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Mother Goose knitted her brows and began to think hard. Suddenly her face brightened. "I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll lend you my gander; and he'll carry you there in short order, however far it is."

"Oh, thank you, but I don't believe I could ride him! I'd fall off, I'm sure."

"No, you wouldn't. He goes as smoothly as a dream goose, and almost as fast. Yes, I'll lend him to you. But there's one thing I'd like you to do for me in return when you reach the house of the Queerbodies."

"What is that?"

"I'd like you to ask about a rhyme I used to have. I think they must have it there, for I've lost it; and if it hasn't been made over yet, perhaps you could manage to get it for me."

"What's its name?" asked Ellen.

"Well, it hasn't any name, but it looks like this:—

Ellen promised to do what she could about it, and then Mother Goose sent Little Boy Blue to unhitch the gander and bring him to them. Ellen felt rather nervous about mounting him, but Mother Goose told her how to do it.

Then the white gander spread his wings. The wind rustled through them like the sound made by the leaves of a book when they are turned. Up, up rose the gander as smoothly as a bubble rises through the air and then away he flew toward the dark line of forest that Ellen saw in the distance.

Chapter Three

The Five Little Pigs and the Goat

On and on went the white gander so smoothly and swiftly that the country slipped away beneath just as the leaves of a book do when they slip from under your finger too fast for you to see the print or pictures.

"I wonder what that is," said Ellen as a spot of red shone out among the green beneath.

The gander stayed his wings so that Ellen could look.

It was a little red brick house. Around it were other houses that looked as though they were built of sods. They had chimneys and from two or three of these chimneys thin lines of smoke rose through the still air.

As the gander hovered above them from a knoll a little way beyond there suddenly sounded a shrill and piteous squeaking.

"Oh, what's that?" cried Ellen. "It must be a pig and I'm afraid some one is hurting it. Oh dear!"

"Do you want to go and see mistress?" asked the gander.

Ellen said she did, so the gander turned in that direction.

When they reached the knoll they found that it was indeed a pig that was making the noise, but Ellen could not see why it was shrieking so. It sat there all alone under an oak tree and with its pink nose lifted to the sky and its eyes shut it wept aloud. The tears trickled down its bristly cheeks.

Suddenly it stopped squeaking, and getting up began quietly hunting about for acorns, and craunching them as though it found them very good.

"What's the matter, you poor little pig?" asked Ellen, looking down at it from the gander's back.

She had not spoken with any idea of receiving any answer.

The little pig looked up when he heard her voice. As soon as he saw her he sat down and began squeaking so shrilly that Ellen felt like covering her ears.

"Week! Week! Week!" he cried. "Can't find my way home."

For a moment Ellen was so surprised at hearing the pig speak that she could not say anything. Then she asked, "Where do you live?" But the pig did not hear her. "Where do you live?" she repeated in a louder tone; then she shouted, "Hush!" so loudly that the little pig stopped short with his mouth half open and the tears still standing in his eyes.

"Where do you live?" she asked for the third time.

"I live over by the wood in the little sod house next to the brick one," answered the little pig.

"Well, isn't that it there?" and Ellen pointed to the sod houses over which she had just flown.

The little pig looked. "Why, so it is," he cried. Then curling up his little tail he trotted away in that direction.

The white gander flew beside him and Ellen talked as they went. "Why didn't you see it before?"

"I was coming home from market with my brother; he's quite a big pig; and I stopped to eat some acorns, so he said he wouldn't wait for me any longer, and he went on and that lost me."

"But if you'd just looked you would have seen it."

"I couldn't look because I was hunting for acorns, and then I began to cry, and then I hunted for some more acorns."

It sounded so foolish, Ellen couldn't help laughing. "I think I'd better go home with you or you may get lost again," she said. Presently she asked, "How many brothers have you?"

"Four," answered the pig. "One of them's going to have roast beef for dinner." Suddenly he sat down and began to cry again.

"What in the world's the matter now?" asked Ellen in desperation.

"Oweek! Oweek! Maybe he's eaten it all."

"Well you'd better hurry home and see. If you keep on sitting here and crying, I know you won't get any."

This thought made the little pig jump up and start toward home as fast as his short legs would carry him.

When they reached the sod house next to the brick one another pig was standing in the doorway looking out. He was larger than Ellen's companion.

He stared hard at the little girl and her gander, but when he spoke it was to the little pig. "You naughty little pig, why didn't you come home?"

The little pig did not answer this question. "Has Middling finished his roast beef?" he asked.

"There's some fat left."

As the little pig hurried in through the door, Ellen asked of the other, "Is this your house?"

"Yes," grunted the pig.

Three other pigs had appeared in the doorway by this time. They all stared at the little girl.

"It's a dear little house," said Ellen.

"Would you like to look inside?" asked the largest pig.

Ellen said she would.

She slipped from the gander and the pigs made way for her to go in; but she only looked through the doorway, without entering. The littlest pig was seated at a table eating beef fat as fast as he could. Ellen did not think he ate very nicely.

"It's a dear little house," she repeated.

Then she looked about her. At the window of one of the other houses she caught a glimpse of a head. It looked like a cat's head.

"Who live in all these other houses?" she asked.

"Well, in that brick house lives another pig," answered the pig they called Middling. "Sometimes he comes to see us, but he doesn't have very much to do with us, because he's in a story; a real story you know, and we're only in a rhyme."

"What story is he in?" asked Ellen.

"The story of the wolf that huffed and puffed and blew the house in. He had two brothers, and one built a house of leaves and one built a house of straw, and the wolf came and blew their houses in and ate them up, but this one built his house of bricks, so when the wolf came to it—"

"Oh, yes, I know that story," interrupted Ellen, for she