XI

And now at last one day when the animals had been walking all morning through wild and swampy woods, they came out at the top of a long slope that, went down to a wide valley in which were many green trees and comfortable-looking, white houses. A soft wind blew over the valley, and puffed into their faces a sweet delicious perfume, that none of them had ever smelt before. They sniffed the air delightedly.

“Mmmmmm!” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Isn’t that good? It’s better than clover. I wonder what it is.”

“I know,” said Jack. “I’ve smelt it at weddings. See all those little green trees down there? They’re orange-trees, and that smell is orange-blossoms.”

“Look! Look!” squealed Freddy. “There’s a palm-tree!”

“It’s Florida!” shouted Jinx.

And all the animals shouted together: “Florida!” so that they could be heard for miles, and Alice and Emma hopped about and quacked and flapped their wings, and Charles crowed, and the dogs barked, and Mrs. Wiggins mooed, and Hank, the old, white horse, danced round like a young colt until his legs got all tangled up and he fell down and everybody laughed. Even the spiders raced round and round the web they had spun between Mrs. Wiggins’s horns, and the mice capered and pranced.

“So this is Florida!” said Mrs. Wiggins. “Well. well!”

Then they started down the slope into Florida. And as they went, Freddy made up a song:

The weather grew torrider and torrider,

And the orange-blossoms smelt horrider and horrider,

As we marched down into Florida.

“But the orange-blossoms don’t smell horrid,” said Robert.

“I know it,” said Freddy. “But there isn’t any other word that rhymes.”

“Well, make up another song, then,” said Robert.

So Freddy sang:

Oh, the winding road to Florida

Is a dusty road, and long,

But we animals gay have cheered the way

With many a merry song.

Our hearts were bold—but our homes were cold.

And that is why we’ve come

To Florida, to Florida,

From our far-off northern home.

In Florida, in Florida,

Where the orange-blossom blows,

Where the alligator sings so sweet,

And the sweet-potato grows;

Oh, that is the place where I would be,

And that is where I am—

In Florida, in Florida,

As happy as a clam.

They all liked this song much better, and as they went along they sang lustily. They were so glad to have reached Florida at last that they forgot all about stopping to rest at noon, and they marched on until nearly three o’clock. Then Mrs. Wiggins sank down under a tree beside the road.

“I can’t go another step!” she said. “I’m in a dripping perspiration. Charles, I’d take it kindly if you’d fan me with your wing for a few minutes.”

So they all sat down and Charles very kindly fanned Mrs. Wiggins until she had cooled off. And as they were all pretty tired and hot, they decided to camp there that night and think about what they were going to do in Florida. And then in the morning they could go and begin doing it.

So they camped under the orange-trees and discussed all the things they could do, and at last they decided to go to the sea-shore, as Freddy said he understood the sea-bathing was very fine there.

“But how can we find the sea-shore?” asked Robert. “You ought to have had that robin draw it on the map.”

Freddy said it would be easy to find because Florida was a peninsula.

“What’s a peninsula?” asked Jack, and Henrietta said: “Oh, don’t ask him! He’s just trying to show off.”

But Freddy said: “A peninsula is a piece of land that is almost surrounded by water. That means that if you walk far enough in any direction but one, you will come to the ocean.”

“Yes,” said Robert, “but how do we know which direction is the one we ought not to walk in?”

“Why, the direction we came from, stupid,” said Freddy. And he drew a little map on the ground and showed the animals what he meant.

So the next morning they started out to find the ocean. They travelled for four days before they saw it, away off in the distance, glittering and sparkling in the sunlight, and it was still another day before they came down to a broad beach of yellow sand and saw the great sheet of water stretching away before them for miles and miles. They just stood and looked at it for a long time, for none of them had ever seen anything like it before. And they rushed down the beach and swam out into the water.

So for a month they lived by the side of the ocean and rested from their long journey. They found an old barn not very far from the shore, and they cleaned it up and all lived there together happily. Every day at four o’clock they went in for a dip in the surf, and then they would lie round on the sand and talk until supper-time. It was a very lazy and pleasant life that they lived in Florida.

But after a while they got tired of doing nothing and began to long for new adventures. “Besides, we ought to travel round and see the country,” said Charles. “When we get home, and everybody asks us what Florida is like, we want to be able to tell them.”

So they said good-bye to the sea-shore, and to the horseshoe crabs and jelly-fish, who had made things so pleasant for them during their stay, and set out for a tour of the state.