{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_61553/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_61553","id":"gutenberg_61553","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/61553","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Short Stories","Children's stories, American","Fairy tales -- United States","Fantasy literature","Short stories"],"text":"[Illustration: Rag Bag Mammy brings out candy with red and white stripes\nwrapped around it]\n\n\n\n\n                           ROOTABAGA PIGEONS\n\n\n                                    BY\n\n                              CARL SANDBURG\n Author of \u201cRootabaga Stories,\u201d \u201cSlabs of the Sunburnt West,\u201d \u201cSmoke and\n                  Steel,\u201d \u201cChicago Poems,\u201d \u201cCornhuskers\u201d\n\n\n                      ILLUSTRATIONS AND DECORATIONS\n                                    BY\n                         MAUD AND MISKA PETERSHAM\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                NEW YORK\n\n                      HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY\n\n\n\n\n                          COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY\n\n                   HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.\n\n\n                       PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY\n                       THE QUINN & BODEN COMPANY\n                             RAHWAY, N. J.\n\n\n\n\n In compliance with current copyright law, LBS Archival Products produced\n      this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard\n      Z39.48\u20131984 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original.\n\n                                   1992\n\n                                    \u267e\u2122\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                       TO THREE ILLINOIS PIGEONS\n\n\n\n\n                                CONTENTS\n\n\n                                   1.\n\n Two Stories Told by the Potato Face Blind Man\n\n The Skyscraper to the Moon and How the Green Rat with the\n   Rheumatism Ran a Thousand Miles Twice                             _3_\n\n Slipfoot and How He Nearly Always Never Gets What He Goes After     _9_\n\n\n                                   2.\n\n Two Stories About Bugs and Eggs\n\n Many, Many Weddings in One Corner House                            _19_\n\n Shush Shush, the Big Buff Banty Hen Who Laid an Egg in the\n   Postmaster\u2019s Hat                                                 _27_\n\n\n                                   3.\n\n Five Stories About Hatrack the Horse, Six Pigeons, Three Wild\n   Babylonian Baboons, Six Umbrellas, Bozo the Button Buster\n\n How Ragbag Mammy Kept Her Secret While the Wind Blew Away the\n   Village of Hat Pins                                              _33_\n\n How Six Pigeons Came Back to Hatrack the Horse After Many\n   Accidents and Six Telegrams                                      _41_\n\n How the Three Wild Babylonian Baboons Went Away in the Rain\n   Eating Bread and Butter                                          _49_\n\n How Six Umbrellas Took Off Their Straw Hats to Show Respect to\n   the One Big Umbrella                                             _55_\n\n How Bozo the Button Buster Busted All His Buttons When a Mouse\n   Came                                                             _63_\n\n\n                                   4.\n\n Two Stories About Four Boys Who Had Different Dreams\n\n How Googler and Gaggler, the Two Christmas Babies, Came Home with\n   Monkey Wrenches                                                  _75_\n\n How Johnny the Wham Sleeps in Money All the Time and Joe the Wimp\n   Shines and Sees Things                                           _87_\n\n\n                                   5.\n\n Two Stories Told by the Potato Face Blind Man About Two Girls with Red\n   Hearts\n\n How Deep Red Roses Goes Back and Forth Between the Clock and the\n   Looking Glass                                                    _97_\n\n How Pink Peony Sent Spuds, the Ballplayer, Up to Pick Four Moons  _105_\n\n\n                                   6.\n\n Three Stories About Moonlight, Pigeons, Bees, Egypt, Jesse James,\n   Spanish Onions, the Queen of the Cracked Heads, the King of the Paper\n   Sacks\n\n How Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz Came in the Moonshine Where\n   the Potato Face Blind Man Sat with His Accordion                _115_\n\n How Hot Balloons and His Pigeon Daughters Crossed Over into the\n   Rootabaga Country                                               _127_\n\n How Two Sweetheart Dippies Sat in the Moonlight on a Lumber Yard\n   Fence and Heard About the Sooners and the Boomers               _139_\n\n\n                                   7.\n\n Two Stories Out of the Tall Grass\n\n The Haystack Cricket and How Things Are Different Up in the Moon\n   Towns                                                           _153_\n\n Why the Big Ball Game Between Hot Grounders and the Grand\n   Standers Was a Hot Game                                         _161_\n\n\n                                   8.\n\n Two Stories Out of Oklahoma and Nebraska\n\n The Huckabuck Family and How They Raised Pop Corn in Nebraska and\n   Quit and Came Back                                              _169_\n\n Yang Yang and Hoo Hoo, or the Song of the Left Foot of the Shadow\n   of the Goose                                                    _181_\n\n\n                                   9.\n\n One Story About Big People Now and Little People Long Ago\n\n How a Skyscraper and a Railroad Train Got Picked Up and Carried\n   Away from Pig\u2019s Eye Valley Far in the Pickax Mountains          _191_\n\n\n                                   10.\n\n Three Stories About the Letter X and How It Got into the Alphabet\n\n Pig Wisps                                                         _201_\n\n Kiss Me                                                           _207_\n\n Blue Silver                                                       _215_\n\n\n\n\n                        FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n Rag Bag Mammy brings out candy with red and white stripes wrapped\n   around it\n                                       _Frontispiece_ (_in color_)\n\n                                                                    PAGE\n On the last step of the stairway my foot slips                       11\n\n The Hot Cookie Pan came with a pan of hot cookies and the Coal\n   Bucket with coal                                                   21\n\n The mouse bit the knot and cut it loose                              67\n\n They went to sleep on top of the wagon                               81\n\n She was sitting on a ladder feeding baby clocks to the baby\n   alligators                                                        119\n\n One of the pigeons rang the bell                                    129\n\n She carried the squash into the kitchen                             171\n\n Out into the snowstorm Flax Eyes rode that day                      209\n\n\n\n\n1. Two Stories Told by the Potato Face Blind Man.\n\n\n            _People_: Blixie Bimber\n\n                      Blixie Bimber\u2019s Mother\n\n                      The Potato Face Blind Man\n\n                      A Green Rat with the Rheumatism\n\n                      Bricklayers\n\n                      Mortar Men\n\n                      Riveters\n\n                      A Skyscraper\n\n\n\n                      Slipfoot\n\n                      A Stairway to the Moon\n\n                      A Trapeze\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nThe Skyscraper to the Moon and How the Green Rat with the Rheumatism Ran\n                         a Thousand Miles Twice\n\nBlixie Bimber\u2019s mother was chopping hash. And the hatchet broke. So\nBlixie started downtown with fifteen cents to buy a new hash hatchet for\nchopping hash.\n\nDowntown she peeped around the corner next nearest the postoffice where\nthe Potato Face Blind Man sat with his accordion. And the old man had\nhis legs crossed, one foot on the sidewalk, the other foot up in the\nair.\n\nThe foot up in the air had a green rat sitting on it, tying the old\nman\u2019s shoestrings in knots and double knots. Whenever the old man\u2019s foot\nwiggled and wriggled the green rat wiggled and wriggled.\n\nThe tail of the rat wrapped five wraps around the shoe and then fastened\nand tied like a package.\n\nOn the back of the green rat was a long white swipe from the end of\nthe nose to the end of the tail. Two little white swipes stuck up over\nthe eyelashes. And five short thick swipes of white played\npussy-wants-a-corner back of the ears and along the ribs of the green\nrat.\n\nThey were talking, the old man and the green rat, talking about\nalligators and why the alligators keep their baby shoes locked up in\ntrunks over the winter time\u2014and why the rats in the moon lock their\nmittens in ice boxes.\n\n\u201cI had the rheumatism last summer a year ago,\u201d said the rat. \u201cI had the\nrheumatism so bad I ran a thousand miles south and west till I came to\nthe Egg Towns and stopped in the Village of Eggs Up.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo?\u201d quizzed the Potato Face.\n\n\u201cThere in the Village of Eggs Up, they asked me, \u2018Do you know how to\nstop the moon moving?\u2019 I answered them, \u2018Yes, I know how\u2014a baby\nalligator told me\u2014but I told the baby alligator I wouldn\u2019t tell.\u2019\n\n\n\u201cMany years ago there in that Village of Eggs Up they started making a\nskyscraper to go up till it reached the moon. They said, \u2018We will step\nin the elevator and go up to the roof and sit on the roof and eat supper\non the moon.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe bricklayers and the mortar men and the iron riveters and the\nwheelbarrowers and the plasterers went higher and higher making that\nskyscraper, till at last they were half way up to the moon, saying to\neach other while they worked, \u2018We will step in the elevator and go up to\nthe roof and sit on the roof and eat supper on the moon.\u2019\n\n\u201cYes, they were halfway up to the moon. And that night looking at the\nmoon they saw it move and they said to each other, \u2018We must stop the\nmoon moving,\u2019 and they said later, \u2018We don\u2019t know how to stop the moon\nmoving.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd the bricklayers and the mortar men and the iron riveters and the\nwheelbarrowers and the plasterers said to each other, \u2018If we go on now\nand make this skyscraper it will miss the moon and we will never go up\nin the elevator and sit on the roof and eat supper on the moon.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo they took the skyscraper down and started making it over again,\naiming it straight at the moon again. And one night standing looking at\nthe moon they saw it move and they said to each other, \u2018We must stop the\nmoon moving,\u2019 saying later to each other, \u2018We don\u2019t know how to stop the\nmoon moving.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd now they stand in the streets at night there in the Village of Eggs\nUp, stretching their necks looking at the moon, and asking each other,\n\u2018Why does the moon move and how can we stop the moon moving?\u2019\n\n\u201cWhenever I saw them standing there stretching their necks looking at\nthe moon, I had a zig-zag ache in my left hind foot and I wanted to tell\nthem what the baby alligator told me, the secret of how to stop the moon\nmoving. One night that ache zig-zagged me so\u2014way inside my left hind\nfoot\u2014it zig-zagged so I ran home here a thousand miles.\u201d\n\n\nThe Potato Face Blind Man wriggled his shoe\u2014and the green rat\nwriggled\u2014and the long white swipe from the end of the nose to the end of\nthe tail of the green rat wriggled.\n\n\u201cIs your rheumatism better?\u201d the old man asked.\n\nThe rat answered, \u201cAny rheumatism is better if you run a thousand miles\ntwice.\u201d\n\nAnd Blixie Bimber going home with the fifteen cent hash hatchet for her\nmother to chop hash, Blixie said to herself, \u201cIt is a large morning to\nbe thoughtful about.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n    Slipfoot and How He Nearly Always Never Gets What He Goes After\n\nBlixie Bimber flipped out of the kitchen one morning, first saying\ngood-by to the dish-pan, good-by to the dish-rag, good-by to the\ndish-towel for wiping dishes.\n\nUnder one arm she put a basket of peonies she picked, under the other\narm she put a basket of jonquils she picked.\n\nThen she flipped away up the street and downtown where she put the\nbaskets of peonies and jonquils one on each side of the Potato Face\nBlind Man.\n\n\u201cI picked the pink and lavender peonies and I picked the yellow jonquils\nfor you to be smelling one on each side of you this fine early summer\nmorning,\u201d she said to the Potato Face. \u201cHave you seen anybody good to\nsee lately?\u201d\n\n\u201cSlipfoot was here this morning,\u201d said the old man.\n\n\u201cAnd who is Slipfoot?\u201d asked Blixie.\n\n\u201cI don\u2019t know. He says to me, \u2018I got a foot always slips. I used to wash\nwindows\u2014and my foot slips. I used to be king of the collar buttons, king\nof a million dollars\u2014and my foot slips. I used to be king of the\npeanuts, king of a million dollars again. I used to be king of the\noyster cans, selling a million cans a day. I used to be king of the\npeanut sacks, selling ten million sacks a day. And every time I was a\nking my foot slips. Every time I had a million dollars my foot slips.\nEvery time I went high and put my foot higher my foot slips. Somebody\ngave me a slipfoot. I always slip.\u2019\u201d\n\n[Illustration: On the last step of the stairway my foot slips]\n\n\u201cSo you call him Slipfoot?\u201d asked Blixie.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said the old man.\n\n\u201cHas he been here before?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, he was here a year ago, saying, \u2018I marry a woman and she runs\naway. I run after her\u2014and my foot slips. I always get what I want\u2014and\nthen my foot slips.\u2019\n\n\u201cI ran up a stairway to the moon one night. I shoveled a big sack full\nof little gold beans, little gold bricks, little gold bugs, on the moon\nand I ran down the stairway from the moon. On the last step of the\nstairway, my foot slips\u2014and all the little gold beans, all the little\ngold bricks, all the little gold bugs, spill out and spill away. When I\nget down the stairway I am holding the sack and the sack holds nothing.\nI am all right always till my foot slips.\n\n\u201cI jump on a trapeze and I go swinging, swinging, swinging out where I\nam going to take hold of the rainbow and bring it down where we can look\nat it close. And I hang by my feet on the trapeze and I am swinging out\nwhere I am just ready to take hold of the rainbow and bring it down.\nThen my foot slips.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is the matter with Slipfoot?\u201d asks Blixie.\n\n\u201cHe asks me that same question,\u201d answered the Potato Face Blind Man. \u201cHe\nasks me that every time he comes here. I tell him all he needs is to get\nhis slipfoot fixed so it won\u2019t slip. Then he\u2019ll be all right.\u201d\n\n\u201cI understand you,\u201d said Blixie. \u201cYou make it easy. You always make it\neasy. And before I run away will you promise me to smell of the pink and\nlavender peonies and the yellow jonquils all day to-day?\u201d\n\n\u201cI promise,\u201d said the Potato Face. \u201cPromises are easy. I like promises.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo do I,\u201d said the little girl, \u201cIt\u2019s promises pushing me back home to\nthe dish-pan, the dish-rag, and the dish-towel for wiping dishes.\u201d\n\n\u201cLook out you don\u2019t get a slipfoot,\u201d warned the old man as the girl\nflipped up the street going home.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n2. Two Stories About Bugs and Eggs.\n\n\n            _People_: Little Bugs\n\n                      Big Bugs\n\n                      The Rag Doll\n\n                      The Broom Handle\n\n                      Hammer and Nails\n\n                      The Hot Cookie Pan\n\n                      The Ice Tongs\n\n                      The Coal Bucket\n\n                      The Bushel Basket\n\n                      Jack Knife\n\n                      Kindling Wood\n\n                      Splinters\n\n\n\n                      Shush Shush\n\n                      The Postmaster\n\n                      The Hardware Man\n\n                      The Policeman\n\n                      The Postmaster\u2019s Hat\n\n                      A Buff Banty Egg\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n                Many, Many Weddings in One Corner House\n\nThere was a corner house with corners every way it looked. And up in the\ncorners were bugs with little bug houses, bug doors to open, bug windows\nto look out of.\n\nIn the summer time if the evening was cool or in the winter time if the\nevening was warm, they played games\u2014bugs-up, bugs-down, run-bugs-run,\nbeans-bugs-beans.\n\nThis corner house was the place the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle came\nto after their wedding. This was the same time those old people, Hammer\nand Nails, moved into the corner house with all the little Hammers and\nall the little Nails.\n\nSo there they were, the young couple, the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle,\nand that old family, Hammer and Nails, and up in the corners among the\neave troughs and the roof shingles, the bugs with little bug houses, bug\ndoors to open, bug windows to look out of, and bug games\u2014bugs-up,\nbugs-down, run-bugs-run, or beans-bugs-beans.\n\nAround the corner of the house every Saturday morning came the Hot\nCookie Pan with a pan of hot cookies for Sunday, Monday, Tuesday,\nWednesday and the rest of the week.\n\nThe Ice Tongs came with ice, the Coal Bucket came with coal, the Potato\nSack came with potatoes. And the Bushel Basket was always going or\ncoming and saying under his breath, \u201c_Bushels, bushels, bushels_.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: The Hot Cookie Pan came with a pan of hot cookies and the\nCoal Bucket with coal]\n\nOne day the bugs in the little bug houses opened the bug doors and\nlooked out of the bug windows and said to each other, \u201cThey are washing\ntheir shirts and sewing on buttons\u2014there is going to be a wedding.\u201d\n\nAnd the next day the bugs said, \u201cThey are going to have a wedding and a\nwedding breakfast for Jack Knife and Kindling Wood. They are asking\neverybody in the kitchen, the cellar, and the back yard, to come.\u201d\n\nThe wedding day came. The people came. From all over the kitchen, the\ncellar, the back yard, they came. The Rag Doll and the Broom Handle were\nthere. Hammer and Nails and all the little Hammers and all the little\nNails were there. The Ice Tongs, the Coal Bucket, the Potato Sack, were\nall there\u2014and the Bushel Basket going and coming and saying under his\nbreath, \u201c_Bushels, bushels, bushels_.\u201d And, of course, the Hot Cookie\nPan was there hopping up and down with hot cookies.\n\nSo Jack Knife and Kindling Wood began living in the corner house. A\nchild came. They named her Splinters. And the Hot Cookie Pan and\nSplinters met and kissed each other and sat together in cozy corners\nclose to each other.\n\nAnd the bugs high up in the corners in the little bug houses, they\nopened the bug doors, looked out of the bug windows and said, \u201cThey are\nwashing their shirts and sewing on buttons, there is a wedding again\u2014the\nHot Cookie Pan and Splinters.\u201d\n\nAnd now they have many, many children, the Hot Cookie Pan and Splinters.\nTheir children have gone all over the world and everybody knows them.\n\n\u201cWhenever you find a splinter or a sliver or a shiny little shaving of\nwood in a hot cookie,\u201d the bugs in the little bug houses say, \u201cwhenever\nyou find a splinter or a sliver or a shiny little shaving of wood in a\nhot cookie, it is the child of the Hot Cookie Pan and the girl named\nSplinters, the daughter of Jack Knife and Kindling Wood, who grew up and\nmarried the Hot Cookie Pan.\u201d\n\nAnd sometimes if a little bug asks a big bug a queer, quivvical,\nquizzical question hard to answer, the big bug opens a bug door, looks\nout of a bug window and says to the little bug, \u201cIf you don\u2019t believe\nwhat we tell you, go and ask Hammer and Nails or any of the little\nHammers and Nails. Then run and listen to the Bushel Basket going and\ncoming and saying under his breath, \u2018_Bushels, bushels, bushels_.\u2019\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nShush Shush, the Big Buff Banty Hen Who Laid an Egg in the Postmaster\u2019s\n                                  Hat\n\nShush Shush was a big buff banty hen. She lived in a coop. Sometimes she\nmarched out of the coop and went away and laid eggs. But always she came\nback to the coop.\n\nAnd whenever she went to the front door and laid an egg in the\ndoor-bell, she rang the bell once for one egg, twice for two eggs, and a\ndozen rings for a dozen eggs.\n\nOnce Shush Shush went into the house of the Sniggers family and laid an\negg in the piano. Another time she climbed up in the clock and laid an\negg in the clock. But always she came back to the coop.\n\nOne summer morning Shush Shush marched out through the front gate, up to\nthe next corner and the next, till she came to the postoffice. There she\nwalked into the office of the postmaster and laid an egg in the\npostmaster\u2019s hat.\n\nThe postmaster put on his hat, went to the hardware store and bought a\nkeg of nails. He took off his hat and the egg dropped into the keg of\nnails.\n\nThe hardware man picked up the egg, put it in _his_ hat, and went out to\nspeak to a policeman. He took off his hat, speaking to the policeman,\nand the egg dropped on the sidewalk.\n\nThe policeman picked up the egg and put it in his police hat. The\npostmaster came past; the policeman took off his police hat and the egg\ndropped down on the sidewalk.\n\nThe postmaster said, \u201cI lost that egg, it is my egg,\u201d picked it up, put\nit in his postmaster\u2019s hat, and forgot all about having an egg in his\nhat.\n\nThen the postmaster, a long tall man, came to the door of the\npostoffice, a short small door. And the postmaster didn\u2019t stoop low,\ndidn\u2019t bend under, so he bumped his hat and his head on the top of the\ndoorway. And the egg _broke_ and ran down over his face and neck.\n\nAnd long before that happened, Shush Shush was home in her coop,\nstanding in the door saying, \u201cIt is a big day for me because I laid one\nof my big buff banty eggs in the postmaster\u2019s hat.\u201d\n\nThere Shush Shush stays, living in a coop. Sometimes she marches out of\nthe coop and goes away and lays eggs in pianos, clocks, hats. But she\nalways comes back to the coop.\n\nAnd whenever she goes to the front door and lays an egg in the\ndoor-bell, she rings the bell once for one egg, twice for two eggs, and\na dozen rings for a dozen eggs.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n3. Five Stories About Hatrack the Horse, Six Pigeons, Three Wild\nBabylonian Baboons, Six Umbrellas, Bozo the Button Buster.\n\n\n            _People_: Hatrack the Horse\n\n                      Peter Potato Blossom Wishes\n\n                      Rag Bag Mammy\n\n                      Gimmes\n\n\n\n                      Wiffle the Chick\n\n                      Chickamauga\n\n                      Chattanooga\n\n                      Chattahoochee\n\n                      Blue Mist\n\n                      Bubbles\n\n                      Wednesday Evening in the Twilight and the Gloaming\n\n                      Telegrams\n\n\n\n                      The Three Wild Babylonian Baboons\n\n                      Three Umbrellas\n\n                      The Night Policeman\n\n\n\n                      Six Umbrellas\n\n                      The Big Umbrella\n\n                      Straw Hats\n\n                      Dippy the Wisp\n\n\n\n                      Bozo the Button Buster\n\n                      A Mouse\n\n                      Deep Red Roses\n\n                      The Beans Are Burning\n\n                      Sweeter Than the Bees Humming\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n How Rag Bag Mammy Kept Her Secret While the Wind Blew Away the Village\n                              of Hat Pins\n\nThere was a horse-face man in the Village of Cream Puffs. People called\nhim Hatrack the Horse.\n\nThe skin stretched tight over his bones. Once a little girl said, \u201cHis\neyes look like lightning bugs lighting up the summer night coming out of\ntwo little doors.\u201d\n\nWhen Hatrack the Horse took _off_ his hat he reached his hand around\nbehind and hung the hat _on_ a shoulder bone sticking out.\n\nWhen he wanted to put _on_ his hat he reached his hand around and took\nit _off_ from where it was hanging on the shoulder bone sticking out\nbehind.\n\nOne summer Hatrack said to Peter Potato Blossom Wishes, \u201cI am going away\nup north and west in the Rootabaga Country to see the towns different\nfrom each other. Then I will come back east as far as I went west, and\nsouth as far as I went north, till I am back again where my little pal,\nPeter Potato Blossom Wishes, lives in the Village of Cream Puffs.\u201d\n\nSo he went away, going north and west and coming back east and south\ntill he was back again in his home town, sitting on the front steps of\nhis little red shanty, fixing a kite to fly.\n\n\u201cAre you glad to come back?\u201d asked Peter.\n\n\u201cYes, this is home, this is the only place where I know how the winds\nact up so I can talk to them when I fly a kite.\u201d\n\n\u201cTell me what you saw and how you listened and if they handed you any\nnice packages.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey handed me packages, all right, all right,\u201d said Hatrack the Horse.\n\n\u201cAway far to the west I came to the Village of Hat Pins,\u201d he went on.\n\u201cIt is the place where they make all the hat pins for the hats to be\npinned on in the Rootabaga Country. They asked me about the Village of\nCream Puffs and how the winds are here because the winds here blow so\nmany hats off that the Village of Hat Pins sells more hat pins to the\npeople here than anywhere else.\n\n\u201cThere is an old woman in the Village of Hat Pins. She walks across the\ntown and around the town every morning and every afternoon. On her back\nis a big rag bag. She never takes anything out of the rag bag. She never\nputs anything in. That is, nobody ever sees her put anything in or take\nanything out. She has never opened the rag bag telling people to take a\nlook and see what is in it. She sleeps with the rag bag for a pillow. So\nit is always with her and nobody looks into it unless she lets them. And\nshe never lets them.\n\n\u201cHer name? Everybody calls her Rag Bag Mammy. She wears aprons with big\npockets. And though she never speaks to big grown-up people she is\nalways glad to meet little growing people, boys and girls. And\nespecially, most of all, she likes to meet boys and girls who say,\n\u2018Gimme\u2019 (once, like that) or \u2018Gimme, gimme\u2019 (twice, like that) or\n\u2018Gimme, gimme, gimme\u2019 (three times) or \u2018Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme,\ngimme, gimme\u2019 (more times than we can count). She likes to meet the\ngimmes because she digs into her pockets and brings out square chocolate\ndrops and round chocolate drops and chocolate drops shaped like a half\nmoon, barber pole candy with red and white stripes wrapped around it,\nall day suckers so long they last not only all day but all this week and\nall next week, and different kinds of jackstones, some that say\nchink-chink on the sidewalks and some that say teentsy-weentsy\nchink-chink when they all bunch together on the sidewalk. And sometimes\nif one of the gimmes is crying and feeling bad she gives the gimme a\ndoll only as big as a child\u2019s hand but the doll can say the alphabet and\nsing little Chinese Assyrian songs.\n\n\u201cOf course,\u201d said Hatrack the Horse, reaching his hand around to see if\nhis hat was hanging on behind, \u201cof course, you have to have sharp ears\nand listen close-up and be nice when you are listening, if you are going\nto hear a doll say the alphabet and sing little Chinese Assyrian songs.\u201d\n\n\u201cI could hear them,\u201d said Peter Potato Blossom Wishes. \u201cI am a nice\nlistener. I could hear those dolls sing the little Chinese Assyrian\nsongs.\u201d\n\n\u201cI believe you, little pal of mine,\u201d said Hatrack. \u201cI know you have the\nears and you know how to put your ears so you hear.\u201d\n\n\u201cOf course, every morning and every afternoon when Rag Bag Mammy walks\nacross the town and around the town in the Village of Hat Pins, people\nask her what is in the rag bag on her back. And she answers, \u2018It is a\nnice day we are having,\u2019 or \u2018I think the rain will stop when it stops\nraining, don\u2019t you?\u2019 Then if they ask again and beg and plead, \u2018_What_\nis in the rag bag? What _is_ in the rag bag?\u2019 she tells them, \u2018When the\nwind blows away the Village of Hat Pins and blows it so far away it\nnever comes back, then\u2014then, then, then\u2014I will tell you what is in the\nrag bag.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cOne day the wind came along and blew the Village of Hat Pins loose, and\nafter blowing it loose, carried it high off in the sky. And the people\nwere saying to each other, \u2018Well, now we are going to hear Rag Bag Mammy\ntell us what is in the rag bag.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd the wind kept blowing, carrying the Village of Hat Pins higher and\nfarther and farther and higher. And when at last it went away so high it\ncame to a white cloud, the hat pins in the village all stuck out and\nfastened the village to the cloud so the wind couldn\u2019t blow it any\nfarther.\n\n\u201cAnd\u2014after a while they pulled the hatpins out of the cloud\u2014and the\nvillage dropped back right down where it was before.\n\n\u201cAnd Rag Bag Mammy goes every morning and every afternoon with the rag\nbag on her back across and around the town. And sometimes people say to\nher, \u2018The next time the wind blows us away\u2014the next time the wind will\nblow us so far there won\u2019t be any cloud to fasten hat pins in\u2014and you\nwill have to tell us what is in the rag bag.\u2019 And Rag Bag Mammy just\nanswers, \u2018Yes, yes\u2014yes\u2014yes,\u2019 and goes on her way looking for the next\nboy or girl to say, \u2018Gimme\u2019 (once, like that) or \u2018Gimme, gimme\u2019 (twice,\nlike that) or \u2018Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme\u2019 (more times than we\ncan count).\n\n\u201cAnd if a child is crying she digs into her pockets and pulls out the\ndoll that says the alphabet and sings little Chinese Assyrian songs.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd,\u201d said Peter Potato Blossom Wishes, \u201cyou have to listen close up\nwith your ears and be nice when you are listening.\u201d\n\n\u201cIn the Village of Hat Pins that the wind nearly blew away forever,\u201d\nsaid Hatrack the Horse.\n\nAnd Peter Potato Blossom Wishes skipped away down from the little red\nshanty, skipped down the street, and then began walking slow saying to\nherself, \u201cI love Hatrack the Horse like a grand uncle\u2014his eyes look like\nlightning bugs lighting up the summer night coming out of two little\ndoors.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nHow Six Pigeons Came Back to Hatrack the Horse After Many Accidents and\n                             Six Telegrams\n\nSix crooked ladders stood against the front of the shanty where Hatrack\nthe Horse lived.\n\nYellow roses all on fire were climbing up and down the ladders, up and\ndown and crossways.\n\nAnd leaning out on both sides from the crooked ladders were vines of\nyellow roses, leaning, curving, nearly falling.\n\nHatrack the Horse was waiting. This was the morning Wiffle the Chick was\ncoming.\n\n\u201cSit here on the cracker box and listen,\u201d he said to her when she\ncame; \u201clisten and you will hear the roses saying, \u2018This is climbing\ntime for all yellow roses and climbing time is the time to climb; how\ndid we ever learn to climb only by climbing? Listen and you will\nhear\u2014st..th..st..th..st..th..it is the feet of the yellow roses\nclimbing up and down and leaning out and curving and nearly falling\n..st..th..st..th..\u2019\u201d\n\n\nSo Wiffle the Chick sat there, early in the summer, enjoying herself,\nsitting on a cracker box, listening to the yellow roses climb around the\nsix crooked ladders.\n\nHatrack the Horse came out. On his shoulders were two pigeons, on his\nhands two pigeons. And he reached his hand around behind his back where\nhis hat was hanging and he opened the hat and showed Wiffle the Chick\ntwo pigeons in the hat.\n\n\u201cThey are lovely pigeons to look at and their eyes are full of lessons\nto learn,\u201d said Wiffle the Chick. \u201cMaybe you will tell me why you have\ntheir feet wrapped in bandages, hospital liniment bandages full of\nhospital liniment smells? Why do you put soft mittens on the feet of\nthese pigeons so lovely to look at?\u201d\n\n\u201cThey came back yesterday, they came back home,\u201d was the answer. \u201cThey\ncame back limping on their feet with the toes turned in so far they\nnearly turned backward. When they put their bleeding feet in my hands\none by one each one, it was like each one was writing his name in my\nhand with red ink.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you know they were coming?\u201d asked Wiffle.\n\n\u201cEvery day the last six days I get a telegram, six telegrams from six\npigeons\u2014and at last they come home. And ever since they come home they\nare telling me they come because they love Hatrack the Horse and the\nyellow climbing roses climbing over the six crooked ladders.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid you name your pigeons with names?\u201d asked Wiffle.\n\n\u201cThese three, the sandy and golden brown, all named themselves by where\nthey came from. This is Chickamauga, here is Chattanooga, and this is\nChattahoochee. And the other three all got their names from me when I\nwas feeling high and easy. This is Blue Mist, here is Bubbles, and last\nof all take a look at Wednesday Evening in the Twilight and the\nGloaming.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo you always call her Wednesday Evening in the Twilight and the\nGloaming?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot when I am making coffee for breakfast. If I am making coffee for\nbreakfast then I just call her Wednesday Evening.\u201d\n\n\u201cDidn\u2019t you tie the mittens on her feet extra special nice?\u201d\n\n\u201cYes\u2014she is an extra special nice pigeon. She cries for pity when she\nwants pity. And she shuts her eyes when she doesn\u2019t want to look at you.\nAnd if you look deep in her eyes when her eyes are open you will see\nlights there exactly like the lights on the pastures and the meadows\nwhen the mist is drifting on a Wednesday evening just between the\ntwilight and the gloaming.\n\n\u201cA week ago yesterday they all went away. And they won\u2019t tell why they\nwent away. Somebody clipped their wings, cut off their flying feathers\nso they couldn\u2019t fly\u2014and they won\u2019t tell why. They were six hundred\nmiles from home\u2014but they won\u2019t tell how they counted the six hundred\nmiles. A hundred miles a day they walked, six hundred miles in a week,\nand they sent a telegram to me every day, one writing a telegram one day\nand another writing a telegram the next day\u2014all the time walking a\nhundred miles a day with their toes turned in like pigeon toes turn in.\nDo you wonder they needed bandages, hospital liniment bandages on their\nfeet\u2014and soft mittens?\u201d\n\n\u201cShow me the telegrams they sent you, one every day, for six days while\nthey were walking six hundred miles on their pigeon toes.\u201d\n\nSo Hatrack the Horse got the six telegrams. The reading on the telegrams\nwas like this:\n\n1. \u201cFeet are as good as wings if you have to. CHICKAMAUGA.\u201d\n\n2. \u201cIf you love to go somewhere it is easy to walk. CHATTANOOGA.\u201d\n\n3. \u201cIn the night sleeping you forget whether you have wings or feet or\nneither. CHATTAHOOCHEE.\u201d\n\n4. \u201cWhat are toes for if they don\u2019t point to what you want? BLUE MIST.\u201d\n\n5. \u201cAnybody can walk hundreds of miles putting one foot ahead of the\nother. BUBBLES.\u201d\n\n6. \u201cPity me. Far is far. Near is near. And there is no place like home\nwhen the yellow roses climb up the ladders and sing in the early summer.\nPity me. WEDNESDAY EVENING IN THE TWILIGHT AND THE GLOAMING.\u201d\n\n\u201cDid they have any accidents going six hundred miles walking with their\nlittle pigeon toes turned in?\u201d asked Wiffle.\n\n\u201cOnce they had an accident,\u201d said Hatrack, with Chattahoochee standing\nin his hat, Chickamauga on his right shoulder, Chattanooga on his left,\nand holding Blue Mist and Bubbles on his wrists. \u201cThey came to an old\nwooden bridge. Chattahoochee and Wednesday Evening both cried out, \u2018The\nbridge will fall if we all walk on it the same time!\u2019 But they were all\nsix already on the bridge and the bridge began sagging and tumbled them\nall into the river. But it was good for them all to have a footbath for\ntheir feet, Wednesday Evening explained.\u201d\n\n\u201cI got a suspicion you like Wednesday Evening in the Twilight and the\nGloaming best of all,\u201d spoke up Wiffle.\n\n\u201cWell, Wednesday Evening was the only one I noticed making any mention\nof the yellow roses in her telegram,\u201d Hatrack the Horse explained, as he\npicked up Wednesday Evening and reached her around and put her to perch\non the shoulder bone on his back.\n\nThen the old man and the girl sat on the cracker box saying nothing,\nonly listening to the yellow roses all on fire with early summer\nclimbing up the crooked ladders, up and down and crossways, some of them\nleaning out and curving and nearly falling.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nHow the Three Wild Babylonian Baboons Went Away in the Rain Eating Bread\n                               and Butter\n\nOne morning when Hatrack the Horse went away from his shanty, he put\nthree umbrellas in the corner next to the front door.\n\nHis pointing finger pointed at the three umbrellas as he said, \u201cIf the\nthree wild Babylonian Baboons come sneaking up to this shanty and\nsneaking through the door and sneaking through the house, then all you\nthree umbrellas open up like it was raining, jump straight at the\nbaboons and fasten your handles in their hands. Then, all three of you\nstay open as if it was raining\u2014and hold those handles in the hands of\nthe baboons and never let go till I come.\u201d\n\nHatrack the Horse went away. The three umbrellas stood in the corner\nnext to the front door. And when the umbrellas listened they could hear\nthe three wild Babylonian Baboons sneaking up to the shanty. Soon the\nbaboons, all hairy all over, bangs down their foreheads, came sneaking\nthrough the door. Just as they were sneaking through the door they took\noff their hats to show they were getting ready to sneak through the\nhouse.\n\nThen the three umbrellas in the corner opened up as if it was raining;\nthey jumped straight at the three wild Babylonian Baboons; and they\nfastened their handles tight in the hands of the baboons and wouldn\u2019t\nlet go.\n\nSo there were the three wild Babylonian Baboons, each with a hat in his\nleft hand, and an open umbrella in his right hand.\n\nWhen Hatrack the Horse came home he came, quiet. He opened the front\ndoor, quiet. Then he looked around inside the house, quiet.\n\nIn the corner where he had stood the three umbrellas, he saw the three\nwild Babylonian Baboons on the floor, sleeping, with umbrellas over\ntheir faces.\n\n\u201cThe umbrellas were so big they couldn\u2019t get through the door,\u201d said\nHatrack the Horse. For a long time he stood looking at the bangs hanging\ndown the foreheads of the baboons while they were sleeping. He took a\ncomb and combed the bangs down the foreheads of the baboons. He went to\nthe cupboard and spread bread and butter. He took the hats out of the\nleft hands of the baboons and put the hats on their heads. He put a\npiece of bread and butter in the hand of each baboon.\n\nAfter that he snipped each one across the nose with his finger\n(_snippety-snip!_ just like that). They opened their eyes and stood up.\nThen he loosened the umbrella handles from their right hands and led\nthem to the door.\n\nThey all looked out. It was raining. \u201cNow you can go,\u201d he told the\nbaboons. And they all walked out of the front door, and they seemed to\nbe snickering and hiding the snickers.\n\nThe last he saw of them they were walking away in the rain eating bread\nand butter. And they took off their hats so the rain ran down and slid\noff on the bangs of their foreheads.\n\nHatrack the Horse turned to the umbrellas and said, \u201cWe know how to make\na surprise party when we get a visit from the Babylonian Baboons with\ntheir bangs falling down their foreheads\u2014don\u2019t we?\u201d\n\nThat is what happened, as Hatrack the Horse told it to the night\npoliceman in the Village of Cream Puffs.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n How Six Umbrellas Took Off Their Straw Hats to Show Respect to the One\n                              Big Umbrella\n\nWherever Dippy the Wisp went she was always changing hats. She carried\ntwo hat boxes with big picture hats on her _right_ arm. And she carried\ntwo hat boxes with big picture hats on her _left_ arm. And she changed\nfrom green and gold hats to purple and gray hats and then back to green\nand gold whenever she felt like it.\n\nNow the hill that runs down from the shanty of Hatrack the Horse toward\nthe Village of Cream Puffs is a long, long hill. And one morning the old\nman sat watching and away down at the bottom of the long, long hill he\nsaw four hat boxes. Somebody was coming to call on him. And he knew it\nwas Dippy the Wisp.\n\nThe hat boxes came up the hill. He saw them stop once, stop twice, stop\nmore times. So he knew Dippy the Wisp was changing hats, changing from\ngreen and gold to purple and gray and then back to green and gold.\n\nWhen at last she got to the top of the hill and came to the shanty of\nHatrack the Horse, she said to him, \u201cMake up a story and tell me. Make\nup the story about umbrellas. You have traveled all over the Rootabaga\nCountry, you have seen so many umbrellas, and such wonderful umbrellas.\nMake me up a big elegant story about umbrellas.\u201d\n\nSo Hatrack the Horse took his hat _off_ his head, reached around and\nhung it _on_ one of the shoulder bones sticking out behind on his back.\nAnd the old man looked with a faraway look down the long, long hill\nrunning from his shanty toward the Village of Cream Puffs. Then he told\nher this story:\n\n\nOne summer afternoon I came home and found all the umbrellas sitting in\nthe kitchen, with straw hats on, telling each other who they are.\n\nThe umbrella that feeds the fishes fresh buns every morning stood up and\nsaid, \u201cI am the umbrella that feeds the fishes fresh buns every\nmorning.\u201d\n\nThe umbrella that fixes the clocks free of charge stood up and said, \u201cI\nam the umbrella that fixes the clocks free of charge.\u201d\n\nThe umbrella that peels the potatoes with a pencil and makes a pink ink\nwith the peelings, stood up and said, \u201cI am the umbrella that peels the\npotatoes with a pencil and makes a pink ink with the peelings.\u201d\n\nThe umbrella that eats the rats with pepper and salt and a clean napkin\nevery morning, stood up and said, \u201cI am the umbrella that eats the rats\nwith pepper and salt and a clean napkin every morning.\u201d\n\nThe umbrella that washes the dishes with a wiper and wipes the dishes\nwith a washer every morning stood up and said, \u201cI am the umbrella that\nwashes the dishes with a wiper and wipes the dishes with a washer every\nmorning.\u201d\n\nThe umbrella that covers the chimney with a dish-pan before it rains\nstood up and said, \u201cI am the umbrella that covers the chimney with a\ndish-pan before it rains.\u201d\n\nThe umbrella that runs to the corner to get corners for the\nhandkerchiefs stood up and said, \u201cI am the umbrella that runs to the\ncorner to get corners for the handkerchiefs.\u201d\n\nNow while the umbrellas are all sitting in the kitchen with their straw\nhats on telling each other who they are, there comes a big black\nstranger of an umbrella, walking into the kitchen without opening the\ndoor, walking in without knocking, without asking anybody, without\ntelling anybody beforehand.\n\n\u201cSince we are telling each other who we are,\u201d said the stranger, \u201csince\nwe are telling each other who we are, I am going to tell you who I am.\n\n\u201cI am the umbrella that holds up the sky. I am the umbrella the rain\ncomes through. I am the umbrella that tells the sky when to begin\nraining and when to stop raining.\n\n\u201cI am the umbrella that goes to pieces when the wind blows and then puts\nitself together again when the wind goes down. I am the first umbrella,\nthe last umbrella, the one and only umbrella all other umbrellas are\nnamed after, first, last and always.\u201d\n\nWhen the stranger finished this speech telling who he was and where he\ncame from, all the other umbrellas sat still for a little while, to be\nrespectful.\n\nThen they all got up, took off their straw hats, walked up to the\nstranger and laid those straw hats at his feet. They wanted to show him\nthey had respect for him. Then they all walked out, first the umbrella\nthat feeds the fishes fresh buns every morning, then the umbrella that\nfixes the clocks free of charge, then the umbrella that peels the\npotatoes with a pencil and makes pink ink with the peelings, then the\numbrella that eats the rats with pepper and salt and a clean napkin,\nthen the umbrella that washes the dishes with a wiper and wipes the\ndishes with a washer, then the umbrella that covers the chimney with a\ndish-pan before it rains, then the umbrella that runs to the corner to\nget corners for the handkerchiefs. They all laid their straw hats at the\nfeet of the stranger because he came without knocking or telling anybody\nbeforehand and because he said he is the umbrella that holds up the sky,\nthat big umbrella the rain goes through first of all, the first and the\nlast umbrella.\n\n\nThat was the way Hatrack the Horse finished his story for Dippy the\nWisp. She was changing hats, getting ready to go.\n\nThe old man put his loose bony arms around her and kissed her for a\ngood-by. And she put her little dimpled arms around his neck and kissed\nhim for a good-by.\n\nAnd the last he saw of her that day she was walking far away down at the\nbottom of the long, long hill that stretches from Hatrack\u2019s shanty\ntoward the Village of Cream Puffs.\n\nAnd twice going down the long hill she stopped and changed hats, opening\nand shutting the hat boxes, and changing hats from green and gold to\npurple and gray and back to green and gold.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n  How Bozo the Button Buster Busted All His Buttons When a Mouse Came\n\nOne summer evening the stars in the summer sky seemed to be moving with\nfishes, cats and rabbits.\n\nIt was that summer evening three girls came to the shanty of Hatrack the\nHorse. He asked each one, \u201cWhat is your name?\u201d And they answered, first,\n\u201cMe? My name is Deep Red Roses\u201d; second, \u201cMe? My name is The Beans are\nBurning\u201d; and last of all, \u201cMe? My name is Sweeter Than the Bees\nHumming.\u201d\n\nAnd the old man fastened a yellow rose for luck in the hair of each one\nand said, \u201cYou ought to be home now.\u201d\n\n\u201cAfter you tell us a story,\u201d they reminded him.\n\n\u201cI can only tell you a sad story all mixed up to-night,\u201d he reminded\nthem, \u201cbecause all day to-day I have been thinking about Bozo the Button\nBuster.\u201d\n\n\u201cTell us about Bozo the Button Buster,\u201d said the girls, feeling in their\nhair and fixing the yellow roses.\n\nThe old man sat down on the front steps. His eyes swept away off toward\na corner of the sky heavy with mist where it seemed to be moving with\nfiretails, fishes, cats, and rabbits of slow changing stars.\n\n\n\u201cBozo had buttons all over him,\u201d said the old man, \u201cthe buttons on Bozo\nfitted so tight, and there were so many buttons, that sometimes when he\ntook his lungs full of new wind to go on talking a button would bust\nloose and fly into the face of whoever he was speaking to. Sometimes\nwhen he took new wind into his lungs two buttons would bust loose and\nfly into the faces of two people he was speaking to.\n\n\u201cSo people said, \u2018Isn\u2019t it queer how buttons fly loose when Bozo fills\nhis lungs with wind to go on speaking?\u2019 After a while everybody called\nhim Bozo the Button Buster.\n\n\u201cNow, you must understand, Bozo was different from other people. He had\na string tied to him. It was a long string hanging down with a knot in\nthe end. He used to say, \u2018Sometimes I forget where I am; then I feel for\nthe string tied to me, and I follow the string to where it is tied to\nme; then I know where I am again.\u2019\n\n\u201cSometimes when Bozo was speaking and a button busted loose, he would\nask, \u2018Was that a mouse? Was that a mouse?\u2019 And sometimes he said to\npeople, \u2018I\u2019ll talk with you\u2014_if you haven\u2019t got a mouse in your\npocket_.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe last day Bozo ever came to the Village of Cream Puffs, he stood on\nthe public square and he was all covered with buttons, more buttons than\never before, and all the buttons fitting tight, and five, six buttons\nbusting loose and flying into the air whenever he took his lungs full of\nwind to go on speaking.\n\n\u201c\u2018When the sky began to fall who was it ran out and held up the sky?\u2019 he\nsang out. \u2018It was me, it was me ran out and held up the sky when the sky\nbegan to fall.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018When the blue came off the sky, where did they get the blue to put on\nthe sky to make it blue again? It was me, it was me picked the bluebirds\nand the blue pigeons to get the blue to fix the sky.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018When it rains now it rains umbrellas first so everybody has an\numbrella for the rain afterward. Who fixed that? I did\u2014Bozo the Button\nBuster.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Who took the rainbow off the sky and put it back again in a hurry?\nThat was me.\u2019\n\n[Illustration: The mouse bit the knot and cut it loose]\n\n\u201c\u2018Who turned all the barns upside down and then put them right side up\nagain? I did that.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Who took the salt out of the sea and put it back again? Who took the\nfishes out of the sea and put them back again? That was me.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Who started the catfish fighting the cats? Who made the slippery elms\nslippery? Who made the King of the Broken Bottles a wanderer wandering\nover the world mumbling, \u201cEasy, easy\u201d? Who opened the windows of the\nstars and threw fishes, cats and rabbits all over the frames of the sky?\nI did, I did, I did.\u2019\n\n\u201cAll the time Bozo kept on speaking the buttons kept on busting because\nhe had to stop so often to fill his lungs with new wind to go on\nspeaking. The public square was filled with piles of buttons that kept\nbusting off from Bozo the Button Buster that day.\n\n\u201cAnd at last a mouse came, a sneaking, slippery, quick little mouse. He\nran with a flash to the string tied to Bozo, the long string hanging\ndown with a knot in the end. He bit the knot and cut it loose. He slit\nthe string with his teeth as Bozo cried, \u2018Ai! Ai! Ai!\u2019\n\n\u201cThe last of all the buttons busted loose off Bozo. The clothes fell\noff. The people came up to see what was happening to Bozo. There was\nnothing in the clothes. The man inside the clothes was gone. All that\nwas left was buttons and a few clothes.\n\n\u201cSince then whenever it rains umbrellas first so everybody has an\numbrella for the rain afterward, or if the sky looks like it is falling,\nor if a barn turns upside down, or if the King of the Broken Bottles\ncomes along mumbling \u2018Easy, easy,\u2019 or if firetails, fishes, cats and\nrabbits come on the sky in the night, or if a button busts loose and\nflies into somebody\u2019s face, people remember Bozo the Button Buster.\u201d\n\n\nWhen the three girls started home, each one said to Hatrack the Horse,\n\u201cIt looks dark and lonesome on the prairie, but you put a yellow rose in\nmy hair for luck\u2014and I won\u2019t be scared after I get home.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n4. Two Stories About Four Boys Who Had Different Dreams.\n\n\n            _People_: Googler\n\n                      Gaggler\n\n                      Twins\n\n                      The Family Doctor\n\n                      The Father of the Twins\n\n                      The Mother of the Twins\n\n                      Pen Wipers and Pencil Sharpeners\n\n                      Smokestacks and Monkey Wrenches\n\n                      Monkey Faces on the Monkey Wrenches\n\n                      Left-Handed Monkey Wrenches\n\n\n\n                      Potato Face Blind Man\n\n                      Ax Me No Questions\n\n                      Johnny the Wham\n\n                      Joe the Wimp\n\n                      Grasshoppers\n\n                      Thousand Dollar Bills\n\n                      Brass Doors\n\n                      Lizzie Lazarus\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nHow Googler and Gaggler, the Two Christmas Babies, Came Home with Monkey\n                                Wrenches\n\n\n                                   1\n\nTwo babies came one night in snowstorm weather, came to a tar paper\nshack on a cinder patch next the railroad yards on the edge of the\nVillage of Liver-and-Onions.\n\nThe family doctor came that night, came with a bird of a spizz car\nthrowing a big spotlight of a headlight through the snow of the\nsnowstorm on the prairie.\n\n\u201cTwins,\u201d said the doctor. \u201cTwins,\u201d said the father and mother. And the\nwind as it shook the tar paper shack and shook the doors and the\npadlocks on the doors of the tar paper shack, the wind seemed to be\nhowling softly, \u201cTwins, twins.\u201d\n\nSix days and Christmas Eve came. The mother of the twins lit two\ncandles, two little two-for-a-nickel candles in each little window. And\nthe mother handed the father the twins and said, \u201cHere are your\nChristmas presents.\u201d The father took the two baby boys and laughed,\n\u201cTwice times twice is twice.\u201d\n\nThe two little two-for-a-nickel candles sputtered in each little window\nthat Christmas Eve, and at last sputtered and went out, leaving the\nprairies dark and lonesome. The father and the mother of the twins sat\nby the window, each one holding a baby.\n\nEvery once in a while they changed babies so as to hold a different\ntwin. And every time they changed they laughed at each other, \u201cTwice\ntimes twice is twice.\u201d\n\nOne baby was called Googler, the other Gaggler. The two boys grew up,\nand hair came on their bald red heads. Their ears, wet behind, got dry.\nThey learned how to pull on their stockings and shoes and tie their\nshoestrings. They learned at last how to take a handkerchief and hold it\nopen and blow their noses.\n\nTheir father looked at them growing up and said, \u201cI think you\u2019ll make a\ncouple of peanut-wagon men pouring hot butter into popcorn sacks.\u201d\n\nThe family doctor saw the rashes and the itches and the measles and the\nwhooping cough come along one year and another. He saw the husky Googler\nand the husky Gaggler throw off the rashes and the itches and the\nmeasles and the whooping cough. And the family doctor said, \u201cThey will\ngo far and see much, and they will never be any good for sitting with\nthe sitters and knitting with the knitters.\u201d\n\nGoogler and Gaggler grew up and turned handsprings going to school in\nshort pants, whistling with school books under their arms. They went\nbarefooted and got stickers in their hair and teased cats and killed\nsnakes and climbed apple trees and threw clubs up walnut trees and\nchewed slippery ellum. They stubbed their toes and cut their feet on\nbroken bottles and went swimming in brickyard ponds and came home with\ntheir backs sunburnt so the skin peeled off. And before they went to bed\nevery night they stood on their heads and turned flip-flops.\n\nOne morning early in spring the young frogs were shooting silver spears\nof little new songs up into the sky. Strips of fresh young grass were\nbeginning to flick the hills and spot the prairie with flicks and spots\nof new green. On that morning, Googler and Gaggler went to school with\nfun and danger and dreams in their eyes.\n\nThey came home that day and told their mother, \u201cThere is a war between\nthe pen wipers and the pencil sharpeners. Millions of pen wipers and\nmillions of pencil sharpeners are marching against each other, marching\nand singing, _Hayfoot, strawfoot, bellyful o\u2019 bean soup_. The pen wipers\nand the pencil sharpeners, millions and millions, are marching with\ndrums, drumming, _Ta rum, ta rum, ta rum tum tum_. The pen wipers say,\nNo matter how many million ink spots it costs and no matter how many\nmillion pencil sharpeners we kill, we are going to kill and kill till\nthe last of the pencil sharpeners is killed. The pencil sharpeners say,\nNo matter how many million shavings it costs, no matter how many million\npen wipers we kill, we are going to kill and kill till the last of the\npen wipers is killed.\u201d\n\nThe mother of Googler and Gaggler listened, her hands folded, her thumbs\nunder her chin, her eyes watching the fun and the danger and the dreams\nin the eyes of the two boys. And she said, \u201cMe, oh, my\u2014but those pen\nwipers and pencil sharpeners hate each other.\u201d And she turned her eyes\ntoward the flicks and spots of new green grass coming on the hills and\nthe prairie, and she let her ears listen to the young frogs shooting\nsilver spears of little songs up into the sky that day.\n\nAnd she told her two boys, \u201cPick up your feet now and run. Go to the\ngrass, go to the new green grass. Go to the young frogs and ask them why\nthey are shooting songs up into the sky this early spring day. Pick up\nyour feet now and run.\u201d\n\n\n                                   2\n\nAt last Googler and Gaggler were big boys, big enough to pick the\nstickers out of each other\u2019s hair, big enough to pick up their feet and\nrun away from anybody who chased them.\n\n[Illustration: They went to sleep on top of the wagon]\n\nOne night they turned flip-flops and handsprings and climbed up on top\nof a peanut wagon where a man was pouring hot butter into popcorn sacks.\nThey went to sleep on top of the wagon. Googler dreamed of teasing cats,\nkilling snakes, climbing apple trees and stealing apples. Gaggler\ndreamed of swimming in brickyard ponds and coming home with his back\nsunburnt so the skin peeled off.\n\nThey woke up with heavy gunnysacks in their arms. They climbed off the\nwagon and started home to their father and mother lugging the heavy\ngunnysacks on their backs. And they told their father and mother:\n\n\u201cWe ran away to the Thimble Country where the people wear thimble hats,\nwhere the women wash dishes in thimble dishpans, where the men go to\nwork with thimble shovels.\n\n\u201cWe saw a war, the left-handed people against the right-handed. And the\nsmokestacks did all the fighting. They all had monkey wrenches and they\ntried to wrench each other to pieces. And they had monkey faces on the\nmonkey wrenches\u2014to scare each other.\n\n\u201cAll the time they were fighting the Thimble people sat looking on, the\nthimble women with thimble dishpans, the thimble men with thimble\nshovels. They waved handkerchiefs to each other, some left-hand\nhandkerchiefs, and some right-hand handkerchiefs. They sat looking till\nthe smokestacks with their monkey wrenches wrenched each other all to\npieces.\u201d\n\nThen Googler and Gaggler opened the heavy gunnysacks. \u201cHere,\u201d they said,\n\u201chere is a left-handed monkey wrench, here is a right-handed monkey\nwrench. And here is a monkey wrench with a monkey face on the handle\u2014to\nscare with.\u201d\n\nNow the father and mother of Googler and Gaggler wonder how they will\nend up. The family doctor keeps on saying, \u201cThey will go far and see\nmuch but they will never sit with the sitters and knit with the\nknitters.\u201d And sometimes when their father looks at them, he says what\nhe said the Christmas Eve when the two-for-a-nickel candles stood two by\ntwo in the windows, \u201cTwice times twice is twice.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nHow Johnny the Wham Sleeps in Money All the Time and Joe the Wimp Shines\n                            and Sees Things\n\nOnce the Potato Face Blind Man began talking about arithmetic and\ngeography, where numbers come from and why we add and subtract before we\nmultiply, when the first fractions and decimal points were invented, who\ngave the rivers their names, and why some rivers have short names\nslipping off the tongue easy as whistling, and why other rivers have\nlong names wearing the stub ends off lead pencils.\n\nThe girl, Ax Me No Questions, asked the old man if boys always stay in\nthe home towns where they are born and grow up, or whether boys pack\ntheir packsacks and go away somewhere else after they grow up. This\nquestion started the old man telling about Johnny the Wham and Joe the\nWimp and things he remembered about them:\n\n\nJohnny the Wham and Joe the Wimp are two boys who used to live here in\nthe Village of Liver-and-Onions before they went away. They grew up\nhere, carving their initials, J. W., on wishbones and peanuts and\nwheelbarrows. And if anybody found a wishbone or a peanut or a\nwheelbarrow with the initials, J. W., carved on it, he didn\u2019t know\nwhether it was Johnny the Wham or Joe the Wimp.\n\nThey met on summer days, put their hands in their pockets and traded\neach other grasshoppers learning to say yes and no. One kick and a spit\nmeant yes. Two kicks and a spit meant no. One two three, four five six\nof a kick and a spit meant the grasshopper was counting and learning\nnumbers.\n\nThey promised what they were going to do after they went away from the\nvillage. Johnny the Wham said, \u201cI am going to sleep in money up to my\nknees with thousand dollar bills all over me for a blanket.\u201d Joe the\nWimp said, \u201cI am going to see things and shine, and I am going to shine\nand see things.\u201d\n\nThey went away. They did what they said. They went up into the\ngrasshopper country near the Village of Eggs Over where the grasshoppers\nwere eating the corn in the fields without counting how much. They\nstayed in those fields till those grasshoppers learned to say yes and no\nand learned to count. One kick and a spit meant yes. Two kicks and a\nspit meant no. One two three, four five six meant the grasshoppers were\ncounting and learning numbers. The grasshoppers, after that, eating ears\nof corn in the fields, were counting how many and how much.\n\nTo-day Johnny the Wham sleeps in a room full of money in the big bank in\nthe Village of Eggs Over. The room where he sleeps is the room where\nthey keep the thousand dollar bills. He walks in thousand dollar bills\nup to his knees at night before he goes to bed on the floor. A bundle of\nthousand dollar bills is his pillow. He covers himself like a man in a\nhaystack or a strawstack, with thousand dollar bills. The paper money is\npiled around him in armfuls and sticks up and stands out around him the\nsame as hay or straw.\n\nAnd Lizzie Lazarus, who talked with him in the Village of Eggs Over last\nweek, she says Johnny the Wham told her, \u201cThere is music in thousand\ndollar bills. Before I go to sleep at night and when I wake up in the\nmorning, I listen to their music. They whisper and cry, they sing little\noh-me, oh-my songs as they wriggle and rustle next to each other. A few\nwith dirty faces, with torn ears, with patches and finger and thumb\nprints on their faces, they cry and whisper so it hurts to hear them.\nAnd often they shake all over, laughing.\n\n\u201cI heard one dirty thousand dollar bill say to another spotted with\npatches and thumb prints, \u2018They kiss us welcome when we come, they kiss\nus sweet good-by when we go.\u2019\n\n\u201cThey cry and whisper and laugh about things and special things and\nextra extra special things\u2014pigeons, ponies, pigs, special pigeons,\nponies, pigs, extra extra special pigeons, ponies, pigs\u2014cats, pups,\nmonkeys, big bags of cats, pups, monkeys, extra extra big bags of\nspecial cats, pups, monkeys\u2014jewelry, ice cream, bananas, pie, hats,\nshoes, shirts, dust pans, rat traps, coffee cups, handkerchiefs, safety\npins\u2014diamonds, bottles and big front doors with bells on\u2014they cry and\nwhisper and laugh about these things\u2014and it never hurts unless the dirty\nthousand dollar bills with torn ears and patches on their faces say to\neach other, \u2018They kiss us welcome when we come, they kiss us sweet\ngood-by when we go.\u2019\u201d\n\n\nThe old Potato Face sat saying nothing. He fooled a little with the\naccordion keys as if trying to make up a tune for the words, \u201cThey kiss\nus welcome when we come, they kiss us sweet good-by when we go.\u201d\n\nAx Me No Questions looked at him with a soft look and said softly, \u201cNow\nmaybe you\u2019ll tell about Joe the Wimp.\u201d And he told her:\n\n\nJoe the Wimp shines the doors in front of the bank. The doors are brass,\nand Joe the Wimp stands with rags and ashes and chamois skin keeping the\nbrass shining.\n\n\u201cThe brass shines slick and shows everything on the street like a\nlooking glass,\u201d he told Lizzie Lazarus last week. \u201cIf pigeons, ponies,\npigs, come past, or cats, pups, monkeys, or jewelry, ice cream, bananas,\npie, hats, shoes, shirts, dust pans, rat traps, coffee cups,\nhandkerchiefs, safety pins, or diamonds, bottles, and big front doors\nwith bells on, Joe the Wimp sees them in the brass.\n\n\u201cI rub on the brass doors, and things begin to jump into my hands out of\nthe shine of the brass. Faces, chimneys, elephants, yellow humming\nbirds, and blue cornflowers, where I have seen grasshoppers sleeping two\nby two and two by two, they all come to the shine of the brass on the\ndoors when I ask them to. If you shine brass hard, and wish as hard as\nthe brass wishes, and keep on shining and wishing, then always things\ncome jumping into your hands out of the shine of the brass.\u201d\n\n\n\u201cSo you see,\u201d said the Potato Face Blind Man to Ax Me No Questions,\n\u201csometimes the promises boys make when they go away come true\nafterward.\u201d\n\n\u201cThey got what they asked for\u2014now will they keep it or leave it?\u201d said\nAx Me.\n\n\u201cOnly the grasshoppers can answer that,\u201d was the old man\u2019s reply. \u201cThe\ngrasshoppers are older. They know more about jumps. And especially\ngrasshoppers that say yes and no and count one two three, four five\nsix.\u201d\n\nAnd he sat saying nothing, fooling with the accordion keys as if trying\nto make up a tune for the words, \u201cThey kiss us welcome when we come,\nthey kiss us sweet good-by when we go.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n5. Two Stories Told by the Potato Face Blind Man About Two Girls with\nRed Hearts.\n\n\n            _People_: Blixie Bimber\n\n                      The Potato Face Blind Man\n\n                      Shoulder Straps\n\n                      High High Over\n\n                      Six Bits\n\n                      Deep Red Roses\n\n                      A Clock\n\n                      A Looking Glass\n\n                      Baggage\n\n\n\n                      Pink Peony\n\n                      Spuds the Ballplayer\n\n                      Four Moon\n\n                      Peacocks\n\n                      Frogs\n\n                      Oranges\n\n                      Yellow Silk Handkerchiefs\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nHow Deep Red Roses Goes Back and Forth Between the Clock and the Looking\n                                 Glass\n\nOne morning when big white clouds were shouldering each other\u2019s\nshoulders, rolling on the rollers of a big blue sky, Blixie Bimber came\nalong where the Potato Face Blind Man sat shining the brass\nbickerjiggers on his accordion.\n\n\u201cDo you like to shine up the brass bickerjiggers?\u201d asked Blixie.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d he answered. \u201cOne time a long time ago the brass bickerjiggers\nwere gold, but they stole the gold away when I wasn\u2019t looking.\u201d\n\nHe blinked the eyelids over his eyeballs and said, \u201cI thank them because\nthey took gold they wanted. Brass feels good to my fingers the same as\ngold.\u201d And he went on shining up the brass bickerjiggers on the\naccordion, humming a little line of an old song, \u201cTo-morrow will never\ncatch up with yesterday because yesterday started sooner.\u201d\n\n\u201cSeems like a nice morning with the sun spilling bushels of sunshine,\u201d\nhe said to Blixie, who answered, \u201cBig white clouds are shouldering each\nother\u2019s shoulders rolling on the rollers of a big blue sky.\u201d\n\n\u201cSeems like it\u2019s April all over again,\u201d he murmured, almost like he\nwasn\u2019t talking at all.\n\n\u201cSeems just that way\u2014April all over again,\u201d murmured Blixie, almost like\nshe wasn\u2019t talking at all.\n\nSo they began drifting, the old man drifting his way, the girl drifting\nher way, till he drifted into a story. And the story he told was like\nthis and in these words:\n\n\n\u201cDeep Red Roses was a lovely girl with blue skylights like the blue\nskylights of early April in her eyes. And her lips reminded people of\ndeep red roses waiting in the cool of the summer evening.\n\n\u201cShe met Shoulder Straps one day when she was young yet. He promised\nher. And she promised him. But he went away. One of the long wars\nbetween two short wars took him. In a far away country, then, he married\nanother girl. And he didn\u2019t come back to Deep Red Roses.\n\n\u201cNext came High High Over, one day when she was young yet. A dancer he\nwas, going from one city to another city to dance, spending his\nafternoons and evenings and late nights dancing, and sleeping in the\nmorning till noon. And when he promised she promised. But he went away\nto another city and after that another city. And he married one woman\nand then another woman. Every year there came a new story about one of\nthe new wives of High High Over, the dancer. And while she was young\nyet, Deep Red Roses forgot all about her promise and the promise of High\nHigh Over, the dancer who ran away from her.\n\n\u201cSix Bits was the next to come along. And he was not a soldier nor a\ndancer nor anything special. He was a careless man, changing from one\njob to another, changing from paperhanging to plastering, from fixing\nshingle roofs where the shingles were ripped to opening cans with can\nopeners.\n\n\u201cSix Bits gave Deep Red Roses his promise and she gave him her promise.\nBut he was always late keeping his promise. When the wedding was to be\nTuesday he didn\u2019t come till Wednesday. If it was Friday he came\nSaturday. And there wasn\u2019t any wedding.\n\n\u201cSo Deep Red Roses said to herself, \u2018I am going away and learn, I am\ngoing away and talk with the wives of High High Over, the dancer, and\nmaybe if I go far enough I will find the wife of Shoulder Straps, the\nsoldier\u2014and maybe the wives of the men who promised me will tell me how\nto keep promises kept.\u2019\n\n\u201cShe packed her baggage till her baggage was packed so full there was\nroom for only one more thing. So she had to decide whether to put a\n_clock_ or whether to put a _looking glass_ in her baggage.\n\n\u201c\u2018My head tells me to carry the clock so I can always tell if I am early\nor late,\u2019 she said to herself. \u2018But my heart tells me to carry a looking\nglass so I can look at my face and tell if I am getting older or\nyounger.\u2019\n\n\u201cAt last she decides to take the clock and leave the looking\nglass\u2014because her head says so. She starts away. She goes through the\ndoor, she is out of the house, she goes to the street, she starts up the\nstreet.\n\n\u201cThen her heart tells her to go back and change the clock for the\nlooking glass. She goes back up the street, through the door, into the\nhouse, into her room. Now she stands in front of the clock and the\nlooking glass saying, \u2018To-night I sleep home here one more night, and\nto-morrow morning I decide again.\u2019\n\n\u201cAnd now every morning Deep Red Roses decides with her head to take the\nclock. She takes the clock and starts away and then comes back because\nher heart decides she must have the looking glass.\n\n\u201cIf you go to her house this morning you will see her standing in the\ndoorway with blue skylights like the blue sky of early April in her\neyes, and lips that remind you of deep red roses in the cool of the\nevening in summer. You will see her leave the doorway and go out of the\ngate with the clock in her hands. Then if you wait you will see her come\nback through the gate, into the door, back to her room where she puts\ndown the clock and takes up the looking glass.\n\n\u201cAfter that she decides to wait until to-morrow morning to decide again\nwhat to decide. Her head tells her one thing, her heart tells her\nanother. Between the two she stays home. Sometimes she looks at her face\nin the looking glass and says to herself, \u2018I am young yet and while I am\nyoung I am going to do my own deciding.\u2019\u201d\n\n\nBlixie Bimber fingered the end of her chin with her little finger and\nsaid, \u201cIt is a strange story. It has a stab in it. It would hurt me if I\ncouldn\u2019t look up at the big white clouds shouldering their shoulders,\nrolling on the rollers of the big blue sky.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is a good story to tell when April is here all over again\u2014and I am\nshining up the brass bickerjiggers on my accordion,\u201d said the Potato\nFace Blind Man.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n    How Pink Peony Sent Spuds, the Ballplayer, Up to Pick Four Moons\n\nEarly one summer evening the moon was hanging in the tree-tops. There\nwas a lisp of leaves. And the soft shine of the moon sifting down seemed\nto have something to say to the lisp of the leaves.\n\nThe girl named Blixie Bimber came that particular summer evening to the\ncorner where the Potato Face Blind Man sat with his accordion. She came\nwalking slow and thoughtful to where he was sitting in the evening\nshadows. And she told him about the summer moon in the tree-tops, the\nlisp of the leaves, and the shine of the moon trying to tell something\nto the lisp of the leaves.\n\nThe old man leaned back, fumbled the keys of his accordion, and said it\nloosened up things he remembered far back.\n\n\u201cOn an evening like this, every tree has a moon all of its own for\nitself\u2014if you climb up in a thousand trees this evening you can pick a\nthousand moons,\u201d the old man murmured. \u201cYou remind me to-night about\nsecrets swimming deep in me.\u201d\n\nAnd after hesitating a little\u2014and thinking a little\u2014and then hesitating\nsome more\u2014the old man started and told this story:\n\n\nThere was a girl I used to know, one time, named Pink Peony. She was a\ngirl with cheeks and lips the peonies talked about.\n\nWhen she passed a bush of peonies, some of the flowers would whisper,\n\u201cShe is lovelier than we are.\u201d And the other peonies would answer in a\nwhisper, \u201cIt _must_ be so, it ... must ... be ... _so_.\u201d\n\nNow there was a ballplayer named Spuds, came one night to take her\nriding, out to a valley where the peacocks always cry before it rains,\nwhere the frogs always gamble with the golden dice after midnight.\n\nAnd out in that valley they came to a tall tree shooting spraggly to the\nsky. And high up in the spraggly shoots, where the lisp of the leaves\nwhispers, there a moon had drifted down and was caught in the branches.\n\n\u201cSpuds, climb up and pick _that_ moon for me,\u201d Pink Peony sang reckless.\nAnd the ballplayer jumped out of the car, climbed up the tall tree, up\nand up till he was high and far in the spraggly branches where the moon\nhad drifted down and was caught.\n\nClimbing down, he handed the girl a silver hat full of peach-color\npearls. She laid it on the back seat of the car where it would be safe.\nAnd they drove on.\n\nThey came to another tall tree shooting spraggly to the sky. And high up\nthe moon was caught.\n\n\u201cPick _that_ one, Spuds,\u201d Peony sang reckless again. And when he came\nclimbing down he handed her a circle of gold with a blood-color autumn\nleaf. And they put it on the back seat of the car where it would be\nsafe. Then they drove on.\n\n\u201cSpuds, you are good to me,\u201d said Pink Peony, when he climbed another\ntree shooting spraggly high in the sky, and came down with a brass pansy\nsprinkled with two rainbows, for her. She put it on the back seat where\nit would be safe. And they drove on.\n\nOne time more Spuds climbed up and came down with what he picked, up\nwhere the moon was caught in the high spraggly branches. \u201cAn Egyptian\ncollar frozen in diamond cobwebs, for you,\u201d he said. \u201cYou are a dear,\nSpuds,\u201d she said, reckless, with a look into his eyes. She laid the\nEgyptian collar frozen in diamond cobwebs on the back seat of the car\nwhere it would be safe\u2014and they drove on.\n\nThey listened a while, they stopped the car and listened a longer while,\nto the frogs gambling with golden dice after midnight.\n\nAnd when at last they heard the peacocks crying, they knew it was going\nto rain. So they drove home.\n\nAnd while the peacocks were crying, and just before they started home,\nthey looked in the back seat of the car at the silver hat full of\npeach-color pearls, the circle of gold with a blood-color autumn leaf,\nthe brass pansy sprinkled with two rainbows, the Egyptian collar frozen\nin diamond cobwebs.\n\nDriving home, the spray of a violet dawn was on the east sky. And it was\nnearly daylight when they drove up to the front door of Pink Peony\u2019s\nhome. She ran into the house to get a basket to carry the presents in.\nShe came running out of the house with a basket to carry the presents\nin.\n\nShe looked in the back seat; she felt with her hands and fingers all\nover the back seat.\n\nIn the back seat she could find only four oranges. They opened the\noranges and in each orange they found a yellow silk handkerchief.\n\nTo-day, if you go to the house where Pink Peony and Spuds are living,\nyou will find four children playing there, each with a yellow silk\nhandkerchief tied around the neck in a mystic slip knot.\n\nEach child has a moon face and a moon name. And sometimes their father\nand mother pile them all into a car and they ride out to the valley\nwhere the peacocks always cry before it rains\u2014and where the frogs always\ngamble with golden dice after midnight.\n\nAnd what they look longest at is a summer moon hanging in the tree-tops,\nwhen there is a lisp of leaves, and the shine of the moon and the lisp\nof the leaves seem to be telling each other something.\n\n\nSo the Potato Face came to a finish with his story. Blixie Bimber kissed\nhim good-night on the nose, saying, \u201cYou loosened up beautiful\nto-night.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n6. Three Stories About Moonlight, Pigeons, Bees, Egypt, Jesse James,\nSpanish Onions, the Queen of the Cracked Heads, the King of the Paper\nSacks.\n\n\n            _People_: Dippy the Wisp\n\n                      Slip Me Liz\n\n                      The Potato Face Blind Man\n\n                      Egypt\n\n                      Jesse James\n\n                      Spanish Onions\n\n                      The Queen of the Cracked Heads\n\n                      The King of the Paper Sacks\n\n                      The Queen of the Empty Hats\n\n                      Hot Balloons\n\n                      A Snoox\n\n                      A Gringo\n\n                      Sweetheart Dippies\n\n                      Nail-eating Rats\n\n                      Sooners\n\n                      Boomers\n\n\n\n       _More People_:\n\n                      Cracked Heads\n\n                      Clock-eating Goats\n\n                      Baby Alligators\n\n                      Pink and Purple Peanuts\n\n                      Empty Hats\n\n                      Bats, Cats, Rats\n\n                      Rag Pickers, Rag Handlers\n\n                      Squirrels, Fish, Baboons, Black Cats\n\n                      A Steel Car, an Air Car\n\n                      Gophers\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n   How Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz Came in the Moonshine Where the\n              Potato Face Blind Man Sat with His Accordion\n\nThe sky shook a rain down one Saturday night over the people, the\npostoffice, and the peanut-stand in the Village of Liver-and-Onions.\n\nAnd after the rain, the sky shook loose a moon so a moonshine came with\ngold on the rainpools.\n\nAnd a west wind came out of the west sky and shook the moonshine gold on\nthe tops of the rainpools.\n\nDippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz came, two tough pony girls, two limber\nprairie girls, in the moonshine humming little humpty dumpty songs.\n\nThey came to the postoffice corner where the Potato Face Blind Man sat\nhugging his accordion, wondering what was next and who and why.\n\nHe was saying to himself, \u201cWho was it told me the rats on the moon in\nthe middle of the winter lock their mittens in ice boxes?\u201d\n\nAnd just then Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz came flipping along saying,\n\u201cIt is a misty moisty evening in the moonshine, isn\u2019t it?\u201d\n\nAnd he answered, \u201cThe moon is a round gold door with silver transoms\nto-night. Bumble bees and honey bees are chasing each other over the\ngold door of the moon and up over the silver transoms.\u201d\n\nDippy the Wisp took out a bee-bag, took bees out of the bee-bag,\nbalanced the bees on her thumb, humming a humpty dumpty song. And Slip\nMe Liz, looking on, joined in on the humpty dumpty song. And, of course,\nthe bees began buzzing and buzzing their _bee_ humpty dumpty song.\n\n\u201cHave you fastened names on them?\u201d asked the Potato Face.\n\n\u201cThese three on my thumb, these three special blue-violet bees, I put\ntheir names on silk white ribbons and tied the ribbons to their knees.\nThis is Egypt\u2014she has inkwells in her ears. This is Jesse James\u2014he puts\npostage stamps on his nose. This is Spanish Onions\u2014she likes pearl-color\nhandkerchiefs around her yellow neck.\u201d\n\n\u201cBees belong in bee-bags, but these are different,\u201d the old man\nmurmured.\n\n\u201cRunaway bees, these are,\u201d Dippy the Wisp went on. \u201cThey buzz away, they\ncome buzzing back, buzzing home, buzzing secrets, syllables, snitches.\n\n\u201cTo-day Egypt came buzzing home with her inkwells in her ears. And Egypt\nbuzzed, \u2018I flew and flew and I buzzed and buzzed far, far away, till I\ncame where I met the Queen of the Cracked Heads with her head all\ncracked. And she took me by the foot and took me to the palace of the\nCracked Heads with their heads all cracked.\n\n\u201c\u2018The palace was full of goats walking up and down the stairs, sliding\non the banisters eating bingety bing clocks. Before he bites the clock\nand chews and swallows and eats the bingety bing clock, I noticed, each\ngoat winds up the clock and fixes it to go off bling bling bingety bing,\nafter he eats it down. I noticed that. And the fat, fat, puffy goats,\nthe fat, fat, waddly goats, had extra clocks hung on their horns\u2014and the\nclocks, tired of waiting, spoke to each other in the bingety bing clock\ntalk. I noticed that too.\n\n[Illustration: She was sitting on a ladder feeding baby clocks to the\nbaby alligators]\n\n\u201c\u2018I stayed all morning and I saw them feed the big goats big hunks and\nthe little goats little hunks and the big clocks big bings and the\nlittle clocks little bings. At last in the afternoon, the queen of the\nCracked Heads came with her cracked head to say good-by to me. She was\nsitting on a ladder feeding baby clocks to baby alligators, winding the\nclocks and fixing the bingety bings, so after the baby alligators\nswallowed the clocks, I heard them singing bling bling bingety bing.\n\n\u201c\u2018And the Queen was reading the alphabet to the littlest of the baby\nalligators\u2014and they were saying the alligator A B C while she was saying\nthe A B C of the Cracked Heads. At last she said good-by to me, good-by\nand come again soon, good-by and stay longer next time.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018When I went out of the door all the baby alligators climbed up the\nladder and bingety blinged good-by to me. I buzzed home fast because I\nwas lonesome. I am so, _so_ glad to be home again.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe Potato Face looked up and said, \u201cThis is nice as the rats on the\nmoon in the middle of the winter locking their mittens in the ice box.\nTell us next about that blue-violet bumblebee, Jesse James.\u201d\n\n\u201cJesse James,\u201d said Dippy the Wisp, \u201cJesse James came buzzing home with\na postage stamp on his nose. And Jesse James buzzed, \u2018I flew and I flew\nand buzzed and buzzed far, far away till I came where I met the King of\nthe Paper Sacks who lives in a palace of paper sacks. I went inside the\npalace expecting to see paper sacks everywhere. But instead of paper\nsacks the palace was full of pink and purple peanuts walking up and down\nthe stairs washing their faces, stitching handkerchiefs.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018In the evening all the pink and purple peanuts put on their overshoes\nand make paper sacks. The King of the Paper Sacks walks around and\naround among them saying, \u201cIf anybody asks you who I am tell them I am\nthe King of the Paper Sacks.\u201d And one little peanut flipped up one time\nin the King\u2019s face and asked, \u201cSay it again\u2014_who_ do you think you are?\u201d\nAnd it made the King so bitter in his feelings he reached out his hand\nand with a sweep and a swoop he swept fifty pink and purple peanuts into\na paper sack and cried out, \u201cA nickel a sack, a nickel a sack.\u201d And he\nthrew them into a trash pile of tin cans.\n\n\u201c\u2018When I went away he shook hands with me and said, \u201cGood-by, Jesse\nJames, you old buzzer, if anybody asks you tell them you saw the King of\nthe Paper Sacks where he lives.\u201d\n\n\u201c\u2018When I went away from the palace, the doors and the window sills, the\ncorners of the roofs and the eave troughs where the rain runs off, they\nwere all full of pink and purple peanuts standing in their overshoes\nwashing their faces, stitching handkerchiefs, calling good-by to me,\ngood-by and come again, good-by and stay longer next time. Then I came\nbuzzing home because I was lonesome. And I am so, _so_ glad to be home\nagain.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe Potato Face looked up again and said, \u201cIt _is_ a misty moisty\nevening in the moonshine. Now tell us about that blue-violet honeybee,\nSpanish Onions.\u201d\n\nAnd Dippy the Wisp tied a slipknot in the pearl-color handkerchief\naround the yellow neck of Spanish Onions and said, \u201cSpanish Onions came\nbuzzing back home with her face dirty and scared and she told us, \u2018I\nflew and flew and I buzzed and buzzed till I came where I met the Queen\nof the Empty Hats. She took me by the foot and took me across the City\nof the Empty Hats, saying under her breath, \u201cThere is a screw loose\nsomewhere, there is a leak in the tank.\u201d Fat rats, fat bats, fat cats,\ncame along under empty hats and the Queen always said under her breath,\n\u201cThere is a screw loose somewhere, there is a leak in the tank.\u201d In the\nhouses, on the street, riding on the rattlers and the razz cars, the\nonly people were hats, empty hats. When the fat rats changed hats with\nthe fat bats, the hats were empty. When the fat bats changed _those_\nhats with the fat cats, the hats were empty. I took off my hat and saw\nit was empty. _I began to feel like an empty hat myself._ I got scared.\nI jumped loose from the Queen of the Empty Hats and buzzed back home\nfast. I am so, _so_ glad to be home again.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe Potato Face sat hugging his accordion. He looked up and said, \u201cPut\nthe bees back in the bee-bag\u2014they buzz too many secrets, syllables and\nsnitches.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat do you expect when the moon is a gold door with silver transoms?\u201d\nasked Slip Me Liz.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Dippy the Wisp. \u201cWhat do you expect when the bumblebees and\nthe honeybees are chasing each other over the gold door of the moon and\nup over the silver transoms?\u201d\n\nAnd the two tough pony girls, the two limber prairie girls, went away\nhumming a little humpty dumpty song across the moonshine gold on the\ntops of the rainpools.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n    How Hot Balloons and His Pigeon Daughters Crossed Over into the\n                           Rootabaga Country\n\nHot Balloons was a man who lived all alone among people who sell slips,\nflips, flicks and chicks by the dozen, by the box, by the box car job\nlot, back and forth to each other.\n\nHot Balloons used to open the window in the morning and say to the rag\npickers and the rag handlers, \u201cFar, far away the pigeons are calling;\nfar, far away the white wings are dipping in the blue, in the sky blue.\u201d\n\nAnd the rag pickers and the rag handlers looked up from their rag bags\nand said, \u201cFar, far away the rags are flying; far, far away the rags are\nwhistling in the wind, in the sky wind.\u201d\n\nNow two pigeons came walking up to the door, the door knob and the door\nbell under the window of Hot Balloons. One of the pigeons rang the bell.\nThe other pigeon, too, stepped up to the bell and gave it a ring.\n\nThen they waited, tying the shoe strings on their shoes and the bonnet\nstrings under their chins, while they waited.\n\nHot Balloons opened the door. And they flew into his hands, one pigeon\napiece in each of his hands, flipping and fluttering their wings,\ncalling, \u201cKa loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo,\u201d leaving a letter in his hands\nand then flying away fast.\n\n[Illustration: One of the pigeons rang the bell]\n\nHot Balloons stepped out on the front steps to read the letter where the\nlight was good in the daylight because it was so early in the morning.\nThe letter was on paper scribbled over in pigeon foot blue handwriting\nwith many secrets and syllables.\n\nAfter Hot Balloons read the letter, he said to himself, \u201cI wonder if\nthose two pigeons are my two runaway daughters, Dippy the Wisp and Slip\nMe Liz. When they ran away they said they would cross the Shampoo river\nand go away into the Rootabaga country to live. And I have heard it is a\nlaw of the Rootabaga country whenever a girl crosses the Shampoo river\nto come back where she used to be, she changes into a pigeon\u2014and she\nstays a pigeon till she crosses back over the Shampoo river into the\nRootabaga country again.\u201d\n\nAnd he shaded his eyes with his hands and looked far, far away in the\nblue, in the sky blue. And by looking long and hard he saw far, far away\nin the sky blue, the two white pigeons dipping their wings in the blue,\nflying fast, circling and circling higher and higher, toward the Shampoo\nriver, toward the Rootabaga country.\n\n\u201cI wonder, I guess, I think so,\u201d he said to himself, \u201cI wonder, I think\nso, it must be those two pigeons are my two runaway daughters, my two\ngirls, Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz.\u201d\n\nHe took out the letter and read it again right side up, upside down,\nback and forth. \u201cIt is the first time I ever read pigeon foot blue\nhandwriting,\u201d he said to himself. And the way he read the letter, it\nsaid to him:\n\n  Daddy, daddy, daddy, come home to us in the Rootabaga country where\n  the pigeons call ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo, where the squirrels\n  carry ladders and the wildcats ask riddles and the fish jump out of\n  the rivers and speak to the frying pans, where the baboons take care\n  of the babies and the black cats come and go in orange and gold\n  stockings, where the birds wear rose and purple hats on Monday\n  afternoons up in the skylights in the evening.\n\n                                              (Signed) DIPPY THE WISP,\n                                                       SLIP ME LIZ.\n\nAnd reading the letter a second time, Hot Balloons said to himself, \u201cNo\nwonder it is scribbled over the paper in pigeon foot blue handwriting.\nNo wonder it is full of secrets and syllables.\u201d\n\nSo he jumped into a shirt and a necktie, he jumped into a hat and a\nvest, and he jumped into a steel car, starting with a snizz and a snoof\ntill it began running smooth and even as a catfoot.\n\n\u201cI will ride to the Shampoo river faster than two pigeons fly,\u201d he said.\n\u201cI will be there.\u201d\n\nWhich he was. He got there before the two pigeons. But it was no use.\nFor the rain and the rainstorm was working\u2014and the rain and the\nrainstorm tore down and took and washed away the steel bridge over the\nShampoo river.\n\n\u201cNow there is only an air bridge to cross on, and a _steel_ car drops\ndown, falls off, falls through, if it runs on an _air_ bridge,\u201d he said.\n\nSo he was all alone with the rain and the rainstorm all around him\u2014and\nfar as he could see by shading his eyes and looking, there was only the\nrain and the rainstorm across the river\u2014and the _air_ bridge.\n\nWhile he waited for the rain and the rainstorm to go down, two pigeons\ncame flying into his hands, one apiece into each hand, flipping and\nfluttering their wings and calling, \u201cKa loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo.\u201d And\nhe could tell by the way they began tying the shoestrings on their shoes\nand the bonnet strings under their chins, they were the same two pigeons\nringing the door bell that morning.\n\nThey wrote on his thumb-nails in pigeon foot blue handwriting, and he\nread their handwriting asking him why he didn\u2019t cross over the Shampoo\nriver. And he explained, \u201cThere is only an _air_ bridge to cross on. A\n_steel_ car drops down, falls off, falls through, if it runs on an _air_\nbridge. Change my _steel_ car to an _air_ car. Then I can cross the\n_air_ bridge.\u201d\n\nThe pigeons flipped and fluttered, dipped their wings and called, \u201cKa\nloo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo.\u201d And they scribbled their pigeon feet on his\nthumb-nail\u2014telling him to wait. So the pigeons went flying across the\nShampoo river.\n\nThey came back with a basket. In the basket was a snoox and a gringo.\nAnd the snoox and the gringo took hammers, jacks, flanges, nuts, screws,\nbearings, ball bearings, axles, axle grease, ax handles, spits,\nspitters, spitballs and spitfires, and worked.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a hot job,\u201d said the snoox to the gringo. \u201cI\u2019ll say it\u2019s a hot\njob,\u201d said the gringo answering the snoox.\n\n\u201cWe\u2019ll give this one the merry razoo,\u201d said the snoox to the gringo,\nworking overtime and double time. \u201cYes, we\u2019ll put her to the cleaners\nand shoot her into high,\u201d said the gringo, answering the snoox, working\novertime and double time.\n\nThey changed the steel to air, made an _air_ car out of the _steel_ car,\nput Hot Balloons and the two pigeons into the air car and _drove the air\ncar across the air bridge_.\n\nAnd nowadays when people talk about it in the Rootabaga country, they\nsay, \u201cThe snoox and the gringo drove the air car across the air bridge\nclean and cool as a whistle in the wind. As soon as the car got off the\nbridge and over into the Rootabaga country, the two pigeons changed in a\nflash. And Hot Balloons saw they were his two daughters, his two runaway\ngirls, Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz, standing and smiling at him and\nlooking fresh and free as two fresh fish in a free river, fresh and free\nas two fresh bimbos in a bamboo tree.\u201d\n\nHe kissed them both, two long kisses, and while he was kissing them the\nsnoox and the gringo worked double time and overtime and changed the\n_air_ car back into a _steel_ car.\n\nAnd Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz rode in that car\u2014starting with a\nsnizz and a snoof till it began running smooth and even as a\ncatfoot\u2014showing their father, Hot Balloons, where the squirrels carry\nladders and the wildcats ask riddles and the fish jump out of the rivers\nand speak to the frying pans, where the baboons take care of the babies\nand the black cats come and go in orange and gold stockings, where the\nbirds wear rose and purple hats on Monday afternoons up in the skylights\nin the evening.\n\nAnd often on a Saturday night or a New Year Eve or a Christmas morning,\nHot Balloons remembers back how things used to be, and he tells his two\ngirls about the rag pickers and the rag handlers back among the people\nwho sell slips, flips, flicks, and chicks, by the dozen, by the box, by\nthe box car job lot, back and forth to each other.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n How Two Sweetheart Dippies Sat in the Moonlight on a Lumber Yard Fence\n              and Heard About the Sooners and the Boomers\n\nNot so very far and not so very near the Village of Liver-and-Onions is\na dippy little town where dippy people used to live.\n\nAnd it was long, long ago the sweetheart dippies stood in their windows\nand watched the dips of the star dippers in the dip of the sky.\n\nIt was the dippies who took the running wild oleander and the cunning\nwild rambler rose and kept them so the running wild winters let them\nalone.\n\n\u201cIt is easy to be a dippy ... among the dippies ... isn\u2019t it?\u201d the\nsweetheart dippies whispered to each other, sitting in the leaf shadows\nof the oleander, the rambler rose.\n\nThe name of this dippy town came by accident. The name of the town is\nThumbs Up and it used to be named Thumbs Down and expects to change its\nname back and forth between Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down.\n\nThe running wild oleanders and the running wild rambler roses grow there\nover the big lumber yards where all the old lumber goes.\n\nThe dippies and the dippy sweethearts go out there to those lumber yards\nand sit on the fence moonlight nights and look at the lumber.\n\nThe rusty nails in the lumber get rustier and rustier till they drop\nout. And whenever they drop out there is always a rat standing under to\ntake the nail in his teeth and chew the nail and eat it.\n\nFor this is the place the nail-eating rats come to from all over the\nRootabaga country. Father rats and mother rats send the young rats there\nto eat nails and get stronger.\n\nIf a young rat comes back from a trip to the lumber yards in Thumbs Up\nand he meets another young rat going to those lumber yards, they say to\neach other, \u201cWhere have you been?\u201d \u201cTo Thumbs Up.\u201d \u201cAnd how do you\nfeel?\u201d \u201c_Hard as nails._\u201d\n\nNow one night two of the dippies, a sweetheart boy and girl, went out to\nthe big lumber yards and sat on the fence and looked at the lumber and\nthe running wild oleanders and the running wild rambler roses.\n\nAnd they saw two big rusty nails, getting rustier and rustier, drop out\nof the lumber and drop into the teeth of two young rats.\n\nAnd the two young rats sat up on their tails there in the moonlight\nunder the oleanders, under the roses, and one of the young rats told the\nother young rat a story he made up out of his head.\n\nChewing on the big rusty nail and then swallowing, telling more of the\nstory after swallowing and before beginning to chew the nail again, this\nis the story he told\u2014and this is the story the two dippies, the two\nsweethearts sitting on the fence in the moonlight, heard:\n\n\nFar away where the sky drops down, and the sunsets open doors for the\nnights to come through\u2014where the running winds meet, change faces and\ncome back\u2014there is a prairie where the green grass grows all around.\n\nAnd on that prairie the gophers, the black and brown-striped ground\nsquirrels, sit with their backs straight up, sitting on their soft paddy\ntails, sitting in the spring song murmur of the south wind, saying to\neach other, \u201cThis is the prairie and the prairie belongs to us.\u201d\n\nNow far back in the long time, the gophers came there, chasing each\nother, playing the-green-grass-grew-all-around, playing cross tag, hop\ntag, skip tag, billy-be-tag, billy-be-it.\n\nThe razorback hogs came then, eating pignuts, potatoes, paw paws,\npumpkins. The wild horse, the buffalo, came. The moose, with spraggly\nbranches of antlers spreading out over his head, the moose came\u2014and the\nfox, the wolf.\n\nThe gophers flipped a quick flip-flop back into their gopher holes when\nthe fox, the wolf, came. And the fox, the wolf, stood at the holes and\nsaid, \u201cYou _look_ like rats, you _run_ like rats, you _are_ rats, rats\nwith stripes. Bah! you are only _rats_. Bah!\u201d\n\nIt was the first time anybody said \u201cBah!\u201d to the gophers. They sat in a\ncircle with their noses up asking, \u201c_What_ does this \u2018Bah!\u2019 mean?\u201d And\nan old timer, with his hair falling off in patches, with the stripes on\nhis soft paddy tail patched with patches, this old timer of a gopher\nsaid, \u201c\u2018Bah!\u2019 speaks more than it means whenever it is spoken.\u201d\n\nThen the sooners and the boomers came, saying \u201cBah!\u201d and saying it many\nnew ways, till the fox, the wolf, the moose, the wild horse, the\nbuffalo, the razorback hog picked up their feet and ran away without\nlooking back.\n\nThe sooners and boomers began making houses, sod houses, log, lumber,\nplaster-and-lath houses, stone, brick, steel houses, but most of the\nhouses were lumber with nails to hold the lumber together to keep the\nrain off and push the wind back and hold the blizzards outside.\n\nIn the beginning the sooners and boomers told stories, spoke jokes, made\nsongs, with their arms on each other\u2019s shoulders. They dug wells,\nhelping each other get water. They built chimneys together helping each\nother let the smoke out of their houses. And every year the day before\nThanksgiving they went in cahoots with their post hole diggers and dug\nall the post holes for a year to come. That was in the morning. In the\nafternoon they took each other\u2019s cistern cleaners and cleaned all the\ncisterns for a year to come. And the next day on Thanksgiving they split\nturkey wishbones and thanked each other they had all the post holes dug\nand all the cisterns cleaned for a year to come.\n\nIf the boomers had to have broom corn to make brooms the sooners came\nsaying, \u201cHere is your broom corn.\u201d If the sooners had to have a gallon\nof molasses, the boomers came saying, \u201cHere is your gallon of molasses.\u201d\n\nThey handed each other big duck eggs to fry, big goose eggs to boil,\npurple pigeon eggs for Easter breakfast. Wagon loads of buff banty eggs\nwent back and forth between the sooners and boomers. And they took big\nhayracks full of buff banty hens and traded them for hayracks full of\nbuff banty roosters.\n\nAnd one time at a picnic, one summer afternoon, the sooners gave the\nboomers a thousand golden ice tongs with hearts and hands carved on the\nhandles. And the boomers gave the sooners a thousand silver wheelbarrows\nwith hearts and hands carved on the handles.\n\nThen came pigs, pigs, pigs, and more pigs. And the sooners and boomers\nsaid the pigs had to be painted. There was a war to decide whether the\npigs should be painted pink or green. Pink won.\n\nThe next war was to decide whether the pigs should be painted checks or\nstripes. Checks won. The next war after that was to decide whether the\nchecks should be painted pink or green. Green won.\n\nThen came the longest war of all, up till that time. And this war\ndecided the pigs should be painted both pink and green, both checks and\nstripes.\n\nThey rested then. But it was only a short rest. For then came the war to\ndecide whether peach pickers must pick peaches on Tuesday mornings or on\nSaturday afternoons. Tuesday mornings won. This was a short war. Then\ncame a long war\u2014to decide whether telegraph pole climbers must eat\nonions at noon with spoons, or whether dishwashers must keep their money\nin pig\u2019s ears with padlocks pinched on with pincers.\n\nSo the wars went on. Between wars they called each other goofs and\nsnoofs, grave robbers, pickpockets, porch climbers, pie thieves, pie\nface mutts, bums, big bums, big greasy bums, dummies, mummies, rummies,\nsneezicks, bohunks, wops, snorkies, ditch diggers, peanuts, fatheads,\nsapheads, pinheads, pickle faces, horse thieves, rubbernecks, big pieces\nof cheese, big bags of wind, snabs, scabs, and dirty sniveling snitches.\nSometimes when they got tired of calling each other names they scratched\nin the air with their fingers and made faces with their tongues out\ntwisted like pretzels.\n\nAfter a while, it seemed, there was no corn, no broom corn, no brooms,\nnot even teeny sweepings of corn or broom corn or brooms. And there were\nno duck eggs to fry, goose eggs to boil, no buff banty eggs, no buff\nbanty hens, no buff banty roosters, no wagons for wagon loads of buff\nbanty eggs, no hayracks for hayrack loads of buff banty hens and buff\nbanty roosters.\n\nAnd the thousand golden ice tongs the sooners gave the boomers, and the\nthousand silver wheelbarrows the boomers gave the sooners, both with\nhearts and hands carved on the handles, they were long ago broken up in\none of the early wars deciding pigs must be painted both pink and green\nwith both checks and stripes.\n\nAnd now, at last, there were no more pigs to paint either pink or green\nor with checks or stripes. The pigs, pigs, pigs, were gone.\n\nSo the sooners and boomers all got lost in the wars or they screwed\nwooden legs on their stump legs and walked away to bigger, bigger\nprairies or they started away for the rivers and mountains, stopping\nalways to count how many fleas there were in any bunch of fleas they\nmet. If you see anybody who stops to count the fleas in a bunch of\nfleas, that is a sign he is either a sooner or a boomer.\n\nSo again the gophers, the black and brown striped ground squirrels, sit\nwith their backs straight up, sitting on their soft paddy tails, sitting\nin the spring song murmur of the south wind, saying, \u201cThis is the\nprairie and the prairie belongs to us.\u201d\n\nFar away to-day where the sky drops down and the sunsets open\ndoors for the nights to come through\u2014where the running winds meet,\nchange faces and come back\u2014there the gophers are playing\nthe-green-grass-grew-all-around, playing cross tag, skip tag, hop\ntag, billy-be-tag, billy-be-it. And sometimes they sit in a circle\nand ask, \u201cWhat does this \u2018Bah!\u2019 mean?\u201d And an old timer answers,\n\u201c\u2018Bah!\u2019 speaks more than it means whenever it is spoken.\u201d\n\nThat was the story the young rat under the oleanders, under the roses,\ntold the other young rat, while the two sweetheart dippies sat on the\nfence in the moonlight looking at the lumber and listening.\n\nThe young rat who told the story hardly got started eating the nail he\nwas chewing, while the young rat that did the listening chewed up and\nswallowed down a whole nail.\n\nAs the two dippies on the fence looked at the running wild oleander and\nthe running wild rambler roses over the lumber in the moonlight, they\nsaid to each other, \u201cIt\u2019s easy to be a dippy ... among the dippies ...\nisn\u2019t it?\u201d And they climbed down from the fence and went home in the\nmoonlight.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n7. Two Stories Out of the Tall Grass.\n\n\n            _People_: John Jack Johannes Hummadummaduffer\n\n                      Feed Box\n\n                      Eva Evelyn Evangeline Hummadummaduffer\n\n                      Sky Blue\n\n                      The Harvest Moon\n\n                      A Haystack Cricket\n\n\n\n                      Baby Moon\n\n                      Half Moon\n\n                      Silver Moon\n\n\n\n                      Doorbells, Chimneys, Cellars\n\n\n\n                      The Night Policeman in the Village of Cream Puffs\n\n                      Butter Fingers\n\n                      Three Strikes\n\n                      Cub Ballplayers\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n The Haystack Cricket and How Things Are Different Up in the Moon Towns\n\nThere is an old man with wrinkles like wrinkled leather on his face\nliving among the cornfields on the rolling prairie near the Shampoo\nriver.\n\nHis name is John Jack Johannes Hummadummaduffer. His cronies and the\npeople who know him call him Feed Box.\n\nHis daughter is a cornfield girl with hair shining the way cornsilk\nshines when the corn is ripe in the fall time. The tassels of cornsilk\nhang down and blow in the wind with a rusty dark gold, and they seem to\nget mixed with her hair. Her name is Eva Evelyn Evangeline\nHummadummaduffer. And her chums and the people who know her call her Sky\nBlue.\n\nThe eleventh month, November, comes every year to the corn belt on that\nrolling prairie. The wagons bring the corn from the fields in the\nharvest days and the cracks in the corncribs shine with the yellow and\ngold of the corn.\n\nThe harvest moon comes, too. They say it stacks sheaves of the November\ngold moonshine into gold corn shocks on the sky. So they say.\n\nOn those mornings in November that time of the year, the old man they\ncall Feed Box sits where the sun shines against the boards of a\ncorncrib.\n\nThe girl they call Sky Blue, even though her name is Eva Evelyn\nEvangeline Hummadummaduffer, she comes along one November morning. Her\nfather is sitting in the sun with his back against a corncrib. And he\ntells her he always sits there every year listening to the mice in the\ncornfields getting ready to move into the big farmhouse.\n\n\u201cWhen the frost comes and the corn is husked and put in the corncribs,\nthe fields are cleaned and the cold nights come. Papa mouse and mama\nmouse tell the little ones it is time to sneak into the cellar and the\ngarret and the attic of the farmhouse,\u201d said Feed Box to Sky Blue.\n\n\u201cI am listening,\u201d she said, \u201cand I can hear the papa mouse and the mama\nmouse telling the little ones how they will find rags and paper and wool\nand splinters and shavings and hair, and they will make warm nests for\nthe winter in the big farmhouse\u2014if no kits, cats nor kittycats get\nthem.\u201d\n\nThe old man, Feed Box, rubbed his back and his shoulders against the\nboards of the corncrib and washed his hands almost as if he might be\nwashing them in the gold of the autumn sunshine. Then he told this\nhappening:\n\n\nThis time of the year, when the mouse in the fields whispers so I can\nhear him, I remember one November when I was a boy.\n\nOne night in November when the harvest moon was shining and stacking\ngold cornshocks in the sky, I got lost. Instead of going home I was\ngoing away from home. And the next day and the next night instead of\ngoing home I was going away from home.\n\nThat second night I came to a haystack where a yellow and gold cricket\nwas singing. And he was singing the same songs the crickets sing in the\nhaystacks back home where the Hummadummaduffers raise hay and corn, in\nthe corn belt near the Shampoo river.\n\nAnd he told me, this cricket did, he told me when he listened soft if\neverything was still in the grass and the sky, he could hear golden\ncrickets singing in the cornshocks the harvest moon had stacked in the\nsky.\n\nI went to sleep listening to the singing of the yellow and gold crickets\nin that haystack. It was early in the morning, long before daylight, I\nguess, the two of us went on a trip away from the haystack.\n\nWe took a trip. The yellow and gold cricket led the way. \u201cIt is the call\nof the harvest moon,\u201d he said to me in a singing whisper. \u201cWe are going\nup to the moon towns where the harvest moon stacks the cornshocks on the\nsky.\u201d\n\nWe came to a little valley in the sky. And the harvest moon had slipped\nthree little towns into that valley, three little towns named Half Moon,\nBaby Moon, and Silver Moon.\n\nIn the town of Half Moon they _look_ out of the doors and _come in_ at\nthe windows. So they have taken all the doorbells off the doors and put\nthem on the windows. Whenever we rang a door-bell we went to a window.\n\nIn the town of Baby Moon they had windows on the chimneys so the smoke\ncan look out of the window and see the weather before it comes out over\nthe top of the chimney. And whenever the chimneys get tired of being\nstuck up on the top of the roof, the chimneys climb down and dance in\nthe cellar. We saw five chimneys climb down and join hands and bump\nheads and dance a laughing chimney dance.\n\nIn the town of Silver Moon the cellars are not satisfied. They say to\neach other, \u201cWe are tired of being under, always under.\u201d So the cellars\nslip out from being under, always under. They slip out and climb up on\ntop of the roof.\n\nAnd that was all we saw up among the moon towns of Half Moon, Baby Moon\nand Silver Moon. We had to get back to the haystack so as to get up in\nthe morning after our night sleep.\n\n\n\u201cThis time of the year I always remember that November,\u201d said the old\nman, Feed Box, to his daughter, Sky Blue.\n\nAnd Sky Blue said, \u201cI am going to sleep in a haystack sometime in\nNovember just to see if a yellow and gold cricket will come with a\nsinging whisper and take me on a trip to where the doorbells are on the\nwindows and the chimneys climb down and dance.\u201d\n\nThe old man murmured, \u201cDon\u2019t forget the cellars tired of being under,\nalways under.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nWhy the Big Ball Game Between Hot Grounders and the Grand Standers Was a\n                                Hot Game\n\nUp near the Village of Cream Puffs is a string of ball towns hiding in\nthe tall grass. Passengers in the railroad trains look out of the\nwindows and the tall grass stands up so they can\u2019t see the ball towns.\nBut the ball towns are there and the tall grass is full of pitchers,\ncatchers, basemen, fielders, short stops, sluggers, southpaws and\nbackstops. They play ball till dark and after dark they talk ball. The\nbig fast ballplayers in the Rootabaga Country all come from these ball\ntowns in the tall grass.\n\nThe towns used to have names like names in books. But now the names are\nall like ball talk: Knock the Cover Off, Home Plate, Chest Protector,\nGrand Stand, Nine Innings, Three Balls and Two Strikes, Bases Full and\nTwo Out, Big League, Bush League, Hot Grounder, Out Drop, Bee Liner,\nMuffs and Pick Ups, Slide Kelly Slide, Paste It On the Nose.\n\nNow the Night Policeman in the Village of Cream Puffs stopped in at the\nCigar Store one night and a gang of cub ballplayers loafing and talking\nball talk asked him if there was anything in the wind. And he told them\nthis happening:\n\n\n\u201cI was sitting on the front steps of the postoffice last night thinking\nhow many letters get lost and how many letters never get answered. A\nballplayer came along with a package and said his name was Butter\nFingers and he was the heavy hitter, the hard slugger, for the Grand\nStand ball team playing a championship game the day before with the Hot\nGrounders ball team. He came to the Village of Cream Puffs the day\nbefore the game, found a snoox and a gringo and got the snoox and the\ngringo to make him _a home run shirt_. Wearing a home run shirt, he told\nme, you knock a home run every time you come to bat. He said he knocked\na home run every time he came to bat, and it was his home runs won the\ngame for the Grand Standers. He was carrying a package and said the home\nrun shirt was in the package and he was taking it back to the snoox and\nthe gringo because he promised he wouldn\u2019t keep it, and it belonged to\nthe snoox and the gringo and they only rented it to him for the\nchampionship game. The last I saw of him he was hot-footing it pitty-pat\npitty-pat up the street with the package.\n\n\u201cWell, I just said tra-la-loo to Butter Fingers when along comes another\nballplayer. He had a package too, and he said his name was Three\nStrikes, and he was the left-handed southpaw pitcher for the Hot\nGrounders team the day before playing a game against the Grand Stand\nteam. He said he knew unless he put over some classy pitching the game\nwas lost and everything was goose eggs. So he came to the Village of\nCream Puffs the day before the game, found a snoox and a gringo and got\nthe snoox and the gringo to make him _a spitball shirt_. A spitball\nlooks easy, he told me, but it has smoke and whiskers and nobody can\ntouch it. He said he handed the Grand Standers a line of inshoots close\nto their chins and they never got to first base. Three Strikes was\ncarrying a package and he said the spitball shirt was in the package,\nand he was taking it back to the snoox and the gringo because he\npromised he wouldn\u2019t keep it and it belonged to the snoox and the gringo\nand they only rented it to him. The last I saw of him he was hot-footing\nit pitty-pat pitty-pat up the street with a package.\u201d\n\n\nThe gang of cub ballplayers in the Cigar Store asked the Night\nPoliceman, \u201cWho won the game? Was it the Grand Standers or the Hot\nGrounders took the gravvy?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can search me for the answer,\u201d he told the boys. \u201cIf the snoox and\nthe gringo come past the postoffice to-night when I sit on the front\nsteps wondering how so many letters get lost and how so many never get\nanswered, I will ask the snoox and the gringo and if they tell me\nto-night I\u2019ll tell you to-morrow night.\u201d\n\nAnd ever since then when they talk ball talk in the ball towns hiding in\nthe tall grass they say the only sure way to win a ball game is to have\na pitcher with a spitball shirt and over that a home run shirt, both\nmade by a snoox and a gringo.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n8. Two Stories Out of Oklahoma and Nebraska.\n\n\n            _People_: Jonas Jonas Huckabuck\n\n                      Mama Mama Huckabuck\n\n                      Pony Pony Huckabuck\n\n\n\n                      A Yellow Squash\n\n                      A Silver Buckle\n\n                      A Chinese Silver Slipper Buckle\n\n                      Pop Corn\n\n\n\n                      Yang Yang\n\n                      Hoo Hoo\n\n                      Their Mother\n\n\n\n                      The Shadow of the Goose\n\n                      The Left Foot of the Shadow of the Goose\n\n                      An Oklahoma Home\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n The Huckabuck Family and How They Raised Pop Corn in Nebraska and Quit\n                             and Came Back\n\nJonas Jonas Huckabuck was a farmer in Nebraska with a wife, Mama Mama\nHuckabuck, and a daughter, Pony Pony Huckabuck.\n\n\u201cYour father gave you two names the same in front,\u201d people had said to\nhim.\n\nAnd he answered, \u201cYes, two names are easier to remember. If you call me\nby my first name Jonas and I don\u2019t hear you then when you call me by my\nsecond name Jonas maybe I will.\n\n\u201cAnd,\u201d he went on, \u201cI call my pony-face girl Pony Pony because if she\ndoesn\u2019t hear me the first time she always does the second.\u201d\n\nAnd so they lived on a farm where they raised pop corn, these three,\nJonas Jonas Huckabuck, his wife, Mama Mama Huckabuck, and their\npony-face daughter, Pony Pony Huckabuck.\n\nAfter they harvested the crop one year they had the barns, the cribs,\nthe sheds, the shacks, and all the cracks and corners of the farm, all\nfilled with pop corn.\n\n\u201cWe came out to Nebraska to raise pop corn,\u201d said Jonas Jonas, \u201cand I\nguess we got nearly enough pop corn this year for the pop corn poppers\nand all the friends and relations of all the pop corn poppers in these\nUnited States.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: She carried the squash into the kitchen]\n\nAnd this was the year Pony Pony was going to bake her first squash pie\nall by herself. In one corner of the corn crib, all covered over with\npop corn, she had a secret, a big round squash, a fat yellow squash, a\nrich squash all spotted with spots of gold.\n\nShe carried the squash into the kitchen, took a long sharp shining\nknife, and then she cut the squash in the middle till she had two big\nhalf squashes. And inside just like outside it was rich yellow spotted\nwith spots of gold.\n\nAnd there was a shine of silver. And Pony Pony wondered why silver\nshould be in a squash. She picked and plunged with her fingers till she\npulled it out.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a buckle,\u201d she said, \u201ca silver buckle, a Chinese silver slipper\nbuckle.\u201d\n\nShe ran with it to her father and said, \u201cLook what I found when I cut\nopen the golden yellow squash spotted with gold spots\u2014it is a Chinese\nsilver slipper buckle.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt means our luck is going to change, and we don\u2019t know whether it will\nbe good luck or bad luck,\u201d said Jonas Jonas to his daughter, Pony Pony\nHuckabuck.\n\nThen she ran with it to her mother and said, \u201cLook what I found when I\ncut open the yellow squash spotted with spots of gold\u2014it is a Chinese\nsilver slipper buckle.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt means our luck is going to change, and we don\u2019t know whether it will\nbe good luck or bad luck,\u201d said Mama Mama Huckabuck.\n\nAnd that night a fire started in the barns, crib, sheds, shacks, cracks,\nand corners, where the pop corn harvest was kept. All night long the pop\ncorn popped. In the morning the ground all around the farm house and the\nbarn was covered with white pop corn so it looked like a heavy fall of\nsnow.\n\nAll the next day the fire kept on and the pop corn popped till it was up\nto the shoulders of Pony Pony when she tried to walk from the house to\nthe barn. And that night in all the barns, cribs, sheds, shacks, cracks\nand corners of the farm, the pop corn went on popping.\n\nIn the morning when Jonas Jonas Huckabuck looked out of the upstairs\nwindow he saw the pop corn popping and coming higher and higher. It was\nnearly up to the window. Before evening and dark of that day, Jonas\nJonas Huckabuck, and his wife Mama Mama Huckabuck, and their daughter\nPony Pony Huckabuck, all went away from the farm saying, \u201cWe came to\nNebraska to raise pop corn, but this is too much. We will not come back\ntill the wind blows away the pop corn. We will not come back till we get\na sign and a signal.\u201d\n\nThey went to Oskaloosa, Iowa. And the next year Pony Pony Huckabuck was\nvery proud because when she stood on the sidewalks in the street she\ncould see her father sitting high on the seat of a coal wagon, driving\ntwo big spanking horses hitched with shining brass harness in front of\nthe coal wagon. And though Pony Pony and Jonas Jonas were proud, very\nproud all that year, there never came a sign, a signal.\n\nThe next year again was a proud year, exactly as proud a year as they\nspent in Oskaloosa. They went to Paducah, Kentucky, to Defiance, Ohio;\nPeoria, Illinois; Indianapolis, Indiana; Walla Walla, Washington. And in\nall these places Pony Pony Huckabuck saw her father, Jonas Jonas\nHuckabuck, standing in rubber boots deep down in a ditch with a shining\nsteel shovel shoveling yellow clay and black mud from down in the ditch\nhigh and high up over his shoulders. And though it was a proud year they\ngot no sign, no signal.\n\nThe next year came. It was the proudest of all. This was the year Jonas\nJonas Huckabuck and his family lived in Elgin, Illinois, and Jonas Jonas\nwas watchman in a watch factory watching the watches.\n\n\u201cI know where you have been,\u201d Mama Mama Huckabuck would say of an\nevening to Pony Pony Huckabuck. \u201cYou have been down to the watch factory\nwatching your father watch the watches.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d said Pony Pony. \u201cYes, and this evening when I was watching father\nwatch the watches in the watch factory, I looked over my left shoulder\nand I saw a policeman with a star and brass buttons and he was watching\nme to see if I was watching father watch the watches in the watch\nfactory.\u201d\n\nIt was a proud year. Pony Pony saved her money. Thanksgiving came. Pony\nPony said, \u201cI am going to get a squash to make a squash pie.\u201d She hunted\nfrom one grocery to another; she kept her eyes on the farm wagons coming\ninto Elgin with squashes.\n\nShe found what she wanted, the yellow squash spotted with gold spots.\nShe took it home, cut it open, and saw the inside was like the outside,\nall rich yellow spotted with gold spots.\n\nThere was a shine like silver. She picked and plunged with her fingers\nand pulled and pulled till at last she pulled out the shine of silver.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s a sign; it is a signal,\u201d she said. \u201cIt is a buckle, a slipper\nbuckle, a Chinese silver slipper buckle. It is the mate to the other\nbuckle. Our luck is going to change. Yoo hoo! Yoo hoo!\u201d\n\nShe told her father and mother about the buckle. They went back to the\nfarm in Nebraska. The wind by this time had been blowing and blowing for\nthree years, and all the pop corn was blown away.\n\n\u201cNow we are going to be farmers again,\u201d said Jonas Jonas Huckabuck to\nMama Mama Huckabuck and to Pony Pony Huckabuck. \u201cAnd we are going to\nraise cabbages, beets and turnips; we are going to raise squash,\nrutabaga, pumpkins and peppers for pickling. We are going to raise\nwheat, oats, barley, rye. We are going to raise corn such as Indian corn\nand kaffir corn\u2014but we are _not_ going to raise any pop corn for the pop\ncorn poppers to be popping.\u201d\n\nAnd the pony-face daughter, Pony Pony Huckabuck, was proud because she\nhad on new black slippers, and around her ankles, holding the slippers\non the left foot and the right foot, she had two buckles, silver\nbuckles, Chinese silver slipper buckles. They were mates.\n\nSometimes on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas and New Year\u2019s, she tells\nher friends to be careful when they open a squash.\n\n\u201cSquashes make your luck change good to bad and bad to good,\u201d says Pony\nPony.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nYang Yang and Hoo Hoo, or the Song of the Left Foot of the Shadow of the\n                           Goose in Oklahoma\n\nYang Yang and Hoo Hoo were two girls who used to live in Battle Ax,\nMichigan, before they moved to Wagon Wheel Gap, Colorado, and back to\nBroken Doors, Ohio, and then over to Open Windows, Iowa, and at last\ndown to Alfalfa Clover, Oklahoma, where they say, \u201cOur Oklahoma home is\nin Oklahoma.\u201d\n\nOne summer morning Yang Yang and Hoo Hoo woke up saying to each other,\n\u201cOur Oklahoma home is in Oklahoma.\u201d And it was that morning the shadow\nof a goose flew in at the open window, just over the bed where Yang Yang\nand Hoo Hoo slept with their eyes shut all night and woke with their\neyes open in the morning.\n\nThe shadow of the goose fluttered a while along the ceiling, flickered a\nwhile along the wall, and then after one more flutter and flicker put\nitself on the wall like a picture of a goose put there to look at, only\nit was a living picture\u2014and it made its neck stretch in a curve and then\nstretch straight.\n\n\u201cYang yang,\u201d cried Yang Yang. \u201cYang yang.\u201d\n\n\u201cHoo hoo,\u201d sang Hoo Hoo. \u201cHoo hoo.\u201d\n\nAnd while Hoo Hoo kept on calling a soft, low coaxing hoo hoo, Yang Yang\nkept on crying a hard, noisy nagging yang yang till everybody in the\nhouse upstairs and down and everybody in the neighbor houses heard her\nyang-yanging.\n\nThe shadow of the goose lifted its left wing a little, lifted its right\nfoot a little, got up on its goose legs, and walked around and around in\na circle on its goose feet. And every time it walked around in a circle\nit came back to the same place it started from, with its left foot or\nright foot in the same foot spot it started from. Then it stayed there\nin the same place like a picture put there to look at, only it was a\nliving picture with its neck sometimes sticking up straight in the air\nand sometimes bending in a long curving bend.\n\nYang Yang threw the bed covers off, slid out of bed and ran downstairs\nyang-yanging for her mother. But Hoo Hoo sat up in bed laughing,\ncounting her pink toes to see if there were ten pink toes the same as\nthe morning before. And while she was counting her pink toes she looked\nout of the corners of her eyes at the shadow of the goose on the wall.\n\nAnd again the shadow of the goose lifted its left wing a little, lifted\nits right foot a little, got up on its goose legs, and walked around and\naround in a circle on its goose feet. And every time it walked around in\na circle it came back to the same place it started from, with its left\nfoot or right foot back in the same foot spot it started from. Then it\nstayed there in the same place where it put itself on the wall like a\npicture to look at, only it was a living picture with its neck sticking\nup straight in the air and then changing so its neck was bending in a\nlong curving bend.\n\nAnd all the time little Hoo Hoo was sitting up in bed counting her pink\ntoes and looking out of the corners of her eyes at the shadow of the\ngoose.\n\nBy and by little Hoo Hoo said, \u201cGood morning\u2014hoo hoo for you\u2014and hoo hoo\nagain, I was looking at the window when you came in. I saw you put\nyourself on the wall like a picture. I saw you begin to walk and come\nback where you started from with your neck sticking straight up and your\nneck bending in a bend. I give you good morning. I blow a hoo hoo to\nyou. I blow two of a hoo hoo to you.\u201d\n\nThen the shadow of a goose, as if to answer good morning, and as if to\nanswer what Hoo Hoo meant by saying, \u201cI blow two of a hoo hoo to you,\u201d\nstretched its neck sticking up straight and long, longer than any time\nyet, and then bended its neck in more of a bend than any time yet.\n\nAnd all the time Hoo Hoo was sitting in bed feeling of her toes with her\nfingers to see if she had one toe for every finger, and to see if she\nhad one pink little toe to match her one pink little finger, and to see\nif she had one fat flat big toe to match her one fat flat thumb.\n\nThen when the room was all quiet the shadow of the goose lifted its left\nfoot and began singing\u2014singing just as the shadow of a goose always\nsings\u2014with the left foot\u2014very softly with the left foot\u2014so softly you\nmust listen with the softest little listeners you have deep inside your\nears.\n\nAnd this was the song, this was the old-time, old-fashioned left foot\nsong the shadow of the goose sang for Hoo Hoo:\n\n           Be a yang yang if you want to.\n           Be a hoo hoo if you want to.\n\n           The yang yangs always yang in the morning.\n           The hoo hoos always hoo in the morning.\n\n           Early in the morning the putters sit putting,\n           Putting on your nose, putting on your ears,\n           Putting in your eyes and the lashes on your eyes,\n           Putting on the chins of your chinny chin chins.\n\nAnd after singing the left foot song the shadow of the goose walked\naround in a long circle, came back where it started from, stopped and\nstood still with the proud standstill of a goose, and then stretched its\nneck sticking up straight and long, longer than any time yet, and then\nbended its neck bent and twisted in longer bends than any time yet.\n\nThen the shadow took itself off the wall, fluttered and flickered along\nthe ceiling and over the bed, flew out of the window and was gone,\nleaving Hoo Hoo all alone sitting up in bed counting her pink toes.\n\nOut of the corners of her eyes she looked up at the wall of the room, at\nthe place where the shadow of the goose put itself like a picture. And\nthere she saw a shadow spot. She looked and saw it was a left foot, the\nsame left foot that had been singing the left foot song.\n\nSoon Yang Yang came yang-yanging into the room holding to her mother\u2019s\napron. Hoo Hoo told her mother all the happenings that happened. The\nmother wouldn\u2019t believe it. Then Hoo Hoo pointed up to the wall, to the\nleft foot, the shadow spot left behind by the shadow of the goose when\nit took itself off the wall.\n\nAnd now when Yang Yang and Hoo Hoo sleep all night with their eyes shut\nand wake up in the morning with their eyes open, sometimes they say,\n\u201cOur Oklahoma home is in Oklahoma,\u201d and sometimes they sing:\n\n              Be a yang yang and yang yang if you want to.\n              Be a hoo hoo and hoo hoo if you want to.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\n9. One Story About Big People Now and Little People Long Ago.\n\n\n            _People_: Peter Potato Blossom Wishes\n\n                      Three Whispering Cats\n\n                      Hannah\n\n                      Hannah More\n\n                      Susquehannah\n\n\n\n                      Hoom Slimmer\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n  How a Skyscraper and a Railroad Train Got Picked Up and Carried Away\n           from Pig\u2019s Eye Valley Far in the Pickax Mountains\n\nPeter Potato Blossom Wishes sat with her three cats, Hannah, Hannah\nMore, and Susquehannah, one spring morning.\n\nShe was asking different kinds of questions of the three cats. But she\nalways got the same answers no matter what she asked them.\n\nThey were whispering cats. Hannah was a yes-yes cat and always whispered\nyes-yes and nothing else. Hannah More was a no-no cat and always\nwhispered no-no and nothing else. And Susquehannah was a stuttering cat\nand whispered halfway between yes and no, always hesitating and nothing\nelse.\n\n\u201cThe bye-low is whistling his bye-low and bye-low again,\u201d Peter said to\nherself with a murmur. \u201cIt is spring in the tall timbers and over the\nsoft black lands. The hoo hoo and the biddywiddies come north to make a\nhome again. The booblow blossoms put their cool white lips out into the\nblue mist. Every way I point my ears there is a bye-low whistling his\nbye-low and bye-low again. The spring in the timbers and black lands\ncalls to the spring aching in my heart.\u201d\n\nNow the three whispering cats heard what Peter Potato Blossom Wishes was\nmurmuring to herself about the spring heartache.\n\nAnd Hannah, the yes-yes cat, answered yes-yes. Hannah More, the no-no\ncat, answered no-no. And Susquehannah, the stuttering cat, hesitated\nhalfway between yes-yes and no-no.\n\nAnd Peter rubbed their fur the right way, scratched them softly between\nthe ears, and murmured to herself, \u201cIt is a don\u2019t-care morning\u2014I don\u2019t\ncare.\u201d\n\nAnd that morning her heart gave a hoist and a hist when she saw a speck\nof a blackbird spot far and high in the sky. Coming nearer it hummed,\nzoomed, hong whonged ... shut off the hong whong ... stop-locked and\ndrop-locked ... and came down on the ground like a big easy bird with\nbig wings stopped.\n\nHoom Slimmer slid out, wiped his hands on the oil rags, put a smear of\naxle grease on Peter\u2019s chin, kissed her on the nose, patted her ears two\npats\u2014and then they went into the house and had a late breakfast which\nwas her second breakfast and his first.\n\n\u201cI flew till I came to Pig\u2019s Eye Valley in the Pickax Mountains,\u201d Hoom\nSlimmer told her. \u201cThe pickax pigs there run digging with their pickax\nfeet and their pickax snouts. They are lean, long-legged pigs with\npockets all over, fat pocket ears ahead and fat pocket tails behind, and\nthe pockets full of rusty dust. They dip their noses in their pockets,\nsniff their noses full of rusty dust, and sneeze the rusty dust in each\nother\u2019s wrinkly, wriggly, wraggly faces.\n\n\u201cI took out a buzz shovel and scraper, pushed on the buzzer, and watched\nit dig and scrape out a city. The houses came to my ankles. The\nfactories came to my knees. The top of the roof of the highest\nskyscraper came up to my nose.\n\n\u201cA spider ran out of a cellar. A book fell out of his mouth. It broke\ninto rusty dust when I took hold of it. One page I saved. The reading on\nit said millions of people had read the book and millions more would\nread it.\u201d\n\nHoom Slimmer reached into a pocket. He took out in his hand a railroad\ntrain with an engine hooked on ahead, and a smoking car, coaches and\nsleeping cars hooked on behind.\n\n\u201cI cleaned it nice for you, Peter,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the pickax pigs\nsneezed rusty dust on it. Put it in your handkerchief.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd now,\u201d he went on, \u201cI will wrap off the wrappers on the\nskyscraper.... Look at it!... It is thirty stories high. On top is a\nflagpole for a flag to go up. Halfway down is a clock, with the hands\ngone. On the first floor is a restaurant with signs, \u2018Watch Your Hats\nand Overcoats.\u2019 Here is the office of the building, with a sign on the\nwall, \u2018Be Brief.\u2019 Here the elevators ran up and down in a hurry. On\ndoors are signs, bankers, doctors, lawyers, life insurance, fire\ninsurance, steam hoist and operating engineers, bridge and structural\niron and steel construction engineers, stocks, bonds, securities,\narchitects, writers, detectives, window cleaners, jewelry, diamonds,\ncloaks, suits, shirts, sox, silk, wool, cotton, lumber, brick, sand,\ncorn, oats, wheat, paper, ink, pencils, knives, guns, land, oil, coal,\none door with a big sign, \u2018We Buy and Sell Anything,\u2019 another door, \u2018We\nFix Anything,\u2019 and more doors, \u2018None Such,\u2019 \u2018The World\u2019s Finest,\u2019 \u2018The\nBest in the World,\u2019 \u2018Oldest Establishment in the World,\u2019 \u2018The World\u2019s\nGreatest,\u2019 \u2018None Greater,\u2019 \u2018Greatest in the World,\u2019 \u2018Greatest Ever\nKnown.\u2019\u201d\n\nAnd Hoom Slimmer put his arms around the skyscraper, lifted it on his\nshoulder, and carried it upstairs where Peter Potato Blossom said to put\nit, in a corner of her sleeping room. And she took out of her\nhandkerchief the railroad train with the engine hooked on ahead and the\nsmoking car, coaches and sleeping cars, hooked on behind. And she put\nthe railroad train just next to the bottom floor of the skyscraper so\npeople on the train could step off the train and step right into the\nskyscraper.\n\n\u201cLittle railroad trains and little skyscrapers are just as big for\nlittle people as big railroad trains and big skyscrapers are for big\npeople\u2014is it not such?\u201d she asked Hoom Slimmer.\n\nAnd for an answer he gave her a looking glass half as long as her little\nfinger and said, \u201cThe women in that skyscraper used to look at\nthemselves from head to foot in that looking glass.\u201d\n\nThen Peter sang out like a spring bird song, \u201cNow we are going to forget\nthe pickax pigs sneezing rusty dust, and the Pig\u2019s Eye Valley and the\nPickax Mountains. We are going out where the bye-low is whistling his\nbye-low and bye-low again, where it is spring in the tall timbers and\nover the soft black lands, where the hoo hoo and the biddywiddies come\nnorth to make a home again and the booblow blossoms put their cool white\nlips out into the blue mist.\u201d\n\nAnd they sat under a tree where the early green of spring crooned in the\nblack branches, and they could hear Hannah, Hannah More and\nSusquehannah, whispering yes-yes, no-no, and a hesitating stutter\nhalfway between yes-yes, and no-no, always hesitating.\n\n\n\n\n10. Three Stories About the Letter X and How It Got into the Alphabet.\n\n\n            _People_: An Oyster King\n\n                      Shovel Ears\n\n                      Pig Wisps\n\n                      The Men Who Change the Alphabets\n\n\n\n                      A River Lumber King\n\n                      Kiss Me\n\n                      Flax Eyes\n\n                      Wildcats\n\n\n\n                      A Rich Man\n\n                      Blue Silver\n\n                      Her Playmates, Singing\n\nThere are six hundred different stories told in the Rootabaga Country\nabout the first time the letter X got into the alphabet and how and why\nit was. The author has chosen three (3) of the shortest and strangest of\nthose stories and they are told in the next and following pages.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n                               Pig Wisps\n\nThere was an oyster king far in the south who knew how to open oysters\nand pick out the pearls.\n\nHe grew rich and all kinds of money came rolling in on him because he\nwas a great oyster opener and knew how to pick out the pearls.\n\nThe son of this oyster king was named Shovel Ears. And it was hard for\nhim to remember.\n\n\u201cHe knows how to open oysters but he forgets to pick out the pearls,\u201d\nsaid the father of Shovel Ears.\n\n\u201cHe is learning to remember worse and worse and to forget better and\nbetter,\u201d said the father of Shovel Ears.\n\n\nNow in that same place far in the south was a little girl with two\nbraids of hair twisted down her back and a face saying, \u201cHere we\ncome\u2014where from?\u201d\n\nAnd her mother called her Pig Wisps.\n\nTwice a week Pig Wisps ran to the butcher shop for a soup bone. Before\nstarting she crossed her fingers and then the whole way to the butcher\nshop kept her fingers crossed.\n\nIf she met any playmates and they asked her to stop and play\ncross-tag or jackstones or all-around-the-mulberry-bush or\nthe-green-grass-grew-all-around or drop-the-handkerchief, she told\nthem, \u201cMy fingers are crossed and I am running to the butcher shop\nfor a soup bone.\u201d\n\nOne morning running to the butcher shop she bumped into a big queer boy\nand bumped him flat on the sidewalk.\n\n\u201cDid you look where you were running?\u201d she asked him.\n\n\u201cI forgot again,\u201d said Shovel Ears. \u201cI remember worse and worse. I\nforget better and better.\u201d\n\n\u201cCross your fingers like this,\u201d said Pig Wisps, showing him how.\n\nHe ran to the butcher shop with her, watching her keep her fingers\ncrossed till the butcher gave her the soup bone.\n\n\u201cAfter I get it then the soup bone reminds me to go home with it,\u201d she\ntold him. \u201cBut until I get the soup bone I keep my fingers crossed.\u201d\n\nShovel Ears went to his father and began helping his father open\noysters. And Shovel Ears kept his fingers crossed to remind him to pick\nout the pearls.\n\nHe picked a hundred buckets of pearls the first day and brought his\nfather the longest slippery, shining rope of pearls ever seen in that\noyster country.\n\n\u201cHow do you do it?\u201d his father asked.\n\n\u201cIt is the crossed fingers\u2014like this,\u201d said Shovel Ears, crossing his\nfingers like the letter X. \u201cThis is the way to remember better and\nforget worse.\u201d\n\nIt was then the oyster king went and told the men who change the\nalphabets just what happened.\n\nWhen the men who change the alphabets heard just what happened, they\ndecided to put in a new letter, the letter X, near the end of the\nalphabet, the sign of the crossed fingers.\n\nOn the wedding day of Pig Wisps and Shovel Ears, the men who change the\nalphabets all came to the wedding, with their fingers crossed.\n\nPig Wisps and Shovel Ears stood up to be married. They crossed their\nfingers. They told each other other they would remember their promises.\n\nAnd Pig Wisps had two ropes of pearls twisted down her back and a sweet\nyoung face saying, \u201cHere we come\u2014where from?\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n                                Kiss Me\n\nMany years ago when pigs climbed chimneys and chased cats up into the\ntrees, away back, so they say, there was a lumber king who lived in a\nriver city with many wildcats in the timbers near by.\n\nAnd the lumber king said, \u201cI am losing my hair and my teeth and I am\ntired of many things; my only joy is a daughter who is a dancing shaft\nof light on the ax handles of morning.\u201d\n\nShe was quick and wild, the lumber king\u2019s daughter. She had never\nkissed. Not her mother nor father nor any sweetheart ever had a love\nprint from her lips. Proud she was. They called her Kiss Me.\n\nShe didn\u2019t like that name, Kiss Me. They never called her that when she\nwas listening. If she happened to be listening they called her Find Me,\nLose Me, Get Me. They never mentioned kisses because they knew she would\nrun away and be what her father called her, \u201ca dancing shaft of light on\nthe ax handles of morning.\u201d\n\nBut\u2014when she was not listening they asked, \u201cWhere is Kiss Me to-day?\u201d Or\nthey would say, \u201cEvery morning Kiss Me gets more beautiful\u2014I wonder if\nshe will ever in her young life get a kiss from a man good enough to\nkiss her.\u201d\n\nOne day Kiss Me was lost. She went out on a horse with a gun to hunt\nwildcats in the timbers near by. Since the day before, she was gone. All\nnight she was out in a snowstorm with a horse and a gun hunting\nwildcats. And the storm of the blowing snow was coming worse on the\nsecond day.\n\n[Illustration: Out into the snowstorm Flax Eyes rode that day]\n\nIt was then the lumber king called in a long, loose, young man with a\nleather face and hay in his hair. And the king said, \u201cFlax Eyes, you are\nthe laziest careless man in the river lumber country\u2014go out in the\nsnowstorm now, among the wildcats, where Kiss Me is fighting for her\nlife\u2014and save her.\u201d\n\n\u201cI am the hero. I am the man who knows how. I am the man who has been\nwaiting for this chance,\u201d said Flax Eyes.\n\nOn a horse, with a gun, out into the snowstorm Flax Eyes rode that day.\nFar, far away he rode to where Kiss Me, the quick wild Kiss Me, was\nstanding with her back against a big rock fighting off the wildcats.\n\nIn that country the snowstorms make the wildcats wilder\u2014and Kiss Me was\ntired of shooting wildcats, tired of fighting in the snow, nearly ready\nto give up and let the wildcats have her.\n\nThen Flax Eyes came. The wildcats jumped at him, and he threw them off.\nMore wildcats came, jumping straight at his face. He took hold of those\nwildcats by the necks and threw them over the big rock, up into the\ntrees, away into the snow and the wind.\n\nAt last he took all the wildcats one by one and threw them so far they\ncouldn\u2019t come back. He put Kiss Me on her horse, rode back to the lumber\nking and said lazy and careless, \u201cThis is us.\u201d\n\nThe lumber king saw the face of Flax Eyes was all covered with cross\nmarks like the letter X. And the lumber king saw the wildcats had torn\nthe shirt off Flax Eyes and on the skin of his chest, shoulders, arms,\nwere the cross marks of the wildcats\u2019 claws, cross marks like the letter\nX.\n\nSo the king went to the men who change the alphabets and they put the\ncross marks of the wildcats\u2019 claws, for a new letter, the letter X, near\nthe end of the alphabet. And at the wedding of Kiss Me and Flax Eyes,\nthe men who change the alphabets came with wildcat claws crossed like\nthe letter X.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n                              Blue Silver\n\nLong ago when the years were dark and the black rains used to come with\nstrong winds and blow the front porches off houses, and pick chimneys\noff houses, and blow them onto other houses, long ago when people had\nunderstanding about rain and wind, there was a rich man with a daughter\nhe loved better than anything else in the world.\n\nAnd one night when the black rain came with a strong wind blowing off\nfront porches and picking off chimneys, the daughter of the rich man\nfell asleep into a deep sleep.\n\nIn the morning they couldn\u2019t wake her. The black rain with the strong\nwind kept up all that day while she kept on sleeping in a deep sleep.\n\nMen and women with music and flowers came in, boys and girls, her\nplaymates, came in\u2014singing songs and calling her name. And she went on\nsleeping.\n\nAll the time her arms were crossed on her breast, the left arm crossing\nthe right arm like a letter X.\n\nTwo days more, five days, six, seven days went by\u2014and all the time the\nblack rain with a strong wind blowing\u2014and the daughter of the rich man\nnever woke up to listen to the music nor to smell the flowers nor to\nhear her playmates singing songs and calling her name.\n\nShe stayed sleeping in a deep sleep\u2014with her arms crossed on her\nbreast\u2014the left arm crossing the right arm like a letter X.\n\nSo they made a long silver box, just long enough to reach from her head\nto her feet.\n\nAnd they put on her a blue silver dress and a blue silver band around\nher forehead and blue silver shoes on her feet.\n\nThere were soft blue silk and silver sleeves to cover her left arm and\nher right arm\u2014the two arms crossed on her breast like the letter X.\n\nThey took the silver box and carried it to a corner of the garden where\nshe used to go to look at blue lilacs and climbing blue morning glories\nin patches of silver lights.\n\nAmong the old leaves of blue lilacs and morning glories they dug a place\nfor the silver box to be laid in.\n\nAnd men and women with music and flowers stood by the silver box, and\nher old playmates, singing songs she used to sing\u2014and calling her name.\n\nWhen it was all over and they all went away they remembered one thing\nmost of all.\n\nAnd that was her arms in the soft silk and blue silver sleeves, the left\narm crossing over the right arm like the letter X.\n\nSomebody went to the king of the country and told him how it all\nhappened, how the black rains with a strong wind came, the deep sleep,\nthe singing playmates, the silver box\u2014and the soft silk and blue silver\nsleeves on the left arm crossing the right arm like the letter X.\n\nBefore that there never was a letter X in the alphabet. It was then the\nking said, \u201cWe shall put the crossed arms in the alphabet; we shall have\na new letter called X, so everybody will understand a funeral is\nbeautiful if there are young singing playmates.\u201d\n\n[Illustration]\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.\n 2. Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"Rootabaga pigeons","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":25158}