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.
[Illustration: They went to sleep on top of the wagon]
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.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
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.”
[Illustration]
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
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
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.”
[Illustration]
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
[Illustration]
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.
[Illustration: She was sitting on a ladder feeding baby clocks to the
baby alligators]
“‘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.