Did you ever hear of the Gibby-gibbies?
Gibby-gibby Land is not far from Puskinville, but it is hard to find and hard to get to, as a few little Puskins found out.
Once, some little Puskins were allowed to go camping for a week, far out in the Big Woods. After a couple of days, they got tired of swimming and hiking and decided to go exploring and look for a freat advanture. They began hunting all around for something odd and interesting, when suddenly, a little gray Puskin found a very faint trail hidden under some tangly bushes. They all agreed to follow it and see where it led.
They crawled through the bushes, then in and out of a scratchy briar patch, then lost the trail. After a long hunt they found it - a thin line going through a grove of nut trees. There they sat down to rest and, for their dinner, ate strange nuts they had never seen before.
After that they tromped over rough ground until they came to a strange pebbly place, where every tenth pebble was red in color. They only had to follow the red pebbles, which was easy. But the next place was made of great big, slippery rocks and no trail could they find!
They were just thinking of turning back when one Puskin noticed every here and there, a rock, with a strange chipped mark on it. They knew at once that was the trail to follow. It was hard work; up slippery rocks and down slippery rocks, and sometimes not finding the next rock with the mark for a long time.
When the last slippery rock was clambered down, slid down and tumbled over, they saw two very step downhill paths, side by side, with a low wall between, to separate them.
The righthand path was slippery and shiny like glass, the left was rough stone made into steps very close to each other. This seemed very strange to the Puskins. They had always been taught to "Keep to the Right". So they all sat down on the top of the slippery path and zoomed, fast as a train, down to the bottom. There, in front of them, was a big sign: Quickly they headed for the town and were surprised to see the odd-looking houses the Gibby-gibbys lived in. They were all perfectly round. Each home had two entrances; one a slippery slider going down, the other - stony steps going up. Then they knew the Gibby-gibbys must have made the two paths they had found at the entrance to Gibby-gibby Land. What amazed them even more was the sight of the Gibby-gibbys themselves. They were small and round like a ball with round heads on top, very long arms, but NO LEGS! The Puskins hid behind a tree to watch them. The Gibby-gibbys had two ways of walking - either rolling along or bouncing up and down. To get to their homes, they slid down the slippery slider, but to come out, they bounced up the stone steps. "What a discovery," said the little red Puskin. "What news to take home to Puskinville!" The little gray Puskin said, "I don't understand how they can get along with no legs - we couldn't."
There was a big meeting in the market place that day and the Gibby-gibbys were rolling and bouncing along in great numbers, so the Puskins followed. After the Puskins had explained, the Chief Gibby-gibby introduced them as adventurers from afar, and the Gibby-gibbys were very friendly. They told the Puskins that they had lived in Gibby-gibby Land for many years and nobody strange had ever visited them before. They were astonished at the Puskin's feet and legs and admired the ease and speed with which Puskins could walk and run. They said, "If we could walk and run, we would do wonders." The Puskins found the Gibby-gibbys to be very hard working and prosperous. The Gibby-gibbys showed the Puskins how the farmers worked, rolling about in the fields and stomping the ground by bouncing on it. Their hands were strong and performed well for planting and harvesting and also for tasks like building and even playing games. Watching the Gibby-gibbys play bouncing baseball was a fine treat. They had builders and tailors and bakers and barbers and every kind of worker they needed. Everybody worked. The little Gibby-gibbys were taught to work in school. Having no legs, they had to work much harder than Puskins. Even getting around was more trouble so the Puskins were surprised to see what a beautiful town they had and what splendid fields, and how happy they all were, singing songs in their whistler's voices while they worked, and always kind and polite ot each other. The Chief told the Puskins that the little Gibbys used to be hard to train because they had to learn a lot of different kinds of rolls and different kinds of bounces for every different kind of work they did and every different kind of place they went. So many little Gibbys cried and said "I can't do that". Then the Gibby-gibbys took as their motto:
Say 'I can!' "Little Gibbys learn that motto very early in life", said the Chief. After a while the Puskins had to start for home, so when they had eaten a delicious meal of home-grown grains, the Chief gave them a toy Gibby-gibby to take along with them. Going back, they went up the rough stone steps (the slider was too slippery to climb up) and they found the trail easily, now that they knew what to watch for. They ran home and excitedly described their adventure in Gibby-gibby Land. Nobody believed them and when they tried to show the trail in the tangly bushes, it had disappeared! They knew they must have had something magic near them when they first started. They couldn't think what the magic could have been, until the little gray Puskin remembered a shiny silver marble he had picked up in the Big Woods and put in his pocket. "That must have been a fairy charm," he said. Then he recalled that the marble fell out of his pocket on one of the slippery stones on the way back to Puskinville. They looked and looked many times but could not find the trail again. However, they did have the toy Gibby-gibby to show that they were telling the truth and they knew that if they ever found a shiny silver marble, they might find Gibby-gibby Land again. They also knew that other adventures of all kinds awaited them and even while working or playing, the motto they learned from the Gibby-gibbys would help them.
If you listen very carefully, you might even be able to hear them singing, Say 'I can!' Sometimes it's a round, bouncy sound... just like a whistle.
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