Text:
When Papa was away at sea, and Mama in the arbor, Ida played her wonder horn to
rock the baby still - but never watched. So the goblins came. They pushed their
way in and pulled baby out, leaving another all made of ice. Poor, Ida never
knowing, hugged the changeling and she murmured: “How I love you.” The ice thing
only dripped and stared, and Ida knew goblins had been there. “They stole my
sister away!” she cried, “To be a nasty goblin’s bride!”
Now Ida in a hurry snatched her Mama’s yellow rain cloak, tucked her horn safe
in a pocket, and made a serious mistake. She climbed backwards out her window i
nto outside over there. Foolish Ida never looking, whirling by the robber caves,
heard at last from off the sea her Sailor Papa’s song: “If Ida backwards in the
rain would only turn around again and catch those goblins with a tune she’d spoil
their kidnap honeymoon!”
So Ida tumbled right side round and found herself smack in the middle of a wedding.
Oh how those goblins hollered and kicked, just babies like her sister! “What a
hubbub,” said Ida sly, and she charmed them with a captivating tune. The
goblins, all against their will, danced slowly first, then faster until they
couldn’t breath. “Terrible Ida,” the goblins said, “we’re dancing sick and must
to bed.” But Ida played a frenzied jug, a hornpipe that makes sailors wild
beneath the ocean moon. Those goblins pranced so fierce, so fast, they quick
churned into a dancing stream. Except for one who lay cozy in an eggshell,
crooning and clapping as a baby should. And that was Ida’s sister.