Freddy and the Perilous Adventure Read Online Free PDF Page A

me, there is the mountain to prove it.”
    â€œIt’s very odd,” said Alice; “we were going towards the sun when it set last night, and now it’s rising and we’re still going towards it.”
    They puzzled over this for some time, until Emma said excitedly: “Why we’re going east! And that’s because the wind has changed in the night. It’s carrying us in the other direction.”
    â€œOh,” said Freddy. “Oh, of course. Should have thought of that myself. I expect I would have in a minute, when I got waked up.”
    â€œWhat you’d better think about when you get waked up,” said Alice, “is where we’re going to get breakfast.”
    â€œMy goodness!” said Freddy, and fell back against the side of the basket. For if there was anything he didn’t like it was going without his breakfast. Or for that matter any other meal that it happened to be time for. Or even indeed anything to eat whether it was time for it or not. The world of the sky in which they were adventuring was a wonderful world, but if it was a world without food it was no place for him. “We’ve got to get down,” he said.
    â€œIf we have to get down to get breakfast,” said Alice, “I prefer to go without breakfast. I’m not hungry enough to jump.”
    â€œThere’s one piece of candy left,” said Emma.
    So they decided to divide up the piece of candy, and when they had eaten that they could think about what to do next. But it isn’t easy to divide up a piece of molasses candy if you haven’t got a knife, or scissors or anything. The ducks took the paper off, and then they each took hold of an end and pulled. They pulled and pulled, but all that happened was that the piece of candy got longer. They pulled it until it stretched from one side of the basket to the other, and then of course they couldn’t go any farther. They couldn’t stop, either, because they had taken such a firm hold that they couldn’t get their bills open again. So Freddy took hold in the middle, and then the ducks ate towards him, and pretty soon they were all sitting there with their noses together, trying to chew. And in that way they ate up the piece of candy.
    When they could talk again, Alice said: “Dear me, I wonder why it is that as soon as your jaws get stuck tight together you think of so many important things to say?”
    â€œI did too,” said Freddy. “And now I can’t remember any of them.”
    â€œUncle Wesley always used to say,” quacked Emma, “that most of the things people thought of to say were better left unsaid. He said if you took all the talk that went on on this farm during a year and squeezed it out, you wouldn’t get more than two drops of sense.”
    â€œAs I remember your uncle,” said Freddy, “he was quite a talker himself.”
    â€œA very fine talker,” said Emma. “He said many wise things.”
    â€œWise, eh?” said the pig. “You ought to collect them in a book. You could call it ‘Wise-Quacks.’ ‘Uncle Wesley’s Wise-Quacks.’ Hey, that’s not bad!”
    But the ducks didn’t laugh, and Emma said primly: “I don’t think Uncle Wesley would like that.”
    Freddy tried to explain. “A duck quacks,” he said, “so a duck’s wise-crack is a wise-quack. I mean, it’s a—”
    â€œUncle Wesley did not approve of slang,” interrupted Alice. “He said it was the empty rattling of a brain too small for its skull. Were not those his words, sister?”
    â€œHis very words,” said Emma.
    â€œAnd quite right, too,” said Freddy quickly. “Well, let’s just—er, drop the whole thing.” He was getting a little tired of Uncle Wesley, whom he remembered as a stout and pompous little duck who had ruled his nieces with a rod of iron. Long after they had grown