“If only it could talk,” says Poppy, “and tell us where it came from.”
“A talking gander! You don’t ask for much.”
“A talking gander isn’t so much more freaky than a spotted gander.”
That was true, too. Certainly, I checked up on myself, in quick thought, I never had seen a spotted gander before, nor had I ever heard of one.
As though it were wise to what we were saying back and forth, and wanted to help us clear up the mystery that hung over it, the gander waddled to the barn door, sort of eager-like, then came back again. “Urk! Urk! Urk!” it said over and over, deep down in its long upholstered windpipe.
I looked at Poppy and laughed.
“What does ‘Urk!’ mean?”
No sooner had I said it than the gander again left us and waddled to the door. Then, having looked outside as before, it came back to us with more “Urk! Urk! Urk!” stuff.
But we were dumb. Whatever its secret was it couldn’t make us understand.
It was now up to us to sort of decide what we should do after breakfast. Of course, what we wanted to do, as I have said, was to stick around and solve the mystery. But we couldn’t very well do that without an invitation from Mrs. Doane. For it wasn’t our mystery.