"I know it," replied Johnnie. "Billie made up that verse, and I made the first one. He said he had to have something like that in it or it wouldn't be right. But no matter. Did you like it?"
"Yes, pretty well."
"Shall we sing it again?" asked Johnnie.
"No, don't!" begged his brother. "He's been singing it all the morning, and I'm getting tired of it, even if I did make up one verse," he explained. "But say, Jimmie, don't you wish you could climb a tall tree, like this?" and before you could say Salimagundy or maybe incomprehensibility or even disproportionability, why Billie had run to the top of the tree and down again. "Don't you wish you could?" he asked again.
"Yes," answered Jimmie, looking up, "I wish I could climb a tree, but I guess ducks weren't made for that. I once tried to fly, and I didn't succeed very well. I'll stay on the ground, I think. Come on, let's have a catch. I've got a ball."
"No," spoke Johnnie, "I have an idea. Billie, why can't you and I teach Jimmie to climb a tree? If we pick out one with branches close together I'm sure he could get up it. We can help him, and he can take hold of some limbs in his bill, like a parrot takes hold of the wires in his cage."
"Fine!" cried Billie. "Will you do it, Jimmie?"
"Sure," answered the little boy duck, but he didn't know what was going to happen, or, maybe, he wouldn't have tried to climb up. Well, the squirrels selected quite a tall tree, but rather an easy one, and Jimmie managed to scramble up to the first low limbs, with Billie and Johnnie boosting him.
After that it wasn't quite so hard, and he was able to get up quite a distance, pulling himself with his yellow bill. He was not very graceful, and I'm sure if you ever saw a duck climb a tree you would agree with me, but finally, after a great deal of hard work, Jimmie was right on the top branch where the two squirrels sat blinking their eyes.
"How do you like it?" asked Johnnie.