THE next day I was sitting on the wall of the Doctor's garden
after tea, talking to Dab-Dab. I had now learned so much from
Polynesia that I could talk to most birds and some animals
without a great deal of difficulty. I found Dab-Dab a very nice,
old, motherly bird--though not nearly so clever and interesting
as Polynesia. She had been housekeeper for the Doctor many years
now.

Well, as I was saying, the old duck and I were sitting on the
flat top of the garden-wall that evening, looking down into the
Oxenthorpe Road below. We were watching some sheep being driven
to market in Puddleby; and Dab-Dab had just been telling me about
the Doctor's adventures in Africa. For she had gone on a voyage
with him to that country long ago.

Suddenly I heard a curious distant noise down the road, towards
the town. It sounded like a lot of people cheering. I stood up
on the wall to see if I could make out what was coming. Presently
there appeared round a bend a great crowd of school-children
following a very ragged, curious-looking woman.

"What in the world can it be?" cried Dab-Dab.

The children were all laughing and shouting. And certainly the
woman they were following was most extraordinary. She had very
long arms and the most stooping shoulders I have ever seen. She
wore a straw hat on the side of her head with poppies on it; and
her skirt was so long for her it dragged on the ground like a
ball-gown's train. I could not see anything of her face because