Dot and the Kangaroo | Page 5

very puzzled what to do. But suddenly she brightened up. "I have an idea," she said joyfully. "Just step into my pouch, and I'll hop you down to the water-hole in less time than it takes a locust to shrill."
Timidly and carefully, Dot did the Kangaroo's bidding, and found herself in the cosiest, softest little bag imaginable. The Kangaroo seemed overjoyed, when Dot was comfortably settled in her pouch. "I feel as if I had my dear baby kangaroo again!" she exclaimed; and immediately she bounded away through the tangled scrub, over stones and bushes, over dry water-courses and great fallen trees. And all Dot felt was a gentle rocking motion, and a fresh breeze in her face, which made her so cheerful that she sang this song:--
If you want to go quick, I will tell you a trick For the bush, where there isn't a train. With a hulla-buloo, Hail a big kangaroo-- But be sure that your weight she'll sustain-- Then with hop, and with skip, She will take you a trip With the speed of the very best steed; And, this is a truth for which I can vouch, There's no carriage can equal a kangaroo's pouch. Oh! where is a friend so strong and true As a dear big, bounding kangaroo?
"Good bye! Good bye!" The lizards all cry, Each drying its eyes with its tail. "Adieu! Adieu! Dear kangaroo!" The scared little grasshoppers wail. "They're going express To a distant address," Says the bandicoot, ready to scoot; And your path is well cleared for your progress, I vouch, When you ride through the bush in a kangaroo's pouch. Oh! where is a friend so strong and true As a dear big, bounding kangaroo?
"Away and away!" You will certainly say, "To the end of the farthest blue-- To the verge of the sky, And the far hills high, O take me with thee, kangaroo! We will seek for the end, Where the broad plains tend, E'en as far as the evening star. Why, the end of the world we can reach, I vouch, Dear kangaroo, with me in your pouch." Oh! where is a friend so strong and true As a dear big, bounding kangaroo?
CHAPTER II
"That is a nice song of yours," said the Kangaroo, "and I like it very much, but please stop singing now, as we are getting near the water-hole, for it's not etiquette to make a noise near water at sundown."
Dot would have asked why everything must be so quiet; but as she peeped out, she saw that the Kangaroo was making a very dangerous descent, and she did not like to trouble her friend with questions just then. They seemed to be going down to a great deep gully that looked almost like a hole in the earth, the depth was so great, and the hills around came so closely together. The way the Kangaroo was hopping was like going down the side of a wall. Huge rocks were tumbled about here and there. Some looked as if they would come rolling down upon them; and others appeared as if a little jolt would send them crashing and tumbling into the darkness below. Where the Kangaroo found room to land on its feet after each bound puzzled Dot, for there seemed no foothold anywhere. It all looked so dangerous to the little girl that she shut her eyes, so as not to see the terrible places they bounded over, or rested on: she felt sure that the Kangaroo must lose her balance, or hop just a little too far or a little too near, and that they would fall together over the side of that terrible wild cliff. At last she said:
"Oh, Kangaroo, shall we get safely to the bottom do you think?"
"I never think," said the Kangaroo, "but I know we shall. This is the easiest way. If I went through the thick bush on the other side, I should stand a chance of running my head against a tree at every leap, unless I got a stiff neck with holding my head on one side looking out of one eye all the time. My nose gets in the way when I look straight in front," she explained. "Don't be afraid," she continued. "I know every jump of the way. We kangaroos have gone this way ever since Australia began to have kangaroos. Look here!" she said, pausing on a big boulder that hung right over the gully, "we have made a history book for ourselves out of these rocks; and so long as these rocks last, long, long after the time when there will be no more kangaroos, and no more humans, the sun, and the moon, and the stars will look down upon what we have traced on these