and pretty soon, oh, in a little while after supper, you know, it
was bedtime for the duck children and they went to bed.

Well, it got darker and darker, and soon it was nice and quiet around the
pond where the ducks lived. Only the frogs seemed to be awake, and they
were croaking away in the water. And pretty soon Lulu and Alice were
dreaming and so was Jimmie, and the funny part of it is that they all
dreamed different things.

Pretty soon it got even darker, and then up popped the silvery moon, and
it wasn't quite so dark. But it was more quiet. Oh my, yes! It was so
quiet that I believe if a feather had fallen off a duck's back it would
have made a noise when it struck the ground. Oh, it was very quiet.

Then, all of a sudden Jimmie awakened. He sniffed and he snuffed, and he
smelled smoke. So he got up and he called to Lulu and Alice in the next
room:

"Say, don't you smell smoke?"

"Yes," said Alice, "I do."

"Maybe it's Grandfather Goosey-Gander smoking his pipe," suggested Lulu.

"No, he doesn't smoke as late as this," said Jimmie.

Then the smell of smoke got stronger, and, in about as long as it would
take you to count one and a half, what should happen but that the whole
duckhouse was suddenly lighted up. Then there came a crackling, roaring
sound, and Papa and Mamma Wibblewobble jumped up.

"Oh, dear! It's burglars! I know it's burglars!" cried Mrs. Wibblewobble.
"Quack real loud, Leander" (you see Mr. Wibblewobble's name was Leander).
"Quack real loud, and call the police!"

So Mr. Leander Wibblewobble quacked as loudly as he could, and just then
Aunt Lettie jumped out of bed.

"Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!" she cried, three times, just like that. "The
house is on fire! The house is burning up! Run! Jump, everybody!"

And, sure enough, the ducks' house was on fire, and it wasn't a burglar at
all; no sir! Whether the moon was so hot that it caused the fire, or
whether it was sparks from grandfather's pipe, I can't say, but anyhow,
the house was on fire, and it was burning fiercely.

"Oh dear! Oh dear!" cried Aunt Lettie again. And Mamma Wibblewobble cried
just the same, too. Then they all ran and jumped out of the second-story
window, but it didn't hurt them, for they could fly a little bit, you
know, and they came down like balloons. That is all but Aunt Lettie, and
she was used to jumping, so she came down like a lot of dishes falling
off the table.

Well, you should have seen that house bu