children romped with him there in Mrs. Dumpty’s back parlor. How he
rolled and pawed and growled--just a pretend-growl, though; you could
tell he didn’t mean a thing by it. How he tumbled and jumped and
trotted around the room. He even seemed to understand that Humpty could
not play as the other children could, but went to Humpty’s chair and
nosed and pawed around so amusingly that the poor invalid quite forgot
himself in his delight.
The Punch-and-Judy show was meanwhile progressing at the palace, and
Judy had just given Punch a mighty cuff on the cheek, to the infinite
pleasure of the audience, when Mr. Claus, who had laughed until the
tears came, began to fish for his pocket handkerchief. But, as he
fished, his eye was arrested by a startling vision at the door.
“Great snakes!” he roared suddenly.
Tubby Tim dropped his puppets and everybody looked up quickly.
“Saints preserve us!” shrieked Mrs. Grundy.
And immediately there arose such a bellowing and crying, such a
tumbling of chairs and confusion of figures, as to make Old King Cole’s
birthday party look like a riot instead. Mr. Horner was seen to throw
off his coat in great haste, Simple Simon began to call loudly and
insistently for help, Mrs. Dumpty started to faint, then thought better
of it, and came to again. As for the Queen of Hearts, that royal lady
straightway went into a fine fit of hysterics, deportment which she
considered highly becoming to queens in time of stress.
And what do you suppose was the cause of all this uproar? What was this
vision in the doorway that had suddenly set all of Pudding Lane to
screaming and bawling?
It was nothing more than our friend Bumbo, who stood in the doorway
blinking soberly, with Humpty Dumpty on his back and Jack and Jill on
each side of him. Which, you’ll have to admit, was pretty much of a
surprise for people who had supposed that the bear was snoozing in the
pantry; and which looked indeed like a dangerous business to folks that
didn’t know what a very friendly bear Bumbo was.
But so smiling and serene were those three children, so extremely
placid was Bumbo himself, that it finally became apparent that there
was really nothing to howl about. And so at last the noise did subside
somewhat, save for the exceedingly loud sniffling of Jill’s mother, who
was having a little weep all to herself, and quite naturally too.
Then Jill explained the business.
“He was such a friendly bear,” she ended, nodding brightly at Tubby
Tim, “so well-trained, that Jack and I thought there would be nothing
easier than to bring Humpty up here on his back. And it was; it was as
easy as pie. And here he is.”
But Mr. Claus had started up suddenly at the mention of “pie” and
bolted through the assemblage and out of the door. Old King Cole looked
over at Mrs. Claus in a rather annoyed manner.
“What’s happened now, Mrs. Claus?” he asked crustily. “Is your husband
ill, perhaps?”
“Well, I wouldn’t know, your Majesty,” replied Mrs. Claus, who, if the
truth must be told, was deeply ashamed of her husband’s odd company
manners. “He was all right when we left home,” and to herself she
muttered that it wasn’t her fault if the man acted like a zany. Do you
know what a zany is? Well, Mrs. Claus didn’t either, but she supposed
it was some kind of animal, and she liked to apply the word to Mr.
Claus in what she called his “off” moments.
But bless you, it was Mrs. Claus who was having the off moment this
time, for what the baker had gone for was the secret, a thing that
everybody had completely forgotten in the hubbub and excitement. So
that not only Old King Cole, but everybody else was surprised when Mr.
Claus came strutting back with it, the secret, in his hands. When they
did see it, they remembered again, and all started to sing a verse that
Mrs. Grundy had composed for the occasion, which began, “Sing a song of
sixpence, pocket full of rye.” And now you know, don’t you, what the
surprise was that Mr. Claus had baked for Old King Cole’s birthday? And
sure enough, when that merry old soul cut open his birthday pie, out
flew the four and twenty blackbirds and began to sing; and, as Mrs.
Grundy said, was that not a dainty dish to set before a king?
Old King Cole thought it was. He was the most surprised and delighted
man you ever saw, and as the birds flew around the room and sang, he
became more charmed and bewildered than ever, so that he really was in
no condition to make a speech when the people called for one. But he
arose just the same and, taking off his crown, fumbled nervously with
it, as he tried to think of something to say. His people the meanwhile
beamed loyally at him, so happy that they had really pleased Old King
Cole, who was always doing something to please them.
“Friends,” began the King, “I am deeply obliged--” Then he stopped and
burst into a hearty laugh, which rang and reverberated down the great
halls and rooms of the palace until the building almost shook.
And that was as far as Old King Cole ever got, for every time he’d try
to sober down and go on with the speech, laughter overcame him, until
at last all the people there began to laugh just to see him. They
roared, they shook, they rocked with laughter, did those good people of
Pudding Lane, until it began to look as if they would never get their
faces straight again, never get their breath again, never stop holding
their sides. Even the butcher left off frowning, the baker stopped
looking dismal, the candlestick-maker ceased bowing, as they all
laughed there together. And of course Jack and Jill laughed, and Humpty
Dumpty, too, for they were the ones to whom it was the most fun of all,
because they were the ones who had nearly missed the party.
And let me tell you something. The bear laughed too. He didn’t make
a noise about it, and he didn’t shake, but there was a look in his
eye that was plainly a look of laughter, and there was a twist to his
mouth, as he stood there by Tubby Tim’s legs, that was unmistakably a
grin. Yes, Bumbo laughed too. And if anybody wants to know, he laughed
many times after that as he thought of King Cole’s birthday party and
of his part in the whole performance. For, of course, if Bumbo had not
trotted off adventuring as he did, Humpty Dumpty would never have got
to the party, and if--oh, well, he did go trotting off, so what’s the
use of if-ing about it?
IV
SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY
It had seemed to the children of Pudding Lane that April Fool’s Day
would never, never come, they had been waiting for it so long; and
now that it had come, blest if it wasn’t raining pitchforks, as Mrs.
Claus said. And blest if it wasn’t. It really did look like pitchforks,
that rain, as it came slanting down in sharp, shining spears, splash,
splash, splash, as fast as it could come. It really looked as if the
sun would never shine in Pudding Lane again, for surely no sun would
be foolish enough even to try to break through all that darkness and
wetness and gloom.
And so, if you had been a frog in a puddle on Pudding Lane that
morning, you would have seen noses pressed tight against every window
there and disappointed eyes fastened sadly on the rainy world outside.
You might even have seen rain in those eyes themselves, though I
wouldn’t be positive of that. That roundish nose there against the
first window was Humpty Dumpty’s; the turned-up one was Jill’s; the
straight little pretty one was Miss Muffett’s; all those pert affairs
sticking out of the buttonholes of the Shoe were no others than the
noses of the children of the Old Woman Who Lived there.
The only nose that was not plastered against a window was Simple
Simon’s and the reason that Simple Simon’s nose was not there was
because Simple Simon himself was out in the rain, and his nose was with
him. Yes, that foolish fellow was standing in front of the butcher
shop, and as composedly as if it were the sun, and not the rain, that
was beating down on his head. But why was he holding that long thick
rope so carefully in his right hand? And what was that tiny object on
the walk to which his eyes were directed so intently?
That object seemed to be a purse, a very, very small purse--oh, now we
know what poor Simple Simon thought he was doing, don’t we? He thought
he was going to fool somebody with that old, old trick. He thought
somebody would come along pretty soon, stoop to pick up the pocketbook,
and that he, the clever Simon, would jerk it out of reach. He could
see now, in his mind’s eye, how silly the somebody would look, and
he snickered there to himself at the mere thought of that delicious
moment. Oh, Simon, Simon! As if anybody with half an eye would not have
seen the rope long before he saw the wee pocketbook. As if anybody
would have been apt to come strolling along in the rain, anyway! Ah,
me, I’m afraid Simple Simon’s wits do not improve much with the years.
Well, it kept on raining and Simple Simon kept on standing there and
the rest of the Pudding Lane children kept on looking forlornly at
the rain, when whirr, swish, plop,--down dropped Mother Goose on the
gander’s back, directly in front of Simple Simon. Simple Simon wrenched
his eyes a moment from the purse to smile swiftly and delightedly at
the beloved old lady, who now hardly looked like herself, so drenched
and dripping was she.
“Good morning, Simon,” said Mother Goose, as the gander shook a shower
of water from his back.
Simon’s smile waxed wider.
“Morning, mum,” he answered with a bow, then straightened up and sent
his eyes flying back to the purse. He didn’t want anybody to come along
and pick it up when he wasn’t looking, you see! Mother Goose regarded
him curiously for a moment.
“Fooling somebody, Simple Simon?” she asked.
“Yes’m,” replied Simple Simon gleefully.
Mother Goose laughed softly.
“Well, I guess it’s Simple Simon you’re fooling,” she said, and ran
into the Clauses’ next door.
Simple Simon meditated a while over what Mother Goose had just said
and was highly pleased. How funny that was, he thought, to be fooling
yourself! For, of course, Simple Simon did not mind in the least being
the butt of his own joke. And if he didn’t mind, I suppose we needn’t.
Only it does seem like a queer kind of April Fool’s trick to go to all
that trouble just to fool yourself, doesn’t it?
Inside the cozy little kitchen at the Clauses’ Mother Goose dried her
clothes and visited comfortably with her daughter, Mrs. Claus, and the
rest of the family.
“My goodness, Santa,” she exclaimed, “you _are_ a long-faced little
boy! And the twins! Why, what can be the matter with these children,
Nellie?” She turned to her daughter, “Are they ill?”
“It’s April Fool’s Day, Mother Goose,” spoke up little Santa.
“I know that,” replied his grandmother promptly. “And I, for one, think
that the Weather Man has done a fine job of fooling all you children.”
Santa Claus looked up surprised.
“Do you suppose that’s why he sent the rain?” he asked Mother Goose.
“Not a doubt of it in the world,” answered the old lady vigorously.
“The Weather Man has to have a little fun, you know. And I’ll venture
he’s laughing fit to kill at the sight of your doleful chops.”
Here Mother Goose laughed merrily, and Santa Claus tried manfully to
laugh too; but it’s hard to laugh when the joke’s on you, and I’m
afraid he didn’t make a very good job of it.
“Maybe he’ll fool you again and send the sun pretty soon,” suggested
Mrs. Claus. She felt pretty sorry for the children, did Mrs. Claus, and
she was surprised that Mother Goose did not seem more sympathetic.
“Nonsense,” said Mother Goose tartly. “I say, you people are
serious-minded folk for such a day as April Fool’s. You must take a
joke better than this, you know, or you’ll spoil the Weather Man’s
fun entirely. Why, I shall be ashamed to show my face up there at the
Weather Man’s house if he thinks my grandchildren don’t know how to
take a joke!”
“Are you going up to see the Weather Man?” asked Mrs. Claus.
“I’m on my way there now,” Mother Goose told her.
“And what about the Man in the Moon?” asked Mrs. Claus, smirking at the
baker, who tried his best to smirk back.
“The Man in the Moon is suffering a temporary eclipse,” replied the old
lady sharply, at which Mrs. Claus and Mr. Claus both laughed heartily,
and Santa wondered what kind of disease an eclipse was, and if it hurt
as much as the mumps did.
“As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Mr. Claus,”
said Mother Goose casually to her son-in-law.
Mr. Claus jumped out of his chair.
“Seven wives!” he exclaimed. “Great snakes, Mother Goose, seven wives!
Why, what would a man want with _seven_ of ’em--that is--oh, dear,
seven!” Clearly Mr. Claus was greatly agitated over this piece of news.
“But they weren’t his wives, Mr. Claus,” added Mother Goose. “They
were his brothers’ wives. Ha, ha, April Fool!” cried Mother Goose. At
which she and Mrs. Claus and the children shouted with delight, as poor
Mr. Claus grinned foolishly and wished he hadn’t been so quick to bite
at Mother Goose’s bait.
But while all this was going on in the Clauses’ house, Simple Simon was
playing another joke all by himself outside. For it had occurred to him
that it would be the best possible fun to play a joke on old Mother
Goose herself. And so, what did Simple Simon do but step softly around
to the shed where the old lady had left her gander? What did he do but
take that gander and carry him into The-House-that-Jack-Built, that big
uninhabited house a few doors away? What did he do but hide the gander
there and then come out on to Pudding Lane again, looking as wicked and
proud of himself as you please?
“Well,” said Mother Goose, when she went out to the shed and found that
the gander was not there, “this is a pretty pickle.”
Mrs. Claus agreed that it was a pretty pickle, but Mr. Claus differed a
bit with the ladies and called it a “fine how-do-you-do.” Anyway what
they all meant was that it wasn’t a pretty pickle, or even a fine
how-do-you-do, but that it was instead a very serious thing for Mother
Goose to lose her gander. So they started straightway to hunt the
gander, but although they searched and searched and called and called
that bird, they could not find him in all of Pudding Lane. And at last
they came back to the house, drenched with rain, and sat down in a
gloomy circle around the stove.
“Whatever will you do without the gander, Mother Goose?” asked Mrs.
Claus.
“Do?” repeated Mother Goose with some asperity. “Well, I’ll just stay
here the rest of my days, I suppose. I certainly can’t fly around the
world with nothing to fly on, can I?”
“But what will the Weather Man think when you don’t appear for your
visit?”
“Goodness only knows,” answered Mother Goose. “He’ll think something,
you may be sure. And we’ll know soon enough what he thinks. If he’s
angry, he might even send a tornado. Oh, don’t shiver now, baker. It
hasn’t struck us yet. What _is_ coming over that bird? He acts like a
loon sometimes. I really think I’ll have to get myself a fine turkey
gobbler to ride on. They have more sense than ganders.”
Mother Goose would not have scolded and fussed like this at the
poor absent gander had she known what a flutter that bird was in
himself. For the gander had not run away at all, but had been taken
by Simple Simon entirely against his will, and now as he stood in
The-House-that-Jack-Built, tied fast to a bedpost, his were harsh
and desperate thoughts. To think that he had been tricked like this
by that absurd Simple Simon, he of all fowls the most trustworthy,
the most sagacious. Tied to a bedpost indeed! What humiliation, what
degradation! The poor gander squirmed and writhed with the bitter shame
of it; but he might as well have stood still, for he was tied with that
very rope Simple Simon had used for his other joke, and that rope, as
we know, was a very substantial affair, such as no mere gander could
break.
But while Mother Goose fussed and the gander squirmed, one person was
laughing aloud at the fun of it all, and that person was, of course,
Simple Simon. He could hardly contain himself as he stood there in the
rain and thought about it. And to tell the truth, Mother Goose and Mr.
Claus _had_ looked pretty funny as they ran down Pudding Lane, calling
the gander. Mother Goose, indeed, always looked funny when she ran,
for the good old lady was so accustomed to riding that she took very
ill to running. But when she ran in a rainstorm, as she did on this
day, she was just a little more ridiculous than ever, with her long
skirts wound damply around her legs, her glasses streaming with water,
her feet in Mr. Claus’s enormous rubber boots which sloshed, sloshed,
sloshed.
As for Mr. Claus, he was not quite so funny until you noticed the
cascade of rain that came spouting down on his nose through a hole in
his umbrella, and then he became very funny indeed. And the really
ludicrous thing about that was that the more Mr. Claus tried to dodge
the waterfall, the faster it came through the hole; and the more he
shifted the umbrella around, the more accurately did the waterfall
strike him on the very tip-tip of his nose. Yes, that was very amusing,
and Simple Simon laughed himself weak now as he remembered it. All the
other children at the windows had laughed at the sight too, though they
did not know why Mr. Claus and Mother Goose were out in the rain like
that. They had paid no attention to Simon and his tricks. Nobody ever
did.
Up in his home the Weather Man was becoming decidedly worried at the
non-arrival of his expected guest, Mother Goose, and he confessed to
the Weather Woman, his wife, that he was afraid something was terribly,
terribly wrong.
“She always keeps her engagements,” he said. “She is a most punctual
woman.”
“Perhaps she is ill,” suggested the Weather Woman.
“She’s never been ill in her life,” said the Weather Man.
“No sign she never will be,” retorted the Weather Woman.
Just then the Weather Girl and the Weather Boy came in, those two hardy
children of the Weather Man.
“Where’s Mother Goose?” they demanded.
“Not here,” replied the Weather Man.
“Didn’t come,” said the Weather Woman.
“Not here! Didn’t come!” repeated the Weather Children. “Why, what’s
the matter? Is the rain too much for her?”
The Weather Man looked thoughtful at this suggestion, then turned to
his wife.
“Weather Woman,” he addressed her, “do you suppose that this rain could
possibly be the reason for Mother Goose’s failure to appear?”
“I shouldn’t wonder a bit,” replied the Weather Woman. “You know how
those earth-people are about rain. I declare, sometimes I think they’ll
never get used to it, the way they carry umbrellas in the rain, and
wear waterproofs against it, and stay at home because of it, as if a
little water once in a while would hurt the dear creatures!”
“Well,” spoke the Weather Man, “if that’s the reason that Mother
Goose hasn’t come, we’ll have to stop the rain, that’s all. Weather
Children,” he ordered, “kindly shut off the rain and turn on the sun.
Perhaps we’ve fooled the children of Pudding Lane long enough, anyway.”
So that is how it happened that three minutes later, Pudding Lane found
itself bathed in clear, sparkling sunshine which left no sign of the
previous rain except the puddles in the street, the gently dripping
trees, and some little ruffled-up birds, who shook themselves furiously
in the sun and sang loud songs of thanksgiving that the downpour was
over. And that is how it happened that all the children came tumbling
out of their homes pell-mell as they did and began fooling each other
as fast as ever they could to make up for lost time.
Such jokes as those children played too! There was Handy-Spandy,
Jack-a-Dandy, for example, who really was such easy prey it was
almost too bad to fool him. For when Santa Claus offered the greedy
fellow a nice plum cake, or what looked like a plum cake, Handy-Spandy
just grabbed it and sank his teeth into it without a single
question--without even much of a thank-you, though I guess that mumble
in his throat was meant for a thank-you. And when he bit down into the
cake, oh, how the children screamed, for it wasn’t a plum cake at all,
but a cotton cake, which Mr. Claus had made especially for the children
to fool Handy with on that first day of April.
They fooled Santa Claus too, telling him that Judy wanted him down at
the Shoe; but when Santa ran as fast as he could run down to the shoe,
there was nothing waiting there for him but a big sign which said,
“April Fool, Santa!” Which did surprise that little boy vastly, for he
had forgotten he could be fooled, so busy was he trying to fool other
people.
The children had a good deal of fun with Tom, Tom, the piper’s son, for
when he wasn’t looking, Johnny Bo-Peep pinned a big card on Tom’s back
which read, “Please to kick me, my dears!” And then when the children
proceeded to obey the injunction, poor Tom looked so bewildered and
foolish that it almost seemed as if that were the very funniest joke of
all.
Oh, everybody was fooled good and plenty, and great was the noise,
the laughter and shouting. And at last, when all the tricks had been
exhausted, and when the children were exhausted too, out came Mother
Goose from the Clauses’ house.
“I say,” she cried to the children, who had surrounded her until you
couldn’t see a thing of her but the tip of her pointed hat, “I say, I
know somebody you haven’t fooled!”
Oh, was there still somebody to fool? Delightful!
“Yes,” went on Mother Goose, “we can still fool somebody else. We
can still fool the gander, children! For he’s run off to fool us, I
suppose, and now if we find him, it’ll be a joke on the silly bird, you
see.”
So they started out on the great search for the gander, all of them,
scattered in every direction. And what of Simple Simon? Well, Simple
Simon was just as pleased as he could possibly be over the whole
affair, for now that he had fooled Mother Goose by hiding her gander,
he was perfectly willing to fool the gander by bringing him back to
Mother Goose. You see, he was so simple that he didn’t comprehend that
to bring the gander back would not really fool him at all. So into
The-House-that-Jack-Built trotted Simple Simon, chuckling jovially at
the whole affair, and out he came again in half a minute, leading the
dejected old gander behind him.
“Bless me,” said Mother Goose, when she caught sight of the gander,
“here he is. Why, Simple Simon, you are a fine fellow, indeed you are.”
Simple Simon, no longer able to contain himself, laughed outright.
“I did fool you, after all, didn’t I?” he asked proudly. “I hid the
gander, Mother Goose,” he went on excitedly, “and you never guessed it
at all.”
And there the absurd fellow had given the whole thing away! Oh, how the
children enjoyed that joke, and how Mother Goose laughed too. But above
all the racket could be heard Simple Simon’s great guffaws celebrating
his own wit and smartness, like the simpleton he was.
V
MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR
Mrs. Peter, Peter, Pumpkin-Eater was briskly shaking out her best
parlor rug in her back garden one fine May day when flap, flap, clack,
clack, came a noise to her ears.
“Bless me,” said the tiny lady, looking up, “if Mrs. Dumpty isn’t at it
too.”
True enough, the mother of Humpty was likewise in her back garden,
beating a rug, and as Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater looked to the other side of
her, she discovered that Jill’s mother was doing precisely the same
thing. Then she saw that the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe was shaking
out _her_ rugs too, and so were Mrs. Grundy and Mrs. Claus, the mother
of Santa,--why, all of Pudding Lane was shaking out its rugs at that
very minute! Which was not so strange, when you consider that this was
the first day of May, which, as anybody knows, means house-cleaning
to any right-thinking woman. But the first of May means also a Maypole
and a May Queen and baskets of flowers on the door knobs. And now we’re
coming to the really sad part of this story.
For it did look as if house-cleaning this year were going to crowd out
May Day in Pudding Lane completely. Always before, while the mothers
of Pudding Lane were cleaning their houses, Mother Goose had come to
give the children their May Day, so that they had never missed it. But
this year Mother Goose had gone to a house party at the Frosts’, Jack
and his wife, you know, who do a good deal of entertaining in their
slack season. And so, since Mother Goose was not there and the mothers
of Pudding Lane were so busy with house-cleaning, it did look very
doubtful about the Maypole.