Baby Popover had a pain and Mrs. Popover did not know how to cure it.
She had rubbed his stomach and had given him a drink of mustard tea. She had pinned a piece of red flannel on his chest. She would have held a warm flat-iron to his feet, only he wouldn't lie still long enough to allow her to do it. She had rocked him and patted him and sung to him her sweetest lullabies.
But nothing seemed to help Loo-Loo's pain. He cried and cried and flung his tiny fists about until Mrs. Popover felt that she couldn't stand it another minute.
Mrs. Popover knew quite well what had given Loo-Loo his pain. For that very afternoon Loo- Loo had been almost drowned. He had lain in the bottom of the bath-tub for as much as two minutes, filled with water to the brim, for his head, a cork, you know, had unfortunately come out just as he fell.
It all happened because Uncle Henry bought Ellen a sailboat. It was a pretty boat, with snow-white sails and painted a bright red. The Popovers were delighted when they learned from Ellen that they were to be the first to have a sail. They listened with pleasure to the water running into the bathtub, and Velvetina's
cheeks were red with excitement when Ellen first set her on board.
But Mrs. Popover and Velvetina both proved too heavy for the little sail-boat. It tipped and lurched and dipped water no matter how light they sat. So they were forced to watch the sailing from the edge of the basin above the tub, and while they were sorry not to be of the party, they enjoyed Mr. Popover and Loo-Loo's pleasure in the fun.
To and fro in the bathtub sailed the little boat. Ellen, kneeling at the side, helped it to turn corners safely and to go now fast, now slow.
Loo-Loo and Mr. Popover rolled happily about on the deck. Of course they could not stand, they were not sailors enough for that, though Mr. Popover remembered hearing some one talk about 'sea legs ' and meant to have them as soon as he could. To and fro, to and fro rolled Loo-Loo and Mr. Popover. They were not seasick in the least. Loo-Loo did not seem to miss his mother. He smiled happily as the little ship sailed slowly or dashed swiftly through the water, whichever Ellen chose.
'Now we will have a storm,' said Ellen, and then I will have to go and be dressed.'
So Ellen made the storm. She beat and stirred the water with one hand while with the other she guided the little boat through the heavy waves. She growled and rumbled like the thunder too.
'It is as good as a real storm at sea,' called Ellen to Aunt Amelia in the doorway.
Aunt Amelia had come to the doorway because of the thunder. She thought that Ellen must be in trouble of some kind.
And it was while Ellen was talking to Aunt Amelia that Loo-Loo fell overboard.
There was no railing round the little ship, and as it rocked and tossed in the stormy waves over the side went Loo-Loo without a sound, without a cry. You see he couldn't cry because he lost his head. At the very moment that he fell, out came the cork that had been loosened by so much rolling about and down, down, down went Loo-Loo to the bottom of the tub while his head floated jauntily about on the crest of the waves.
Why, it was something that might not happen to a person in a hundred years, his body at the bottom of the sea, as it were, and his head floating about on top. I am not sure that it could happen to you or to me.
But, at any rate, it happened to Loo-Loo, and for as much as two minutes Ellen did not notice that he was gone.
The first things she did see were Mrs. Popover and Velvetina lying flat on the basin where a few moments before they had sat smiling and straight. They had probably fainted when they saw Loo-Loo fall. But of course Ellen did not know this.
'They are tired,' thought she. 'I will put them all to bed now.'
Mr. Popover was lying half-upright on the deck. In some way his head had caught in the rigging and that is probably what had saved Mr. Popover from following Loo-Loo over the side of the boat. But of Loo-Loo there was nothing to be seen until, after Ellen's first stare of astonishment, she spied his head bobbing along in the water.
It took her only a moment to find his body, and not that long to empty the water from it, stick his head on again, and dry him off. She dried Mr. Popover and the little red boat, too. Then she sat the Popovers round the dining room table in their own Little House.
'You must be hungry,' said Ellen. 'I know I am.'
And off she ran to change her wet dress and to ask Caroline for something to eat.
But the Popovers were not hungry. They were troubled about Loo-Loo. For no sooner had Ellen gone than Loo-Loo began to cry, and he had cried without stopping until twilight, in spite of all that his mother had done for him.
So at last Mrs. Popover made up her mind that she couldn't stand it another minute.
'Mr. Popover,' said she, speaking loudly to drown Loo-Loo's screams, 'you must go out and fetch the doctor.'
'Very well, my dear,' shouted back Mr. Popover. 'Where shall I go?'
'You must go out the window and down the honeysuckle vine,' answered Mrs. Popover, who had planned it all while patting Loo-Loo on the back. 'Perhaps you will meet the fairy King and Queen under the apple tree. They have a baby and could tell us what to do. But at any rate there are plenty of crickets about and there must be a doctor among them. They can't always be well.'
'Don't you think Peanut might help us?' called out Mr. Popover. He didn't at all like the idea of climbing down the honeysuckle vine.
'Peanut!' cried Mrs. Popover, and she almost stamped her foot. You see Loo-Loo had been crying for hours and she was tired out. 'Peanut doesn't know a thing about sickness. He has never had a pain in his life.'
Mr. Popover didn't dare say another word. He clambered out of the window and started down the honeysuckle vine.
At the foot of the vine, near the iris bed, were half a dozen jolly little crickets who were playing their wing fiddles as hard as ever they could.
'We are practicing for the next Fairy Ball.'they called out happily to Mr. Popover.
But when they heard that Mr. Popover was in search of a doctor for his sick baby, they were as sorry as they could be.
'Yes, we have a doctor, a cricket doctor,' said they, 'but no matter what ails us he always gives us pepper-grass tea.'
'Perhaps pepper-grass tea would help Loo-Loo,' said Mr. Popover hopefully.
'Perhaps it would,' answered one of the crickets. 'But let us ask my mother first. She is as good as a doctor, any day.'
The little cricket mother, who looked as wise as an owl, listened to the story of Loo-Loo's accident and of his pain. And at the mention of the cricket doctor and his pepper-grass tea she shook her head.
'Your baby doesn't need tea,' said the little cricket mother. 'He has a pain because he has been full of water. Why should you give him any more water to drink? Go down to the pond and ask for Doctor Frog. The little frogs must often swallow too much water and he would know how to cure such a pain.'
This advice seemed sensible to Mr. Popover, and with two friendly crickets to show him the way he went straight down to the pond.
'Doctor Frog! Doctor Frog! Doctor Frog!' chirped the crickets.
And up out of the water with a jump and a splash came plump old Doctor Frog.
He wore a neat green suit and a snow-white vest and he stared at Mr. Popover through his great horn spectacles as if he had never seen a clothes-pin before. And, come to think of it, perhaps he never had. But he knew all about a baby frog's aches and pains, and when he heard that Loo-Loo had swallowed all the water that he could hold, he said he would cure him in a trice.
'I have cases almost every day of baby frogs who have swallowed too much water,' said he.
'They don't need medicine to drink. They need something solid and hard like a pill. I will send your baby a pill that will cure him in an hour's time.'
Doctor Frog was good as his word. He put into Mr. Popover's hand a half-dozen pills wrapped in a water-lily leaf, pills that were certainly solid and hard, and that looked to Mr. Popover very much like the little white pebbles that might be found on the edge of a pond.
But he took the pills gladly and thanked Doctor Frog, who kindly said, with a wave of his hand, that there would be no bill. Then home Mr. Popover hurried as fast as his long legs would carry him, the two faithful little crickets hopping along at his side.
'Let us know whether the pill helps the baby,' chirped the crickets as Mr. Popover started up the honeysuckle vine.
But, if they had listened, they might have known for themselves. For no sooner had Loo-Loo taken one pebble pill than he stopped crying and fell asleep.
Doctor Frog had cured his pain!
'Someday,' said happy Mrs. Popover, as she lay in bed that night with her hand on Loo-Loo's cradle in case he might awake, 'some day I am going to make my very best dessert and carry it down to Doctor Frog myself. I must thank him in some way for curing Loo-Loo's pain. What do you think, Mr. Popover, is my very best dessert?'
"Floating Island pudding' answered Mr. Popover at once. 'It is my favorite, and I think that Doctor Frog would be sure to like it, too, because he lives in a pond.'
'I will make it tomorrow,' said Mrs. Popover, 'and carry it down to the pond after dark.'
And, so far as I know, there is no reason for thinking that Mrs. Popover did not keep her word nor that Doctor Frog did not enjoy the Floating Island pudding quite as well as Mr. Popover thought he would.
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Mr. Popover asks Dr. Frog for advice.
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