his left leg, "I suppose it is because she wants to look nice."
"Yes," agreed Lulu, with a sort of quacking-sigh, "I suppose I ought to want to look nice, too; but, somehow I don't—ever. I always seem to be in such a hurry."
"Maybe you'll change, some day," suggested her brother.
"Maybe," spoke Lulu, and just then Alice came swimming along, looking just as nice and pretty as do some ducks which are in a picture. They all went over to see Mrs. Greenie, the old lady frog, who lived down on the bottom of the pond, at the far edge, by a big willow tree.
And, honestly, though I don't like to mention it, for fear you'll think Bully a greedy little boy, there wasn't a single bit of candied sweet-flag root in the house. No, sir, not a tiny, weeny bit. So Mrs. Greenie gave the Wibblewobble children some nice snails, which they liked very much, and then they went on swimming around. Jimmie was looking for Bully, but the little boy frog had hopped off to see his cousin. Now, in a few minutes Jimmie is going to have an adventure, and, if you please, I want you to listen very carefully, so as not to miss it.
Well, the three ducklings swam on, thinking how nice it was on the water, with the warm sun on their backs, when they suddenly came to the end of the pond. And who should be standing there but the man who owned the little puddle. And, more than that, there was another man also standing there in the road and beside him was a queer thing, with big fat wheels, fatter than the fattest duck or goose you ever saw. It was puffing away, and some smoke and a funny smell came from it. Of course, you've guessed it! An automobile! Now, what do you think about that? The ducks listened to what the men were saying, for, though the Wibblewobbles couldn't talk as the men did, they could understand our language.
"It's too bad," said the man who owned the pond. "Can't you go any farther?"
"No," said the man who had the automobile, "I can't. You see my horn, that I blow to tell people to get out of the way, is broken. I can't sound any warning, and if I ran my machine I might hurt some one; and I wouldn't do that for the world; no, not for two worlds, if you were to offer them to me."