Chapter 21 - Page 2

As for Johnnie Green, he scrambled spryly over the wall and began to move in a bee line toward the sweet apple tree. He walked slowly and searched the ground with great care. But he saw no sign of his precious knife.

Beneath the sweet apple tree Johnnie paused mournfully.

"He was only fooling me!" he exclaimed. "That old Daddy Longlegs played a trick on me!"

Johnnie just couldn't help feeling disappointed. And he just couldn't help feeling hungry as well. Luckily there were apples on the old tree. So he began to shin up into its branches.

And then all at once he saw his beautiful knife sticking into the tree-trunk right before his eyes.

Johnnie remembered then that he had visited the sweet apple tree soon after breakfast that very day, when he had happened to feel hungry. And he had stuck the knife there himself and gone off and forgotten it.

With a shout of joy he gripped its horn handle and pulled it out.

"Old Daddy Longlegs knew what he was about after all!" he shouted.

And Johnnie Green never guessed that his finding his jackknife was nothing but an accident. Daddy had never even seen it. And if he had, he wouldn't have known what it was.

But after that Johnnie was more convinced than ever that Daddy Longlegs had a strange power.