Instantly she was in the midst of such a whirling of foam and rushing and roaring of rootbeer that she could neither see nor hear anything. Gasping for breath, the girl clung tightly to the sides of the boat, and in a few minutes it was all over, and the boat bobbed up in the Valley of Mo--just above the Great Hole. Bredenbutta then seized the oars and rowed hard until there was no danger of her falling in again, and soon she had passed the rapids and was rowing safely up the river to her own home. Of course the Duchess was very glad again to be among the people who acted in a natural manner, instead of the absurd fashion of her friends, the Turvylanders. She resolved that whenever she rowed her boat upon the river again, she would be careful to keep away from the Great Hole, for she realized that another visit to Upsydoun and his people would be very trying to her nerves. _The Eleventh Surprise_ PRINCE FIDDLECUMDOO AND THE GIANT It happened, one morning, that the Monarch of Mo was not in his usual pleasant humor; and, of course, there was an excellent reason for this. At the back of his garden grew one tree that generally bore an abundant crop of animal-crackers, and although the King and his court, being surfeited with all the dainties of the land, did not care much for these edibles, the younger inhabitants of Mo were especially fond of them, and yelled with delight whenever the King divided the crop of his tree among them. A few days before the King had examined the tree and found the animal-crackers not quite ripe. Whereupon he had gone away and forgotten all about them. And, in his absence, they had ripened to a delicious light brown; and their forms had rounded out, so that they hung as thickly together as peas in a pod. As they swung from their stems, swaying backward and forward in the light breeze, they waited and waited for some one to come and pick them. But no one came near the tree, and the animals grew cross and restless in consequence. "I wonder when we shall be gathered," remarked a hippopotamus-cracker, with a yawn. "Oh, you wonder, do you?" mockingly replied a camel-cracker hanging near, "do you really expect any one to gather _you_, with your thick hide and clumsy legs? Why, the children would break their teeth on you at the first bite." "What!" screamed the hippopotamus, in much anger, "do you dare insult _me_, you humpbacked beast of burden?" "Now then--now then!" interrupted a wolf-cracker that hung from a stem just above them; "what's the use of fighting, when we are so soon to be eaten?" But the camel-cracker would not be appeased. "Thick-headed brute!" he yelled at the hippopotamus, angrily. "Hump-backed idiot!" shrieked the other.