As the Goose Flies
Copyright© 2025 by Katharine Pyle
Chapter 12: Home Again
Ellen looked about her. She was still standing in the golden room of the Queerbodies’ house. Before her was the Fairy Tale, smiling down into her face with shining eyes. There, too, were the gander and the Queerbody.
“Is that the story?” the Queerbody asked.
Ellen clasped her hands. “Oh, yes,” she cried, looking up into the Fairy Tale’s face. “I’m sure you’re the one. There were Goldenhair and the sooty hood and all. You ‘ll stay made up now, won’t you?”
“Yes,” answered the Story; “and more than that, I’m going back with you too.”
Ellen gave a little cry of delight. She took the Story’s hand in hers, and it was so smooth and white she laid her cheek against it, and then kissed it softly.
“But how about the rhyme?” asked the gander.
“Oh, yes; I’d forgotten to ask for that.” Then Ellen told the Queerbody how she had promised Mother Goose that she would try to find a forgotten rhyme for her. The child couldn’t tell the Queerbody exactly what the rhyme was, of course, because it was a forgotten one, but she explained as well as she could.
The Queerbody seemed to know which one she meant. “Oh, yes, I can easily make that over; but if I do, you must promise to remember it and say it sometimes after you go back.”
Ellen was very willing to promise.
Then the Queerbody bent over another jar and took out some wondercluff. She patted and twisted and pulled, and then she set what she had made upon the floor. It was a funny-looking little rhyme, with a brown belted coat and a pointed cap, and a broad grin on its fat, round face.
“Quank! quank!” cried the gander. “There he is again.”
The Rhyme blinked and looked about him, and then he spoke, still grinning broadly.
“Hello! I guess I’ve been forgotten, haven’t I? But somebody seems to have brought me back. Well, there’s the old gander, same as ever.” He ran over and caught hold of the gander’s bridle. “Give me a ride?” he asked.
“Yes, I’m going to carry you back with me.”
“Oh, goody, goody!” And the Rhyme hopped up and down as though its toes were made of rubber.
But Ellen looked anxious. “I wonder how we’re all to get back,” she said, with a glance at the Fairy Tale. “I don’t believe the gander can carry us all.”
“Oh, you’re not going back with me,” he answered. “The journey’s too long for that, and there’s an easier way.”
“Yes, a much easier way,” chimed in the Queerbody. “Why, it’s so easy that sometimes I go home without even trying.”
Ellen wondered. “Do you? And then you have to come all that long way to get here again?”
“No, it’s shorter when you know the way. Sometimes I get back in a minute. But put your ear against the wall and listen.”
Ellen put her ear against the golden wall. As she listened she gave a little gasp of amazement, and yet what she heard was not so very wonderful; it was only the voices of her mother and the seamstress talking quietly together in the sewing-room.
Presently the voices grew fainter. Ellen leaned harder against the wall to catch their tones. Then all in a moment the wall yielded to her weight, just as a snowdrift might, and she fell through it.