the days immediately following Christmas Mollie was so absorbed in the
beautiful things the season of peace on earth and good will to men had
brought to her that she not only forgot the Unwiseman and his woe over
the failure of his business plans, but even her poor little friend
Whistlebinkie was allowed to lie undisturbed and unthought of. Several
times when she had come near his side Whistlebinkie had tried to whistle
something in her ear, but unsuccessfully. Either the something he
wanted to whistle wouldn't come, or else if it did Mollie failed to hear
it, and Whistlebinkie was very unhappy in consequence.
"That's always the way," he sobbed to Flaxilocks who shared his exile
with him and who sat on the toy shelf gazing jealously out of her great,
deep blue eyes at the magnificent new wax doll that Mollie had received
from her grandmother; "don't make any difference how fine a toy may be,
he may be made of the best of rubber, and have a whistle that isn't
equalled by any locomotive whistle in the world for sweetness, the time
comes when his master or mistress grows tired of him and lavishes all
her affection on another toy because the other toy happens to be new.
What on earth she can see in that real dog to admire I cannot discern.
He can't bark half so well as I can whistle, and I am in mortal terror
of him all the time, he eyes me so hungrily--but now he is her
favorite. Everywhere Mollie goes Gyp goes, and I'm real mad."
"Oh, never mind," said Flaxilocks; "she'll get tired of him in a week or
two and then she'll take us up again, just as if we were new. I've been
around other Christmases and I know how things work. It'll be all right
in a little while--that is, it will be for you. I don't know how it is
going to turn out with me. That new doll, while I can see many defects
in her, which you can't, I can't deny is a beauty, and her earrings are
much handsomer than mine. It may be that I must become second to her;
but you, you needn't play second fiddle to any one, for there isn't
another rubber doll with a whistle in his hat in the house to rival
you."
"Well, I wish I could be sure of that," said Whistlebinkie, mournfully,
"I can see very well how Mollie can love you as well as she loves
me--but that real dog, bah! He can't even whistle, and he's awfully
destructive. Only last night he chewed up the calico cat, and actually,
Mollie laughed. Do you suppose she would laugh if he chewed me up?"
"He couldn't chew you up," said Flaxilocks. "You are rubber."
Whistlebinkie was about to reply to this when his fears were set at rest
and Flaxilocks was comforted, for Mollie with her new dog and wax doll
came up to where they were sitting and introduced her new pets to the
old ones.
"I want you four to know each other," she said. "We'll have lots of fun
together this year," and then before they knew it Flaxilocks and the
new doll were fast friends, and as for Whistlebinkie and Gyp, they
became almost inseparable. Gyp barked and Whistlebinkie whistled, while
the dolls sat holding each other's hands, looking if anything quite as
happy as Mollie herself.
"What do you all say to making a call on the Unwiseman?" Mollie said,
after a few minutes. "We ought to go wish him a Happy New Year."
[Illustration: So they all started off together.]
"Simply elegant," whistled Whistlebinkie, and Gyp and the dolls said he
was right, and so they all started off together.
"Where does he live?" asked the new doll.
"All around," said Flaxilocks. "He has a house that moves about. One day
it is in one place and another in another."
"But how do you find it?" queried the new doll.
"You don't have to," whistled Whistlebinkie. "You just walk on until you
run against it,"--and just as he spoke, as if to prove his words, bang!
he ran right into the gate. "Here it is now," he added.
"He evidently doesn't want to see anybody," said Mollie, noticing a
basket hanging from the front door-knob. "He's put out a basket for
cards. Dear me! I wish he'd see us."
"Maybe he will," said Whistlebinkie. "I'll ring the bell. Hello!" he
added sharply, as he looked into the basket; "that's queer. It's
chock-up full of cards now--somebody must have called."
"It has a placard over it," said Flaxilocks.
"So it has," said Mollie, a broad smile brightening her face; "and it
says, 'Take one' on it. What _does_ he mean?"
"That looks like your card on top," said Flaxilocks.
"Why it _is_ my card," cried Mollie, "and here is Whistlebinkie's card
too. We haven't been here."
"Of course you haven't," said a voice from behind the door. "But you are
here now. I knew you were coming and I was afraid you'd forget to bring
your cards with you, so I took some of your old ones that you had left
here before and put 'em out there where you could get them. Ring the
bell, and I'll let you in."
Whistlebinkie rang the bell as instructed, and the door was immediately
opened, and there stood the Unwiseman waiting to welcome them.
"Why, dear me! What a delicious surprise," he said. "Walk right in. I
had no idea you were coming."
"We came to wish you a Happy New Year," said Mollie.
"That's very kind of you," said the Unwiseman, "very kind, indeed. I was
thinking of you this morning when I was making my good resolutions for
the New Year. I was wondering whether I ought to give you up with other
good things, and I finally decided not to. One must have some comfort."
"Then you have made some good resolutions, have you?" said Mollie.
"Millions of 'em," said the Unwiseman; "and I'm going to make millions
more. One of 'em is that I won't catch cold during the coming year.
That's one of the best resolutions a man of my age can make. Colds are
very bad things, and it costs so much to be rid of them. Why, I had one
last winter and I had to burn three cords of wood to get rid of it."
"Do you cure a cold with wood?" asked Flaxilocks.
"Why not?" returned the Unwiseman. "A roaring hot fire is the best cure
for cold I know. What do you do when you have a cold, sit on the
ice-box?"
"No, I take medicine," said Mollie. "Pills and things."
"I don't like pills," said the Unwiseman. "They don't burn well. I
bought some quinine pills to cure my cold three winters ago, and they
just sizzled a minute when I lit them and went out." This pleased Gyp so
much that he sprang upon the piano and wagged his tail on C sharp until
Mollie made him stop.
"Another resolution I made," continued the Unwiseman, "was to open that
piano. That's why it's open now. I've always kept it locked before, but
now it is going to be open all the time. That'll give the music a chance
to get out; and it's a good thing for pianos to get a little fresh air
once in a while. It's the stale airs in that piano--airs like Way Down
Upon the Suwanee River, and Annie McGinty, and tunes like that that have
made me dislike it."
"Queerest man I ever saw!" whispered the new doll to Flaxilocks.
"But I didn't stop there," said the Unwiseman. "I made up my mind that I
wouldn't grow any older this year. I'm going to stay seven hundred, just
as I am now, always. Seven hundred is old enough for anybody, and I'm
not going to be greedy about my years when I have enough. Let somebody
else have the years, say I."
"Very wise and very generous," said Mollie; "but I don't see just how
you are going to manage it."
"Me neither," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I do'see how you're going to do
that."
"Simple enough," said the Unwiseman. "I've stopped the clock."
Gyp turned his head to one side as the Unwiseman spoke and looked at him
earnestly for a few seconds, and then, as if overcome with mirth at the
idea, he rushed out of the door and chased his tail around the house
three times.
"What an extraordinary animal that is," said the Unwiseman. "He must be
very young."
"He is," said Mollie. "He is nothing but a puppy."
"Well, it seems to me he wastes a good deal of strength," said the
Unwiseman. "Why, if I should run around the house that way three times
I'd be so tired I'd have to hire a man to help me rest."
"Are you really seven hundred years old?" queried the new doll, who, I
think, would have followed Gyp's example and run around the house
herself if she had thought it was dignified and was not afraid of
spoiling her new three-button shoes.
"I don't know for sure," said the Unwiseman, "but I fancy I must be. I
know I'm over sixty because I was born seventy-three years ago. Seven
hundred is over sixty, and so for the sake of round figures I have
selected that age. It's rather a wonderful age, don't you think so?"
"It certainly is," said the new doll.
"But then you are a wonderful man," said Mollie.
[Illustration: The Unwiseman drops words out of his vocabulary.]
"True," said the Unwiseman, reflectively. "I am wonderful. Sometimes I
spend the whole night full of wonder that I should be so wonderful. I
know so much. Why, I can read French. I can't understand it, but I can
read it quite as well as I can English. I can't read English very well,
of course; but then I only went to school one day and that happened to
be a holiday; so I didn't learn how to do anything but take a day off.
But we are getting away from my resolutions. I want to tell you some
more of them. I have thought it all over, and I am determined that all
through the year I shall eat only three meals a day with five nibbles
between times. I'm going to give up water-melons, which I never eat,
and when I converse with anybody I have solemnly promised myself never
to make use of such words as assafoedita, peristyle, or cosmopolis.
That last resolution is a great sacrifice for me because I am very fond
of long words. They sound so learned; but I shall be firm.
Assafoedita, peristyle, and cosmopolis until next year dawns shall be
dead to me. I may take them on again next year; but if I do, I shall
drop Mulligatawney, Portuguese, and pollywog from my vocabulary. I may
even go so far as to drop vocabulary, although it is a word for which I
have a strong affection. I am so attached to vocabulary as a word that I
find myself murmuring it to myself in the dead of night."
"What does it mean?" asked the new doll.
"Vocabulary?" cried the Unwiseman. "Vocabulary? Don't you know what a
vocabulary is?"
"I know," said Whistlebinkie. "It's an animal with an hump on its back."
"Nonsense," said the Unwiseman. "A vocabulary is nothing of the sort.
It's a--a sort of little bureau talkers have to keep their words in.
It's a sort of word-cabinet. I haven't really got one, but that's
because I don't need one. I have so few words I can carry them in my
head, and if I can't, I jot them down on a piece of paper. It's a
splendid idea, that. It's helped me lots of times in conversation. I'm
as fond of the word microcosm as I am of vocabulary, too, but I never
can remember it, so I keep it on a piece of paper in my vest-pocket.
Whenever I want to use it, I know just where to find it."
"And what does microcosm mean?" asked Mollie.
"I don't know," said the Unwiseman; "but few people do; and if I use it,
not one person in a thousand would dare take me up, so I just sprinkle
it around to suit myself."
As the Unwiseman spoke, the postman came to the door with a letter.
"Ah!" said the Unwiseman, opening it and reading it. "I am sorry to say
that I must leave you now. I have an engagement with my hatter this
afternoon, and if I don't go now he will be much disappointed."
"Is that letter from him?" asked Mollie.
"Oh no," said the Unwiseman, putting on his coat. "It is from myself. I
thought about the engagement last night, and fearing that I might
forget it I wrote a short note to myself reminding me of it. This is the
note. Good-bye."
"Good-bye," said Mollie, and then, as the Unwiseman went off to meet his
hatter, she and the others deemed it best to go home.
"But why did he say he expected you to call and then seemed surprised to
see you?" asked the new doll.
"Oh--that's his way," said Mollie. "You'll get used to it in time."
But the new doll never did, for she was a proud wax-doll, and never
learned to love the Unwiseman as I do for his sweet simplicity and
never-ending good nature.
[Illustration: VIII. The Unwiseman Turns Poet.
In which the Unwiseman goes into literature.