Once upon a time it was raining very hard one morning. It was just when Lulu and Alice and Jimmie Wibblewobble were looking out of the window of the duck pen, getting ready for school.  
"Jimmie, is your hair combed?" asked his mamma.
 
"No, ma'am," he answered; "but I'm just going to comb it."
 
"And did you brush your teeth?"
 
"No, mamma, but I'm just going—"
 
"Now, now, Jimmie, that's what you always say. Hurry to the bathroom and clean your teeth at once, or else there'll be a dentist coming to the school looking into your mouth and knows what will happen then. Hurry, now, or you'll be late."
 
Jimmie cleaned his teeth quickly, and ran on to school so he wouldn't be late and get a bad mark. What's that? You didn't know ducks had teeth? Well, the next time you get a chance, when a duck opens his mouth real wide, you look in, and maybe you'll see them. They're very small, I know, but that doesn't count.
 
Well, Lulu and Alice ran on ahead, and Jimmie came following after. He wasn't late at school because he met the frog, who , and so Jimmie had to run to keep up. The little boy duck was the first one in the classroom, and the teacher said:
 
"Why, Jimmie, this is a surprise. You are not late this morning, though you were every other day this week."
 
"Yes, ma'am," was all Jimmie said, as he took his seat.
 
Well, you should have seen it rain! Honestly, I don't know when it ever rained so hard before; maybe not since the animals came out of the ark, or the last time I wanted to go to a picnic. Some of the kindergarten children got quite wet, because, you see, they were so little that they couldn't hold their umbrellas up straight. And even some of the high school girls got wet, too; but they didn't mind.
 
Jimmie and his sisters didn't need an umbrella, for, you know, water always runs off a duck's back, and doesn't do a bit of harm. It rained when the duck children got home from school, and it was still raining when Mrs. Wibblewobble said:
 
"My dears, I don't like to ask you to go out in the storm again, but I do wish you would run over to Grandfather Goosey-Gander's house. He is ill, and I want to send him some hot watercress tea."
 
Now Alice didn't want to go because her foot, that she once had cut on a stone, pained her. And Jimmie, well, no sooner had he gotten in the house, and taken some bread and butter, with jam on it, than he had run out in the rain again, to play with Bully, the frog. That left only Lulu to go to Grandfather Goosey-Gander's house, but she said she didn't mind in the least, and she was very glad she went, for she saw a most wonderful sight. Just you wait, and I'll tell you about it.
 
So Mrs. Wibblewobble put the hot tea in a tin , and covered it over with a burdock leaf, to keep the rain out, and then she put some cold potatoes in a dish, for she thought the old gentleman duck might like them as well. Then Lulu started off through the woods to go to her grandfather's house. It was still raining, but she didn't mind, and pretty soon, oh, maybe in about ten , she came to where Mr. Gander lived.
 
Well, you would have felt sorry for him if you could have seen him. There he was, sitting on a , with his feet............