[Illustration: The MAGICAL LAND of NOOM]
[Illustration]
The MAGICAL LAND of NOOM
_by_
JOHNNY GRUELLE
_with
Sundry and Mondry
Illustrations
by the Author_
[Illustration]
_Published by_
P.F. VOLLAND COMPANY
NEW YORK BOSTON TORONTO
CHICAGO
COPYRIGHT, 1922
JOHN B. GRUELLE
(All rights reserved.)
COPYRIGHT GREAT BRITAIN, 1922
Printed in U. S. A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration]
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. Johnny and Janey Fly Away to the Moon 11
II. Johnny and Janey Meet the Strange Man 23
III. Gran’ma and Gran’pa Fly After the Children 37
IV. Enter the Magic Boxing Gloves, the Wolves and the Rubber
River 49
V. The Beautiful Girl Tells Her Strange Story 61
VI. Now We Come to the Little Old Lady and Jingles’ Magic
Whistle 71
VII. The Soft-Voiced Cow Meets the Witch and the Invisible
People 81
VIII. Tiptoe, the Dancing Master, Uses His Magic Umbrella 97
IX. Johnny and Janey Grow Very Tall and Have Some Strange
Adventures 111
X. The Tiptoe Brothers and the Slide Raft 121
XI. Again We Meet the Princess, the Palace and the Magician 131
XII. Gran’ma Tweaks Old Jingles’ Nose 142
XIII. Everybody Goes Home 153
DEDICATED TO
DOROTHY MARY
AND
J. P. JUNIOR
[Illustration]
ILLUSTRATIONS
“You just wait! I’ll catch you and pay you back!” 31
The little Faun Boy caught up with the Strange Man, butting him
with all his might 44
Gran’pa struck them right and left with his cane, but was finally
knocked down 50
“Did you open the Green Jar?” the Beautiful Girl asked 65
“It was in the year 339,700 that I talked to the Queer Horse and
the Strange Man put me in the jar” 72
The Old Woman caught the Soft-Voiced Cow’s tail and began dragging
her back 83
“I was forced to step into the Magic Umbrella” 102
The Soft-Voiced Cow jumped three feet in the air and started across
the valley, kicking her heels and mooing 112
Down, down, the Slide Raft sped, until it was going so fast that
its occupants could not talk 125
Gran’ma, Janey and Mrs. Tiptoe rode in the Magic Umbrella and the
men rode underneath 131
Catching his long nose in her hands she gave it a tweak 145
“There it is!” David shouted. “Guide the Flying Boat to the balcony
at the right of the Palace!” 154
[Illustration]
CHAPTER I
JOHNNY AND JANEY FLY AWAY TO THE MOON
Gran’pa had finished building the chicken coop and he walked out in
front of the house to speak to a neighbor.
Johnny and Janey, who had been watching Gran’pa with such interest, grew
tired of waiting for his return.
“Let’s build a Flying Machine,” Johnny said after a while. “Grand’pa has
finished and will not need the boards that are left and we can find
plenty of nails.”
“Do you think we can build a Flying Machine?” asked Janey, delighted at
the idea.
“Easily!” Johnny told her. “Of course we can’t make one that will really
fly, but we can pretend that it goes ’way up in the air.”
“It will be loads of fun!” cried Janey, and she jumped up and down and
smiled.
So Johnny got an old box and nailed four or five boards to the sides for
wings.
“It should have a sail,” Janey said.
“Yes, it needs a sail and a mast and a rudder,” replied Johnny. “Run in
and ask Gran’ma for an old sheet to make the sail of, will you, Janey?
I’ll be putting on a mast and the rudder.”
When Janey came running back with an old sheet she cried, “I just
thought! We must have something to start and stop the Flying Machine
with, so Gran’ma gave me two empty spools. We can use them.”
[Illustration]
“Just the thing!” Johnny answered. “I’ll put them at the front of the
box and label one ‘Start’ and the other ‘Stop.’”
“How can we guide the Flying Machine when we get to flying?” Janey
asked. “When we make believe we’re flying, I mean.”
“I’ve put only one nail in the rudder,” Johnny replied, “so that by
pulling on these strings we can guide it. See?” And Johnny showed his
sister how the board with only one nail in it turned from side to side
as he pulled the strings.
“Oh! That’s fine!” Janey exclaimed. “I’ll ask Gran’ma if we may have
some lunch to take with us on our trip,” she added, as she ran into the
house.
When Janey came out with a tiny basket of lunch Johnny had marked “Polly
Ann” on both sides of the box. He had fastened the sail made from the
old sheet to a stick and run a string through a screw-eye, so that the
sail could be raised or lowered whenever they might wish.
“Let’s see!” Johnny mused. “Have we everything we need?”
“Well, here are the wings, the rudder, the ‘Start’ and ‘Stop’ spools and
the sail,” Janey told him. “I think that is all, don’t you?”
“All right, then, Sis! Put the lunch on one of the sails. No!” and
Johnny hammered a nail on one side of the box, “hang the basket of lunch
there and climb in. It’s going to be a tight squeeze for both of us. But
it won’t take this Flying Machine long to get to Mars or Venus or the
Moon, and we can get out and rest on some of the Stars if we get tired.”
“Let’s go to the Moon first, and then to the Milky Way!” Janey cried.
“All right, if you are ready!” Johnny agreed, as he sat in the bottom of
the box, in front of Janey. “Hold your hat, Sis, for here she goes!”
And Johnny turned one of the spools in the front of the box.
“Oh! isn’t the view grand from up here, Johnny!” Janey cried. “See,
there is Gran’ma’s house ’way down below, and we are getting closer to
the Moon all the time!”
“Those are queer birds flying by, Sis,” said Johnny, who could make
believe any way he liked. “Can you make out what they are?”
“Yes,” Janey answered, as she looked at the chickens in the yard, “they
are Eagles. See that beautiful big one with the red comb? That’s a Roc!”
[Illustration]
“My, I wish this Flying Machine would really Fly!” Johnny said, a little
later. “But it’s fun pretending anyway. Let’s get out at the next Star,
Sis, and eat our lunch. I didn’t eat much breakfast and I’m hungry!”
“All right, Brud!” said Janey, who wasn’t tired of the play either.
“Wait a minute!” as Johnny started to climb out of the box. “You forgot
to stop the Flying Machine.”
“Well, I’ll bring it to a stop very slowly,” Johnny told her. “So that
we won’t strike these mountain tops and tip over!”
And he turned the “Stop” spool a fraction of an inch.
Neither of the children was prepared for what followed.
The Polly Ann shot up over the fence, suddenly, scattering the startled
chickens in all directions, and as Johnny and Janey crouched low in the
box the familiar objects about the farm whizzed by them like bullets.
“We are really going!” Janey gasped, as they sped upward. “I feel as if
I’d like to jump!”
At this Johnny caught his sister’s foot and held it tight.
“Don’t look over the side until you get used to flying!” he cautioned
her, very wisely.
“Twist the other spool!” Janey told him. “I don’t like to be up so high.
Everything seems so small.”
Johnny gave the other spool a twist and the Flying Machine swept ahead
at twice its former speed.
“You’re twisting the wrong spool!” Janey screamed. “You must have been
twisting the wrong one all the time, somehow. See, you’ve been twisting
the one marked ‘Start.’”
“Sure enough! That’s just what I did,” Johnny admitted. “Well, I’ll
twist the other now.”
The Flying Machine came to such a sudden halt that the children were
almost thrown from the box, and the basket of lunch was whirled off its
nail so suddenly that it flew straight ahead of the Flying Machine for
nearly a hundred feet before it curved to the earth.
The children watched it curve and circle as it fell. Then the paper came
off and there was a regular shower of sandwiches, doughnuts and small
cakes.
“Now, Mister! You be careful or we’ll never get back!” Janey cried as
she clutched her brother tightly by the collar. “Send the Flying Machine
down to the ground again, Johnny. Please do!”
But the Flying Machine, when it stopped, hung suspended in the air
although when Johnny gently twisted the “Start” spool and it started off
again, it went in the opposite direction from the earth.
“It won’t go down,” cried Johnny, as he brought the Flying Machine to a
stop again. “What shall we do?”
“Well, if it won’t go down, there’s nothing to do but go on!” Janey
answered. “It’s all your fault for building the Flying Machine!”
“Now, Sis, that isn’t fair!” cried Johnny. “You know you suggested
putting on the spools, and if we’d left them off we shouldn’t have
started. What we should have thought of was something to make the Flying
Machine go up or down as we wanted. Now it only goes ahead or stops.”
“Try guiding it with the rudder,” Janey suggested.
So Johnny twisted the “Start” spool, and as the Flying Machine started
forward he pulled one of the rudder strings. The Flying Machine slowly
turned and flew in a large circle.
“We can’t do it!” Janey cried, the tears coming to her eyes. “We can’t
make it go down as we want to! We’re only flying in a circle above
Gran’ma’s farm. See! Gran’ma and Gran’pa and a lot of other people are
out looking at us!”
Sure enough, so far below that they looked like tiny specks of dust, the
children could see their grandparents and many of the neighbors watching
them as they sailed.
Johnny brought the Flying Machine to a stop directly over Gran’ma and
Gran’pa and the neighbors, and they could hear Gran’pa calling to them
quite distinctly. The children called back at the top of their voices,
but they couldn’t make Gran’ma and Gran’pa hear.
Johnny tried twisting first one spool and then the other, but this
jerked the Flying Machine so violently that his sister objected. She
said she would rather go on than stay just where they were, doing
nothing. So the children took off their hats and waved farewell to the
people below, and Johnny, twisting the “Start” spool gently at first,
increased the speed until the Flying Machine sped along like a meteor,
leaving the farm far below and behind.
The different colors in the fields gave the Earth a sort of patchwork
effect, but as the Flying Machine climbed higher and higher the yellows
and greens and blues blended together until the Earth was more the color
of an opal. In fact, the children now saw a continuous change of colors,
ranging from a deep yellow to a bluish purple, with every now and then a
speck of crimson as the sunlight glanced along a hill.
“Isn’t it beautiful!” Janey cried. “I don’t feel as if I wished to jump
any more, do you, Brud?”
“No, I don’t feel like jumping,” her brother answered, and he stopped
the Flying Machine so that he could see better. “Look, Sis, what causes
that yellow blaze down there?”
They both looked over the side of the Flying Machine and saw the Earth
bathed in a sheen of gold, with here and there glimpses of brilliant
purple showing.
“Oh! I know what it is now!” Janey cried, presently. “A thunder storm
has just passed between us and the Earth and the sun is shining on the
Clouds. Look! See the lightning?”
A faint rumble came up to them as of someone rolling potatoes down a
wooden trough, and a vivid streak of blue zigzagged through the yellow
of the clouds.
“The purple we see is the Earth in shadow beneath the clouds,” Johnny
concluded, after a while.
The children watched the strange sight for a long time before they
decided to go on. Then they looked away for a moment, and when they
looked back toward the Earth they could not find it at once. They had
traveled so far that the Earth now seemed no larger than a bright Star,
and but for the fact that it was almost beneath them they would never
have recognized it at all.
Lots of other Stars could be plainly seen now. The Moon had grown to an
enormous size; in fact, it almost filled the sky behind them. The
children were greatly surprised to see it. They had been watching the
Stars in front of them and they had not once turned their heads the
other way.
“What is that?” Janey cried suddenly, as she grasped her brother’s arm
and pulled one of the rudder strings so that the Flying Machine swung
around to face the Moon.
[Illustration]
Johnny was so startled at the wonderful sight that he gave the “Stop”
spool a twist and brought the Flying Machine to a stop with a jerk.
“It must be the Moon!” said Johnny, in an awed voice, after he had
looked at the enormous object in speechless amazement for fully five
minutes.
“It _is_ the Moon, Brud!” Janey agreed. “See, there is the Man in the
Moon’s face as plain as day, and there are mountains and valleys, too.
See?”
The Moon, seen from where the children viewed it, was of a pale
bluish-greenish tint, except where the rays of the Sun slanted across
the mountain peaks and into the deep valleys. It seemed to Johnny and
Janey as though they were looking through beautiful blue-green glass
down into a dark well; for wherever the Sun did not shine or was not
reflected from the mountains into the valleys the Moon’s surface was
black—so black that it made the rest of the Moon seem transparent. This
seemed to the children very strange.
“Say, Sis,” Johnny exclaimed, “this can’t be the Moon after all! It must
be some extra big Star.”
[Illustration]
“I believe it is the Moon,” said his sister, “for, you can see the face
of the Man in the Moon quite plainly. But it is a great deal larger than
it usually is, and it doesn’t look quite as it does from the earth. But
see! There are the Man’s eyes and nose and mouth.”
“Yes, I see now,” Johnny admitted. “But it isn’t exactly the same view
we have from the Earth.”
“You are right, Johnny!” said Janey, after a moment. “It isn’t the same
view. We must have passed to the other side of the Moon!”
[Illustration]
Johnny started the Flying Machine again and steered it toward the Moon.
And as they whirled around the side of the Moon the part that resembled
a man’s face twisted about until it disappeared.
“I can’t tell whether we are getting closer to the Moon or not!” cried
Johnny anxiously.
Presently, however, they saw the face of the Man in the Moon coming
around from the other side.
“We must have made a complete circuit of the Moon,” Janey decided. “See,
Johnny, the rudder is pulled over to one side! That’s the reason!”
Johnny pulled the rudder string until the Flying Machine was aimed right
at the Moon, and they approached it at great speed.
“Slow up, Johnny!” Janey cried, when they could make out all the
mountain tops and valleys very distinctly. “It feels too much as if we
were falling when we go so fast.”
So Johnny twisted the “Start” spool backwards until they were flying
very slowly and seemed to be floating down toward the Moon’s surface as
lightly as a feather.
[Illustration]
The Flying Machine still was headed directly toward the Moon, and this
gave the children the impression that they were falling. But Johnny, by
pulling the rudder about occasionally, steered the Flying Machine so
that they landed among large mushrooms and queer ferns, instead of on
the mountain tops or in the deep valleys they had seen on the other side
of the Moon.
For, although the children did not know this, they had passed around the
side of the Moon that always faces the Earth and had alighted in the
Magical Land of Noom.
[Illustration]