r
gets to. Perhaps you'd like to hear about it. It's in poetry, you know."

"Thank you," said Dorothy politely. "I'd like it very much."

"All right," said the Stork. "The werses is called 'A Ferry Tale'"; and,
giving another cough to clear his voice, he began:

Oh, come and cross over to nowhere,
And go where
The nobodies live on their nothing a day!
A tideful of tricks is this merry
Old Ferry,
And these are the things that it does by the way:

It pours into parks and disperses
The nurses;
It goes into gardens and scatters the cats;
It leaks into lodgings, disorders
The boarders,
And washes away with their holiday hats.

It soaks into shops, and inspires
The buyers
To crawl over counters and climb upon chairs;
It trickles on tailors, it spatters
On hatters,
And makes little milliners scamper up-stairs.

It goes out of town and it rambles
Through brambles;
It wallows in hollows and dives into dells;
It flows into farm-yards and sickens
The chickens,
And washes the wheelbarrows into the wells.

It turns into taverns and drenches
The benches;
It jumps into pumps and comes out with a roar;
It pounds like a postman at lodges--
Then dodges
And runs up the lane when they open the door.

It leaks into laundries and wrangles
With mangles;
It trips over turnips and tumbles down-hill;
It rolls like a coach along highways
And byways,
But never gets anywhere, go as it will!

Oh, foolish old Ferry! all muddles
And puddles--
Go fribble and dribble along on your way;
We drink to your health with molasses
In glasses,
And waft you farewell with a handful of hay!

"What do you make out of it?" inquired the Stork anxiously.

"I don't make anything out of it," said Dorothy, staring at him in great
perplexity.

"I didn't suppose you would," said the Stork, apparently very much
relieved. "I've been at it for years and years, and I've never made
sixpence out of it yet," with which remark he pulled in his head and
disappeared.

"I don't know what he means, I'm sure," said Dorothy, after waiting a
moment to see if the Stork would come back, "but I wouldn't go over that
ferry for _sixty_ sixpences. It's altogether too frolicky"; and having
made this wise resolution, she was just turning to go