“They marched the animals, two by two, One wide river to cross— The elephant and the kangaroo, One wide river to cross.”
“But you see the kangaroo won’t stand up, so I have to put the tiger with the elephant. Then you sing it this way”
“They marched the animals, two by two, One wide river to cross— The elephant and the tigeroo, One wide river to cross.”
“Do you like it?” asked Phil, looking up into Susan’s face with a smile.
Susan nodded with an energy that set her curls a-bobbing.
“There’s Grandmother in the window,” said she. “Let’s go in and see her.”
Grandmother put down her knitting to welcome Philip, and bade Susan pass the cinnamon cookies.
“I know my mother likes me to eat them,” announced Phil, silent until he had disposed of his cooky, “because she wants me to grow fat.”
“Perhaps she would like you to take another one,” said Grandmother, hiding a smile and passing the plate again.
“I was sick,” went on Phil, whose tongue seemed loosened by the second cinnamon cooky. “I was sick so long I nearly all melted away. My father calls me Spindle Shanks. But I’m going to grow big and fat now—if I eat enough,” he added with his eyes on the plate of cakes.
Each with a cooky in hand and an extra one in Phil’s pocket, Susan escorted her new friend down Featherbed Lane in the hope that Grandfather would invite them into the office.
He was writing busily, but when Susan and Phil, clinging to the window-sill, all but pressed their noses against the pane, Grandfather put down his pen and motioned them to come in.
“How do you do, sir,” said Grandfather as Phil shook hands in true manly fashion. “So you are my next-door neighbor. I hope we shall be good friends.”
“Oh, he will, Grandfather,” said Susan, speaking up for her new acquaintance, who, standing speechless, allowed his gaze to travel from the high boots up to the quizzical brown eyes looking so pleasantly down upon him.
“Well, neighbor, we shall have to fatten you up a little, I’m thinking,” remarked Grandfather heartily, observing thin little Phil in his turn.
“Yes,” agreed Phil, finding his tongue at last and taking a nibble of his cooky as if to begin the fattening process at once.
“I mean to eat and grow fat. My mother wants me to; she said so. My father calls me Spindle Shanks,” he added, as if rather proud of his new name.
