Anytime Tales (14 page)

“I suppose the doll is in bed,” thought the duck. “Poor thing! She will be sad when she knows I must leave her. I will try and see her before I go on Saturday. Perhaps she will be up by then.”

Each day the duck looked out for the doll to come,~~but she didn’t appear. She was still in bed. The rain went on pouring down, and soon people began to say that there would be floods in Toytown. Such a thing had never happened before!

The river overflowed and joined the pond on which the duck swam. Then what a great stretch of water there was for the duck to swim on! The water spread right up to the farmhouse, and the farmer’s wife rushed upstairs in fright, for it poured in at her kitchen door!

“We shall have to live in the bedrooms!” she cried. “Oh dear, oh dear! What a dreadful thing! All my kitchen chairs are floating about!”

The duck knew that it was Saturday, and he thought he would swim up to the farmhouse and look in at the bedroom windows until he found the room where his

friend the doll lay. Then he would say good-bye.[**] So up he swam.

The floods were very bad now, and the water was right up to the bedroom windows! The duck swam round the farmhouse, peeping in at each window.

Then he found the doll, sitting up in bed, looking very miserable and unhappy. The duck pecked on the glass with his beak, and the little doll jumped out of bed at once.

“Oh, duck, I’m so glad you’ve come!” she said. “We are in a dreadful fix here. The farmer’s wife hasn’t any tea, or sugar, or bread, and we don’t know how to get it, because of the floods. We can’t go out, for the water is right over our heads! Do you think you could float off to the butcher’s and get some meat for us, and go to the grocer’s and get some tea and sugar?”

“Of course!” said the duck in delight. “I’ll do anything I can! You know that, doll! I’ll go now!”

So off he floated at top speed. He went into Toy-town, which was also flooded, though not quite so badly as the houses just outside. He swam to the butcher’s, grocer’s, baker’s and milkman, and asked them for meat, tea, sugar, bread and milk, and loaded everything on to his big broad back! Then back he swam very carefully.

On the way he passed many other flooded houses. There were people at the windows, looking very miserable. When they saw the duck going by with all the parcels on his back, they began to shout excitedly to one another.

“See! There’s a duck with groceries! Hi, duck! Will

you get some for me? Ho there, duck! When next you go to the butcher’s buy some chops for me! I say, duck, I’ll give you sixpence if you’ll go and fetch me some nice fresh fish from the fishmonger’s.”

The duck listened to all the shouts and calls, and a marvellous idea came into his head! He would do all the shopping for the people in the flooded houses! What fun! That would really be hard work, and he would be so pleased to do it. He called out that he would soon be back, and then he floated at top speed to the farmhouse. He tapped on the window, and the doll opened it. She cried out in delight when she saw how well the duck had done the shopping. She lifted in the parcels, and as she took them the duck quacked out to her all the news.

“The houses nearby are all flooded too,” he said. “The people want me to go and do their shopping for them. If I go and do it, doll, I shall earn money, and then that policeman can’t turn me out!”

“Oh, splendid!” cried the doll. “To-morrow I will come with you. My cold is nearly better. I will ask the people to give me written shopping lists, and then we will go together and buy everything.”

So the next day the doll sat on the duck’s back, and he swam with her round to all the flooded houses. Everyone handed her a shopping list, and the duck and the doll hurried to the shops to get what was wanted. Then, when the duck’s back was quite loaded, back they floated to the houses and handed in the goods at the windows. They were paid sixpence each time they went shopping, and soon the little

bag that the doll kept the money in, jingled and clinked as she shopped. What a lot of money they were making!

“I shall be quite sorry when the rain stops,” said the little doll. She had bought herself a mackintosh and sou’wester, and also a pair of Wellington boots. So she was quite all right. Everyone looked out for the little couple each morning now, and called to them from the top windows.

One day, when the doll and duck were floating past the police station on their way to the shops, a window was flung open, and the toy policeman called to them.

“Hey!” he said. “Come here!”

“Oh dear! Do you suppose he wants to turn me out now?” said the poor duck, trembling so much that the doll was nearly shaken off his back. “I shan’t go to him. I shall just pretend I don’t see him.”

“Oh, we’d better go,” said the doll. “It isn’t good to be cowardly. Let’s be brave and go.”

So they floated across to him. To their great surprise he beamed at them, and said: “Well, you certainly have made yourselves useful, you two! Now look, here is my shopping list. Will you do my shopping for me too? I cannot get out of the police station.”

So they went to do the policeman’s shopping as well, and weren’t they pleased to put sixpence into their bag!

In three weeks’ time the rain stopped and the floods began to go down. Little by little all the water

drained away, and people were able to go in and out of the doors of their houses. The field round the farmhouse dried up and the little pond was itself again. The farmer came to the gate and called to the doll.

“What about coming back to be my gardener again?” he shouted. “The duck can have the use of my pond, if he wishes!”

“Oh dear!” groaned the duck. “What a dull life that will be, after this exciting three weeks!”

“Don’t worry, duck,” said the doll, hugging him hard round the neck. “I’ve got such a lovely idea!”

The duck was on the river, and the doll stepped off and ran to the farmer. “I’m sorry I can’t come back,” she said, “but I’ve bought a little house by the river, and I and the duck are going to live there, and do all the fetching and carrying for the folk who live on the riverside!”

The duck nearly fell over on the water when he heard this. Live with the doll in a little house—and work for her! Oh, could anything be better!

It was quite true. The doll had spent her sixpences well. She swam off with the duck and took him to a tiny house on the riverside. It had curtains at the windows, and a tiny landing-stage.

“There you are!” she said. “That’s our house! And all the folk who live nearby have promised that they will call you whenever they want to be taken from one side of the river to the other, duck—and if they want any shopping done, we can go and get their shopping lists, and you can float with me down the river, till we come to the town. Then I shall jump

off and do the shopping, and you can wait for me. I’ll come back and put the parcels on your back, and off we’ll go up the river once more. Isn’t that lovely!”

So that’s what they do now. And in the evening, when the work is done, the doll carries the duck into her little house, and they sit on chairs opposite one another and drink hot cocoa together.

Ah, they have a fine life together! But they did work hard for it, didn’t they?