Rootabaga Country say to their girls growing up, "Never kick a slipper
at the moon if it is the time of the Dancing Slipper Moon when the
ends of the moon look like the toe and the heel of a dancer's foot."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
7. One Story--"Only the
Fire-Born Understand Blue"
_People_: Fire the Goat
Flim the Goose
Shadows
[Illustration]
Sand Flat Shadows
Fire the Goat and Flim the Goose slept out. Stub pines stood over
them. And away up next over the stub pines were stars.
It was a white sand flat they slept on. The floor of the sand flat ran
straight to the Big Lake of the Booming Rollers.
And just over the sand flat and just over the booming rollers was a
high room where the mist people were making pictures. Gray pictures,
blue and sometimes a little gold, and often silver, were the pictures.
And next just over the high room where the mist people were making
pictures, next just over were the stars.
Over everything and always last and highest of all, were the stars.
Fire the Goat took off his horns. Flim the Goose took off his wings.
"This is where we sleep," they said to each other, "here in the stub
pines on the sand flats next to the booming rollers and high over
everything and always last and highest of all, the stars."
Fire the Goat laid his horns under his head. Flim the Goose laid his
wings under his head. "This is the best place for what you want to
keep," they said to each other. Then they crossed their fingers for
luck and lay down and went to sleep and slept. And while they slept
the mist people went on making pictures. Gray pictures, blue and
sometimes a little gold but more often silver, such were the pictures
the mist people went on making while Fire the Goat and Flim the Goose
went on sleeping. And over everything and always last and highest of
all, were the stars.
They woke up. Fire the Goat took his horns out and put them on. "It's
morning now," he said.
Flim the Goose took his wings out and put them on. "It's another day
now," he said.
Then they sat looking. Away off where the sun was coming up, inching
and pushing up far across the rim curve of the Big Lake of the Booming
Rollers, along the whole line of the east sky, there were people and
animals, all black or all so gray they were near black.
There was a big horse with his mouth open, ears laid back, front legs
thrown in two curves like harvest sickles.
There was a camel with two humps, moving slow and grand like he had
all the time of all the years of all the world to go in.
There was an elephant without any head, with six short legs. There
were many cows. There was a man with a club over his shoulder and a
woman with a bundle on the back of her neck.
And they marched on. They were going nowhere, it seemed. And they were
going slow. They had plenty of time. There was nothing else to do. It
was fixed for them to do it, long ago it was fixed. And so they were
marching.
Sometimes the big horse's head sagged and dropped off and came back
again. Sometimes the humps of the camel sagged and dropped off and
came back again. And sometimes the club on the man's shoulder got
bigger and heavier and the man staggered under it and then his legs
got bigger and stronger and he steadied himself and went on. And again
sometimes the bundle on the back of the neck of the woman got bigger
and heavier and the bundle sagged and the woman staggered and her legs
got bigger and stronger and she steadied herself and went on.
This was the show, the hippodrome, the spectacular circus that passed
on the east sky before the eyes of Fire the Goat and Flim the Goose.
"Which is this, who are they and why do they come?" Flim the Goose
asked Fire the Goat.
[Illustration: Away off where the sun was coming up, there were
people and animals]
"Do you ask me because you wish me to tell you?" asked Fire the Goat.
"Indeed it is a question to which I want an honest answer."
"Has never the father or mother nor the uncle or aunt nor the kith and
kin of Flim the Goose told him the what and the which of this?"
"Never has the such of this which been put here this way to me by
anybody."
Flim the Goose held up his fingers and said, "I don't talk to you with
my fingers crossed."
And so Fire the Goat began to explain to Flim the Goose all about the
show, the hippodrome, the mastodonic cyclopean spectacle which was
passing on the east sky in front of the sun coming up.
"People say they are shadows," began Fire the Goat. "That is a name, a
word, a little cough and a couple of syllables.
"For some people shadows are comic and only to laugh at. For some
other people shadows are like a mouth and its breath. The breath comes
out and it is nothing. It is like air and nobody can make it into a
package and carry it away. It will not melt like gold nor can you
shovel it like cinders. So to these people it means nothing.
"And then there are other people," Fire the Goat went on. "There are
other people who understand shadows. The fire-born understand. The
fire-born know where shadows come from and why they are.
"Long ago, when the Makers of the World were done making the round
earth, the time came when they were ready to make the animals to put
on the earth. They were not sure how to make the animals. They did not
know what shape animals they wanted.
"And so they practised. They did not make real animals at first. They
made only shapes of animals. And these shapes were shadows, shadows
like these you and I, Fire the Goat and Flim the Goose, are looking at
this morning across the booming rollers on the east sky where the sun
is coming up.
"The shadow horse over there on the east sky with his mouth open, his
ears laid back, and his front legs thrown in a curve like harvest
sickles, that shadow horse was one they made long ago when they were
practising to make a real horse. That shadow horse was a mistake and
they threw him away. Never will you see two shadow horses alike. All
shadow horses on the sky are different. Each one is a mistake, a
shadow horse thrown away because he was not good enough to be a real
horse.
"That elephant with no head on his neck, stumbling so grand on six
legs--and that grand camel with two humps, one bigger than the
other--and those cows with horns in front and behind--they are all
mistakes, they were all thrown away because they were not made good
enough to be real elephants, real cows, real camels. They were made
just for practice, away back early in the world before any real
animals came on their legs to eat and live and be here like the rest
of us.
"That man--see him now staggering along with the club over his
shoulder--see how his long arms come to his knees and sometimes his
hands drag below his feet. See how heavy the club on his shoulders
loads him down and drags him on. He is one of the oldest shadow men.
He was a mistake and they threw him away. He was made just for
practice.
"And that woman. See her now at the end of that procession across the
booming rollers on the east sky. See her the last of all, the end of
the procession. On the back of her neck a bundle. Sometimes the bundle
gets bigger. The woman staggers. Her legs get bigger and stronger. She
picks herself up and goes along shaking her head. She is the same as
the others. She is a shadow and she was made as a mistake. Early,
early in the beginnings of the world she was made, for practice.
"Listen, Flim the Goose. What I am telling you is a secret of the
fire-born. I do not know whether you understand. We have slept
together a night on the sand flats next to the booming rollers, under
the stub pines with the stars high over--and so I tell what the
fathers of the fire-born tell their sons."
And that day Fire the Goat and Flim the Goose moved along the sand
flat shore of the Big Lake of the Booming Rollers. It was a blue day,
with a fire-blue of the sun mixing itself in the air and the water.
Off to the north the booming rollers were blue sea-green. To the east
they were sometimes streak purple, sometimes changing bluebell
stripes. And to the south they were silver blue, sheet blue.
Where the shadow hippodrome marched on the east sky that morning was a
long line of blue-bird spots.
"Only the fire-born understand blue," said Fire the Goat to Flim the
Goose. And that night as the night before they slept on a sand flat.
And again Fire the Goat took off his horns and laid them under his
head while he slept and Flim the Goose took off his wings and laid
them under his head while he slept.
And twice in the night, Fire the Goat whispered in his sleep,
whispered to the stars, "Only the fire-born understand blue."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Two Stories About Corn Fairies,
Blue Foxes, Flongboos and Happenings
That Happened in the
United States and Canada
_People_: Spink
Skabootch
A Man
Corn Fairies
Blue Foxes
Flongboos
A Philadelphia Policeman
Passenger Conductor
Chicago Newspapers
The Head Spotter of the Weather Makers at Medicine Hat
[Illustration]
How to Tell Corn Fairies If You See 'Em
If you have ever watched the little corn begin to march across the
black lands and then slowly change to big corn and go marching on from
the little corn moon of summer to the big corn harvest moon of autumn,
then you must have guessed who it is that helps the corn come along.
It is the corn fairies. Leave out the corn fairies and there wouldn't
be any corn.
All children know this. All boys and girls know that corn is no good
unless there are corn fairies.
Have you ever stood in Illinois or Iowa and watched the late summer
wind or the early fall wind running across a big cornfield? It looks
as if a big, long blanket were being spread out for dancers to come
and dance on. If you look close and if you listen close you can see
the corn fairies come dancing and singing--sometimes. If it is a wild
day and a hot sun is pouring down while a cool north wind blows--and
this happens sometimes--then you will be sure to see thousands of corn
fairies marching and countermarching in mocking grand marches over the
big, long blanket of green and silver. Then too they sing, only you
must listen with your littlest and newest ears if you wish to hear
their singing. They sing soft songs that go pla-sizzy pla-sizzy-sizzy,
and each song is softer than an eye wink, softer than a Nebraska
baby's thumb.
And Spink, who is a little girl living in the same house with the man
writing this story, and Skabootch, who is another little girl in the
same house--both Spink and Skabootch are asking the question, "How can
we tell corn fairies if we see 'em? If we meet a corn fairy how will
we know it?" And this is the explanation the man gave to Spink who is
older than Skabootch, and to Skabootch who is younger than Spink:--
All corn fairies wear overalls. They work hard, the corn fairies, and
they are proud. The reason they are proud is because they work so
hard. And the reason they work so hard is because they have overalls.
But understand this. The overalls are corn gold cloth, woven from
leaves of ripe corn mixed with ripe October corn silk. In the first
week of the harvest moon coming up red and changing to yellow and
silver the corn fairies sit by thousands between the corn rows weaving
and stitching the clothes they have to wear next winter, next spring,
next summer.
They sit cross-legged when they sew. And it is a law among them each
one must point the big toe at the moon while sewing the harvest moon
clothes. When the moon comes up red as blood early in the evening they
point their big toes slanting toward the east. Then towards midnight
when the moon is yellow and half way up the sky their big toes are
only half slanted as they sit cross-legged sewing. And after midnight
when the moon sails its silver disk high overhead and toward the west,
then the corn fairies sit sewing with their big toes pointed nearly
straight up.
If it is a cool night and looks like frost, then the laughter of the
corn fairies is something worth seeing. All the time they sit sewing
their next year clothes they are laughing. It is not a law they have
to laugh. They laugh because they are half-tickled and glad because it
is a good corn year.
And whenever the corn fairies laugh then the laugh comes out of the
mouth like a thin gold frost. If you should be lucky enough to see a
thousand corn fairies sitting between the corn rows and all of them
laughing, you would laugh with wonder yourself to see the gold frost
coming from their mouths while they laughed.
Travelers who have traveled far, and seen many things, say that if you
know the corn fairies with a real knowledge you can always tell by the
stitches in their clothes what state they are from.
In Illinois the corn fairies stitch fifteen stitches of ripe corn silk
across the woven corn leaf cloth. In Iowa they stitch sixteen
stitches, in Nebraska seventeen, and the farther west you go the more
corn silk stitches the corn fairies have in the corn cloth clothes
they wear.
In Minnesota one year there were fairies with a blue sash of
corn-flowers across the breast. In the Dakotas the same year all the
fairies wore pumpkin-flower neckties, yellow four-in-hands and yellow
ascots. And in one strange year it happened in both the states of Ohio
and Texas the corn fairies wore little wristlets of white morning
glories.
The traveler who heard about this asked many questions and found out
the reason why that year the corn fairies wore little wristlets of
white morning glories. He said, "Whenever fairies are sad they wear
white. And this year, which was long ago, was the year men were
tearing down all the old zigzag rail fences. Now those old zigzag rail
fences were beautiful for the fairies because a hundred fairies could
sit on one rail and thousands and thousands of them could sit on the
zigzags and sing pla-sizzy pla-sizzy, softer than an eye-wink, softer
than a baby's thumb, all on a moonlight summer night. And they found
out that year was going to be the last year of the zigzag rail fences.
It made them sorry and sad, and when they are sorry and sad they wear
white. So they picked the wonderful white morning glories running
along the zigzag rail fences and made them into little wristlets and
wore those wristlets the next year to show they were sorry and sad."
Of course, all this helps you to know how the corn fairies look in the
evening, the night time and the moonlight. Now we shall see how they
look in the day time.
In the day time the corn fairies have their overalls of corn gold
cloth on. And they walk among the corn rows and climb the corn stalks
and fix things in the leaves and stalks and ears of the corn. They
help it to grow.
Each one carries on the left shoulder a mouse brush to brush away the
field mice. And over the right shoulder each one has a cricket broom
to sweep away the crickets. The brush is a whisk brush to brush away
mice that get foolish. And the broom is to sweep away crickets that
get foolish.
Around the middle of each corn fairy is a yellow-belly belt. And stuck
in this belt is a purple moon shaft hammer. Whenever the wind blows
strong and nearly blows the corn down, then the fairies run out and
take their purple moon shaft hammers out of their yellow-belly belts
and nail down nails to keep the corn from blowing down. When a rain
storm is blowing up terrible and driving all kinds of terribles across
the cornfield, then you can be sure of one thing. Running like the
wind among the corn rows are the fairies, jerking their purple moon
shaft hammers out of their belts and nailing nails down to keep the
corn standing up so it will grow and be ripe and beautiful when the
harvest moon comes again in the fall.
Spink and Skabootch ask where the corn fairies get the nails. The
answer to Spink and Skabootch is, "Next week you will learn all about
where the corn fairies get the nails to nail down the corn if you will
keep your faces washed and your ears washed till next week."
And the next time you stand watching a big cornfield in late summer or
early fall, when the wind is running across the green and silver,
listen with your littlest and newest ears. Maybe you will hear the
corn fairies going pla-sizzy pla-sizzy-sizzy, softer than an eye wink,
softer than a Nebraska baby's thumb.
[Illustration]
How the Animals Lost Their Tails and
Got Them Back Traveling From
Philadelphia to Medicine Hat
Far up in North America, near the Saskatchewan river, in the Winnipeg
wheat country, not so far from the town of Moose Jaw named for the jaw
of a moose shot by a hunter there, up where the blizzards and the
chinooks begin, where nobody works unless they have to and they nearly
all have to, there stands the place known as Medicine Hat.
And there on a high stool in a high tower on a high hill sits the Head
Spotter of the Weather Makers.
When the animals lost their tails it was because the Head Spotter of
the Weather Makers at Medicine Hat was careless.
The tails of the animals were stiff and dry because for a long while
there was dusty dry weather. Then at last came rain. And the water
from the sky poured on the tails of the animals and softened them.
Then the chilly chills came whistling with icy mittens and they froze
all the tails stiff. A big wind blew up and blew and blew till all the
tails of the animals blew off.
It was easy for the fat stub hogs with their fat stub tails. But it
was not so easy for the blue fox who uses his tail to help him when he
runs, when he eats, when he walks or talks, when he makes pictures or
writes letters in the snow or when he puts a snack of bacon meat with
stripes of fat and lean to hide till he wants it under a big rock by a
river.
[Illustration: There on a high stool in a high tower, on a high hill
sits the Head Spotter of the Weather Makers]
It was easy enough for the rabbit who has long ears and no tail at all
except a white thumb of cotton. But it was hard for the yellow
flongboo who at night lights up his house in a hollow tree with his
fire yellow torch of a tail. It is hard for the yellow flongboo to
lose his tail because it lights up his way when he sneaks at night on
the prairie, sneaking up on the flangwayers, the hippers and
hangjasts, so good to eat.
The animals picked a committee of representatives to represent them in
a parleyhoo to see what steps could be taken by talking to do
something. There were sixty-six representatives on the committee and
they decided to call it the Committee of Sixty Six. It was a
distinguished committee and when they all sat together holding their
mouths under their noses (just like a distinguished committee) and
blinking their eyes up over their noses and cleaning their ears and
scratching themselves under the chin looking thoughtful (just like a
distinguished committee) then anybody would say just to look at them,
"This must be quite a distinguished committee."
Of course, they would all have looked more distinguished if they had
had their tails on. If the big wavy streak of a blue tail blows off
behind a blue fox, he doesn't look near so distinguished. Or, if the
long yellow torch of a tail blows off behind a yellow flongboo, he
doesn't look so distinguished as he did before the wind blew.
So the Committee of Sixty Six had a meeting and a parleyhoo to decide
what steps could be taken by talking to do something. For chairman
they picked an old flongboo who was an umpire and used to umpire many
mix-ups. Among the flongboos he was called "the umpire of umpires,"
"the king of umpires," "the prince of umpires," "the peer of umpires."
When there was a fight and a snag and a wrangle between two families
living next door neighbors to each other and this old flongboo was
called in to umpire and to say which family was right and which family
was wrong, which family started it and which family ought to stop it,
he used to say, "The best umpire is the one who knows just how far to
go and how far not to go." He was from Massachusetts, born near
Chappaquiddick, this old flongboo, and he lived there in a horse
chestnut tree six feet thick half way between South Hadley and
Northampton. And at night, before he lost his tail, he lighted up the
big hollow cave inside the horse chestnut tree with his yellow torch
of a tail.
After he was nominated with speeches and elected with votes to be the
chairman, he stood up on the platform and took a gavel and banged with
the gavel and made the Committee of Sixty Six come to order.
"It is no picnic to lose your tail and we are here for business," he
said, banging his gavel again.
A blue fox from Waco, Texas, with his ears full of dry bluebonnet
leaves from a hole where he lived near the Brazos river, stood up and
said, "Mr. Chairman, do I have the floor?"
"You have whatever you get away with--I get your number," said the
chairman.
"I make a motion," said the blue fox from Waco, "and I move you, Sir,
that this committee get on a train at Philadelphia and ride on the
train till it stops and then take another train and take more trains
and keep on riding till we get to Medicine Hat, near the Saskatchewan
river, in the Winnipeg wheat country where the Head Spotter of the
Weather Makers sits on a high stool in a high tower on a high hill
spotting the weather. There we will ask him if he will respectfully
let us beseech him to bring back weather that will bring back our
tails. It was the weather took away our tails; it is the weather can
bring back our tails."
"All in favor of the motion," said the chairman, "will clean their
right ears with their right paws."
And all the blue foxes and all the yellow flongboos began cleaning
their right ears with their right paws.
"All who are against the motion will clean their left ears with their
left paws," said the chairman.
And all the blue foxes and all the yellow flongboos began cleaning
their left ears with their left paws.
"The motion is carried both ways--it is a razmataz," said the
chairman. "Once again, all in favor of the motion will stand up on the
toes of their hind legs and stick their noses straight up in the air."
And all the blue foxes and all the yellow flongboos stood up on the
toes of their hind legs and stuck their noses straight up in the air.
"And now," said the chairman, "all who are against the motion will
stand on the top and the apex of their heads, stick their hind legs
straight up in the air, and make a noise like a woof woof."
And then not one of the blue foxes and not one of the yellow flongboos
stood on the top and the apex of his head nor stuck his hind legs up
in the air nor made a noise like a woof woof.
"The motion is carried and this is no picnic," said the chairman.
So the committee went to Philadelphia to get on a train to ride on.
"Would you be so kind as to tell us the way to the union depot," the
chairman asked a policeman. It was the first time a flongboo ever
spoke to a policeman on the streets of Philadelphia.
"It pays to be polite," said the policeman.
"May I ask you again if you would kindly direct us to the union depot?
We wish to ride on a train," said the flongboo.
"Polite persons and angry persons are different kinds," said the
policeman.
The flongboo's eyes changed their lights and a slow torch of fire
sprang out behind where his tail used to be. And speaking to the
policeman, he said, "Sir, I must inform you, publicly and respectfully,
that we are The Committee of Sixty Six. We are honorable and
distinguished representatives from places your honest and ignorant
geography never told you about. This committee is going to ride on the
cars to Medicine Hat near the Saskatchewan river in the Winnipeg wheat
country where the blizzards and chinooks begin. We have a special
message and a secret errand for the Head Spotter of the Weather
Makers."
"I am a polite friend of all respectable people--that is why I wear
this star to arrest people who are not respectable," said the
policeman, touching with his pointing finger the silver and nickel
star fastened with a safety pin on his blue uniform coat.
"This is the first time ever in the history of the United States that
a committee of sixty-six blue foxes and flongboos has ever visited a
city in the United States," insinuated the flongboo.
"I beg to be mistaken," finished the policeman. "The union depot is
under that clock." And he pointed to a clock near by.
"I thank you for myself, I thank you for the Committee of Sixty Six, I
thank you for the sake of all the animals in the United States who
have lost their tails," finished the chairman.