Chapter II: Part 2

They came home that day and told their mother, “There is a war between the pen wipers and the pencil sharpeners. Millions of pen wipers and millions of pencil sharpeners are marching against each other, marching and singing, _Hayfoot, strawfoot, bellyful o’ bean soup_. The pen wipers and the pencil sharpeners, millions and millions, are marching with drums, drumming, _Ta rum, ta rum, ta rum tum tum_. The pen wipers say, No matter how many million ink spots it costs and no matter how many million pencil sharpeners we kill, we are going to kill and kill till the last of the pencil sharpeners is killed. The pencil sharpeners say, No matter how many million shavings it costs, no matter how many million pen wipers we kill, we are going to kill and kill till the last of the pen wipers is killed.”

The mother of Googler and Gaggler listened, her hands folded, her thumbs under her chin, her eyes watching the fun and the danger and the dreams in the eyes of the two boys. And she said, “Me, oh, my—but those pen wipers and pencil sharpeners hate each other.” And she turned her eyes toward the flicks and spots of new green grass coming on the hills and the prairie, and she let her ears listen to the young frogs shooting silver spears of little songs up into the sky that day.

And she told her two boys, “Pick up your feet now and run. Go to the grass, go to the new green grass. Go to the young frogs and ask them why they are shooting songs up into the sky this early spring day. Pick up your feet now and run.”

2

At last Googler and Gaggler were big boys, big enough to pick the stickers out of each other’s hair, big enough to pick up their feet and run away from anybody who chased them.

One night they turned flip-flops and handsprings and climbed up on top of a peanut wagon where a man was pouring hot butter into popcorn sacks. They went to sleep on top of the wagon. Googler dreamed of teasing cats, killing snakes, climbing apple trees and stealing apples. Gaggler dreamed of swimming in brickyard ponds and coming home with his back sunburnt so the skin peeled off.

They woke up with heavy gunnysacks in their arms. They climbed off the wagon and started home to their father and mother lugging the heavy gunnysacks on their backs. And they told their father and mother:

“We ran away to the Thimble Country where the people wear thimble hats, where the women wash dishes in thimble dishpans, where the men go to work with thimble shovels.

“We saw a war, the left-handed people against the right-handed. And the smokestacks did all the fighting. They all had monkey wrenches and they tried to wrench each other to pieces. And they had monkey faces on the monkey wrenches—to scare each other.

“All the time they were fighting the Thimble people sat looking on, the thimble women with thimble dishpans, the thimble men with thimble shovels. They waved handkerchiefs to each other, some left-hand handkerchiefs, and some right-hand handkerchiefs. They sat looking till the smokestacks with their monkey wrenches wrenched each other all to pieces.”

Then Googler and Gaggler opened the heavy gunnysacks. “Here,” they said, “here is a left-handed monkey wrench, here is a right-handed monkey wrench. And here is a monkey wrench with a monkey face on the handle—to scare with.”

Now the father and mother of Googler and Gaggler wonder how they will end up. The family doctor keeps on saying, “They will go far and see much but they will never sit with the sitters and knit with the knitters.” And sometimes when their father looks at them, he says what he said the Christmas Eve when the two-for-a-nickel candles stood two by two in the windows, “Twice times twice is twice.”

How Johnny the Wham Sleeps in Money All the Time and Joe the Wimp Shines
and Sees Things

Once the Potato Face Blind Man began talking about arithmetic and geography, where numbers come from and why we add and subtract before we multiply, when the first fractions and decimal points were invented, who gave the rivers their names, and why some rivers have short names slipping off the tongue easy as whistling, and why other rivers have long names wearing the stub ends off lead pencils.

The girl, Ax Me No Questions, asked the old man if boys always stay in the home towns where they are born and grow up, or whether boys pack their packsacks and go away somewhere else after they grow up. This question started the old man telling about Johnny the Wham and Joe the Wimp and things he remembered about them:

Johnny the Wham and Joe the Wimp are two boys who used to live here in the Village of Liver-and-Onions before they went away. They grew up here, carving their initials, J. W., on wishbones and peanuts and wheelbarrows. And if anybody found a wishbone or a peanut or a wheelbarrow with the initials, J. W., carved on it, he didn’t know whether it was Johnny the Wham or Joe the Wimp.

They met on summer days, put their hands in their pockets and traded each other grasshoppers learning to say yes and no. One kick and a spit meant yes. Two kicks and a spit meant no. One two three, four five six of a kick and a spit meant the grasshopper was counting and learning numbers.

They promised what they were going to do after they went away from the village. Johnny the Wham said, “I am going to sleep in money up to my knees with thousand dollar bills all over me for a blanket.” Joe the Wimp said, “I am going to see things and shine, and I am going to shine and see things.”

They went away. They did what they said. They went up into the grasshopper country near the Village of Eggs Over where the grasshoppers were eating the corn in the fields without counting how much. They stayed in those fields till those grasshoppers learned to say yes and no and learned to count. One kick and a spit meant yes. Two kicks and a spit meant no. One two three, four five six meant the grasshoppers were counting and learning numbers. The grasshoppers, after that, eating ears of corn in the fields, were counting how many and how much.

To-day Johnny the Wham sleeps in a room full of money in the big bank in the Village of Eggs Over. The room where he sleeps is the room where they keep the thousand dollar bills. He walks in thousand dollar bills up to his knees at night before he goes to bed on the floor. A bundle of thousand dollar bills is his pillow. He covers himself like a man in a haystack or a strawstack, with thousand dollar bills. The paper money is piled around him in armfuls and sticks up and stands out around him the same as hay or straw.

And Lizzie Lazarus, who talked with him in the Village of Eggs Over last week, she says Johnny the Wham told her, “There is music in thousand dollar bills. Before I go to sleep at night and when I wake up in the morning, I listen to their music. They whisper and cry, they sing little oh-me, oh-my songs as they wriggle and rustle next to each other. A few with dirty faces, with torn ears, with patches and finger and thumb prints on their faces, they cry and whisper so it hurts to hear them. And often they shake all over, laughing.

“I heard one dirty thousand dollar bill say to another spotted with patches and thumb prints, ‘They kiss us welcome when we come, they kiss us sweet good-by when we go.’

“They cry and whisper and laugh about things and special things and extra extra special things—pigeons, ponies, pigs, special pigeons, ponies, pigs, extra extra special pigeons, ponies, pigs—cats, pups, monkeys, big bags of cats, pups, monkeys, extra extra big bags of special cats, pups, monkeys—jewelry, ice cream, bananas, pie, hats, shoes, shirts, dust pans, rat traps, coffee cups, handkerchiefs, safety pins—diamonds, bottles and big front doors with bells on—they cry and whisper and laugh about these things—and it never hurts unless the dirty thousand dollar bills with torn ears and patches on their faces say to each other, ‘They kiss us welcome when we come, they kiss us sweet good-by when we go.’”

The old Potato Face sat saying nothing. He fooled a little with the accordion keys as if trying to make up a tune for the words, “They kiss us welcome when we come, they kiss us sweet good-by when we go.”

Ax Me No Questions looked at him with a soft look and said softly, “Now maybe you’ll tell about Joe the Wimp.” And he told her:

Joe the Wimp shines the doors in front of the bank. The doors are brass, and Joe the Wimp stands with rags and ashes and chamois skin keeping the brass shining.

“The brass shines slick and shows everything on the street like a looking glass,” he told Lizzie Lazarus last week. “If pigeons, ponies, pigs, come past, or cats, pups, monkeys, or jewelry, ice cream, bananas, pie, hats, shoes, shirts, dust pans, rat traps, coffee cups, handkerchiefs, safety pins, or diamonds, bottles, and big front doors with bells on, Joe the Wimp sees them in the brass.

“I rub on the brass doors, and things begin to jump into my hands out of the shine of the brass. Faces, chimneys, elephants, yellow humming birds, and blue cornflowers, where I have seen grasshoppers sleeping two by two and two by two, they all come to the shine of the brass on the doors when I ask them to. If you shine brass hard, and wish as hard as the brass wishes, and keep on shining and wishing, then always things come jumping into your hands out of the shine of the brass.”

“So you see,” said the Potato Face Blind Man to Ax Me No Questions, “sometimes the promises boys make when they go away come true afterward.”

“They got what they asked for—now will they keep it or leave it?” said Ax Me.

“Only the grasshoppers can answer that,” was the old man’s reply. “The grasshoppers are older. They know more about jumps. And especially grasshoppers that say yes and no and count one two three, four five six.”

And he sat saying nothing, fooling with the accordion keys as if trying to make up a tune for the words, “They kiss us welcome when we come, they kiss us sweet good-by when we go.”

5. Two Stories Told by the Potato Face Blind Man About Two Girls with Red Hearts.

_People_: Blixie Bimber

The Potato Face Blind Man

Shoulder Straps

High High Over

Six Bits

Deep Red Roses

A Clock

A Looking Glass

Baggage

Pink Peony

Spuds the Ballplayer

Four Moon

Peacocks

Frogs

Oranges

Yellow Silk Handkerchiefs

How Deep Red Roses Goes Back and Forth Between the Clock and the Looking
Glass

One morning when big white clouds were shouldering each other’s shoulders, rolling on the rollers of a big blue sky, Blixie Bimber came along where the Potato Face Blind Man sat shining the brass bickerjiggers on his accordion.

“Do you like to shine up the brass bickerjiggers?” asked Blixie.

“Yes,” he answered. “One time a long time ago the brass bickerjiggers were gold, but they stole the gold away when I wasn’t looking.”

He blinked the eyelids over his eyeballs and said, “I thank them because they took gold they wanted. Brass feels good to my fingers the same as gold.” And he went on shining up the brass bickerjiggers on the accordion, humming a little line of an old song, “To-morrow will never catch up with yesterday because yesterday started sooner.”

“Seems like a nice morning with the sun spilling bushels of sunshine,” he said to Blixie, who answered, “Big white clouds are shouldering each other’s shoulders rolling on the rollers of a big blue sky.”

“Seems like it’s April all over again,” he murmured, almost like he wasn’t talking at all.

“Seems just that way—April all over again,” murmured Blixie, almost like she wasn’t talking at all.

So they began drifting, the old man drifting his way, the girl drifting her way, till he drifted into a story. And the story he told was like this and in these words:

“Deep Red Roses was a lovely girl with blue skylights like the blue skylights of early April in her eyes. And her lips reminded people of deep red roses waiting in the cool of the summer evening.

“She met Shoulder Straps one day when she was young yet. He promised her. And she promised him. But he went away. One of the long wars between two short wars took him. In a far away country, then, he married another girl. And he didn’t come back to Deep Red Roses.

“Next came High High Over, one day when she was young yet. A dancer he was, going from one city to another city to dance, spending his afternoons and evenings and late nights dancing, and sleeping in the morning till noon. And when he promised she promised. But he went away to another city and after that another city. And he married one woman and then another woman. Every year there came a new story about one of the new wives of High High Over, the dancer. And while she was young yet, Deep Red Roses forgot all about her promise and the promise of High High Over, the dancer who ran away from her.

“Six Bits was the next to come along. And he was not a soldier nor a dancer nor anything special. He was a careless man, changing from one job to another, changing from paperhanging to plastering, from fixing shingle roofs where the shingles were ripped to opening cans with can openers.

“Six Bits gave Deep Red Roses his promise and she gave him her promise. But he was always late keeping his promise. When the wedding was to be Tuesday he didn’t come till Wednesday. If it was Friday he came Saturday. And there wasn’t any wedding.

“So Deep Red Roses said to herself, ‘I am going away and learn, I am going away and talk with the wives of High High Over, the dancer, and maybe if I go far enough I will find the wife of Shoulder Straps, the soldier—and maybe the wives of the men who promised me will tell me how to keep promises kept.’

“She packed her baggage till her baggage was packed so full there was room for only one more thing. So she had to decide whether to put a _clock_ or whether to put a _looking glass_ in her baggage.

“‘My head tells me to carry the clock so I can always tell if I am early or late,’ she said to herself. ‘But my heart tells me to carry a looking glass so I can look at my face and tell if I am getting older or younger.’

“At last she decides to take the clock and leave the looking glass—because her head says so. She starts away. She goes through the door, she is out of the house, she goes to the street, she starts up the street.

“Then her heart tells her to go back and change the clock for the looking glass. She goes back up the street, through the door, into the house, into her room. Now she stands in front of the clock and the looking glass saying, ‘To-night I sleep home here one more night, and to-morrow morning I decide again.’

“And now every morning Deep Red Roses decides with her head to take the clock. She takes the clock and starts away and then comes back because her heart decides she must have the looking glass.

“If you go to her house this morning you will see her standing in the doorway with blue skylights like the blue sky of early April in her eyes, and lips that remind you of deep red roses in the cool of the evening in summer. You will see her leave the doorway and go out of the gate with the clock in her hands. Then if you wait you will see her come back through the gate, into the door, back to her room where she puts down the clock and takes up the looking glass.

“After that she decides to wait until to-morrow morning to decide again what to decide. Her head tells her one thing, her heart tells her another. Between the two she stays home. Sometimes she looks at her face in the looking glass and says to herself, ‘I am young yet and while I am young I am going to do my own deciding.’”

Blixie Bimber fingered the end of her chin with her little finger and said, “It is a strange story. It has a stab in it. It would hurt me if I couldn’t look up at the big white clouds shouldering their shoulders, rolling on the rollers of the big blue sky.”

“It is a good story to tell when April is here all over again—and I am shining up the brass bickerjiggers on my accordion,” said the Potato Face Blind Man.

How Pink Peony Sent Spuds, the Ballplayer, Up to Pick Four Moons

Early one summer evening the moon was hanging in the tree-tops. There was a lisp of leaves. And the soft shine of the moon sifting down seemed to have something to say to the lisp of the leaves.

The girl named Blixie Bimber came that particular summer evening to the corner where the Potato Face Blind Man sat with his accordion. She came walking slow and thoughtful to where he was sitting in the evening shadows. And she told him about the summer moon in the tree-tops, the lisp of the leaves, and the shine of the moon trying to tell something to the lisp of the leaves.

The old man leaned back, fumbled the keys of his accordion, and said it loosened up things he remembered far back.

“On an evening like this, every tree has a moon all of its own for itself—if you climb up in a thousand trees this evening you can pick a thousand moons,” the old man murmured. “You remind me to-night about secrets swimming deep in me.”

And after hesitating a little—and thinking a little—and then hesitating some more—the old man started and told this story:

There was a girl I used to know, one time, named Pink Peony. She was a girl with cheeks and lips the peonies talked about.

When she passed a bush of peonies, some of the flowers would whisper, “She is lovelier than we are.” And the other peonies would answer in a whisper, “It _must_ be so, it ... must ... be ... _so_.”

Now there was a ballplayer named Spuds, came one night to take her riding, out to a valley where the peacocks always cry before it rains, where the frogs always gamble with the golden dice after midnight.

And out in that valley they came to a tall tree shooting spraggly to the sky. And high up in the spraggly shoots, where the lisp of the leaves whispers, there a moon had drifted down and was caught in the branches.

“Spuds, climb up and pick _that_ moon for me,” Pink Peony sang reckless. And the ballplayer jumped out of the car, climbed up the tall tree, up and up till he was high and far in the spraggly branches where the moon had drifted down and was caught.

Climbing down, he handed the girl a silver hat full of peach-color pearls. She laid it on the back seat of the car where it would be safe. And they drove on.

They came to another tall tree shooting spraggly to the sky. And high up the moon was caught.

“Pick _that_ one, Spuds,” Peony sang reckless again. And when he came climbing down he handed her a circle of gold with a blood-color autumn leaf. And they put it on the back seat of the car where it would be safe. Then they drove on.

“Spuds, you are good to me,” said Pink Peony, when he climbed another tree shooting spraggly high in the sky, and came down with a brass pansy sprinkled with two rainbows, for her. She put it on the back seat where it would be safe. And they drove on.

One time more Spuds climbed up and came down with what he picked, up where the moon was caught in the high spraggly branches. “An Egyptian collar frozen in diamond cobwebs, for you,” he said. “You are a dear, Spuds,” she said, reckless, with a look into his eyes. She laid the Egyptian collar frozen in diamond cobwebs on the back seat of the car where it would be safe—and they drove on.

They listened a while, they stopped the car and listened a longer while, to the frogs gambling with golden dice after midnight.

And when at last they heard the peacocks crying, they knew it was going to rain. So they drove home.

And while the peacocks were crying, and just before they started home, they looked in the back seat of the car at the silver hat full of peach-color pearls, the circle of gold with a blood-color autumn leaf, the brass pansy sprinkled with two rainbows, the Egyptian collar frozen in diamond cobwebs.

Driving home, the spray of a violet dawn was on the east sky. And it was nearly daylight when they drove up to the front door of Pink Peony’s home. She ran into the house to get a basket to carry the presents in. She came running out of the house with a basket to carry the presents in.

She looked in the back seat; she felt with her hands and fingers all over the back seat.

In the back seat she could find only four oranges. They opened the oranges and in each orange they found a yellow silk handkerchief.

To-day, if you go to the house where Pink Peony and Spuds are living, you will find four children playing there, each with a yellow silk handkerchief tied around the neck in a mystic slip knot.

Each child has a moon face and a moon name. And sometimes their father and mother pile them all into a car and they ride out to the valley where the peacocks always cry before it rains—and where the frogs always gamble with golden dice after midnight.

And what they look longest at is a summer moon hanging in the tree-tops, when there is a lisp of leaves, and the shine of the moon and the lisp of the leaves seem to be telling each other something.

So the Potato Face came to a finish with his story. Blixie Bimber kissed him good-night on the nose, saying, “You loosened up beautiful to-night.”

6. Three Stories About Moonlight, Pigeons, Bees, Egypt, Jesse James, Spanish Onions, the Queen of the Cracked Heads, the King of the Paper Sacks.

_People_: Dippy the Wisp

Slip Me Liz

The Potato Face Blind Man

Egypt

Jesse James

Spanish Onions

The Queen of the Cracked Heads

The King of the Paper Sacks

The Queen of the Empty Hats

Hot Balloons

A Snoox

A Gringo

Sweetheart Dippies

Nail-eating Rats

Sooners

Boomers

_More People_:

Cracked Heads

Clock-eating Goats

Baby Alligators

Pink and Purple Peanuts

Empty Hats

Bats, Cats, Rats

Rag Pickers, Rag Handlers

Squirrels, Fish, Baboons, Black Cats

A Steel Car, an Air Car

Gophers

How Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz Came in the Moonshine Where the
Potato Face Blind Man Sat with His Accordion

The sky shook a rain down one Saturday night over the people, the postoffice, and the peanut-stand in the Village of Liver-and-Onions.

And after the rain, the sky shook loose a moon so a moonshine came with gold on the rainpools.

And a west wind came out of the west sky and shook the moonshine gold on the tops of the rainpools.

Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz came, two tough pony girls, two limber prairie girls, in the moonshine humming little humpty dumpty songs.

They came to the postoffice corner where the Potato Face Blind Man sat hugging his accordion, wondering what was next and who and why.

He was saying to himself, “Who was it told me the rats on the moon in the middle of the winter lock their mittens in ice boxes?”

And just then Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz came flipping along saying, “It is a misty moisty evening in the moonshine, isn’t it?”

And he answered, “The moon is a round gold door with silver transoms to-night. Bumble bees and honey bees are chasing each other over the gold door of the moon and up over the silver transoms.”

Dippy the Wisp took out a bee-bag, took bees out of the bee-bag, balanced the bees on her thumb, humming a humpty dumpty song. And Slip Me Liz, looking on, joined in on the humpty dumpty song. And, of course, the bees began buzzing and buzzing their _bee_ humpty dumpty song.

“Have you fastened names on them?” asked the Potato Face.

“These three on my thumb, these three special blue-violet bees, I put their names on silk white ribbons and tied the ribbons to their knees. This is Egypt—she has inkwells in her ears. This is Jesse James—he puts postage stamps on his nose. This is Spanish Onions—she likes pearl-color handkerchiefs around her yellow neck.”

“Bees belong in bee-bags, but these are different,” the old man murmured.

“Runaway bees, these are,” Dippy the Wisp went on. “They buzz away, they come buzzing back, buzzing home, buzzing secrets, syllables, snitches.

“To-day Egypt came buzzing home with her inkwells in her ears. And Egypt buzzed, ‘I flew and flew and I buzzed and buzzed far, far away, till I came where I met the Queen of the Cracked Heads with her head all cracked. And she took me by the foot and took me to the palace of the Cracked Heads with their heads all cracked.

“‘The palace was full of goats walking up and down the stairs, sliding on the banisters eating bingety bing clocks. Before he bites the clock and chews and swallows and eats the bingety bing clock, I noticed, each goat winds up the clock and fixes it to go off bling bling bingety bing, after he eats it down. I noticed that. And the fat, fat, puffy goats, the fat, fat, waddly goats, had extra clocks hung on their horns—and the clocks, tired of waiting, spoke to each other in the bingety bing clock talk. I noticed that too.

“‘I stayed all morning and I saw them feed the big goats big hunks and the little goats little hunks and the big clocks big bings and the little clocks little bings. At last in the afternoon, the queen of the Cracked Heads came with her cracked head to say good-by to me. She was sitting on a ladder feeding baby clocks to baby alligators, winding the clocks and fixing the bingety bings, so after the baby alligators swallowed the clocks, I heard them singing bling bling bingety bing.

“‘And the Queen was reading the alphabet to the littlest of the baby alligators—and they were saying the alligator A B C while she was saying the A B C of the Cracked Heads. At last she said good-by to me, good-by and come again soon, good-by and stay longer next time.’

“‘When I went out of the door all the baby alligators climbed up the ladder and bingety blinged good-by to me. I buzzed home fast because I was lonesome. I am so, _so_ glad to be home again.’”

The Potato Face looked up and said, “This is nice as the rats on the moon in the middle of the winter locking their mittens in the ice box. Tell us next about that blue-violet bumblebee, Jesse James.”

“Jesse James,” said Dippy the Wisp, “Jesse James came buzzing home with a postage stamp on his nose. And Jesse James buzzed, ‘I flew and I flew and buzzed and buzzed far, far away till I came where I met the King of the Paper Sacks who lives in a palace of paper sacks. I went inside the palace expecting to see paper sacks everywhere. But instead of paper sacks the palace was full of pink and purple peanuts walking up and down the stairs washing their faces, stitching handkerchiefs.’

“‘In the evening all the pink and purple peanuts put on their overshoes and make paper sacks. The King of the Paper Sacks walks around and around among them saying, “If anybody asks you who I am tell them I am the King of the Paper Sacks.” And one little peanut flipped up one time in the King’s face and asked, “Say it again—_who_ do you think you are?” And it made the King so bitter in his feelings he reached out his hand and with a sweep and a swoop he swept fifty pink and purple peanuts into a paper sack and cried out, “A nickel a sack, a nickel a sack.” And he threw them into a trash pile of tin cans.

“‘When I went away he shook hands with me and said, “Good-by, Jesse James, you old buzzer, if anybody asks you tell them you saw the King of the Paper Sacks where he lives.”

“‘When I went away from the palace, the doors and the window sills, the corners of the roofs and the eave troughs where the rain runs off, they were all full of pink and purple peanuts standing in their overshoes washing their faces, stitching handkerchiefs, calling good-by to me, good-by and come again, good-by and stay longer next time. Then I came buzzing home because I was lonesome. And I am so, _so_ glad to be home again.’”

The Potato Face looked up again and said, “It _is_ a misty moisty evening in the moonshine. Now tell us about that blue-violet honeybee, Spanish Onions.”

And Dippy the Wisp tied a slipknot in the pearl-color handkerchief around the yellow neck of Spanish Onions and said, “Spanish Onions came buzzing back home with her face dirty and scared and she told us, ‘I flew and flew and I buzzed and buzzed till I came where I met the Queen of the Empty Hats. She took me by the foot and took me across the City of the Empty Hats, saying under her breath, “There is a screw loose somewhere, there is a leak in the tank.” Fat rats, fat bats, fat cats, came along under empty hats and the Queen always said under her breath, “There is a screw loose somewhere, there is a leak in the tank.” In the houses, on the street, riding on the rattlers and the razz cars, the only people were hats, empty hats. When the fat rats changed hats with the fat bats, the hats were empty. When the fat bats changed _those_ hats with the fat cats, the hats were empty. I took off my hat and saw it was empty. _I began to feel like an empty hat myself._ I got scared. I jumped loose from the Queen of the Empty Hats and buzzed back home fast. I am so, _so_ glad to be home again.’”

The Potato Face sat hugging his accordion. He looked up and said, “Put the bees back in the bee-bag—they buzz too many secrets, syllables and snitches.”

“What do you expect when the moon is a gold door with silver transoms?” asked Slip Me Liz.

“Yes,” said Dippy the Wisp. “What do you expect when the bumblebees and the honeybees are chasing each other over the gold door of the moon and up over the silver transoms?”

And the two tough pony girls, the two limber prairie girls, went away humming a little humpty dumpty song across the moonshine gold on the tops of the rainpools.

How Hot Balloons and His Pigeon Daughters Crossed Over into the
Rootabaga Country

Hot Balloons was a man who lived all alone among people who sell slips, flips, flicks and chicks by the dozen, by the box, by the box car job lot, back and forth to each other.

Hot Balloons used to open the window in the morning and say to the rag pickers and the rag handlers, “Far, far away the pigeons are calling; far, far away the white wings are dipping in the blue, in the sky blue.”

And the rag pickers and the rag handlers looked up from their rag bags and said, “Far, far away the rags are flying; far, far away the rags are whistling in the wind, in the sky wind.”

Now two pigeons came walking up to the door, the door knob and the door bell under the window of Hot Balloons. One of the pigeons rang the bell. The other pigeon, too, stepped up to the bell and gave it a ring.

Then they waited, tying the shoe strings on their shoes and the bonnet strings under their chins, while they waited.

Hot Balloons opened the door. And they flew into his hands, one pigeon apiece in each of his hands, flipping and fluttering their wings, calling, “Ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo,” leaving a letter in his hands and then flying away fast.

Hot Balloons stepped out on the front steps to read the letter where the light was good in the daylight because it was so early in the morning. The letter was on paper scribbled over in pigeon foot blue handwriting with many secrets and syllables.

After Hot Balloons read the letter, he said to himself, “I wonder if those two pigeons are my two runaway daughters, Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz. When they ran away they said they would cross the Shampoo river and go away into the Rootabaga country to live. And I have heard it is a law of the Rootabaga country whenever a girl crosses the Shampoo river to come back where she used to be, she changes into a pigeon—and she stays a pigeon till she crosses back over the Shampoo river into the Rootabaga country again.”

And he shaded his eyes with his hands and looked far, far away in the blue, in the sky blue. And by looking long and hard he saw far, far away in the sky blue, the two white pigeons dipping their wings in the blue, flying fast, circling and circling higher and higher, toward the Shampoo river, toward the Rootabaga country.

“I wonder, I guess, I think so,” he said to himself, “I wonder, I think so, it must be those two pigeons are my two runaway daughters, my two girls, Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz.”

He took out the letter and read it again right side up, upside down, back and forth. “It is the first time I ever read pigeon foot blue handwriting,” he said to himself. And the way he read the letter, it said to him:

Daddy, daddy, daddy, come home to us in the Rootabaga country where
the pigeons call ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo, where the squirrels
carry ladders and the wildcats ask riddles and the fish jump out of
the rivers and speak to the frying pans, where the baboons take care
of the babies and the black cats come and go in orange and gold
stockings, where the birds wear rose and purple hats on Monday
afternoons up in the skylights in the evening.

(Signed) DIPPY THE WISP,
SLIP ME LIZ.

And reading the letter a second time, Hot Balloons said to himself, “No wonder it is scribbled over the paper in pigeon foot blue handwriting. No wonder it is full of secrets and syllables.”

So he jumped into a shirt and a necktie, he jumped into a hat and a vest, and he jumped into a steel car, starting with a snizz and a snoof till it began running smooth and even as a catfoot.

“I will ride to the Shampoo river faster than two pigeons fly,” he said. “I will be there.”

Which he was. He got there before the two pigeons. But it was no use. For the rain and the rainstorm was working—and the rain and the rainstorm tore down and took and washed away the steel bridge over the Shampoo river.

“Now there is only an air bridge to cross on, and a _steel_ car drops down, falls off, falls through, if it runs on an _air_ bridge,” he said.

So he was all alone with the rain and the rainstorm all around him—and far as he could see by shading his eyes and looking, there was only the rain and the rainstorm across the river—and the _air_ bridge.

While he waited for the rain and the rainstorm to go down, two pigeons came flying into his hands, one apiece into each hand, flipping and fluttering their wings and calling, “Ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo.” And he could tell by the way they began tying the shoestrings on their shoes and the bonnet strings under their chins, they were the same two pigeons ringing the door bell that morning.

They wrote on his thumb-nails in pigeon foot blue handwriting, and he read their handwriting asking him why he didn’t cross over the Shampoo river. And he explained, “There is only an _air_ bridge to cross on. A _steel_ car drops down, falls off, falls through, if it runs on an _air_ bridge. Change my _steel_ car to an _air_ car. Then I can cross the _air_ bridge.”

The pigeons flipped and fluttered, dipped their wings and called, “Ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo.” And they scribbled their pigeon feet on his thumb-nail—telling him to wait. So the pigeons went flying across the Shampoo river.

They came back with a basket. In the basket was a snoox and a gringo. And the snoox and the gringo took hammers, jacks, flanges, nuts, screws, bearings, ball bearings, axles, axle grease, ax handles, spits, spitters, spitballs and spitfires, and worked.

“It’s a hot job,” said the snoox to the gringo. “I’ll say it’s a hot job,” said the gringo answering the snoox.

“We’ll give this one the merry razoo,” said the snoox to the gringo, working overtime and double time. “Yes, we’ll put her to the cleaners and shoot her into high,” said the gringo, answering the snoox, working overtime and double time.

They changed the steel to air, made an _air_ car out of the _steel_ car, put Hot Balloons and the two pigeons into the air car and _drove the air car across the air bridge_.

And nowadays when people talk about it in the Rootabaga country, they say, “The snoox and the gringo drove the air car across the air bridge clean and cool as a whistle in the wind. As soon as the car got off the bridge and over into the Rootabaga country, the two pigeons changed in a flash. And Hot Balloons saw they were his two daughters, his two runaway girls, Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz, standing and smiling at him and looking fresh and free as two fresh fish in a free river, fresh and free as two fresh bimbos in a bamboo tree.”

He kissed them both, two long kisses, and while he was kissing them the snoox and the gringo worked double time and overtime and changed the _air_ car back into a _steel_ car.

And Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz rode in that car—starting with a snizz and a snoof till it began running smooth and even as a catfoot—showing their father, Hot Balloons, where the squirrels carry ladders and the wildcats ask riddles and the fish jump out of the rivers and speak to the frying pans, where the baboons take care of the babies and the black cats come and go in orange and gold stockings, where the birds wear rose and purple hats on Monday afternoons up in the skylights in the evening.

And often on a Saturday night or a New Year Eve or a Christmas morning, Hot Balloons remembers back how things used to be, and he tells his two girls about the rag pickers and the rag handlers back among the people who sell slips, flips, flicks, and chicks, by the dozen, by the box, by the box car job lot, back and forth to each other.

How Two Sweetheart Dippies Sat in the Moonlight on a Lumber Yard Fence
and Heard About the Sooners and the Boomers

Not so very far and not so very near the Village of Liver-and-Onions is a dippy little town where dippy people used to live.

And it was long, long ago the sweetheart dippies stood in their windows and watched the dips of the star dippers in the dip of the sky.

It was the dippies who took the running wild oleander and the cunning wild rambler rose and kept them so the running wild winters let them alone.

“It is easy to be a dippy ... among the dippies ... isn’t it?” the sweetheart dippies whispered to each other, sitting in the leaf shadows of the oleander, the rambler rose.

The name of this dippy town came by accident. The name of the town is Thumbs Up and it used to be named Thumbs Down and expects to change its name back and forth between Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down.

The running wild oleanders and the running wild rambler roses grow there over the big lumber yards where all the old lumber goes.

The dippies and the dippy sweethearts go out there to those lumber yards and sit on the fence moonlight nights and look at the lumber.

The rusty nails in the lumber get rustier and rustier till they drop out. And whenever they drop out there is always a rat standing under to take the nail in his teeth and chew the nail and eat it.

For this is the place the nail-eating rats come to from all over the Rootabaga country. Father rats and mother rats send the young rats there to eat nails and get stronger.

If a young rat comes back from a trip to the lumber yards in Thumbs Up and he meets another young rat going to those lumber yards, they say to each other, “Where have you been?” “To Thumbs Up.” “And how do you feel?” “_Hard as nails._”

Now one night two of the dippies, a sweetheart boy and girl, went out to the big lumber yards and sat on the fence and looked at the lumber and the running wild oleanders and the running wild rambler roses.

And they saw two big rusty nails, getting rustier and rustier, drop out of the lumber and drop into the teeth of two young rats.

And the two young rats sat up on their tails there in the moonlight under the oleanders, under the roses, and one of the young rats told the other young rat a story he made up out of his head.

Chewing on the big rusty nail and then swallowing, telling more of the story after swallowing and before beginning to chew the nail again, this is the story he told—and this is the story the two dippies, the two sweethearts sitting on the fence in the moonlight, heard:

Far away where the sky drops down, and the sunsets open doors for the nights to come through—where the running winds meet, change faces and come back—there is a prairie where the green grass grows all around.

And on that prairie the gophers, the black and brown-striped ground squirrels, sit with their backs straight up, sitting on their soft paddy tails, sitting in the spring song murmur of the south wind, saying to each other, “This is the prairie and the prairie belongs to us.”

Now far back in the long time, the gophers came there, chasing each other, playing the-green-grass-grew-all-around, playing cross tag, hop tag, skip tag, billy-be-tag, billy-be-it.

The razorback hogs came then, eating pignuts, potatoes, paw paws, pumpkins. The wild horse, the buffalo, came. The moose, with spraggly branches of antlers spreading out over his head, the moose came—and the fox, the wolf.

The gophers flipped a quick flip-flop back into their gopher holes when the fox, the wolf, came. And the fox, the wolf, stood at the holes and said, “You _look_ like rats, you _run_ like rats, you _are_ rats, rats with stripes. Bah! you are only _rats_. Bah!”

It was the first time anybody said “Bah!” to the gophers. They sat in a circle with their noses up asking, “_What_ does this ‘Bah!’ mean?” And an old timer, with his hair falling off in patches, with the stripes on his soft paddy tail patched with patches, this old timer of a gopher said, “‘Bah!’ speaks more than it means whenever it is spoken.”

Then the sooners and the boomers came, saying “Bah!” and saying it many new ways, till the fox, the wolf, the moose, the wild horse, the buffalo, the razorback hog picked up their feet and ran away without looking back.

The sooners and boomers began making houses, sod houses, log, lumber, plaster-and-lath houses, stone, brick, steel houses, but most of the houses were lumber with nails to hold the lumber together to keep the rain off and push the wind back and hold the blizzards outside.

In the beginning the sooners and boomers told stories, spoke jokes, made songs, with their arms on each other’s shoulders. They dug wells, helping each other get water. They built chimneys together helping each other let the smoke out of their houses. And every year the day before Thanksgiving they went in cahoots with their post hole diggers and dug all the post holes for a year to come. That was in the morning. In the afternoon they took each other’s cistern cleaners and cleaned all the cisterns for a year to come. And the next day on Thanksgiving they split turkey wishbones and thanked each other they had all the post holes dug and all the cisterns cleaned for a year to come.

If the boomers had to have broom corn to make brooms the sooners came saying, “Here is your broom corn.” If the sooners had to have a gallon of molasses, the boomers came saying, “Here is your gallon of molasses.”

They handed each other big duck eggs to fry, big goose eggs to boil, purple pigeon eggs for Easter breakfast. Wagon loads of buff banty eggs went back and forth between the sooners and boomers. And they took big hayracks full of buff banty hens and traded them for hayracks full of buff banty roosters.

And one time at a picnic, one summer afternoon, the sooners gave the boomers a thousand golden ice tongs with hearts and hands carved on the handles. And the boomers gave the sooners a thousand silver wheelbarrows with hearts and hands carved on the handles.

Then came pigs, pigs, pigs, and more pigs. And the sooners and boomers said the pigs had to be painted. There was a war to decide whether the pigs should be painted pink or green. Pink won.

The next war was to decide whether the pigs should be painted checks or stripes. Checks won. The next war after that was to decide whether the checks should be painted pink or green. Green won.

Then came the longest war of all, up till that time. And this war decided the pigs should be painted both pink and green, both checks and stripes.

They rested then. But it was only a short rest. For then came the war to decide whether peach pickers must pick peaches on Tuesday mornings or on Saturday afternoons. Tuesday mornings won. This was a short war. Then came a long war—to decide whether telegraph pole climbers must eat onions at noon with spoons, or whether dishwashers must keep their money in pig’s ears with padlocks pinched on with pincers.

So the wars went on. Between wars they called each other goofs and snoofs, grave robbers, pickpockets, porch climbers, pie thieves, pie face mutts, bums, big bums, big greasy bums, dummies, mummies, rummies, sneezicks, bohunks, wops, snorkies, ditch diggers, peanuts, fatheads, sapheads, pinheads, pickle faces, horse thieves, rubbernecks, big pieces of cheese, big bags of wind, snabs, scabs, and dirty sniveling snitches. Sometimes when they got tired of calling each other names they scratched in the air with their fingers and made faces with their tongues out twisted like pretzels.

After a while, it seemed, there was no corn, no broom corn, no brooms, not even teeny sweepings of corn or broom corn or brooms. And there were no duck eggs to fry, goose eggs to boil, no buff banty eggs, no buff banty hens, no buff banty roosters, no wagons for wagon loads of buff banty eggs, no hayracks for hayrack loads of buff banty hens and buff banty roosters.

And the thousand golden ice tongs the sooners gave the boomers, and the thousand silver wheelbarrows the boomers gave the sooners, both with hearts and hands carved on the handles, they were long ago broken up in one of the early wars deciding pigs must be painted both pink and green with both checks and stripes.

And now, at last, there were no more pigs to paint either pink or green or with checks or stripes. The pigs, pigs, pigs, were gone.

So the sooners and boomers all got lost in the wars or they screwed wooden legs on their stump legs and walked away to bigger, bigger prairies or they started away for the rivers and mountains, stopping always to count how many fleas there were in any bunch of fleas they met. If you see anybody who stops to count the fleas in a bunch of fleas, that is a sign he is either a sooner or a boomer.

So again the gophers, the black and brown striped ground squirrels, sit with their backs straight up, sitting on their soft paddy tails, sitting in the spring song murmur of the south wind, saying, “This is the prairie and the prairie belongs to us.”

Far away to-day where the sky drops down and the sunsets open doors for the nights to come through—where the running winds meet, change faces and come back—there the gophers are playing the-green-grass-grew-all-around, playing cross tag, skip tag, hop tag, billy-be-tag, billy-be-it. And sometimes they sit in a circle and ask, “What does this ‘Bah!’ mean?” And an old timer answers, “‘Bah!’ speaks more than it means whenever it is spoken.”

That was the story the young rat under the oleanders, under the roses, told the other young rat, while the two sweetheart dippies sat on the fence in the moonlight looking at the lumber and listening.

The young rat who told the story hardly got started eating the nail he was chewing, while the young rat that did the listening chewed up and swallowed down a whole nail.

As the two dippies on the fence looked at the running wild oleander and the running wild rambler roses over the lumber in the moonlight, they said to each other, “It’s easy to be a dippy ... among the dippies ... isn’t it?” And they climbed down from the fence and went home in the moonlight.

7. Two Stories Out of the Tall Grass.

_People_: John Jack Johannes Hummadummaduffer

Feed Box

Eva Evelyn Evangeline Hummadummaduffer

Sky Blue

The Harvest Moon

A Haystack Cricket

Baby Moon

Half Moon

Silver Moon

Doorbells, Chimneys, Cellars

The Night Policeman in the Village of Cream Puffs

Butter Fingers

Three Strikes

Cub Ballplayers

The Haystack Cricket and How Things Are Different Up in the Moon Towns

There is an old man with wrinkles like wrinkled leather on his face living among the cornfields on the rolling prairie near the Shampoo river.

His name is John Jack Johannes Hummadummaduffer. His cronies and the people who know him call him Feed Box.

His daughter is a cornfield girl with hair shining the way cornsilk shines when the corn is ripe in the fall time. The tassels of cornsilk hang down and blow in the wind with a rusty dark gold, and they seem to get mixed with her hair. Her name is Eva Evelyn Evangeline Hummadummaduffer. And her chums and the people who know her call her Sky Blue.

The eleventh month, November, comes every year to the corn belt on that rolling prairie. The wagons bring the corn from the fields in the harvest days and the cracks in the corncribs shine with the yellow and gold of the corn.

The harvest moon comes, too. They say it stacks sheaves of the November gold moonshine into gold corn shocks on the sky. So they say.

On those mornings in November that time of the year, the old man they call Feed Box sits where the sun shines against the boards of a corncrib.