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The Plate Of Pancakes
by
His mother and grandmother looked at each other wisely when they heard this.
“It is just as I thought the first time,” said his mother. “The goblins are at work in the wood. He must never go there again.”
But to this the grandmother would not agree.
“Leave it to me,” she said, and the very next day she fried pancakes, and selecting the brownest and crispest she put them in a plate with a white napkin over them and bade Karl take them to his father.
“And if any bid you stop or stay, or turn your feet from out your way, say but the word that is spelled with the fourteenth and fifteenth letters of the alphabet three times in a loud voice, and all will go well with you,” she said.
“All right,” said Karl, nodding his head proudly, for he knew all his letters by this time and could spell hard words like c-a-t, cat, m-a-t, mat. “All right,” but he did not stop to count the letters then for he was in a great hurry to be off.
“I guess my father will be glad to get such fine pancakes for his dinner,” he said; and he ran so fast that he was half-way to the mill before he knew it.
There was no whispering voice in the wood that day and no talking rabbit to tempt him to a chase; but as he came to a place where another path crossed his own, a bird called out from the heart of the wood:
“Quick, quick, come here, here, here—-“
“Where, where?” cried Karl; and he was just about to start in search of the bird when he remembered what his grandmother had said:
“If any bid you stop or stay, or turn your feet from out your way, say but the word that is spelled with the fourteenth and fifteenth letters of the alphabet three times in a loud voice, and all will go well with you.”
“A, B, C, D, E, F, G,” he chanted, counting the letters on his fingers as he said them, “H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O:” N was the fourteenth letter and O was the fifteenth. N-O; that was easy.
“No! No! No!” he shouted; and–do you believe it?–in less time than it takes to tell it he was at the mill door with every pancake safe and hot.
And the story goes that though he came and went through the Enchanted Wood all the days of his life he was never hindered by anything there again; and he never saw a goblin though he lived to be as old as his grandmother had been when he was a little boy.