they heard and got ready. "And now zingo," they heard and all three
together in a row, their long ears touching each other, they lifted
off their feet and went on and on and up and up till they cleared the
roof of the skyscraper. Then they came down and down till they lit on
their feet and came running to the hands of Young Leather and Red
Slippers to have their long legs and their long ears rubbed and
petted.
Then came the turn of the fifth jack-rabbit, the beautiful one with
stripes and spots. "Ah, we're sorry to see you go, Ah-h, we're sorry,"
they said, rubbing his long ears and feeling of his long legs.
Then Young Leather and Red Slippers kissed him on the nose, kissed the
last and fifth of the five long-legged spider jack-rabbits.
"Good-by, old bunny, good-by, you're the dandiest bunny there ever
was," they whispered in his long ears. And he, because he knew what
they were saying and why they were saying it, he wiggled his long ears
and looked long and steady at them from his deep eyes.
"Zango," they yelled. He got ready. "And now zango!" they yelled
again. And the fifth jack-rabbit with his stripes and spots lifted off
his feet and went on and on and on and up and up and when he came to
the roof of the skyscraper he kept on going on and on and up and up
till after a while he was gone all the way out of sight.
They waited and watched, they watched and waited. He never came back.
He never was heard of again. He was gone. With the stripes on his back
and the spots on his hair, he was gone. And Young Leather and Red
Slippers said they were glad they had kissed him on the nose before he
went away on a long trip far off, so far off he never came back.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
The Wooden Indian and the Shaghorn
Buffalo
One night a milk white moon was shining down on Main Street. The
sidewalks and the stones, the walls and the windows all stood out milk
white. And there was a thin blue mist drifted and shifted like a
woman's veil up and down Main Street, up to the moon and back again.
Yes, all Main Street was a mist blue and a milk white, mixed up and
soft all over and all through.
It was past midnight. The Wooden Indian in front of the cigar store
stepped down off his stand. The Shaghorn Buffalo in front of the
haberdasher shop lifted his head and shook his whiskers, raised his
hoofs out of his hoof-tracks.
Then--this is what happened. They moved straight toward each other. In
the middle of Main Street they met. The Wooden Indian jumped straddle
of the Shaghorn Buffalo. And the Shaghorn Buffalo put his head down
and ran like a prairie wind straight west on Main Street.
At the high hill over the big bend of the Clear Green River they
stopped. They stood looking. Drifting and shifting like a woman's blue
veil, the blue mist filled the valley and the milk white moon filled
the valley. And the mist and the moon touched with a lingering,
wistful kiss the clear green water of the Clear Green River.
So they stood looking, the Wooden Indian with his copper face and
wooden feathers, and the Shaghorn Buffalo with his big head and heavy
shoulders slumping down close to the ground.
[Illustration: So they stood looking]
And after they had looked a long while, and each of them got an eyeful
of the high hill, the big bend and the moon mist on the river all blue
and white and soft, after they had looked a long while, they turned
around and the Shaghorn Buffalo put his head down and ran like a
prairie wind down Main Street till he was exactly in front of the
cigar store and the haberdasher shop. Then whisk! both of them were
right back like they were before, standing still, taking whatever
comes.
This is the story as it came from the night policeman of the Village
of Cream Puffs. He told the people the next day, "I was sitting on the
steps of the cigar store last night watching for burglars. And when I
saw the Wooden Indian step down and the Shaghorn Buffalo step out, and
the two of them go down Main Street like the wind, I says to myself,
marvelish, 'tis marvelish, 'tis marvelish."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
6. Four Stories About
Dear, Dear Eyes
_People_: The White Horse Girl
The Blue Wind Boy
The Gray Man on Horseback
Six Girls With Balloons
Henry Hagglyhoagly
Susan Slackentwist
Two Wool Yarn Mittens
Peter Potato Blossom Wishes
Her Father
Many Shoes
Slippers
A Slipper Moon
[Illustration]
The White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind
Boy
When the dishes are washed at night time and the cool of the evening
has come in summer or the lamps and fires are lit for the night in
winter, then the fathers and mothers in the Rootabaga Country
sometimes tell the young people the story of the White Horse Girl and
the Blue Wind Boy.
The White Horse Girl grew up far in the west of the Rootabaga Country.
All the years she grew up as a girl she liked to ride horses. Best of
all things for her was to be straddle of a white horse loping with a
loose bridle among the hills and along the rivers of the west
Rootabaga Country.
She rode one horse white as snow, another horse white as new washed
sheep wool, and another white as silver. And she could not tell
because she did not know which of these three white horses she liked
best.
"Snow is beautiful enough for me any time," she said, "new washed
sheep wool, or silver out of a ribbon of the new moon, any or either
is white enough for me. I like the white manes, the white flanks, the
white noses, the white feet of all my ponies. I like the forelocks
hanging down between the white ears of all three--my ponies."
And living neighbor to the White Horse Girl in the same prairie
country, with the same black crows flying over their places, was the
Blue Wind Boy. All the years he grew up as a boy he liked to walk with
his feet in the dirt and the grass listening to the winds. Best of all
things for him was to put on strong shoes and go hiking among the
hills and along the rivers of the west Rootabaga Country, listening to
the winds.
There was a blue wind of day time, starting sometimes six o'clock on a
summer morning or eight o'clock on a winter morning. And there was a
night wind with blue of summer stars in summer and blue of winter
stars in winter. And there was yet another, a blue wind of the times
between night and day, a blue dawn and evening wind. All three of
these winds he liked so well he could not say which he liked best.
"The early morning wind is strong as the prairie and whatever I tell
it I know it believes and remembers," he said, "and the night wind
with the big dark curves of the night sky in it, the night wind gets
inside of me and understands all my secrets. And the blue wind of the
times between, in the dusk when it is neither night nor day, this is
the wind that asks me questions and tells me to wait and it will bring
me whatever I want."
Of course, it happened as it had to happen, the White Horse Girl and
the Blue Wind Boy met. She, straddling one of her white horses, and
he, wearing his strong hiking shoes in the dirt and the grass, it had
to happen they should meet among the hills and along the rivers of the
west Rootabaga Country where they lived neighbors.
And of course, she told him all about the snow white horse and the
horse white as new washed sheep wool and the horse white as a silver
ribbon of the new moon. And he told her all about the blue winds he
liked listening to, the early morning wind, the night sky wind, and
the wind of the dusk between, the wind that asked him questions and
told him to wait.
One day the two of them were gone. On the same day of the week the
White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy went away. And their fathers
and mothers and sisters and brothers and uncles and aunts wondered
about them and talked about them, because they didn't tell anybody
beforehand they were going. Nobody at all knew beforehand or afterward
why they were going away, the real honest why of it.
They left a short letter. It read:
_To All Our Sweethearts, Old Folks and Young Folks:_
_We have started to go where the white horses come from and where
the blue winds begin. Keep a corner in your hearts for us while
we are gone._
_The White Horse Girl._
_The Blue Wind Boy._
That was all they had to guess by in the west Rootabaga Country, to
guess and guess where two darlings had gone.
Many years passed. One day there came riding across the Rootabaga
Country a Gray Man on Horseback. He looked like he had come a long
ways. So they asked him the question they always asked of any rider
who looked like he had come a long ways, "Did you ever see the White
Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy?"
"Yes," he answered, "I saw them.
"It was a long, long ways from here I saw them," he went on, "it would
take years and years to ride to where they are. They were sitting
together and talking to each other, sometimes singing, in a place
where the land runs high and tough rocks reach up. And they were
looking out across water, blue water as far as the eye could see. And
away far off the blue waters met the blue sky.
"'Look!' said the Boy, 'that's where the blue winds begin.'
"And far out on the blue waters, just a little this side of where the
blue winds begin, there were white manes, white flanks, white noses,
white galloping feet.
"'Look!' said the Girl, 'that's where the white horses come from.'
"And then nearer to the land came thousands in an hour, millions in a
day, white horses, some white as snow, some like new washed sheep
wool, some white as silver ribbons of the new moon.
"I asked them, 'Whose place is this?' They answered, 'It belongs to
us; this is what we started for; this is where the white horses come
from; this is where the blue winds begin.'"
And that was all the Gray Man on Horseback would tell the people of
the west Rootabaga Country. That was all he knew, he said, and if
there was any more he would tell it.
And the fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and uncles and
aunts of the White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy wondered and
talked often about whether the Gray Man on Horseback made up the story
out of his head or whether it happened just like he told it.
Anyhow this is the story they tell sometimes to the young people of
the west Rootabaga Country when the dishes are washed at night and the
cool of the evening has come in summer or the lamps and fires are lit
for the night in winter.
[Illustration]
What Six Girls with Balloons Told the
Gray Man on Horseback
Once there came riding across the Rootabaga Country a Gray Man on
Horseback. He looked as if he had come a long ways. He looked like a
brother to the same Gray Man on Horseback who said he had seen the
White Horse Girl and the Blue Wind Boy.
He stopped in the Village of Cream Puffs. His gray face was sad and
his eyes were gray deep and sad. He spoke short and seemed strong.
Sometimes his eyes looked as if they were going to flash, but instead
of fire they filled with shadows.
Yet--he did laugh once. It did happen once he lifted his head and face
to the sky and let loose a long ripple of laughs.
On Main Street near the Roundhouse of the Big Spool, where they wind
up the string that pulls the light little town back when the wind
blows it away, there he was riding slow on his gray horse when he met
six girls with six fine braids of yellow hair and six balloons apiece.
That is, each and every one of the six girls had six fine long braids
of yellow hair and each braid of hair had a balloon tied on the end. A
little blue wind was blowing and the many balloons tied to the braids
of the six girls swung up and down and slow and fast whenever the blue
wind went up and down and slow and fast.
For the first time since he had been in the Village, the eyes of the
Gray Man filled with lights and his face began to look hopeful. He
stopped his horse when he came even with the six girls and the
balloons floating from the braids of yellow hair.
"Where you going?" he asked.
"Who--hoo-hoo? Who--who--who?" the six girls cheeped out.
"All six of you and your balloons, where you going?"
"Oh, hoo-hoo-hoo, back where we came from," and they all turned their
heads back and forth and sideways, which of course turned all the
balloons back and forth and sideways because the balloons were
fastened to the fine braids of hair which were fastened to their
heads.
"And where do you go when you get back where you came from?" he asked
just to be asking.
"Oh, hoo-hoo-hoo, then we start out and go straight ahead and see what
we can see," they all answered just to be answering and they dipped
their heads and swung them up which of course dipped all the balloons
and swung them up.
So they talked, he asking just to be asking and the six balloon girls
answering just to be answering.
At last his sad mouth broke into a smile and his eyes were lit like a
morning sun coming up over harvest fields. And he said to them, "Tell
me why are balloons--that is what I want you to tell me--why are
balloons?"
The first little girl put her thumb under her chin, looked up at her
six balloons floating in the little blue wind over her head, and said:
"Balloons are wishes. The wind made them. The west wind makes the red
balloons. The south wind makes the blue. The yellow and green balloons
come from the east wind and the north wind."
The second little girl put her first finger next to her nose, looked
up at her six balloons dipping up and down like hill flowers in a
small wind, and said:
"A balloon used to be a flower. It got tired. Then it changed itself
to a balloon. I listened one time to a yellow balloon. It was talking
to itself like people talk. It said, 'I used to be a yellow pumpkin
flower stuck down close to the ground, now I am a yellow balloon high
up in the air where nobody can walk on me and I can see everything.'"
The third little girl held both of her ears like she was afraid they
would wiggle while she slid with a skip, turned quick, and looking up
at her balloons, spoke these words:
"A balloon is foam. It comes the same as soap bubbles come. A long
time ago it used to be sliding along on water, river water, ocean
water, waterfall water, falling and falling over a rocky waterfall,
any water you want. The wind saw the bubble and picked it up and
carried it away, telling it, 'Now you're a balloon--come along and see
the world.'"
The fourth little girl jumped straight into the air so all six of her
balloons made a jump like they were going to get loose and go to the
sky--and when the little girl came down from her jump and was standing
on her two feet with her head turned looking up at the six balloons,
she spoke the shortest answer of all, saying:
"Balloons are to make us look up. They help our necks."
The fifth little girl stood first on one foot, then another, bent her
head down to her knees and looked at her toes, then swinging straight
up and looking at the flying spotted yellow and red and green
balloons, she said:
"Balloons come from orchards. Look for trees where half is oranges and
half is orange balloons. Look for apple trees where half is red
pippins and half is red pippin balloons. Look for watermelons too. A
long green balloon with white and yellow belly stripes is a ghost. It
came from a watermelon said good-by."
The sixth girl, the last one, kicked the heel of her left foot with
the toe of her right foot, put her thumbs under her ears and wiggled
all her fingers, then stopped all her kicking and wiggling, and stood
looking up at her balloons all quiet because the wind had gone
down--and she murmured like she was thinking to herself:
"Balloons come from fire chasers. Every balloon has a fire chaser
chasing it. All the fire chasers are made terrible quick and when they
come they burn quick, so the balloon is made light so it can run away
terrible quick. Balloons slip away from fire. If they don't they can't
be balloons. Running away from fire keeps them light."
All the time he listened to the six girls the face of the Gray Man
kept getting more hopeful. His eyes lit up. Twice he smiled. And after
he said good-by and rode up the street, he lifted his head and face to
the sky and let loose a long ripple of laughs.
He kept looking back when he left the Village and the last thing he
saw was the six girls each with six balloons fastened to the six
braids of yellow hair hanging down their backs.
The sixth little girl kicked the heel of her left foot with the toe of
her right foot and said, "He is a nice man. I think he must be our
uncle. If he comes again we shall all ask him to tell us where he
thinks balloons come from."
And the other five girls all answered, "Yes," or "Yes, yes," or "Yes,
yes, yes," real fast like a balloon with a fire chaser after it.
[Illustration]
How Henry Hagglyhoagly Played the
Guitar with His Mittens On
Sometimes in January the sky comes down close if we walk on a country
road, and turn our faces up to look at the sky.
Sometimes on that kind of a January night the stars look like numbers,
look like the arithmetic writing of a girl going to school and just
beginning arithmetic.
It was this kind of a night Henry Hagglyhoagly was walking down a
country road on his way to the home of Susan Slackentwist, the
daughter of the rutabaga king near the Village of Liver-and-Onions.
When Henry Hagglyhoagly turned his face up to look at the sky it
seemed to him as though the sky came down close to his nose, and there
was a writing in stars as though some girl had been doing arithmetic
examples, writing number 4 and number 7 and 4 and 7 over and over
again across the sky.
"Why is it so bitter cold weather?" Henry Hagglyhoagly asked himself,
"if I say many bitter bitters it is not so bitter as the cold wind and
the cold weather."
"You are good, mittens, keeping my fingers warm," he said every once
in a while to the wool yarn mittens on his hands.
The wind came tearing along and put its chilly, icy, clammy clamps on
the nose of Henry Hagglyhoagly, fastening the clamps like a nipping,
gripping clothes pin on his nose. He put his wool yarn mittens up on
his nose and rubbed till the wind took off the chilly, icy, clammy
clamps. His nose was warm again; he said, "Thank you, mittens, for
keeping my nose warm."
[Illustration: It seemed to him as though the sky came down close
to his nose]
He spoke to his wool yarn mittens as though they were two kittens or
pups, or two little cub bears, or two little Idaho ponies. "You're my
chums keeping me company," he said to the mittens.
"Do you know what we got here under our left elbow?" he said to the
mittens, "I shall mention to you what is here under my left elbow.
"It ain't a mandolin, it ain't a mouth organ nor an accordion nor a
concertina nor a fiddle. It is a guitar, a Spanish Spinnish Splishy
guitar made special.
"Yes, mittens, they said a strong young man like me ought to have a
piano because a piano is handy to play for everybody in the house and
a piano is handy to put a hat and overcoat on or books or flowers.
"I snizzled at 'em, mittens. I told 'em I seen a Spanish Spinnish
Splishy guitar made special in a hardware store window for eight
dollars and a half.
"And so, mittens--are you listening, mittens?--after cornhusking was
all husked and the oats thrashing all thrashed and the rutabaga
digging all dug, I took eight dollars and a half in my inside vest
pocket and I went to the hardware store.
"I put my thumbs in my vest pocket and I wiggled my fingers like a man
when he is proud of what he is going to have if he gets it. And I said
to the head clerk in the hardware store, 'Sir, the article I desire to
purchase this evening as one of your high class customers, the article
I desire to have after I buy it for myself, is the article there in
the window, sir, the Spanish Spinnish Splishy guitar.'
"And, mittens, if you are listening, I am taking this Spanish Spinnish
Splishy guitar to go to the home of Susan Slackentwist, the daughter
of the rutabaga king near the Village of Liver-and-Onions, to sing a
serenade song."
The cold wind of the bitter cold weather blew and blew, trying to blow
the guitar out from under the left elbow of Henry Hagglyhoagly. And
the worse the wind blew the tighter he held his elbow holding the
guitar where he wanted it.
He walked on and on with his long legs stepping long steps till at
last he stopped, held his nose in the air, and sniffed.
"Do I sniff something or do I not?" he asked, lifting his wool yarn
mittens to his nose and rubbing his nose till it was warm. Again he
sniffed.
"Ah hah, yeah, yeah, this is the big rutabaga field near the home of
the rutabaga king and the home of his daughter, Susan Slackentwist."
At last he came to the house, stood under the window and slung the
guitar around in front of him to play the music to go with the song.
"And now," he asked his mittens, "shall I take you off or keep you on?
If I take you off the cold wind of the bitter cold weather will freeze
my hands so stiff and bitter cold my fingers will be too stiff to play
the guitar. _I will play with mittens on._"
Which he did. He stood under the window of Susan Slackentwist and
played the guitar with his mittens on, the warm wool yarn mittens he
called his chums. It was the first time any strong young man going to
see his sweetheart ever played the guitar with his mittens on when it
was a bitter night with a cold wind and cold weather.
Susan Slackentwist opened her window and threw him a snow-bird feather
to keep for a keepsake to remember her by. And for years afterward
many a sweetheart in the Rootabaga Country told her lover, "If you
wish to marry me let me hear you under my window on a winter night
playing the guitar with wool yarn mittens on."
And when Henry Hagglyhoagly walked home on his long legs stepping long
steps, he said to his mittens, "This Spanish Spinnish Splishy guitar
made special will bring us luck." And when he turned his face up, the
sky came down close and he could see stars fixed like numbers and the
arithmetic writing of a girl going to school learning to write number
4 and number 7 and 4 and 7 over and over.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
Never Kick a Slipper at the Moon
When a girl is growing up in the Rootabaga Country she learns some
things to do, some things _not_ to do.
"Never kick a slipper at the moon if it is the time for the Dancing
Slipper Moon when the slim early moon looks like the toe and the heel
of a dancer's foot," was the advice Mr. Wishes, the father of Peter
Potato Blossom Wishes, gave to his daughter.
"Why?" she asked him.
"Because your slipper will go straight up, on and on to the moon, and
fasten itself on the moon as if the moon is a foot ready for dancing,"
said Mr. Wishes.
"A long time ago there was one night when a secret word was passed
around to all the shoes standing in the bedrooms and closets.
"The whisper of the secret was: 'To-night all the shoes and the
slippers and the boots of the world are going walking without any feet
in them. To-night when those who put us on their feet in the daytime,
are sleeping in their beds, we all get up and walk and go walking
where we walk in the daytime.'
"And in the middle of the night, when the people in the beds were
sleeping, the shoes and the slippers and the boots everywhere walked
out of the bedrooms and the closets. Along the sidewalks on the
streets, up and down stairways, along hallways, the shoes and slippers
and the boots tramped and marched and stumbled.
"Some walked pussyfoot, sliding easy and soft just like people in the
daytime. Some walked clumping and clumping, coming down heavy on the
heels and slow on the toes, just like people in the daytime.
"Some turned their toes in and walked pigeon-toe, some spread their
toes out and held their heels in, just like people in the daytime.
Some ran glad and fast, some lagged slow and sorry.
"Now there was a little girl in the Village of Cream Puffs who came
home from a dance that night. And she was tired from dancing round
dances and square dances, one steps and two steps, toe dances and toe
and heel dances, dances close up and dances far apart, she was so
tired she took off only one slipper, tumbled onto her bed and went to
sleep with one slipper on.
"She woke up in the morning when it was yet dark. And she went to the
window and looked up in the sky and saw a Dancing Slipper Moon dancing
far and high in the deep blue sea of the moon sky.
"'Oh--what a moon--what a dancing slipper of a moon!' she cried with a
little song to herself.
"She opened the window, saying again, 'Oh! what a moon!'--and kicked
her foot with the slipper on it straight toward the moon.
"The slipper flew off and flew up and went on and on and up and up in
the moonshine.
"It never came back, that slipper. It was never seen again. When they
asked the girl about it she said, 'It slipped off my foot and went up
and up and the last I saw of it the slipper was going on straight to
the moon.'"