They leaped into the pans, and all Polly had to do was to set them into the oven to bake.
She was so happy, she swept the kitchen and washed the dishes, and would have forgotten the cookies, I am sure, if she had not heard a voice calling:
“Try to think what you’re about,
Better take the cookies out;
Someone’s tapping at the door
Of the oven, as before!”
Sure enough, Polly heard a rapping, tapping, and when she opened the oven door she heard the cookies call in a happy chorus:
“We’re brown and pretty as any toy,
Hurrah, hurrah for the Gingerbread Boy!”
As Polly took the cookies out of the pan, she saw one was shaped like a regular boy, and before she could say a word, out he jumped and sat down on the ice box, fanning himself with a geranium leaf.