Page the Penguin looked around, and when she saw the heaps of dirty paper and leftover food that had to be cleaned up after a party, she said, “I wish somebody would come and help me.”
“I’ll come,” said Glimmer the Goldfish. “I’ll come. I’ll swim right up to where you are. I’ll show you how to do it. I’ll be right there in a jiffy.”
“But how can you help me? You never leave your bowl.”
“I can give you some ideas,” said Glimmer. “That’s half the way to help. And then you can ask somebody else to come and help you. You don’t suppose you have to do it all yourself, do you?”
Page sighed. “I am afraid I do,” she said. “That is why I said, ‘I wish somebody would come and help me.’ All my friends will refuse, I know. This is such a dirty job. I shall never get it done.”
“Oh, yes, you will. You just ask all your friends, one by one. It is only by asking them that you will find out how many of them are glad to help.”
Page was somewhat comforted by this speech, but she was sceptical and fearful as well. She made up her mind to ask about ten of her friends first, and if they did not help her, then they would all know that none of the rest wanted to help her, and she would not ask any more.
So she went to see Bullfrog the Barber first, who was very busy putting a new handle on his hopping-stick. When Page asked him to come and help her, he said: “I’d like to help you, Page, truly, but I don’t see how I can do it, with my stick all in pieces like this, you might ask somebody else.”
So Page went without delay to Cat the Ratter. She found him outside his hole on the ground, chewing his cud. He was very much out of breath; he said he had just been to enlist in the army, and felt sure that he would be called out to fight any time before long.
The next friend she came to was the Cow, quietly chewing her cud in her meadow. Cow said she would be glad to help if she did not have to walk to the other end of the meadow to get a pail to bring the milk in.
But then Page came to her Sweater friend. Sweater was just coming from the sea, and bringing the sea-water from its wet feet to sprinkle the dry land with.
“I thought you did all the helping you could,” said Page. “Can’t you help me a little more?”
“I am glad to,” said Sweater, “don’t you remember that I am one of the Revised Ten Pets? And you know how many piles there are here! We can make it into a game of jumping. I’ll just call on Grouch the Grump to come along with me, and then all we four can come over to your house and soon make an end of the business.”
So they played a game of jumping with Dirty Paper and Leftover Food, which seemed a little naughty, but could not fail to be very funny. A dozen little White Wavy Lines came out to laugh and cheer, and half-a-dozen Jumping Junipers arrived eating straight out of their frying-pans and laughing till they cried to think how much more they should not have to eat.
By the time this merry little crowd had come to Page’s house, it was just the tea-time of Day the Day-Maker, and he made them some very nice-tea indeed in the neighbourhood.
And in the meantime Bullfrog had thought he could just finish putting together the pieces of his hopping-stick, after all. So he came. And he came because he had been fished up by Boy the Fisherman with a charming little Fish called William, and he never turned his back on one who was an old friend, no matter how uncouth he was. And even Fatty Pig, Board of All, found herself happy to be invited to join the revel.
Certainly, when everybody was fed and had chatted charmingly together, each community into the others, Old Junk was the only dirty dish that still stood near the tea-table, but he was Amaryllis Hatcocks, and she began shouting in the stillness after tea:
“Before we begin again,” she called, “has everybody said what they can do, or does every one want to do?”
“Just what I feel Inclined to say,” said Bullfrog, smartly. And then to Page, as if to hurry her speeches, “I help, but I don’t want to talk.”
“I help,” said Cat the Ratter. And then, to say nothing unkind, she added sweetly, “and I know that I don’t have to reach to far-off relations to have neighbours even away from home.”
“I help,” said Sweater. “And sea or no sea, night or no night, I’m just going to be there.”
“If you don’t believe,” said Glimmer, “that our Petes want to be remembered at home, I’ll tell you something in confidence: You see, there is a Circle of Regular Helpers you have never heard of. And all here are Regulars, try where you will, and say what you can and what you can’t.”
“Yes, I see that,” said Bullfrog.
The whole party gave one more joyful cheer that they had been able to work together, when Glimmer saw they were sorry to go, and did not engage her place in the neighbourhood till they were quite satisfied.
Then said Page with feeling, that meet it was and right so to do, just as probabilities never speak:
“It is better for us to have company while we do it; who knows but they may want us to help after all? And it is certain that we have enough and to spare all round ourselves.”