Marmaduke trudged up the road. And the road went up, up, up the hill.
First he thought that road was like a great worm, always squirming
ahead of him, but then he decided that, although it twisted, it didn't
_squirm_, it was too still for that. After all, it was more like
a ribbon, a wide brown ribbon, tied around the green shoulder of the
hill.
He wondered where that ribbon road went--over the hill and far
away--perhaps clear round the World! But, no, it couldn't do that, for
there was the Sea between, and it must stop at the Sea. Anyway, he
would have liked to have travelled over it, to the very end, to see
all the people and animals that walked over it, and the cities and
churches that stood by its side.
But first he must find the Toyman. That is what he had come for. And
the Toyman had just gone over that very road. Marmaduke had seen him
from the valley below, his long legs climbing up that hill and the
little boy had hurried after him, calling and calling.
"'Llo, Toyman, 'llo, Toyman!" he shouted.
He heard an answer and put his hand to his ear to hear more clearly.
"'Llo, Toyman, 'llo, Toyman!" came the mocking answer, faint and
far-away.
But it wasn't the Toyman. It was Echo, calling back from the hills.
Marmaduke had always wanted to meet Echo, but so far he never had. He
thought she must be something like the Star-Lady, whom he _had_
met, only not quite so bright. Her voice sounded a little sadder, too,
like the Bluebird's in the Fall when he says "Goodbye" to the fields
and flies to the South. Often he had run after Echo, but he never
could catch up with her, nor even see a glimpse of her silver and
green dress. She always played Hide-and-Seek with him, and he was
always "it."
However, he didn't worry long about friend Echo this morning. He was
thinking of the Toyman. For the Toyman's face had looked worried--far
away and sad. It had _looked_ somehow as Echo's voice always
_sounded_. What was it Mother had said? "Poor Frank!"--that's
what she called him; "he's in trouble," she had whispered to Father.
Marmaduke didn't know what he could do, but he wanted to catch up with
him, and put his hand in his, and tell him not to worry at all, and
say, if he needed money he could have all there was in Marmaduke's
bank--every last penny, even the bright ones.
Across the road a big jack-rabbit jumped--jumped
_sping--sping--sping_--like a toy animal made of steel springs.
Wienerwurst ran after the rabbit, but his master didn't stop to chase
Jack. He was afraid if he wasted any time he would never catch up with
the Toyman.
At last the ribbon road reached the top of the hill and wound along it
a little way before it started twisting down the other side. For a
moment Marmaduke's eyes followed it down hill, and he wanted to follow
it with his legs too, there were so many wonderful and mysterious
places where it went, but just then he caught sight of the Toyman.
He was sitting right on the top of the hill, sitting with his chin in
his hands, and his eyes on the West far away. And he said never a
word.
So Marmaduke just stole up softly, and put his face against the
Toyman's, and sat down beside him.
And then the Toyman's eyes came back from far away and looked down on
the little boy and smiled again.
"Don't you worry, Toyman," the little boy said to him, "don't you
worry about _anything_. It'll all come out in the wash."
The Toyman didn't ask what he meant by that, for he knew it was a
proverb, a boy's proverb that was as good as any King Soloman ever
made.
"Sure, sonny," he repeated, "it'll all come out in the wash." And he
patted the hand beside him.
You see, Marmaduke never asked the Toyman what his trouble really was,
or anything at all. And that is always the very best way--when a
friend's in trouble, don't bother him with a lot of questions--and
pester the life out of him--but just take his mind off his troubles by
suggesting some nice game to play--like marbles or "Duck-on-the-Rock,"
or going fishing, or something; and if you can't do that, just sit
beside him, "quiet-like," and be his friend.
For a while they sat so, drinking in the cool air, and looking down at
the valley, and the white houses, and red barns, and the yellow
haystacks, and the horses and people like ants crawling here and
there. There were two ribbons in the valley now, one brown and one
silver, the Road and the River. And from the Church with the Long
White Finger Pointing at the Sky, came the sound of
bells--pealing--pealing--up the hill to the Sky.
All else was still. But after they had listened for a while they
discovered that it wasn't so still as it had seemed. Every bird and
insect, each leaf and blossom, was busy, preparing its dinner, or else
just growing. A twig rustled as a little garter snake squirmed into
the thicket. A little gray nuthatch looked for its lunch on a locust
tree, crawling over the trunk head-downwards, while, on a branch
overhead, a crested flycatcher perched watching, watching, then
all-of-a-sudden swooped down and pounced on a fly, swallowed him, flew
back to its perch, and watched again.
In the tall grasses which rose like a miniature forest around his
head, green katydids jumped, as spry as monkeys. And, as he lay on his
back, he could see, way up in the middle of the sky, and right on a
line with his eye, Ole Robber Hawk himself, or else one of his
relatives or friends. He was brown, of course, but against the blue of
the sky he looked like a little black speck with a couple of thin wavy
lines for wings.
There was music, too, for a woodthrush sang, oh ever so sweet, and the
oriole whistled as clear as a flute, while a locust rattled away like
the man who plays the drum and all the noisy things in the
theatre-orchestra. But, busiest of all, at his feet an army of black
ants hurried around a little hole in the ground, seeming quite as big
as the people and horses in the valley below.
"It's just like a little city here, isn't it, Toyman?" Marmaduke said,
"all the katydids, and bugs, and snakes, and things, workin' an'
workin' away."
"Yes," said the Toyman, as they watched Robber Hawk swing round and
round in the sky, "how any one can feel lonely in the country I can't
see. I can understand it in the city, where you can't speak to a soul
without his putting his hand on his watch, but here there's always a
lot of folks with beaks and claws and tails, and all kinds o' tongues
an' dialecks, that you don't need any introduction to, to say
'howdy!'"
But Marmaduke remembered that morning and how the Toyman had seemed in
trouble. He had certainly looked lonely when Marmaduke and Wienerwurst
had found him sitting up there on the hill, and the little boy
couldn't help asking,--"Don't you ever feel lonely? You haven't any
wife, and Mother says she pities a man without chicken or
child--'tleast she said something like that--and how it wasn't good
for a man to live alone--an' _you_ do--out in your bunkhouse."
For the first time that afternoon the Toyman, who had been so worried,
laughed his old hearty laugh, and Echo sent it back from her cave in
the hill.
"No!" said he, "I don't want any ole wife. Like as not she'd talk me
to death. Besides I don't feel lonely when you're along, little
fellow."
The little boy felt very happy over that, but, for some reason or
other, he felt quite embarrassed, too. Often, when he felt happiest,
he couldn't put his happiness into words--he just couldn't talk about
the particular thing that was making him happy. And, strange to say,
he would usually talk about something quite different. So he said,--
"Let's see your knife."
The Toyman took it out. It was a beauty, too, with _five_ blades,
all of different sizes, and a corkscrew.
Marmaduke tried to open one of the blades, but he couldn't, they were
too strong for his fingers.
So the Toyman took it.
"Which shall it be?" he asked.
"The very biggest," came the answer, "and oh, Toyman, let's play
'Mumbledy Peg!'"
"A galoochious idea!" exclaimed the Toyman, "how did you ever think of
it?"
"Oh!" said Marmaduke, "I thought of it--_just like this_"; and he
snapped his fingers to show just how quick. "But pshaw! I could think
of lots more galoochious than that." Then he added in delight,--"The
one who loses has to pull the peg out of the ground with his teeth."
Meanwhile the Toyman was driving that peg into the ground. When it was
in so far that it seemed as if no Thirty White Horses could ever pull
it out, they began the game--the famous game of Mumbledy Peg.
First, Marmaduke put the knife in the palm of his right hand and made
that knife turn a somersault in the air. And it landed right on the
blade point and stuck upright in the ground.
Then, taking the knife in the palm of his left hand, he made it turn
another somersault in the air. Again it landed on the point of the
blade and stuck in the ground, quivering deliciously.
"Neat work!" said the Toyman. Probably he said it too soon, for on the
very next try Marmaduke missed, and the Toyman had his turn.
_He_ took the knife and got just as far as Marmaduke with his
tricks, then he missed, too.
So Marmaduke took another turn and clenched his right fist tight shut,
and threw the knife in the air from that, and it turned another
somersault clean, and landed straight up in the ground. And he did the
same with his left hand clenched. He was getting on famously!
The next trick in the game of Mumbledy Peg was to twirl the knife from
the tip of the first finger, then from the second, and so on. When
Marmaduke tried it from the third finger, the knife fell on its point,
quivered feebly as if it were sick, then fell over on its side, only
part way up in the air.
"Can you get two fingers under it--between the blade and the ground?"
said the Toyman eagerly. "If you can, it's all right."
"_You_ try?" said Marmaduke.
"What--with _these_ fingers?" laughed the Toyman, "you'd better
try yours--you'd have more of a chance."
So Marmaduke tried, and just managed to squeeze his two smallest
between the blade and the ground. But when he tried twirling it from
his last finger he failed. The knife fell over on its side, and he
couldn't squeeze any two of his fingers, even the smallest, between
the grass and the blade.
"Oh dear!" he exclaimed, "I always miss with my 'pinky.'"
However, the Toyman missed with his fourth finger, and Marmaduke was
still ahead.
"I'm off my game," the Toyman explained a little later, as he threw
the knife over his left shoulder and failed, "and you're in rare
form!"
Now this was strange, for the Toyman was so good at work and games and
everything, but I'm thinking it was like that time they played
marbles--he did it on purpose, just to let the little boy have the fun
of winning. That would have been like the Toyman.
Anyway, the last time Marmaduke threw the knife through the air, and
it made its last somersault and stuck up in the ground, straight as
straight as could be and quivering like a jews-harp, the Toyman
said,--
"Congratulations, ole man, you've won!"
And somehow Marmaduke liked to be called "ole man," and felt quite as
proud over that as over winning the game.
Now the Toyman had to get down on his hands and knees and try to pull
the peg out of the ground with his teeth. And oh, what a time he made
of it, growling like a dog over a bone, all for the fun of the thing,
until Marmaduke shouted in glee and Echo answered back from her cave
again.
So for a long time they played Mumbledy Peg on the hill, while the
shadows grew longer and longer on the grass at their feet. Then they
stopped to rest and sat quiet "for a spell."
Opposite them, in the West, were other hills, higher ones too, rising
way up in the sky. And far above them curled great white clouds,
standing still as still could be.
For a long while they watched those clouds, the man and the boy, then
Marmaduke said,--
"I wonder if you see what _I_ see."
"What _do_ you see, Sonny?" the Toyman replied.
"A great big city--look, there it is!" And the little boy pointed
straight at the clouds.
"Why, to be sure!" exclaimed the Toyman, "there it is, an' it looks
mighty pretty. But just _what_ do you make out?"
"Well!" replied Marmaduke, squinting his eye thoughtfully, "_I_
see a big wall and towers on it--a whole lot of towers. There's about
fifty, I guess."
The Toyman squinted too, and pointed his brown finger at the clouds,
counting slowly under his breath.
"Fifty-_one_ towers I make," he said as he finished--"some little
and some big; and some have little peaks on 'em, and some are all
scalloped out on top."
"And there's a church--a _whopper_ of a big one!" went on
Marmaduke.
"Where?" asked the Toyman, craning his neck.
Marmaduke pointed at the Cloud City.
"There--just behind the biggest tower."
"Just a little to the right, you mean?" again asked the Toyman, trying
hard to see so as not to miss anything in that wonderful city. Then he
added,--"oh, I get it now--it's got a gold cross on it an' little
diamonds at the tips. My! how they shine in the sun."