[jQuery] Getting the text of an element: IE6 vs. FF3

[infoaddicted]

I have some HTML:

    <a href="#" class="links">Link One</a><br />
    <a href="#" class="links">Link Two</a><br />
    <a href="#" class="links">Link Three</a><br />

And the following JQuery JS to test the "onclick" handler

         $(".links").click(function(){
                alert(
                      "this.text -> " + this.text + "\n" +
                      //above returns "undefined" in IE 6
                      "this.childNodes[0].data -> " + this.childNodes
[0].data + "\n"
                      //returns expected text in FF and IE 6
                      );

Why does
this.text
work fine with FF but I need something more convoluted like
this.childNodes[0].data
to get it to work in IE6?  I thought that JQuery shielded me from
these wacky cross-browser issues