The Tale of Daddy Longlegs | Page 7

spry, and most of the shoes were so big, that in
no time at all Daddy Longlegs was completely surrounded by a wall of
shoes, which rapidly grew higher and higher.
"Stop! stop!" cried Daddy Longlegs. But Jimmy Rabbit was so busy
that he didn't hear him. And he kept piling more and more shoes around
his tiny visitor, until Daddy Longlegs was lost in a small mountain of
big, little, and medium-sized shoes of many different colors.
Not till then did Jimmy Rabbit pause for breath. And when he saw that
his customer had disappeared he was more than surprised.
"Where can he have gone?" Jimmy exclaimed. "I didn't see him go out.
He was sitting right here only a moment ago. And now he's certainly
not in my shop."
Even at that very moment Daddy Longlegs was frantically crying "Help!
help!" But his thin, weak voice was quite muffled by the great heap of
shoes that buried him.
After waiting for a few minutes Jimmy Rabbit closed--and locked--his
door, and went skipping off to Farmer Green's garden, where the
cabbages grew.

IX
LOCKED IN!
POOR Daddy Longlegs! Buried as he was under dozens of shoes--all of
them many times bigger than he was--he couldn't help being alarmed
when he heard Jimmy Rabbit walk out of the shoe shop and lock the
door behind him.

Daddy wished that he had told Mrs. Ladybug in the beginning that he
wouldn't help Farmer Green with his harvesting. Then he would never
have started on his long journey to the oat field and worn out his shoes.
And if he hadn't worn out his shoes, of course he would never have
visited Jimmy Rabbit's shoe shop and got himself into such terrible
trouble.
He soon saw that he might call for help until his voice was cracked
worse than ever without its doing him the least bit of good. So he
stopped shouting and began to climb out of the pile of shoes that
surrounded him. And he was very glad, then, that he had eight long legs
to help him. But when he found himself free of the shoes he seemed but
little better off than before. There he was, a prisoner in the shoe shop!
And the daylight was fast fading.
If Daddy Longlegs had been half as wise as his neighbors believed him
he wouldn't have stayed in his prison two minutes. But after trying the
door and the two windows and finding that he couldn't open them he
made up his mind that there was nothing for him to do except to wait
until Jimmy Rabbit came back the following day.
And there was the chimney all the time! Daddy Longlegs could have
crawled up it just as easily as Santa Claus could have crept down it!
But because he had never left anybody's house or shop by way of the
chimney, Daddy Longlegs never once thought of doing such a thing.
And his thinking that Jimmy Rabbit wouldn't come back until the next
morning shows that Daddy knew very little about the ways of his
neighbors. Almost anybody else would have been sure that Jimmy
Rabbit would keep his shoe shop open at night, because he was always
wider awake after dark. And many others of the field-people were
exactly like him in that respect.
Daddy Longlegs had been sleeping soundly for some time--inside the
toe of a shoe--when the sound of voices awakened him. At first he kept
very still. Being naturally a timid person he did not want to show
himself until he was sure he was safe from harm.

And then, before he realized what was happening, he felt himself
picked up--shoe and all--and he heard Jimmy Rabbit say, "Try on this
shoe, Peter Mink!"
Since there was no doubt--the next instant--that Peter Mink was
thrusting his foot into Daddy's hiding-place, there was only one thing
for Daddy to do. Knowing that he was in great danger of being crushed,
he withdrew into the very tip of the shoe. And luckily for him, Peter
Mink's toes did not quite reach him.
After that Daddy Longlegs could hear nothing more; nor did he know
what was happening. But to make a long story short, Jimmy Rabbit
gave Peter Mink another shoe--for Peter's other foot--and bowed his
customer politely out of his shop.
After that Jimmy Rabbit promptly locked the door again. But this time
he locked himself in instead of out. You see, he never felt safe in Peter
Mink's company.
Naturally, Jimmy locked Daddy Longlegs out of the shop, too, though
he didn't know it.
And there Peter Mink stood in the moon-lit meadow, with his new
shoes on his feet, and with Daddy Longlegs hidden in the toe of his
right shoe.
But no