ROUND THE YEAR 9 X ROUND THE YEAR IN PUDDING LANE tb? ^>atalj an&tngton The Boy Who Lived in Pudding Lane The Great Adventure of Mrs. Santa Claus Round the Year in Pudding Lane The Town Crier was seen coming down Pudding Lane, ringing his bell, frontispiece. See page j. ROUND THE YEAR IN PUDDING LANE BY SARAH ADDINGTON WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GERTRUDE A. KAY BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY 1924 Copyright, 192S, 1924, By Sarah Addington All rights reserved Published September, 1924 Printed in the United States of America SEP 10 *24 ©C1A800774 Mo | -2-H* CONTENTS I *2 crx^> CHAPTER I When the Snow Man Sat by the Fire . PAGE 1 II The Valentine Mistress Mary Found . 18 III How Humpty Dumpty Went to the King’s Party. 34 IV Simple Simon Has His Day 52 V Mrs. Claus Has a Great Honor . 67 VI The Poodle That Didn’t Know English . 81 VII Bo-Peep Finds Out How a Dutch Uncle Talks ....... 93 VIII The Sand Man’s Scare .... 110 IX Why Taffy the Welshman Stole Meat 124 X The Crooked Man Gets a Brand-new Repu¬ tation . 139 XI Mother Goose Settles a Difficulty 155 XII Santa Claus Hangs Up His Stocking . 187 ILLUSTRATIONS The Town Crier was seen coming down Pudding Lane, ringing his bell .... Frontispiece PAGE Everybody was happy, including Mrs. Claus who dozed by the fire.20 No Lady Wind was that. No dog either. But a bear that stood before her.43 They were dancing around a Maypole, a beautiful, flower-covered Maypole.76 On the same stagecoach from Dover came a present from the King of France to Mrs. Claus . . 81 “ Look here,” he said to the black sheep. “ You’re responsible for all this.” . . . . .105 What could Mrs. Blue do*? She could do nothing but climb the fence, skirts and all . . .111 The next morning at nine o’clock the whole town started out for Honeysuckle Hill . . .129 “ But it’s too far to walk before dark,” said Santa Claus. “ We live ’way off in Pudding Lane ” . 148 I WHEN THE SNOW MAN SAT BY THE FIRE I T had been a poor year for snow men that winter in Pudding Lane. November had brought not one single flake of snow (though I don’t see what good one flake would have done, anyway). December had been al¬ most as bad. Even at Christmas there had been only the thinnest smattering of snow, which, like bread that has only a little sugar on it, is worse than none at all. But here it was January, a gray, moisty, misty day that certainly looked and felt like nothing else in the world but snow. So that it was no wonder the children of Pudding Lane kept roll¬ ing their eyes at the world outside as they were having their lessons that morning. “ One, two, buckle my shoe,” recited Santa to Mrs. Claus. The snow would surely come any minute now. “ Three, four, shut the door.” Would it be big dry flakes or little watery ones? Little watery ones were no earthly good, of course. “ Five, six, pick up sticks —” [ 1 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE “ A, B, C, tumble-down D,” chanted Judy to the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. Was that a flake of snow she saw through a button¬ hole of the Shoe there? No, only a bit of paper drifting by. “ E, F, and a pick-him-up G,” she continued. Even Simple Simon was having a lesson. “ Thirty days hath September/ 5 he began, but poor Simon never got any farther than that in the rhyme, for he never could remember that April came next. April ought not to follow right after September, even in a poem, he thought. So they went on, every one of them, for Old King Cole had given emphatic orders that les¬ sons were to be held at any cost, every single morning, in every single home in Pudding Lane. And then, right in the middle of everything, it began to come, the snow that all the children had been waiting for all the winter long. Jill saw it first, for Jill was the kind of girl that could see several things at once, so that, al¬ though it looked very much as if Jill had her eyes nailed down tight to her spelling book, she really was looking through the window out of the tail of her eye. Some people are like that, especially girls. But Jill saw the snow only half a second be- [ 2 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE fore the other children saw it. For the next thing the mothers of Pudding Lane knew, their pupils were all running to the windows and jumping up and down and shrieking with de¬ light. It began to look as if school were over for the day, willy-nilly, as Mrs. Claus said. She, for one, couldn’t manage five boys during the first snowstorm of the year. Well, sure enough, school was over for the day, for the next minute the Town Crier was seen coming down Pudding Lane, ringing his bell and shouting, “ The King says let the chil¬ dren out; the King says let the children out, the first snow of the year!” Seriously, now, was there ever such a good king as that merry Old Soul? Or such a wise one? Not many kings would understand that a snowstorm is more im¬ portant than lessons. You should have seen the Snow Man those children made! Such a fine figure of manhood as he was, with sturdy, stout legs and a pipe in his mouth (the candlestick maker wondered where in the world his pipe had disappeared-to!) and a snub nose such as snow men always, al¬ ways have. Why is it, do you suppose, that snow men never have handsome Roman noses like Mother Goose’s, or tip-tilted ones like Jill’s, [3] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE or long lean noses like the candlestick maker’s? Merely a family trait, I suppose. In fact, if I ever met a snow man with a long nose, I’d rather suspect him of not belonging to the real snow family, wouldn’t you? But this one was a true descendant of the inner circle of snow men. Little Boy Blue stuck on his ears. Jack and Jill made his arms — long arms they were, that fell from his shoulders in a most realistic manner. Simple Simon put Mr. Claus’s green carpet slippers at the bottom of the Snow Man’s legs. (And you should have seen Mr. Claus running around the house in his bare feet that night, poor man.) Simple Simon got the right shoe on the left leg, and the left shoe on the right leg, but that only made the Snow Man look funnier than ever, and Simon was indeed proud that he had done his job so cleverly. Yes, every child in Pudding Lane had a hand in that Snow Man, except Polly Flin¬ ders. And Polly, of course, would not come out. Not that she was not invited. Santa Claus, who was the most polite boy in Pudding Lane, made a special trip to the Flinderses’ to get her, for it was thought that Polly, being a newcomer to the village, might feel a little shy. But al- [4] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE though Polly liked Santa Claus very much and was really most anxious to play with the other children, and most anxious, too, to get ac¬ quainted with the Snow Man, still, on account of her toes, Polly had to refuse Santa’s invita¬ tion. So Santa ran back to his little friends and Polly, after waving them good-by, returned to her cinders. She did not stay by the fire long, however, for the shouts and laughter of the children rang out like chimes through Pudding Lane that day, and she could not keep herself from going to the window to watch them. For the truth about Polly Flinders was that, though she did choose to stay close by her fire rather than to play out¬ doors with the children, she really was a very lonely little girl. She got tired of herself and she got tired of her dolls and books. She even got tired of her cinders. So Polly really was not very happy by her fireside, after all. It was too bad about her toes, really. When the children saw Polly at the window on this day, they waved and laughed and beck¬ oned her to come out. Polly waved back and smiled, too, but still she could not bear the thought of the cold, so she shook her head sadly and presently they forgot all about her as they m WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE went on playing. And finally the lonely little Polly went back to the fire again. It was dark and cold when the children of Pudding Lane at last left their Snow Man and went home. They had fought snow battles and built snow houses and dug snow tunnels. They had plowed up the fields of snow until it looked like some winter planting time. But the day closed at last and they had to go home to sup¬ per and to bed. Only Polly Flinders, as night came on, re¬ membered the poor Snow Man who was left there in the ruins alone on the cold winter night. She could hardly eat her supper for thinking about him, and she shivered closer to the fire, as she considered how cold it must be out there for the Snow Man, who himself was not a very warm fellow to begin with. So Polly thought about him all evening, and still she could not forget him when it came time for bed and her mother came in to take her up¬ stairs. Polly begged to stay up longer. “ But it’s very late,” objected her mother In the end, however, she went off to bed with¬ out Polly, shaking her head and saying to Mr. Flinders that she never did see such a girl for the cinders. [ 6 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE As Polly sat by the fire, she kept thinking of the Snow Man and kept on feeling so sorry for him that she even cried a little to herself, as the clock ticked and the cinders clinked in the grate. She went to the window to look out at him. There he stood in the cold light of a frosty moon, alone, neglected, freezing. Oh, dear, how unhappy he looked. He wasn’t funny any more, but pitiable and pathetic, like any other outcast. Polly stood by the window a long time, watching him tearfully. Then through her tears, she saw, or thought she saw, the Snow Man move. He seemed to raise his arms to her in a gesture of pleading. The Snow Man was mo¬ tioning to her to come to him! The Snow Man wanted her help! Quick as a flash Polly turned from the win¬ dow and rushed to the door. Quick as a wink she had flung the door open and was running down the path to Pudding Lane and across the lane to the Snow Man. She quite forgot her toes, did Polly. She forgot the cold and the snow. She forgot everything except that the poor Snow Man needed somebody to help him and that she was the somebody. When she got to the Snow Man, she spoke to him breathlessly. [ 7 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE “ Eve come to take you in to the fire,” she told him. “ I know how wretched it is to be cold and lonely. I suffer from the cold myself, Mr. Snow Man, and I’m rather lonely too.” The Snow Man did not reply, but stood there immovable, his long arms hanging listlessly, his pipe askew, his hat set rakishly on one ear. Polly surveyed him and spoke again. “Can you walk?” she asked him. He was still silent. Polly touched him softly. He was hard and as solid as rock. She never would be able to budge him. She put her arms around him. Ooooh, how cold he was! She really must hurry and get him in to the fire, or he would be frozen past all help. What should she do? He was freezing, freez¬ ing! She must not leave him there another min¬ ute. But he was too big to carry and too stiff to walk. Polly looked around desperately. There was only that icy moon above and the fields of snow about her and the still cold of night. No help was in sight. Not a candle shone out from a single window. Not a soul was awake in that respectable little village. Alas, Polly began to think that her visit to the Snow Man was all in vain, that she could not rescue him, after all. [ 8 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE And then, just as she was despairing of her mission, she spied Jack Horner’s little red sled near one of the snow forts. It was the very thing! She would take the Snow Man home on that sled. She would take him to her own fire and there warm him until he was quite com¬ fortable. Hastily she began to drag the sled over to the Snow Man. Quickly she commenced the delicate operation of putting the Snow Man on the sled. And it was a delicate operation, indeed. For the Snow Man’s joints, if he ever had any, were as stiff as sticks, and the Snow Man’s muscles, if he had muscles, were as use¬ less as a doll’s. He was very heavy and hard to move, as Polly put her arms around him and tried it. Moreover, the Snow Man, although so frozen and hard, had a tendency to break at places. Polly was very, very careful as she tugged and pulled at him, but there! his left arm snapped off clear up to the shoulder, and — oh, dear, there went his right thumb, plunged into the snow at his feet. “ Excuse me, excuse me,” whispered Polly to the Snow Man in distress. “ I didn’t mean to, really.” But it did not seem to hurt the Snow Man [ 9 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE very much to lose an arm and a thumb, for he did not bat an eyelash, though maybe that was because he didn’t have an eyelash to bat. At last Polly had him on the sled, lying on his back, feet foremost, pipe in the air. Only the green carpet slippers were left behind in the snow, for somehow they wouldn’t stick. At last, after much hard pulling, Polly had the sled with the Snow Man right in front of her very door. And at last, after more tugging and working, she had him standing upright in front of her own warm cinders, which she now poked up into a fine bright blaze again. Then she smiled radi¬ antly at the Snow Man. “ Now you’ll be all right,” she assured him. “ You’ll get all warm and happy again, Mr. Snow Man.” But, my goodness, was the Snow Man crying? It certainly looked like it. Those were surely drops of water on his face. It looked, too, as if he needed a handkerchief. Polly hastily got out hers and applied it to the Snow Man’s nose. “ You ought to learn to use your handker¬ chief yourself,” she told him rather severely. “ I learned to use mine when I was a very little girl. But don’t cry. Oh, don’t cry so hard! ” By this time the tears were streaming down [ 10 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE the Snow Man’s face like rain. In fact, he hardly had a face any more; the snub nose had vanished almost completely; his eyes had cried themselves out; his ears were just little nubs now and were fast becoming even smaller nubs. More than that, the Snow Man’s arms and shoulders seemed to be raining tears too, and from his feet and body ran rivers of water. Oh, dear, how frightened Polly was! “Please don’t cry all over like that!” she begged him. “ Oh, please don’t! ” But the water continued to flow from every pore of the Snow Man’s body. “ Perhaps,” thought Polly, “ it’s just perspira¬ tion. But if it is, it’s a pretty bad case of it.” Whatever the malady, it was fast reducing the unfortunate Snow Man into a mere pillar of slush and streaming water. His pipe fell away from his face and dropped to the floor with a dismal sound. His poor old hat fell off too. His legs were rapidly giving way. And as Polly watched the Snow Man approaching his sad end, she cried heart-brokenly. Such a beautiful Snow Man as he had been! How she had worked to help him out of his difficulty! And now he was going, going, going. He would soon be gone. He was gone. She looked at the floor where a [ 11 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE pond of water lay, an old black pipe floating desolately around in it. It was the saddest sight that Polly had ever seen. She cried until her mother, hearing her from upstairs, came down to her. “ Why,” began Mrs. Flinders, “ what in the world —” Polly sobbed. “What was it?” her mother asked again. Polly choked as she tried to answer. “ The Snow Man —” she began, then sobbed aloud again. Then Mrs. Flinders, seeing the water, under¬ stood. “ Oh, that’s too bad,” she said sympathet¬ ically. Then, “ But didn’t you know he would melt?” she asked. It seemed unbelievable that a child of hers would make such a foolish mistake. “ I forgot,” confessed Polly. “ It was silly of me, but I honestly forgot. I was so anx¬ ious —” “Well,” said Mrs. Flinders, “it’s too bad. But come, let us mop up the Snow Man before he spreads all over the house.” So Mrs. Flinders in her nightcap and Polly, sniffling loudly, mopped up the Snow Man, who [ 12 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE an hour before had been a beautiful creature and was now mere dirty water. Polly was in¬ deed very sad about the whole affair, and more than that she was ashamed, for she realized now how silly she had been and she dreaded what the children of Pudding Lane would say the next day. But to Polly’s everlasting surprise, the chil¬ dren of Pudding Lane, instead of being angry with her, instead of laughing at her, were most sympathetic, when she told them what she had done. “ I think it was very nice of you to want to be kind to the poor Snow Man,” said Jill. “ And of course you forgot he was made of snow,” put in Miss Muffett. “ For he was such a friendly fellow.” At this Polly began to sniffle. “ There, there! ” Jumbo patted her shoulder. (You remember Jumbo, don’t you, the oldest son of the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe?) “ We’ll build another Snow Man,” he said. “ And we’ll wrap this Snow Man up in a blanket to-night so he won’t get cold.” So the children began to build another Snow Man, and even Polly, whose toes were warmly done up in leggings and overshoes, stayed out [ 13 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE to help them. For Polly felt responsible for the damage she had done, and she felt grateful, too, to the children for their kindly attitude toward her silly mistake. And so, although it was bit¬ ter cold, and she did mind it terribly, she worked on and on until finally the Snow Man was fin¬ ished. But oh, how miserable she was, and how glad she was when the Snow Man stood there complete, and she was free to return to her cin¬ ders. Yet, as she started to say good-by, her heart sank a little. She would be lonely again when she went back into the house by herself. If her toes only did not trouble her so much! The children were astonished when she told them she was going indoors. “ Why, Polly, we thought you liked us now , 55 cried Judy. “ We thought you were having a good time with us , 55 said Tom, Tom, the piper’s son. Poor Polly shook her head. “ I do like you , 55 she protested. It was dreadful to have such toes as she had, but she couldn’t help it. “ But you don’t like to play out here with us,” said Little Boy Blue. “ No,” confessed Polly in a small ashamed voice. “ You can’t enjoy things when your toes ache, can you? ” [ 14 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE “ I suppose not / 5 Boy Blue answered politely, though his toes never had ached. But Jumbo went up to Polly and took her arm. “ Then I think it was very brave of you to go out to get the Snow Man last night/’ he said. “ And it was brave of you to stay out here to¬ day and help us make a new one, when your toes ached all the time.” He expected the rest of the children to say, “ Yes, indeed, it was,” but somehow they did not say it, nor did they say anything, not being used to pretty speeches. But they thought it, anyway, and they looked it, every one of them smiling at Polly in the friendliest fashion pos¬ sible, so that Polly was a little bit comforted. Her real comfort, however, came later from Jumbo, as he sat before her cherished cinders with her. He looked at her pretty little toes, which were shiny patent leather with silver buckles, and smiled. “ Judy has big square brown shoes,” he said. “ And Jill has copper toes on her boots.” Polly looked at him gratefully. “And I rather like the cinders myself,” he went on. “ Do you see that little dwarf in there with the hood over his head? ” [ 1 5 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE Polly looked deep into the fire. “ Oh, yes,” she said. “ Isn’t he funny? And do you see that princess with the long flames of hair? ” “ Red hair,” Jumbo grinned. He looked at Polly’s fair curls. “ I like yellow better my¬ self.” Polly sighed. Perhaps she wasn’t quite hope¬ less, after all, in spite of her terrible affliction. Then a coal fell in the grate with a soft cluck of a noise. “Oh!” she exclaimed excitedly. “The dwarf got thumped. Who did it, did you see ? ” “ I didn’t see a thing,” replied Jumbo, “ so it must have been a fairy. And there, the Prin¬ cess is disappearing.” “ Going home to the Prince, I guess,” mur¬ mured Polly contentedly. “Yes.” Jumbo nodded. “Wow! But that fairy came just in time. In another minute the dwarf would have had her.” And that was the way that Polly Flinders had her one and only experience with a Snow Man, a rather unhappy experience it was too. That was the way the children of Pudding Lane found out what a courageous girl Polly was. And that was the way Jumbo became Polly’s daily play- [ 16 ] WHEN SNOW MAN SAT BY FIRE mate, so that she was never lonely by her cin¬ ders any more, but was both happy and warm thereafter. For Jumbo liked the fire, too, espe¬ cially when he and Polly sat before it spinning fairy tales, as they did on that first day. [ 17 ] II THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND I T was past eight o’clock on that St. Valen¬ tine’s Eve, and yet from every window in Pudding Lane shone forth the yellow light of a candle, a phenomenon which made all the clocks in the town wonder whether they hadn’t skipped an hour somewhere or other. For every timepiece in the village, from Mrs. Flinders’ fine old grandfather’s clock to Mrs. Dumpty’s pert little cuckoo, had good reason to know that one of old King Cole’s strictest rules was, “ Early to Bed and Early to Rise and yet here it was eight o’clock and nobody abed yet. Queer, thought the cuckoo, as he stepped smartly out of his box and cuckoo’ed eight times with a sig¬ nificant look at Humpty Dumpty. Odd, thought the grandfather’s clock, as he rumbled his eight strokes in Polly Flinders’ ear. Silly clocks, they had forgotten what night it was, or they never would have been so mysti¬ fied. For we know what was going on that [ 18 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND night in Pudding Lane, don’t we? We do it ourselves on St. Valentine’s Eve. So we can just see Boy Blue addressing an envelope to Judy, The Shoe, Pudding Lane, and another to Bessie, The Candlestick-Maker’s, Pudding Lane. And we can see Jill writing a verse to Jack: “Jack, Jack, the funny fellow, Got bruised black and got bruised yellow, When he came tumbling down the hill, With his loving friend, whose name is Jill.” Yes, they were all making Valentines that night. The children of the Old Woman had the Shoe cluttered up with paper and ribbon and paints. Simple Simon was busy copying a verse for Mistress Mary. It was hardly a deli¬ cate sentiment, reading as it did: “ Hum, hum, Harry, If I weren’t engaged, I should never marry.” But it was the only poem Simple Simon knew. Besides, it is doubtful whether Mistress Mary would be able to read it, anyway, for Simple Simon’s handwriting, as you know, was highly individual. [ 19 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND At the Clauses’, Santa and the two batches of twins were busy making Valentines. Santa was good at cutting and pasting, and Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were good at getting in his way and cluttering things up, so everybody was happy, including Mrs. Claus, who dozed by the fire, Mr. Claus, who was reading the Banbury Cross Weekly over his spectacles, and Misery, the cat, who sat solemnly watching them all. Indeed, everybody in Pudding Lane was busy making Valentines, except — guess who — Cross-Patch. You know Cross-Patch, that un¬ pleasant old woman who lived down at the end of Pudding Lane. Of course, Cross-Patch was not making Valentines. She didn’t believe in such foolishness! Yet somebody was making a Valentine for her, and that person was — you’ll never believe it, but it’s true — the candlestick-maker. Now although you have known the candlestick-maker quite intimately, would you ever have guessed that he Nursed a Secret Passion for Cross- Patch? Of course you wouldn’t. But that’s the sort of thing that comes out on St. Valen¬ tine’s Day. He may seem like a queer kind of lover, the toothless, bent-over old man, yet he was an earnest one, nevertheless, and he cackled [ 20 ] Everybody was happy , including Mrs. Claus who dozed by the fire. Page 20. THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND gleefully as he pasted a yellow paper rose on a pink paper heart and wrote: u Needles and pins, needles and pins, When a man marries his trouble begins.” When he tried to say this verse, the candle- stick-maker always said, “ Peedles and nins, pee- dles and nins ”, but it seemed to go all right with a pencil. However, it did not sound very lov¬ ing, he thought, after he had written it, so he added a little verse like this: “ P.S. But when a man’s married His wife is his own, And when a man’s single He’s living alone.” It may not seem very clear to us, but the can¬ dlestick-maker was charmed with it, and said to himself he could be a poet as well as anybody else if he’d just take the time to it. And then, with one last delighted cackle, he called Jack, his nephew, and bade him be nimble and be quick about delivering that Valentine to Cross- Patch. Jack hastily jumped over the candle¬ stick as directed and ran down Pudding Lane with the pink paper heart in his hand. [ 21 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND Jack had gone but a few steps when he heard a little squeaking noise which sounded like — well, it sounded to Jack like a mouse with a cold in its nose. He stopped to listen. Yes, there it was, a choked little squeak of a noise. Then, to Jack’s surprise, up started somebody from be¬ hind the winter hedge near by. It was Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary, and it was she who was making the noise. Mistress Mary was cry¬ ing. Of course, she pretended she wasn’t. When she saw Jack, she giggled in a silly little desper¬ ate way to cover up her sobs, the way girls often do when they’re caught in tears. “ Hello,” said Jack. He was glad she had stopped crying. “ Hello,” said Mistress Mary gayly, quite as if she had never shed a tear in her life. “ Where are you going? ” “ Taking a Valentine,” began Jack, when Mistress Mary unexpectedly began to cry again in that little squealing way. Jack, much dis¬ turbed, asked Mistress Mary what was the mat¬ ter. Whereupon, the poor girl, still weeping, explained the cause of her woe. She was crying, she said, because she had no Valentine for Santa Claus, of whom she was so very fond. [ 22 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND “ But why haven’t you a Valentine? ” asked Jack. “Just because I was so contrary, I guess,” admitted Mistress Mary. “ My mother told me to get one ready, but I didn’t want to then — and now it’s too late. Oh, dear, it’s often very uncomfortable to be contrary, Jack.” “ It must be,” thought Jack to himself. But to Mistress Mary he said, “ Well, what are you going to do about it? ” “ I don’t know,” answered Mistress Mary mournfully. “ I’m afraid there’s nothing to do now. And, oh, Santa Claus will think I don’t love him. And I love him better than anybody else in Pudding Lane.” “ Why don’t you send Santa Claus a flower from your garden, Mistress Mary?” Jack sug¬ gested. “ Flowers make fine Valentines, you know.” Mistress Mary shook her head sorrowfully. “ Alas,” she said, “ my crocuses are contrary, too, Jack. They ought to be out now, but some¬ how they just won’t bloom.” “I see,” said Jack gravely. Truly this was pretty bad, he thought to himself, that a girl should set such an unhappy example to the very flowers in her garden. [ 23 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND Then he thought of Mother Goose, who al¬ ways knew how to get people out of trouble. “ Let’s ask Mother Goose what to do,” he said to Mistress Mary. “ But Mother Goose is not here.” “ Yes, she is,” Jack told her. “ She’s spend¬ ing the week-end with old King Cole. Let’s run right up to the palace and ask her.” “Oh!” cried Mistress Mary, “that’s the very thing.” For once in her life the contrary girl agreed with somebody, so the two children ran off hand in hand toward the palace of Old King Cole. Mistress Mary was not the only person in Pudding Lane that night who was in trouble. Meanwhile, something had happened at the Clauses’. It happened so quickly too. The chil¬ dren had all gone to bed and Santa Claus and his mother were sitting up addressing the last of the Valentines and Misery was watching them. Then the next minute, while they were still bus¬ ily scratching away with their pens, Misery wasn't watching them. “Where’s that cat?” asked Mrs. Claus, as she looked up. She always called Misery “ that cat ” and she always pretended that she did not like him a bit, yet it was Mrs. Claus who had [ 24 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND given Misery so much cream when he was a kit¬ ten that it made him fearfully sick, and it was Mrs. Claus who now had to be watched lest she give him more meat and gravy than was good for his digestion. So now she said, “ Where’s that cat? ” in a tone of great asperity, and she frowned blackly at the place by the stove where Misery had been but a moment before. “ Perhaps he’s gone to bed,” said Santa Claus, as he carefully drew a great flourish under Humpty-Dumpty’s name. Mrs. Claus got up and went over to the box where Misery slept. “ Not here,” she reported, after rummaging around in it. “ Where is that cat? ” She looked under the stove and in her work- basket and behind the baby’s cradle. No Mis¬ ery! She went into Mr. Claus’s bedroom and looked in the drawer where he kept his best blue shirt. No Misery! She finally went out into the woodshed and prowled around there in the dark, calling for Misery. No green eyes ap¬ peared. No purring black shape came to rub against her feet. By this time Mrs. Claus was really alarmed. She flew back to the kitchen and Santa. [ 25 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND “ He’s gone! ” she told her little boy. “ Misery? 55 Santa asked, staring. “ Misery himself,” answered Mrs. Claus. Santa jumped to his feet and ran around the room, calling the cat. He ran all over the whole house, looking for Misery. No cat was to be found, but the twins and Mr. Claus and even the baby woke up at his racket, and they set up a horrible din at the news of Misery’s departure. The four boys howled with grief; the baby screamed to keep them company; Mr. Claus kept shouting, “ Great snakes, great snakes, great snakes,” and, oh, dear, such a time as there was in the Claus household at that late hour on St. Valentine’s Eve. Of course, the Clauses kept right on looking for the cat. Mr. Claus, good soul, even went outdoors in his bare feet (he never had got his green slippers back since the time of the first Snow Man that year). He went out into the yard, calling the cat so loudly that if the crea¬ ture had been within ear-shot, he would have been frightened away by the noise. He went into the shop with a candle and poked around in the shelves and drawers there. (They had found Misery sleeping sweetly there in a nest of buns one time.) But although they all hunted [ 26 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND high and low for that cat, it soon became appar¬ ent that Misery was not to be found. It was a sad and sober company that gathered around the kitchen stove when the search had been abandoned. “ He’s gone,” spoke Mr. Claus in a hollow tone. Mr. Claus looked rather peculiar in his nightcap and overcoat and bare feet, but nobody noticed that. The twins howled again. Santa Claus blinked. Mrs. Claus was seen to rub her eyes impatiently. “ I knew that cat would get us into some kind of a bother,” she said. “ And the mice,” said Mr. Claus. “ I’m afraid that when the cat’s away, the mice will play.” “ Of course they will,” spoke up Mrs. Claus sharply. “ Anybody knows that.” Then Mrs. Claus looked at the clock and jumped energet¬ ically out of her chair. “ Mercy on us, Mr. Claus,” she exclaimed. “ Here it is after nine! What can we be think¬ ing of to let the children stay up like this? ” With which she gathered her six children up and packed them all off to bed. But if you think Santa Claus could go to sleep [ 27 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND that night, well, you just never were the owner of a runaway cat. For Santa could think of nothing but Misery as he lay in bed. He could see nothing but Misery’s beautiful green eyes and swaying tail. He could hear nothing but Misery’s purr, “ the bee buzzing inside him,” as he called it. The Valentines were forgotten, all the fun of the next day was forgotten, as Santa mourned his lost Misery that night. But presently he heard a slight noise outside the house. It sounded as if it were right there by his window. He thought he heard a whisper, then a tiptoe, then a little hushed-up laugh. For a moment, he was afraid. It might be Taffy, for Taffy was a Welshman, Taffy was a thief, and came around at night quite often to steal a round of beef. Then he jeered at himself for being a scaredy-cat and climbed bravely out of bed. He looked out of the window and saw there—what do you think? Four hands, two green eyes, and a curly head. It was Jack and Mistress Mary with Misery in their hands! “Hey!” screamed Santa Claus excitedly. Mistress Mary laughed and Jack called out softly “Hello!” “Hey!” screamed Santa Claus again. He reached out his hands and took Misery in them. [ 28 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND Oh, how nice and warm Misery felt to him. And was the bee buzzing inside him? Santa Claus put his ear down to the silky black body. Yes, there it was. Misery was happy too, glad to get home again. Then the rest of the Clauses came rushing in. A boy can’t shout “ Hey! ” in the middle of the night, as Santa Claus had done, without waking folks up, you know. When they saw the cat, they cried out too. And when they looked out of the window and saw Mistress Mary and Jack standing there laughing, they cried out again. At least, Mrs. Claus did. “Good gracious!” she exclaimed. “Where did you children come from? ” “ From old King Cole’s palace,” they told her. “ And what are you doing here? ” she asked them. “ We brought Misery back,” they explained. “ Name of goodness,” was all Mrs. Claus could say. Then Jack and Mistress Mary went around to the front door, came into the parlor, and the Clauses all gathered around them to hear the story of the discovery. “ Well, there isn’t much of a story,” said Mis¬ tress Mary. “ Jack and I just went up to the [ 29 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND palace to see Mother Goose a minute. We wanted to ask her — something/" She looked warningly at Jack. “ And when we got there, we found them having a party in the throne room. The King and Mother Goose were danc¬ ing a polka, the fiddlers three were playing their fiddles, and the Queen of Hearts, well, the Queen was asleep, but her ladies in waiting weren’t, for they were playing games with the King’s Men — oh, it was quite a party! ” “ It must have been,” said Mrs. Claus. She wondered how often the King indulged in such goings-on while his people were asleep in their beds. “ But the cat,” prompted Santa. “ Where did you find the cat? ” “ Why, right there,” said Mistress Mary. “ Right there.” “ In the King’s palace?” asked Mrs. Claus incredulously. “ Our Misery up at King Cole’s?” “ Yes,” responded Mistress Mary. “ Why, a cat may look at a King, Mrs. Claus,” the baker reminded her. But Mrs. Claus was flabbergasted. “ Little did I ever think that our cat would go amongst royalty,” she said. [ 30 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND “ Well, he did, anyway,” said Mistress Mary. “ And he was having a lovely time too. I never heard of a cat doing that before, running away to the king’s, but that’s where your cat was, just the same, for we found him right there, didn’t we, Jack? ” “ We did that,” said Jack. “ Well,” said Mrs. Claus, “ I suppose it was too dull for him here, Santa Claus, with just you and me here in the kitchen. Misery loves company, you know.” Then she got up and went to the door. “ I don’t wish to seem unmannerly,” said Mrs. Claus, “ but I know you two children ought to be home and asleep. Does your mother know where you are, Mistress Mary? ” “ We stopped and told her on the way,” re¬ plied Mistress Mary, “ but we ought to go now, I know.” Then Mistress Mary went over to Santa. “ I meant to give you a Valentine, Santa Claus,” she said. “ I did mean to, but here it is St. Valentine’s Eve and I haven’t any for you, after all. I was contrary about it —” “ Why, Mistress Mary,” exclaimed Santa Claus, “ you brought Misery back to me. And Misery’s the very best Valentine I could pos¬ sibly have.” [ 31 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND Mistress Mary, happy as could be at this, beamed at Santa Claus. Mother Goose had told her that same thing — that if she took Misery back to his master, it would be the best Valen¬ tine he could have. And now Santa Claus had said so himself, and everything was all right. She went home overjoyed, and as Jack walked beside her, he thought what a nice girl Mis¬ tress Mary was when she forgot to be con¬ trary. It was not until Jack got clear inside the can¬ dlestick-shop that he remembered the Valentine his uncle had given him to take to Cross-Patch. Then what a sinking feeling he had in his heart. What would the old candlestick-maker say? How could he have forgotten to deliver thetVal- entine when it was the very thing he had been sent out for? Poor Jack, usually so nimble, so quick, so obedient, could have thrashed himself for his forgetfulness. He turned around to the door. Perhaps he could go back now and slip the Valentine under Cross-Patch’s door. But the candlestick-maker, who had looked as if he were dozing there on the bench, opened his eyes and spoke to Jack. “ Did ye leave her the Valentine? ” he asked. Jack grew red and began to stammer. [ 32 ] THE VALENTINE MISTRESS MARY FOUND “ Fm going — Fm going back — now —” he said. “Then ye didn’t leave it?” asked the old man. Oh, dear, how Jack hated to admit his dis¬ obedience. The old candlestick-maker was really such a good uncle to him, and now he had just gone off and forgotten to do his errand. But he had to answer, for the old man had his little eyes pinned on him. “ No, sir,” he said hesitatingly. “ No, sir, I forgot it, somehow. But Fll go back now.” The old man closed his eyes again for another doze. “ Never ye mind,” he said. “ It’s just as well. Don’t believe me and that old woman would get along very well, anyway.” [ 33 ] Ill HOW HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO THE KING’S PARTY I T was the fourteenth of March and there was a great stir and bustle in Pudding Lane. The ladies, in curl papers, were washing and ironing and mending like women possessed; the men hustled about their work at topmost speed; even the children had no time for play, but were busy running errands, taking baths, helping their mothers, fast and furiously. And what was the reason for all this industry*? Why, the day of the month was the reason. But perhaps you don’t know what the fourteenth of March stands for; I have met children who didn’t. The fourteenth of March is Old King Cole’s birthday, and on this particular day the merry old soul was going to have a party in the palace, to which he had invited every single per¬ son in Pudding Lane. “ I declare,” said Mrs. Claus suddenly, as she rushed about her tiny house with even more en- [ 34 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY ergy than ever, “ I declare, I forgot all about Humpty Dumpty ! 55 She looked up at the baker, who was baking — well, it’s a secret what Mr. Claus was baking, and a surprise, so I think I’d better not tell even you what it was. “ Well,” went on Mrs. Claus, “ I am be-twittered, or I never should have for¬ gotten Humpty Dumpty, Mr. Claus.” “ Of course you wouldn’t,” agreed Mr. Claus, adding an extra flourish to the — well, to it . Mrs. Claus ran to the door. “ Santa,” she called, “ run right down to the Dumpties’ and see who’s going to sit up with Humpty to-night. I clean forgot about him. Tell Mrs. Dumpty I’ll sit myself, if nobody else has offered.” Mr. Claus looked up in alarm. “ You’d never miss the birthday party to sit up with Humpty Dumpty, would you?” he asked. “ I would if there was nobody else to sit up with him,” replied his wife stoutly, though in her heart she did hope she would not have to miss the King’s birthday party, for she had made herself a fine new yellow waist, had Mrs. Claus, and she was expecting to make quite a sensation in it. [ 35 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY “ Dear me,” said Mr. Claus, “ I don’t want to go to the party alone with five children, Mrs. Claus.” “ Well, you may have to,” was his wife’s com¬ forting reply. “ Poor Humpty Dumpty! He’s a public charge, Mr. Claus, what with having no father, and I’m not the one to neglect him, I’m really not.” Mrs. Claus, for all her tart speech, was a good soul, wasn’t she? It’s not hard to see where Santa Claus got his kind heart. But when Santa came back from the Dump- ties’, it was to report that Jack and Jill, who lived in the Dumpty block, had offered to stay with the invalid while Mrs. Dumpty disported herself with royalty for one evening. Jack, who still had his crown bandaged up, and Jill, who wore a patch on her cheek even now, had pain¬ ful memories of their own tumble, you see, and so naturally felt most sympathetic toward poor Humpty in his misfortune. “ Why, bless their little hearts,” said Mrs. Claus, “aren’t they good children? I never would have thought it of that tomboy Jill, to be frank with you.” After which display of candor, Mrs. Claus went on with her ironing and mending, to the [ 36 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY end that the Clauses should make a respectable appearance before Old King Cole and the Queen of Hearts. But even if Mrs. Dumpty were going to the party, her heart felt heavy about it, poor soul. For there sat her Humpty, confined to his chair, the most dejected of boys. And who wouldn’t have been dejected under those circumstances'? This was the first time that Old King Cole had ever celebrated his birthday with the humble people of Pudding Lane. Once the King of France had come for that great occasion, and Mother Goose was often invited to share his birthday cake, but until to-day the people of Pudding Lane had never been invited for the festivity. And such an occasion as this was going to be too! There was to be a supper two hours long; there was to be music from London; there was to be a Punch-and-Judy show; but wonder of all wonders, there was to be a trained bear! All this, not to mention the surprise that Mr. Claus was baking. Oh, dear, Humpty Dumpty did wish he could walk up the hill to the palace. If he just could! Or if somebody could carry him. But, alas, it was impossible. Humpty was too heavy, the hill was too steep. So that all the [ 37 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY poor boy could do was to sit in his chair and think, think, think and wish, wish, wish. Mrs. Dumpty came in when she was dressed and looked at him anxiously. “ You know Jack and Jill are only going to stay until you fall asleep, 5 ’ she told him. “ It wouldn’t be right to ask them to miss all of the party.” “ Oh, no,” replied Humpty, but he could not, for the life of him, look as cheerful as he wanted to. “ Poor boy,” said Mrs. Dumpty. Then she added with sudden conviction, “ I’m not going at all. I’m not going. I shall stay right here with you.” But Humpty protested so vigorously that Mrs. Dumpty finally yielded to his entreaties. It would be disrespectful to the King to stay home, she admitted, though she certainly didn’t feel very partyfied, she added. Then she asked Humpty if he liked her beads, and Humpty told her he liked them very much, though what that boy knew about beads was very little, I suspect. “ I always did like a red bead,” said Mrs. Dumpty. “ Good-by, darling Humpty. I’ll bring you a piece of birthday cake, whether or no.” [ 38 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY I don’t believe Pudding Lane ever saw any¬ thing half so grand as that party at Old King Cole’s palace. There were flowers and music, fruits and confections, jewelry and satins, all mixed up, until it made your head swim. The King and Queen stood up to receive their guests in the most cordial manner possible. It was true that the Queen of Hearts could think of nothing else to say but “ And how are you this evening?” and then didn’t listen as the good, honest people of Pudding Lane started to tell her in great detail just exactly how they were that evening. It is equally true that Old King Cole laughed immoderately, no matter what anybody said, and that he even laughed at Mrs. Dumpty when she tearfully offered Humpty’s regrets,— behavior that made that devoted mother highly indignant. But that was just Old King Cole’s way of being pleasant; and it was certainly much better than folding your arms and frowning prodigiously, as the butcher did; or pulling a long, melancholy face, like the baker; or bowing and jerking forward inces¬ santly, as the candlestick-maker seemed to think it necessary to do. There are all kinds of ways of being polite, but it does seem as if the butcher [ 39 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY and the baker and the candlestick-maker might have selected more winning methods. “ Dear me, Mr. Claus/’ said Mrs. Grundy, coming up to him as he stood between his neigh¬ bors, the picture of dismal woe, “ is it such a sad occasion as that? ” Mr. Claus jumped and looked at her even more solemnly than ever, and the butcher glared ferociously at her, and the candlestick-maker, bowing low, bumped the good lady’s fan out of her hand. “ Mercy on us!” ejaculated Mrs. Grundy. “ Somebody rescue me from these creatures.” Whereupon up came Jack Spratt to offer her his arm. “ There’s lean meat on the banquet table,” he whispered. “ Come, let’s have some of it.” So Mrs. Grundy disappeared on the arm of the accomplished Jack Spratt as Mr. Claus watched them enviously. “ I wonder how he does it,” thought the baker to himself. Poor Mr. Claus, he was but a hum¬ ble fellow, more at home with his pies and cakes than in such brilliant company as this. Mrs. Claus, however, was no dullard in so¬ ciety, for she could speak her mind to anybody, and was even now telling the Queen of Hearts [ 40 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY how she had made that yellow waist she wore out of just one yard and an eighth of cloth, not counting the cuffs. Santa, too, was having a fine time with all the other children, Bo-Peep, Jack Horner, Little Miss Muffett, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and all the rest. Yes, they were all having a delightful time at Old King Cole’s party. Even Simple Simon felt at home in the palace, as he went happily about, eating and drinking, smiling and nod¬ ding. He even danced a bit, did Simple Simon, and did not seem to mind at all that while he was doing the polka, everybody else, including his partner, was dancing a waltz. But his part¬ ner minded, I can tell you, and if any little girl wants to have her toes stepped on and her shoes completely spoiled, just let her try to dance with Simple Simon as Polly Flinders did on that night of the fourteenth of March. At last, when everybody had danced a little, and eaten and drunk quite a lot, and talked some, and stared at all the trappings of the pal¬ ace a great deal, at last it came time for the trained bear. At the announcement the little boys yelled with delight, the little girls shiv¬ ered, the mothers and fathers sat up importantly and looked exceedingly brave. [ 41 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY For this was no common bear, but a noted beast from London who had made that great city laugh and gasp many a night with his antics and tricks. And here he came! Oh, how funny he was, that bear. The way he walked was funny, as he ambled slowly in, straight past the King and Queen without so much as a glance at their royal personages. The way he looked was funny, as his little eyes glimmered from their depth of brown fur, and he yawned softly in the most bored fashion possible. The way he acted was funny, too, and the children screamed as he put up one paw and slowly rubbed his nose, for all the world like a meditative old man. But his tricks were funnier still, and as Tubby Tim, the old bear trainer, cracked his whip and shouted his commands, the children of Pudding Lane, and the grown-ups, too, thought they had never seen such a remarkable bear. As indeed, they had not, never having seen any bear at all before. “ Up, Bumbo, old boy! ” shouted Tubby Tim, and the bear stood on his hind legs. “ Waltz, Bumbo! One, two, three ! 55 ordered Tubby Tim, and lo, the bear was swaying around on his hind feet in a waltz that nobody [ 42 ] No Lady Wind was that . bear that stood before No dog either . But a her . Page 4 j>. % 4 - v, HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY would have been ashamed of. In truth, Polly Flinders was thinking to herself that she’d a great deal rather dance with the bear than with Simple Simon. But at last, when the old bear had roared loud and alarmingly at the children (who stopped laughing then), when he had stood on his head and shown his teeth and rolled a hoop and done a great many other astounding things, Tubby Tim said abruptly, “ That’s all ”, and led him out. But the party wasn’t over yet by a good deal, for there was still the puppet show, which Tubby Tim now started to make ready. Jack and Jill and Humpty Dumpty down in the Dumpty house meanwhile were having a quiet little game of “ Button, button ” when they heard a noise at the door. “ What’s that?” asked Jack. “ The Lady Wind,” answered Jill. “ March is her month, you know.” “ It sounds more like a dog than a lady,” said Jack. “ Ho, ho,” scoffed Jill, “ you don’t even know wind when you hear it.” With which Miss Jill flounced to the door and flung it wide open. But goodness, what was that in the doorway? No Lady Wind was that. No dog either. But [ 43 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY a bear that stood before her, yellow-eyed and open-mouthed! “ Oh! 55 gasped Jill faintly. “ Oh, oh!” breathed Jack and Humpty to¬ gether. The bear ambled into the room. “ Run,” cried Jack to Jill. “ Run upstairs and shut the door tight, or he’ll eat you! ” “ But he’ll eat you too! Come along,” whis¬ pered Jill. Then they both looked at Humpty Dumpty, who sat quaking and white in his chair. For Humpty could not run, of course, and he saw himself a fine meal for that open mouth. “ No, we must stay with Humpty,” said Jill, shivering with fear. “ Of course,” answered Jack, trembling. “ Perhaps if we all fight him, we can get him out,” suggested Jill. “ Yes, come on, let’s fight him,” replied Jack. “ I can’t fight,” said Humpty from his chair, “ but I can glare mighty hard. I’ll glare at him, Jill.” “ Yes, you glare, Humpty Dumpty,” said Jill encouragingly. Jack by this time had rolled up his sleeves, ready for battle, and Jill, flinging back the hair HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY from her eyes, rushed at the bear headlong. But what was that bear doing, anyway, if he were not rubbing against Jill’s knees with the affec¬ tion of an old family cat*? What was he paw¬ ing at her so softly, so gently for, if it were not because he wanted her to play with him? Why did he look up at her with those funny little yel¬ low eyes, if it were not to reassure her as to his good intentions? “ Why,” cried Jill, “ I believe he’s a pet bear! ” “ I think he is! ” answered Jack. “ I wonder if he’d like to be patted,” ven¬ tured Humpty, putting a timid hand on Bum¬ bo’s back. The bear dropped on his back and pawed playfully in the air. “ He does want to play,” cried Humpty Dumpty. What a fine playfellow he was, too, that Bumbo bear, as the three children romped with him there in Mrs. Dumpty’s back parlor. How he rolled and pawed and growled — just a pre¬ tend-growl, though; you could tell he didn’t mean a thing by it. How he tumbled and jumped and trotted around the room. He even seemed to understand that Humpty could not play as the other children could, but went to [ 45 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY Humpty’s chair and nosed and pawed around so amusingly that the poor invalid quite forgot himself in his delight. The Punch-and-Judy show was meanwhile progressing at the palace, and Judy had just given Punch a mighty cuff on the cheek, to the infinite pleasure of the audience, when Mr. Claus, who had laughed until the tears came, began to fish for his pocket handkerchief. But, as he fished, his eye was arrested by a startling vision at the door. “ Great snakes! ” he roared suddenly. Tubby Tim dropped his puppets and every¬ body looked up quickly. “ Saints preserve us! ” shrieked Mrs. Grundy. And immediately there arose such a bellow¬ ing and crying, such a tumbling of chairs and confusion of figures, as to make Old King Cole’s birthday party look like a riot instead. Mr. Hor¬ ner was seen to throw off his coat in great haste, Simple Simon began to call loudly and insist¬ ently for help, Mrs. Dumpty started to faint, then thought better of it, and came to again. As for the Queen of Hearts, that royal lady straightway went into a fine fit of hysterics, de¬ portment which she considered highly becoming to queens in time of stress. [ 46 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY And what do you suppose was the cause of all this uproar? What was this vision in the door¬ way that had suddenly set all of Pudding Lane to screaming and bawling? It was nothing more than our friend Bumbo, who stood in the doorway blinking soberly, with Humpty Dumpty on his back and Jack and Jill on each side of him. Which, you’ll have to admit, was pretty much of a surprise for people who had supposed that the bear was snoozing in the pantry; and which looked in¬ deed like a dangerous business to folks that didn’t know what a very friendly bear Bumbo was. But so smiling and serene were those three children, so extremely placid was Bumbo him¬ self, that it finally became apparent that there was really nothing to howl about. And so at last the noise did subside somewhat, save for the exceedingly loud sniffling of Jill’s mother, who was having a little weep all to herself, and quite naturally too. Then Jill explained the business. “ He was such a friendly bear,” she ended, nodding brightly at Tubby Tim, “ so well- trained, that Jack and I thought there would be nothing easier than to bring Humpty up here [ 47 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY on his back. And it was; it was as easy as pie. And here he is.” But Mr. Claus had started up suddenly at the mention of “ pie 55 and bolted through the as¬ semblage and out of/ the door. Old King Cole looked over at Mrs. Claus in a rather annoyed manner. “ What’s happened now, Mrs. Claus?” he asked crustily. “ Is your husband ill, per¬ haps?” “ Well, I wouldn’t know, your Majesty,” re¬ plied Mrs. Claus, who, if the truth must be told, was deeply ashamed of her husband’s odd com¬ pany manners. “ He was all right when we left home,” and to herself she muttered that it wasn’t her fault if the man acted like a zany. Do you know what a zany is? Well, Mrs. Claus didn’t either, but she supposed it was some kind of animal, and she liked to apply the word to Mr. Claus in what she called his “ off ” moments. But bless you, it was Mrs. Claus who was having the off moment this time, for what the baker had gone for was the secret, a thing that everybody had completely forgotten in the hub¬ bub and excitement. So that not only Old King Cole, but everybody else was surprised when Mr. Claus came strutting back with it, the se- [ 48 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY cret, in his hands. When they did see it, they remembered again, and all started to sing a verse that Mrs. Grundy had composed for the occa¬ sion, which began, “ Sing a song of sixpence, pocket full of rye.” And now you know, don’t you, what the surprise was that Mr. Claus had baked for Old King Cole’s birthday? And sure enough, when that merry old soul cut open his birthday pie, out flew the four and twenty black¬ birds and began to sing; and, as Mrs. Grundy said, was that not a dainty dish to set before a king? Old King Cole thought it was. He was the most surprised and delighted man you ever saw, and as the birds flew around the room and sang, he became more charmed and bewildered than ever, so that he really was in no condition to make a speech when the people called for one. But he arose just the same and, taking off his crown, fumbled nervously with it, as he tried to think of something to say. His people the meanwhile beamed loyally at him, so happy that they had really pleased Old King Cole, who was always doing something to please them. “ Friends,” began the King, “ I am deeply obliged —” Then he stopped and burst into a hearty laugh, which rang and reverberated down [ 49 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY the great halls and rooms of the palace until the building almost shook. And that was as far as Old King Cole ever got, for every time he’d try to sober down and go on with the speech, laughter overcame him, until at last all the people there began to laugh just to see him. They roared, they shook, they rocked with laughter, did those good people of Pudding Lane, until it began to look as if they would never get their faces straight again, never get their breath again, never stop holding their sides. Even the butcher left off frowning, the baker stopped looking dismal, the candlestick- maker ceased bowing, as they all laughed there together. And of course Jack and Jill laughed, and Humpty Dumpty, too, for they were the ones to whom it was the most fun of all, because they were the ones who had nearly missed the party. And let me tell you something. The bear laughed too. He didn’t make a noise about it, and he didn’t shake, but there was a look in his eye that was plainly a look of laughter, and there was a twist to his mouth, as he stood there by Tubby Tim’s legs, that was unmistakably a grin. Yes, Bumbo laughed too. And if any¬ body wants to know, he laughed many times [ 50 ] HUMPTY DUMPTY WENT TO KING’S PARTY after that as he thought of King Cole’s birthday party and of his part in the whole performance. For, of course, if Bumbo had not trotted off ad¬ venturing as he did, Humpty Dumpty would never have got to the party, and if — oh, well, he did go trotting off, so what’s the use of if-ing about it? [* 1 ] IV SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY I T had seemed to the children of Pudding Lane that April Fool’s Day would never, never come, they had been waiting for it so long; and now that it had come, blest if it wasn’t raining pitchforks, as Mrs. Claus said. And blest if it wasn’t. It really did look like pitchforks, that rain, as it came slanting down in sharp, shin¬ ing spears, splash, splash, splash, as fast as it could come. It really looked as if the sun would never shine in Pudding Lane again, for surely no sun would be foolish enough even to try to break through all that darkness and wetness and gloom. And so, if you had been a frog in a puddle on Pudding Lane that morning, you would have seen noses pressed tight against every window there and disappointed eyes fastened sadly on the rainy world outside. You might even have seen rain in those eyes themselves, though I wouldn’t be positive of that. That roundish m SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY nose there against the first window was Humpty Dumpty’s; the turned-up one was Jill’s; the straight little pretty one was Miss Muffett’s; all those pert affairs sticking out of the button¬ holes of the Shoe were no others than the noses of the children of the Old Woman Who Lived there. The only nose that was not plastered against a window was Simple Simon’s and the reason that Simple Simon’s nose was not there was be¬ cause Simple Simon himself was out in the rain, and his nose was with him. Yes, that foolish fellow was standing in front of the butcher shop, and as composedly as if it were the sun, and not the rain, that was beating down on his head. But why was he holding that long thick rope so carefully in his right hand? And what was that tiny object on the walk to which his eyes were directed so intently? That object seemed to be a purse, a very, very small purse — oh, now we know what poor Sim¬ ple Simon thought he was doing, don’t we? He thought he was going to fool somebody with that old, old trick. He thought somebody would come along pretty soon, stoop to pick up the pocketbook, and that he, the clever Simon, would ierk it out of reach. He could see now, [ 53 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY in his mind’s eye, how silly the somebody would look, and he snickered there to himself at the mere thought of that delicious moment. Oh, Simon, Simon! As if anybody with half an eye would not have seen the rope long before he saw the wee pocketbook. As if anybody would have been apt to come strolling along in the rain, anyway! Ah, me, I’m afraid Simple Simon’s wits do not improve much with the years. Well, it kept on raining and Simple Simon kept on standing there and the rest of the Pud¬ ding Lane children kept on looking forlornly at the rain, when whirr, swish, plop,— down dropped Mother Goose on the gander’s back, di¬ rectly in front of Simple Simon. Simple Simon wrenched his eyes a moment from the purse to smile swiftly and delightedly at the beloved old lady, who now hardly looked like herself, so drenched and dripping was she. “ Good morning, Simon,” said Mother Goose, as the gander shook a shower of water from his back. Simon’s smile waxed wider. “ Morning, mum,” he answered with a bow, then straightened up and sent his eyes flying back to the purse. He didn’t want anybody to come along and pick it up when he wasn’t look- [ 54 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY ing, you see! Mother Goose regarded him curi¬ ously for a moment. “Fooling somebody, Simple Simon?” she asked. “ Yes’m,” replied Simple Simon gleefully. Mother Goose laughed softly. “ Well, I guess it’s Simple Simon you’re fool¬ ing,” she said, and ran into the Clauses’ next door. Simple Simon meditated a while over what Mother Goose had just said and was highly pleased. How funny that was, he thought, to be fooling yourself! For, of course, Simple Simon did not mind in the least being the butt of his own joke. And if he didn’t mind, I sup¬ pose we needn’t. Only it does seem like a queer kind of April Fool’s trick to go to all that trouble just to fool yourself, doesn’t it? Inside the cozy little kitchen at the Clauses’ Mother Goose dried her clothes and visited com¬ fortably with her daughter, Mrs. Claus, and the rest of the family. “ My goodness, Santa,” she exclaimed, “ you are a long-faced little boy! And the twins! Why, what can be the matter with these chil¬ dren, Nellie?” She turned to her daughter, “ Are they ill? ” SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY “ It’s April Fool’s Day, Mother Goose,” spoke up little Santa. “ I know that,” replied his grandmother promptly. “And I, for one, think that the Weather Man has done a fine job of fooling all you children.” Santa Claus looked up surprised. “ Do you suppose that’s why he sent the rain? ” he asked Mother Goose. “ Not a doubt of it in the world,” answered the old lady vigorously. “ The Weather Man has to have a little fun, you know. And I’ll venture he’s laughing fit to kill at the sight of your doleful chops.” Here Mother Goose laughed merrily, and Santa Claus tried manfully to laugh too; but it’s hard to laugh when the joke’s on you, and I’m afraid he didn’t make a very good job of it. “ Maybe he’ll fool you again and send the sun pretty soon,” suggested Mrs. Claus. She felt pretty sorry for the children, did Mrs. Claus, and she was surprised that Mother Goose did not seem more sympathetic. “ Nonsense,” said Mother Goose tartly. “ I say, you people are serious-minded folk for such a day as April Fool’s. You must take a joke better than this, you know, or you’ll spoil the [ 56 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY Weather Man’s fun entirely. Why, I shall be ashamed to show my face up there at the Weather Man’s house if he thinks my grand¬ children don’t know how to take a joke! ” “Are you going up to see the Weather Man? ” asked Mrs. Claus. “ I’m on my way there now,” Mother Goose told her. “And what about the Man in the Moon?” asked Mrs. Claus, smirking at the baker, who tried his best to smirk back. “ The Man in the Moon is suffering a tem¬ porary eclipse,” replied the old lady sharply, at which Mrs. Claus and Mr. Claus both laughed heartily, and Santa wondered what kind of dis¬ ease an eclipse was, and if it hurt as much as the mumps did. “ As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Mr. Claus,” said Mother Goose cas¬ ually to her son-in-law. Mr. Claus jumped out of his chair. “Seven wives!” he exclaimed. “Great snakes, Mother Goose, seven wives! Why, what would a man want with seven of ’em — that is — oh, dear, seven! ” Clearly Mr. Claus was greatly agitated over this piece of news. “ But they weren’t his wives, Mr. Claus,” [ 57 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY added Mother Goose. “ They were his broth¬ ers’ wives. Ha, ha, April Fool! ” cried Mother Goose. At which she and Mrs. Claus and the children shouted with delight, as poor Mr. Claus grinned foolishly and wished he hadn’t been so quick to bite at Mother Goose’s bait. But while all this was going on in the Clauses’ house, Simple Simon was playing another joke all by himself outside. For it had occurred to him that it would be the best possible fun to play a joke on old Mother Goose herself. And so, what did Simple Simon do but step softly around to the shed where the old lady had left her gander? What did he do but take that gan¬ der and carry him into The-House-that-Jack Built, that big uninhabited house a few doors away? What did he do but hide the gander there and then come out on to Pudding Lane again, looking as wicked and proud of himself as you please? “ Well,” said Mother Goose, when she went out to the shed and found that the gander was not there, “ this is a pretty pickle.” Mrs. Claus agreed that it was a pretty pickle, but Mr. Claus differed a bit with the ladies and called it a “ fine how-do-you-do.” Anyway what they all meant was that it wasn’t a pretty [ 58 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY pickle, or even a fine how-do-you-do, but that it was instead a very serious thing for Mother Goose to lose her gander. So they started straightway to hunt the gander, but although they searched and searched and called and called that bird, they could not find him in all of Pud¬ ding Lane. And at last they came back to the house, drenched with rain, and sat down in a gloomy circle around the stove. “ Whatever will you do without the gander, Mother Goose?” asked Mrs. Claus. “ Do? ” repeated Mother Goose with some as¬ perity. “ Well, I’ll just stay here the rest of my days, I suppose. I certainly can’t fly around the world with nothing to fly on, can I?” “ But what will the Weather Man think when you don’t appear for your visit?” “ Goodness only knows,” answered Mother Goose. “ He’ll think something, you may be sure. And we’ll know soon enough what he thinks. If he’s angry, he might even send a tor¬ nado. Oh, don’t shiver now, baker. It hasn’t struck us yet. What is coming over that bird? He acts like a loon sometimes. I really think I’ll have to get myself a fine turkey gobbler to ride on. They have more sense than ganders.” Mother Goose would not have scolded and [ 59 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY fussed like this at the poor absent gander had she known what a flutter that bird was in him¬ self. For the gander had not run away at all, but had been taken by Simple Simon entirely against his will, and now as he stood in The- House-that-Jack-Built, tied fast to a bedpost, his were harsh and desperate thoughts. To think that he had been tricked like this by that absurd Simple Simon, he of all fowls the most trustworthy, the most sagacious. Tied to a bed¬ post indeed! What humiliation, what degrada¬ tion! The poor gander squirmed and writhed with the bitter shame of it; but he might as well have stood still, for he was tied with that very rope Simple Simon had used for his other joke, and that rope, as we know, was a very substan¬ tial affair, such as no mere gander could break. But while Mother Goose fussed and the gan¬ der squirmed, one person was laughing aloud at the fun of it all, and that person was, of course, Simple Simon. He could hardly contain him¬ self as he stood there in the rain and thought about it. And to tell the truth, Mother Goose and Mr. Claus had looked pretty funny as they ran down Pudding Lane, calling the gander. Mother Goose, indeed, always looked funny when she ran, for the good old lady was so ac- [ 60 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY customed to riding that she took very ill to run¬ ning. But when she ran in a rainstorm, as she did on this day, she was just a little more ridicu¬ lous than ever, with her long skirts wound damply around her legs, her glasses streaming with water, her feet in Mr. Claus’s enormous rubber boots which sloshed, sloshed, sloshed. As for Mr. Claus, he was not quite so funny until you noticed the cascade of rain that came spouting down on his nose through a hole in his umbrella, and then he became very funny indeed. And the really ludicrous thing about that was that the more Mr. Claus tried to dodge the waterfall, the faster it came through the hole; and the more he shifted the umbrella around, the more accurately did the waterfall strike him on the very tip-tip of his nose. Yes, that was very amusing, and Simple Simon laughed himself weak now as he remembered it. All the other children at the windows had laughed at the sight too, though they did not know why Mr. Claus and Mother Goose were out in the rain like that. They had paid no attention to Simon and his tricks. Nobody ever did. Up in his home the Weather Man was be¬ coming decidedly worried at the non-arrival of [ 61 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY his expected guest, Mother Goose, and he con¬ fessed to the Weather Woman, his wife, that he was afraid something was terribly, terribly wrong. “ She always keeps her engagements , 55 he said. “ She is a most punctual woman . 55 “ Perhaps she is ill , 55 suggested the Weather Woman. “ She’s never been ill in her life , 55 said the Weather Man. “ No sign she never will be , 55 retorted the Weather Woman. Just then the Weather Girl and the Weather Boy came in, those two hardy children of the Weather Man. “ Where’s Mother Goose ? 55 they demanded. “ Not here,” replied the Weather Man. “ Didn’t come,” said the Weather Woman. “Not here! Didn’t come!” repeated the Weather Children. “Why, what’s the matter? Is the rain too much for her? 55 The Weather Man looked thoughtful at this suggestion, then turned to his wife. “ Weather Woman,” he addressed her, “ do you suppose that this rain could possibly be the reason for Mother Goose’s failure to appear?” “ I shouldn’t wonder a bit,” replied the [ 62 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAYj Weather Woman. “ You know how those earth-people are about rain. I declare, some¬ times I think they’ll never get used to it, the way they carry umbrellas in the rain, and wear waterproofs against it, and stay at home be¬ cause of it, as if a little water once in a while would hurt the dear creatures! ” “ Well,” spoke the Weather Man, “ if that’s the reason that Mother Goose hasn’t come, we’ll have to stop the rain, that’s all. Weather Chil¬ dren,” he ordered, “ kindly shut off the rain and turn on the sun. Perhaps we’ve fooled the chil¬ dren of Pudding Lane long enough, anyway.” So that is how it happened that three min¬ utes later, Pudding Lane found itself bathed in clear, sparkling sunshine which left no sign of the previous rain except the puddles in the street, the gently dripping trees, and some lit¬ tle ruffled-up birds, who shook themselves furi¬ ously in the sun and sang loud songs of thanks¬ giving that the downpour was over. And that is how it happened that all the children came tumbling out of their homes pell-mell as they did and began fooling each other as fast as ever they could to make up for lost time. Such jokes as those children played too! There was Handy-Spandy, Jack-a-Dandy, for [ 63 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY example, who really was such easy prey it was almost too bad to fool him. For when Santa Claus offered the greedy fellow a nice plum cake, or what looked like a plum cake, Handy- Spandy just grabbed it and sank his teeth into it without a single question — without even much of a thank-you, though I guess that mum¬ ble in his throat was meant for a thank-you. And when he bit down into the cake, oh, how the children screamed, for it wasn’t a plum cake at all, but a cotton cake, which Mr. Claus had made especially for the children to fool Handy with on that first day of April. They fooled Santa Claus too, telling him that Judy wanted him down at the Shoe; but when Santa ran as fast as he could run down to the shoe, there was nothing waiting there for him but a big sign which said, “ April Fool, Santa! ” Which did surprise that little boy vastly, for he had forgotten he could be fooled, so busy was he trying to fool other people. The children had a good deal of fun with Tom, Tom, the piper’s son, for when he wasn’t looking, Johnny Bo-Peep pinned a big card on Tom’s back which read, “ Please to kick me, my dears! ” And then when the children proceeded to obey the injunction, poor Tom looked so be- [ 64 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY wildered and foolish that it almost seemed as if that were the very funniest joke of all. Oh, everybody was fooled good and plenty, and great was the noise, the laughter and shout¬ ing. And at last, when all the tricks had been exhausted, and when the children were ex¬ hausted too, out came Mother Goose from the Clauses 5 house. “ I say , 55 she cried to the children, who had surrounded her until you couldn’t see a thing of her but the tip of her pointed hat, “ I say, I know somebody you haven’t fooled! 55 Oh, was there still somebody to fool? De¬ lightful! “ Yes,” went on Mother Goose, “ we can still fool somebody else. We can still fool the gan¬ der, children! For he’s run off to fool us, I sup¬ pose, and now if we find him, it’ll be a joke on the silly bird, you see.” So they started out on the great search for the gander, all of them, scattered in every direction. And what of Simple Simon? Well, Simple Simon was just as pleased as he could possibly be over the whole affair, for now that he had fooled Mother Goose by hiding her gander, he was perfectly willing to fool the gander by bringing him back to Mother Goose. You see, [ 65 ] SIMPLE SIMON HAS HIS DAY he was so simple that he didn’t comprehend that to bring the gander back would not really fool him at all. So into The-House-that-Jack-Built trotted Simple Simon, chuckling jovially at the whole affair, and out he came again in half a minute, leading the dejected old gander behind him. “ Bless me,” said Mother Goose, when she caught sight of the gander, “ here he is. Why, Simple Simon, you are a fine fellow, indeed you are.” Simple Simon, no longer able to contain him¬ self, laughed outright. “ I did fool you, after all, didn’t I? ” he asked proudly. “ I hid the gander, Mother Goose,” he went on excitedly, “ and you never guessed it at all.” And there the absurd fellow had given the whole thing away! Oh, how the children en¬ joyed that joke, and how Mother Goose laughed too. But above all the racket could be heard Simple Simon’s great guffaws celebrating his own wit and smartness, like the simpleton he was. [ 66 ] V MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR M rs. peter, peter, pumpkin- eater was briskly shaking out her best parlor rug in her back garden one fine May day when flap, flap, clack, clack, came a noise to her ears. “ Bless me,” said the tiny lady, looking up, “ if Mrs. Dumpty isn’t at it too.” True enough, the mother of Humpty was likewise in her back garden, beating a rug, and as Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater looked to the other side of her, she discovered that Jill’s mother was do¬ ing precisely the same thing. Then she saw that the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe was shaking out her rugs too, and so were Mrs. Grundy and Mrs. Claus, the mother of Santa, — why, all of Pudding Lane was shaking out its rugs at that very minute! Which was not so strange, when you consider that this was the first day of May, which, as anybody knows, [ 67 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR means house-cleaning to any right-thinking woman. But the first of May means also a May- pole and a May Queen and baskets of flowers on the door knobs. And now we’re coming to the really sad part of this story. For it did look as if house-cleaning this year were going to crowd out May Day in Pudding Lane completely. Always before, while the mothers of Pudding Lane were cleaning their houses, Mother Goose had come to give the chil¬ dren their May Day, so that they had never missed it. But this year Mother Goose had gone to a house party at the Frosts’, Jack and his wife, you know, who do a good deal of en¬ tertaining in their slack season. And so, since Mother Goose was not there and the mothers of Pudding Lane were so busy with house-clean¬ ing, it did look very doubtful about the May- pole. The children, Bo-Peep, Jack Horner, Polly Flinders, Jack and Jill and Santa Claus, were talking about it in Santa Claus’s shed that very morning. “ They could house-clean to-morrow. I wouldn’t mind living in a dirty house one more day,” ruminated Jack. “ I wouldn’t mind it forever,” spoke up Jill. [ 68 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR Which was probably true, for Jill was not the tidiest little girl in the world. Then Simple Simon jumped up quite sud¬ denly and began to dance, throwing his long legs gleefully around and laughing as he did so,— quite a spectacle, I can assure you. Even the children, who were used to his queer ways, were astonished, and they were still more aston¬ ished when he abruptly sat down, and drawing them all close about him on the shed floor, began to tell them a wonderful secret, in a whispering voice so full of “ shishes ” and “ shushes ” they could hardly hear what he said. And as soon as Simple Simon had finished, the children all jumped to their feet and ran off together, so that in another moment not one of them was to be seen in Pudding Lane. Their mothers did not even miss them, so deep were they in the business of house-cleaning. A deadly earnest business it was too. You could see by the way Mrs. Dumpty pressed her lips together that this was no laughing matter. You could tell by the set of Mother Hubbard’s jaw that she’d see this affair through to the fin¬ ish, come what would. And as for the tiny Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater, well, although her rug was three times as big as she was, and she herself [ 69 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR was only one third as big as she ought to have been, she shook that offending piece of carpet as if to shake its very red roses off, and I think she would have loosened a petal or two, if they had been any but woolen roses. But if all this were deadly serious to those excellent housewives themselves, it was an even grimmer business for their husbands. If ever a man is miserable, it is during spring house-clean¬ ing, and already on this day uncomfortable things had begun to happen to the men of Pud¬ ding Lane. Mr. Claus, for one, had risen to find the kitchen table upside down in the back gar¬ den and had been forced to eat his breakfast from the window sill, no good way to start the day, certainly. But it was rather worse for Jack Spratt, who got no breakfast at all. Mrs. Spratt simply told him she couldn’t be both¬ ered, unless, she added, he’d “ do with a piece of fat meat ”, which of course, being the man he was, he couldn't do with. Mr. Horner, poor man, slipped on a piece of wet soap which was on the kitchen floor — though it certainly had no business there — and nearly broke his neck. And Peter, Peter, Pump¬ kin-Eater was forced to appear in public in his shirt sleeves, because, when he had marched to [ 70 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR his old peg that morning to fetch his coat as usual, it was to discover that not only had the coat disappeared, but the peg had too — which shows how far things had gone in the pumpkin shell that morning. But the most miserable of all men in Pud¬ ding Lane that day was Old King Cole, the merry old soul himself. It does seem as if a King ought not be bothered with such unpleas¬ ant affairs as house-cleaning. But Old King Cole was bothered, for the Queen of Hearts was nothing if she was not a good housekeeper. Consequently, the king had awakened that morning to find carpets up and curtains down, furniture stacked, dishes, brushes, paint cans, brooms, buckets everywhere, and the Queen, her royal head in a dust cap, chasing the servants about in what looked like a mad game of tag. Moreover, as the Queen was having the throne regilded and the chairs all resilvered, poor Old King Cole had to stand up all the time, unless he chose to sit on wet paint, which he didn’t. And worse than that, he had to stand perfectly still too, for when he tried to walk, he found himself stumbling over mattresses, crashing into glass dishes, stepping into buckets of water, and slipping on wet paint brushes. [ 71 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR My goodness, how uncomfortable he was, stand¬ ing there in the midst of all that higgledy-pig¬ gledy, while the Queen and the fiddlers three and all the king’s men rushed insanely around, never once looking at him. His legs soon began to ache dreadfully; his head buzzed with the noise. He called for his pipe. Nobody paid the least attention. He called for his bowl. It was not brought. He called for his fiddlers three. They leaped up to him, made deep hurried bows, offered their apologies, and were off to help the Queen of Hearts again, who at that moment was at the top of a stepladder, wrestling with a curtain rod. “ This is enough,” said Old King Cole bit¬ terly to himself, and, smashing through the glass dishes, paint buckets and wet mops on the floor, he bounded out of the throne room and through the front door. Old King Cole had run away from home and family. Not that the Queen of Hearts cared in the least. In fact, as she saw her liege lord departing, she was heard to murmur something about “ good riddance ”, hardly the way to speak of a king, I should think. Then she continued battling with that curtain rod with the greatest relish in the world. [ 72 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR There’s something about a curtain rod that makes women — well, anyway, the Queen of Hearts was certainly enjoying herself, that was evident. He ran and ran, did Old King Cole, and he didn’t know in the least where he was going, and finally, being fat, he just had to stop for breath. So he did. And then he saw that, al¬ though he had been running a long time, he really hadn’t run far at all, having gone in a circle, as people so often do when they think they’re going straight. “ Fiddlesticks,” said Old King Cole. “ I thought I’d be halfway to Dover by this time.” Dover? Dover? What was he going to Dover for, do you suppose? Could it be that Old King Cole had reached such a pitch that he was thinking of going away over to France to see the King of France for a while? I shouldn’t be surprised. He really was quite worked up. Well, anyway, there he stood on Pinafore Pike, puffing and blowing and saying “ Fiddle¬ sticks ”, and goodness knows what he would have done next if he hadn’t seen Simple Simon am¬ bling along the road. But he did see him, and Simple Simon told him the secret, and the first [ 73 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR thing that old king knew, he and Simon had gone off in just the opposite direction from Dover. Meanwhile, however, something pretty seri¬ ous was happening in the palace. For just at the moment when everything was at its topsy- turviest, who should walk in on the Queen of Hearts but the King of France? Yes, right through the front door came that elegant fel¬ low, and there was the Queen of Hearts, dust cap and all, on the top step of the ladder. Was ever a woman so humiliated? Was ever a Queen caught in such a condition? The Queen of Hearts thought not, and as she climbed, blush¬ ing and confused, down that horrible ladder, she wished desperately to herself that she had never heard of house-cleaning. And what was her chagrin when the King of France told her that the very reason he had left France was to escape the house-cleaning in his own palace. And he had walked right into the same muss here in Pudding Lane! The King of France laughed heartily as he told the Queen of Hearts this, because he thought it was funny, but it wasn’t funny to the Queen of Hearts — no indeed — and she wrung her grimy hands in despair. [ 74 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR The news spread quickly through Pudding Lane that Old King Cole had slipped away, and that the King of France had walked in suddenly and caught the Queen in her dust cap. And you may be quite sure that the people of Pud¬ ding Lane soon gathered together to talk it over. “ We ought to Pay our Respects to him,” said the candlestick-maker. They all agreed that they ought. “ But how do you Pay Respects'? ” asked Mr. Horner. The candlestick-maker, not having the least idea, pretended to be too deep in thought to hear. “ It’s certain and sure the poor Queen can’t entertain him for long,” spoke up Mrs. Grundy, who had a small opinion of Her Majesty, as we know. “ She ain’t exactly the brilliant talker,” ad¬ mitted the candlestick-maker, who wasn’t ex¬ actly the brilliant talker himself, when it came to that. Then Mrs. Claus, looking quickly around, gave a little cry, at which everybody jumped. “Where are the children?” she cried. “I haven’t seen a child since early morn.” [ 75 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR Great goodness, where were the children? Pudding Lane had forgotten them completely in the excitement of house-cleaning, foreign visi¬ tors, and suchlike. But they were aroused to action now, those mothers and fathers. They ran around the village, calling and shouting, until the Queen of Hearts and her regal guest heard them and came down to see what the noise was about. They joined the search party then, and just as everybody had begun to think that the children had been swallowed by the earth, or eaten by bears, or something else terrible, they came across them all, down behind Honey¬ suckle Hill. And what do you suppose they were doing? They were dancing around a Maypole, a beau¬ tiful, flower-covered Maypole, which stood a lit¬ tle tipsy in the ground, it is true, but which, nev¬ ertheless, was one of the best Maypoles that Pudding Lane had ever seen. They were danc¬ ing and singing, every one of them, and what’s more, there was Old King Cole himself, between Mistress Mary and Polly Flinders, galloping around that pole as if he had never heard of gout. For once, Simple Simon had thought of something really worth while. For this, you see, had been his secret. He had suggested to [ 76 ] They were dancing around a Maypole , a beautiful\ flower-covered Maypole . Page 76. MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR the children that they build their own Maypole, and they had done it. Well, how surprised the parents were, to see what a beautiful Maypole the children had made. How surprised Old King Cole was to see the King of France. And how surprised the Queen of Hearts was to find her husband there with the children. Indeed, everybody had something to be surprised about, and so, of course, it was a most exciting occasion. Then Old King Cole proposed that the moth¬ ers and fathers, with the King of France and the Queen, should join in the dance. Then the la¬ dies protested that they weren’t dressed fit and proper. Then Old King Cole said “ Nonsense ”, and finally it all ended up with everybody’s get¬ ting in, and dancing and singing, and having a perfectly riotous time. They had a Queen of the May too. Every¬ body thought the Queen of Hearts ought to be the May Queen, except the Queen of Hearts herself, who was so tired of being a Queen, and Mrs. Grundy, who wanted to be the May Queen herself. So Mr. Spratt, who knew what to do and when to do it, suggested that “ our royal and honored guest, the King of France, crown the Queen of the May, whomsoever he would.” [ 77 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR The King of France looked critically around the circle of ladies. He looked at Mrs. Grundy and passed her by. He looked at Humpty Dumpty’s mother, and that little lady thought she should faint from agitation. Then he looked at the Old Woman, at Mrs. Horner, at Mrs. Flinders, and passed them all by. After which, to everybody’s intense excitement and joy, he marched straight up to — Mrs. Claus, of all people! Oh, dear, what a stir that created! And can you imagine how Mrs. Claus herself felt at this honor? Can you see her blushing and bobbing and saying, “ Yes, Your Majesty,” two dozen times without stopping? Can you see her grow glassy-eyed with embarrassment when, a mo¬ ment later, the King of France laid the crown of roses on her topknot,— which, as she thought to herself bitterly, hadn’t been crimped for days? Can you see her sitting stiff as a ram¬ rod and burning with blushes, at the side of the resplendent King of France, who was also King of the May? Well, perhaps a May Queen should not be goggle-eyed and red-faced as Mrs. Claus was. Perhaps she should not gulp and wring her hands as Mrs. Claus did. Perhaps she should [ 78 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR have had her hair crimped, and perhaps she would have been better dressed in a gown with¬ out those big patches under the arms. But Pud¬ ding Lane was well satisfied with their May Queen, and thought her most queenly and ele¬ gant. So they danced around her, singing and clapping, and never did a woman feel more proud and happy than did Mrs. Claus on that day. Only one person felt prouder and happier than she, and that was Mr. Claus, who at all times thought his wife a remarkable woman, but in this new glory considered her too wonderful for speech. And of course, Santa Claus and the twins nearly burst with pride in their mother. As for the real Queen, she was having a lovely time. It seemed so nice not to have to be regal for once, and she skipped and frolicked between Jack Spratt and Peter, Peter quite like an or¬ dinary woman. Peter, Peter, by the way, was the only person there who was not quite happy. For Peter’s coat never had been found in the frenzy of his wife’s house-cleaning, and the poor little man was therefore dancing there in his shirt sleeves, to his great mortification and shame. And when it was quite dark, and they couldn’t dance any more, if the Queen of Hearts, in a [ 79 ] MRS. CLAUS HAS A GREAT HONOR spasm of generosity, didn’t invite them all up to the palace for tarts and lemonade, a fine fin¬ ish for any May-Day party. After which the King of France said he thought he ought to be off. So he went away, and the people of Pud¬ ding Lane went home at last, after a happy and eventful day. And ever after that, while the mothers of Pud¬ ding Lane cleaned house on the first of May, the children and the men prepared the May-Day party, which turned out to be just the way to manage the first-of-May problem, so that every¬ body should be happy. So Old King Cole never ran away from the palace again, of course. And by the way, Old King Cole never did tell anybody that he had started out for France that time when he ran away, for he didn’t want to confess that he had gotten lost. But wouldn’t it have been funny if he had gotten to France only to find the French palace in the same uproar as his own? There might be a moral to that, something about home-keeping hearts, or sticking to the ship, or some such, but I guess we won’t bother with morals. [ 80 ] On the same stagecoach from Dover came a present from the King of France to Mrs. Claus . Page 8l. VI THE POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH I T was about a month after the King of France had been to visit Pudding Lane that the stagecoach from Dover brought the Jack of Hearts on a visit to Old King Cole and the Queen of Hearts. As you remember, the Jack had no use for Pudding Lane because it wasn’t Paris, and nobody quite knew, indeed, why he ever came to the little village which he held in such scorn. Mrs. Grundy said he came when he ran out of funds and wanted to live a while on his relatives. Perhaps that was merely Mrs. Grundy’s rather vulgar way of putting it, and perhaps it was true. Anyway, he came and upset the palace quite as much as usual with his French and his fine manners and his old habit of stealing tarts. But on the same stagecoach from Dover came a present from the King of France to Mrs. Claus, which was far more exciting to Pudding Lane than the presence of the Jack of Hearts. [ 81 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH You remember, of course, what an impression Mrs. Claus had made on His Majesty on May Day, but did you ever dream he would go so far as to send her a gift? Well, nobody else did, least of all Mrs. Claus herself, who almost fainted when the coach drove up to her house and the driver climbed down and handed her a large square wooden box. “Whatever—?” shrieked Mrs. Claus ex¬ citedly. “Great snakes!” ejaculated the baker, who was standing by. “What could be in such a box?” inquired Mrs. Claus of the world at large. “ Fine French china,” guessed Mr. Claus. Mrs. Claus’s eyes glittered hopefully. “ A lamp,” suggested the candlestick-maker, who was there too. “ A dog,” burst out Santa Claus. Santa was right. The King’s present was a French poodle, as jolly a little puppy as Pud¬ ding Lane had ever seen. It was surely very kind of the King of France, and Mrs. Claus was deeply sensible of the honor paid her by His Majesty, but what did she want with a puppy dog, she who had six children? as she rather clumsily put it. Santa Claus and the twins [ 82 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH begged so hard to keep him, however, that Mrs. Claus said well, if they would feed him and wash him and make him mind, he might stay. But the Clauses could not keep the poodle, after all, and all because of Misery. For that wretched cat began to act like a feline possessed the minute he laid his green eyes on the new¬ comer, and clawed and scratched and spat at the poor little dog until he squealed with ter¬ ror. After a few hours of this, Mrs. Claus shut Misery up in the woodhouse and locked the poo¬ dle in the kitchen and ran over to Mrs. Pump¬ kin-Eater’s. “ But I thought Misery loved company,” said Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater, when the story was finished. “ Not when the company’s a dog,” said Mrs. Claus. “ And, oh, dear, Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater, I don’t know what we’ll do unless — unless — well, unless you’ll take the dog off our hands as a kind and neighborly act.” “ But, Mrs. Claus,” objected Mrs. Pumpkin- Eater, “ isn’t the pumpkin shell too small for a poodle? There is really so little room here.” Mrs. Claus looked around the pumpkin shell appraisingly. [ 83 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH “ It is a bit small; he’s a fat poodle.” Then she brightened. “ But perhaps the carpenter would build you a kennel in the back garden, Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater, and you could keep the poodle there.” And so it was decided, and that very after¬ noon the carpenter built the kennel and the poo¬ dle was brought over to the Pumpkin-Eaters. The Pumpkin-Eaters were rather nervous over the prospect of keeping a poodle, but they did consider it an honor to have a gift that the King of France had sent, and so they met the situation unflinchingly. Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater fed the poodle with the rarest of titbits, beef¬ steak, and cream, and mashed potatoes with gravy, until the greedy little puppy was pant¬ ing and breathless. Mr. Pumpkin-Eater diddle- daddled around the kennel, patting the poodle and talking to him, and when Mrs. Pumpkin- Eater wasn’t looking, he brought his own pillow from their bed, so that the poodle should lie com¬ fortably in his new home. Yes, Mr. and Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater were just as kind as people could be to that poodle, and there was no earthly excuse for his acting the way he did. But it soon became apparent that he was just about the most troublesome poodle that ever [ 84 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH lived. Not that he was really bad; you could hardly say that of him. He just acted as if he didn’t have any sense. It began after he had recovered his breath from eating. Until then he was very quiet, ex¬ cept for little grunts, just little happy, eating grunts that nobody could have objected to. Then, when he did get his breath, up he jumped from his pillow, and the trouble began. The first thing he did was to run straight from the kennel into the pumpkin shell and upset every stick of the tiny furniture that the poor Pumpkin-Eaters were so proud of. I don’t think he meant to upset the furniture, but puppies are not the most graceful beasts in the world, and so as he waddled through the shell, which was pretty small for him anyway, he just naturally bumped into the tables and chairs and sent them spinning. How agitated Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater was then. “ Shush!” she called imperiously. “Shoo! Get out! Scat ! 55 She said everything she could think of, and still the puppy kept running around, knocking over more things, until he finally bumped into Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater and knocked her over too! Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater was extremely small, as you know, and I suppose it [ 85 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH didn’t take much to upset her. She screamed weakly as she hit the floor, at which Mr. Pump¬ kin-Eater came running in from the garden. “Hey ! 55 called out Mr. Pumpkin-Eater an¬ grily to the poodle. Then he shushed and shooed and scatted at the poodle, but the blessed dog just jumped up against him as if he had done something praiseworthy, and the next thing they all knew, Mr. Pumpkin-Eater was flat on his back too, bellowing for help, as the poodle ran excitedly about, yelping with joy. The neighbors came running in to help, the Clauses, the butcher, Mrs. Dumpty (who was sure somebody else must have fallen off the wall), the Old Woman, Mr. Horner, Mr. and Mrs. Flinders, all of them. Of course, they didn’t all go inside the shell, for there wasn’t room. But Mr. Horner did and gallantly picked up the prostrate Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater, and the butcher squeezed his way in and lifted Mr. Pumpkin-Eater to his feet. Then Mr. Pump¬ kin-Eater made a dive for the poodle, who by that time was on the bed, chewing up Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater’s best lace spread. The puppy, still thinking it all the greatest joke in the world, ran out of the shell into the garden and jumped right up into the Old Woman’s arms, [ 86 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH squealing as happily as if he had found an old friend. “ Well,” said the Old Woman, “ here he is.” “ Put him in the kennel! ” cried everybody. The Old Woman started for the kennel with the puppy wriggling delightedly in her arms — he still thought it all a lovely lark — and maybe all would have been well then, if a certain perky little sparrow had not chosen that particular moment in which to poke his nose into the kennel. He did choose that moment, however, and so the tragedy happened. The sparrow was half¬ way into the kennel, pecking at some toothsome crumbs, when the poodle suddenly leaped from the Old Woman’s arms full on the back and tail of the unsuspecting little bird. A cry of joy from the poodle, a shower of feathers, then out backed the poor sparrow, tottering and sur¬ prised, with his tail nipped off. How indignant Pudding Lane was at that! How they all scolded the poodle and sympa¬ thized with the sparrow. Sparrows until then had not had very good standing in the village, as perhaps they have not in yours, but this ca¬ lamity made the people forget their old griev¬ ances against the passeres (that’s the sparrow’s [ 87 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH dress-up name) and they could only feel sorry now for the particular passer , oh, very sorry. True, the sparrow, though he staggered uncer¬ tainly around and blinked in amazement, did not act as if he were in pain. But if you’re used to tails, of course you miss them, and the spar¬ row’s had disappeared so suddenly. Meanwhile, the poodle was acting just as ab¬ surdly as before. He was running and rolling and yapping in a perfectly abandoned way, and the more the Old Woman and the butcher and all the rest of them scolded him, ordered him down and bade him be quiet, the more he cut up. It was almost as if he were a mad dog, and yet you could see, just by looking at him, that he was innocent as could be, that he didn’t know in the least he was doing wrong. Puppies don’t naturally have morals, you know, and this one apparently hadn’t been taught any. Well, things finally got to such a pitch that Mr. Pumpkin-Eater said firmly that he wouldn’t have such a beast about any more, and Mrs. Claus declared she wouldn’t have him either, even if he were a royal poodle straight from the King of France. They decided that the only thing to do was to put the poodle back in the box and send him home to Paris. [ 88 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH “But the King!” remonstrated Mrs. Flin¬ ders. “ I know,” said Mrs. Claus. “ But Pudding Lane would be in ruins if we let this dog stay.” “ But nobody ever sends presents back to a king,” chimed in Mrs. Grundy. “ Well, I know somebody that’s a-going to,” said Mrs. Claus stubbornly. “ He might throw you in prison or some¬ thing,” suggested Mrs. Grundy. At which Mrs. Claus turned white, but stood her ground: she’d have no dog that threatened the future happiness and safety of Pudding Lane. Just then who should come dawdling down Pudding Lane but the Jack of Hearts, airy as usual? When he saw the commotion in the Pumpkin-Eaters’ garden, he stepped in. The people curtseyed obediently; they had manners, even though they didn’t like the Jack. Then they told him what was the matter. “ And he won’t do a thing you tell him to! ” concluded Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater. “ I never saw such a disobedient dog.” At that, the poodle leaped up against Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater’s skirts. [ 89 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH “ Down! ” she commanded. He barked joyously and leaped the higher. “ Hush! 55 she ordered. But he didn’t down and he didn’t hush. “ There!” exclaimed Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater exasperatedly to the Jack. “ You see, he doesn’t mind a single thing.” “ Of course he doesn’t,” replied the Jack of Hearts quietly. “ Of course! ” repeated Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater. “ I don’t see any ‘ of course ’ about it.” “ Well,” said the Jack of Hearts with his best sneer, “ I suppose you don’t. But didn’t you say the poodle was from France? ” “ Yes, sir,” answered Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater. She did wish the obnoxious fellow would go away and stop interfering. “ And haven’t you been talking to this French poodle in English? ” he demanded further. “ Yes. Well — oh, I see,” cried Mrs. Pump¬ kin-Eater suddenly. “Oh!” murmured everybody else. “Of course! ” The dog just then sprang higher against the wee Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater and began to lick her face. She cast a beseeching look at the Jack. “ Va te coucher! ” commanded that fine fel- [ 90 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH low to the dog. The poodle instantly quieted down at Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater’s feet and began to whine a little. “ Veux-tu te take /” he demanded further, and the whining stopped at once. The Jack of Hearts looked at the abashed Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater and the rest of the Pud¬ ding Laners, who stood there stupefied. “ I guess you wouldn’t understand it either, if somebody talked to you in another language,” he said crushingly, and walked indolently away, swinging his cane. The people of Pudding Lane could have kicked themselves for their stupidity, they said. Of course, a French poodle straight from Paris could not understand English. Why had they supposed that he could? And they were dis¬ gusted still more to have been humiliated by the disagreeable Jack of Hearts. But kicking themselves wouldn’t do any good now. There was only one thing left to do, and that was to present the poodle to the Jack, whether they wanted to or not, for Mrs. Pump¬ kin-Eater couldn’t learn French for any dog. And if she could have, she wouldn’t have, for Mrs. Pumpkin-Eater had an idea that foreign languages were an indulgence, like mince pie at [ 91 ] POODLE THAT DIDN’T KNOW ENGLISH night or two dresses in one year, and she wouldn’t have yielded to it for anything. So that’s what they did. They handed the puppy over to the Jack of Hearts, who could speak to him in his native tongue and make him mind like an angel. As for the sparrow, he soon recovered; that is, he learned to walk as smartly and perkily as ever without a tail; he even learned to fly with¬ out it, which, as any bird will tell you, is quite a feat. He looked funny, with his swelled-out chest and airy manners and poor little chopped- off stumpy back view. But the Pumpkin-Eat¬ ers didn’t care how he looked, for he just ex¬ actly fitted the pumpkin shell now and at last they had a pet, did the Pumpkin-Eaters, just ex¬ actly suited to their needs. So that if you ever pass by the pumpkin shell and look in at the window, you’ll see him there. But if he turns his back, don’t laugh at the poor little fellow. It might hurt his feelings. He’s never seen his back and doesn’t know how funny he looks. [ 92 ] VII BO-PEEP FINDS OUT HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS M R. BO-PEEP came home to dinner one hot July day to find his daughter not there. “ Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep and doesn’t know where to find them,” explained his wife. “ Oh, leave them alone and they’ll come home and bring their tails behind them,” answered Mr. Bo-Peep, sitting down to his dinner. “ That’s what I told her,” said Mrs. Bo-Peep, “ but you know how she is.” “Yes, I know how she is,” sighed Mr. Bo- Peep. And indeed he did, as did everybody else in Pudding Lane, for hardly a week went by in that village that Little Bo-Peep did not lose her sheep. It was really a wonder that she both¬ ered with sheep at all, for certainly she had more trouble with her flock than any other shep¬ herdess did in the whole world. And to-day they [ 93 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS were lost again, and, as usual, Little Bo-Peep was hunting for them. She walked along Pinafore Pike and passed the Blues’ house, where she saw Little Boy Blue taking his customary nap under the haystack. She came to the pickled pepper field where Peter Piper was industriously picking his peck. She met Old Mother Hubbard’s dog sniffing around a tree trunk. But although Little Bo-Peep saw these fa¬ miliar Pudding Lane scenes, not a woolly strand did she see of her sheep until, just as she was about to give up in despair, she turned a corner and plump! she bumped into the whole flock of them running down the road toward Pudding Lane as fast as they could run. But who was that driving them and scolding them? A strange-looking creature with great billowing trousers and a little blue jacket and the rosiest — though the crossest — face you ever saw. “ Hey! ” called Bo-Peep. The rosy-faced man looked up, scowling. “Hey!” he replied. “Stop!” he com¬ manded the sheep. “ Stop this minute, you abominable wretches, you stupid beasts, you —” “My goodness!” gasped Bo-Peep. “How [ 94 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS dare you talk to my sheep like that? How —” “ Look here / 5 interrupted the rosy-faced man. “ You be still. You don’t know who I am.” “ Well, you’re not very polite, whoever you are,” replied Bo-Peep indignantly. “ You’re certainly not a gentleman.” “ I am a gentleman! ” shouted the man. “ And if you were a lady, you’d know a gentle¬ man when you saw one. Haven’t I got on a gentleman’s clothes? Haven’t I got a gentle¬ man’s haircut? ” He bent down his head and swept off his hat to show her. “ Well, then, I am a gentleman. But don’t you wish you knew me?” “ I’m afraid I don’t,” replied Little Bo-Peep more softly. For after all, she thought to her¬ self, she need not lose her temper just because he did. “ No, sir, I don’t like you very much, really, and I’m going home now with my sheep.” Then she added, “ But I do thank you, sir, for bringing my sheep back. How did you do it? They’re usually very disobedient.” “How did I do it?” repeated the rosy- cheeked man. “ Why, just by talking to them like a Dutch Uncle. For that’s who I am, my fine young lady. I am the Dutch Uncle, you know.” [ 95 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS So he was the Dutch Uncle of whom Little Bo-Peep and all the other children of Pudding Lane had heard so much, the cross old fellow who scolded everybody he knew, even those people whom he loved the best. Bo-Peep had never seen him before, for the Dutch Uncle had not been to Pudding Lane since many years ago, before Mr. and Mrs. Bo-Peep had been married, ’way back there when the Queen of Hearts was a bride and Humpty Dumpty was a baby. But the people of Pudding Lane, often, oh, very often, referred to the Dutch Uncle; and now here he was, and it was no wonder Bo-Peep stared. “Whose uncle are you, sir?” she asked in her gentlest tones. Questions are supposed to be rude, but if you ask them gently, they somehow don’t sound rude, Bo-Peep had found out. “ Everybody’s, of course! ” replied the Dutch Uncle. “ My goodness, you are an ignorant girl. Now if your parents would only put you in my charge —” Oh, dear, he was off again! But he finally stopped, so Bo-Peep tried another question. “ And where is the Dutch Aunt? ” “ Dutch Aunt! ” exclaimed the Dutch Uncle [ 96 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS scornfully. “ She asks me where the Dutch Aunt is! There isn’t any Dutch Aunt. Didn’t you know that? ” “ No, sir, I didn’t,” replied Little Bo-Peep. C£ There ought to be one, you know. Uncles al¬ ways do have aunts.” She didn’t mean that exactly, but you know and the Dutch Uncle knew what she meant. And now, strangely enough, the Dutch Uncle stopped frowning at her and smiled. “ I do indeed need a Dutch Aunt,” he agreed. “ In fact, that’s just what I’ve come to Pudding Lane for, Bo-Peep, to find a Dutch Aunt.” “To take her away from Pudding Lane and back to Dutchland?” asked Bo-Peep. “ Dutchland! ” laughed the Dutch Uncle. “ Oh, dear, Bo-Peep, you are an ignoramus.” “ Holland, I mean,” Little Bo-Peep corrected herself. Only she did think to herself that Dutchland was a better name for it, after all, than Hol¬ land. And she was thinking, too, what an ex¬ ceedingly pleasant fellow the Dutch Uncle was when he forgot to talk like a Dutch Uncle. Which is exactly what the people of Pudding Lane had always said about him; that if only he hadn’t been such an old busybody, attending [ 97 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS to everybody’s affairs, he would have been the nicest uncle in the world. The Dutch Uncle got a tremendous ovation when he and Bo-Peep got back to Pudding Lane with the sheep a few minutes later. At least “ ovation ” is what the Town Crier called it. Anyway, they made a big fuss over the Dutch Uncle, for they loved the old fellow, even if they did call him names, and they were glad to see him after all these years. As for the Dutch Uncle himself, he was over¬ joyed to see his old favorites, and he greeted and scolded them all in the most affectionate manner possible. “ As I live and breathe, Mrs. Dumpty! ” he exclaimed, catching sight of that fat little lady. “ How glad I am to see you. But you ought,” here he frowned in the midst of his rosy smile, “ you ought to take Humpty to London, you know, to consult the great doctors there.” “And there’s Mr. Claus! Baker, baker, why will you waste your talents in Pudding Lane when you might easily be Assistant Chief Cur¬ rant Bun Maker to the Lord Mayor of London himself ? ” (You would have thought he was the British Uncle the way he talked about London.) [ 98 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS “ Ah, Mrs. Grundy! 5 ’ He bowed low and kissed that lady’s hand. “ How many moons has it been since I have had this privilege? But that long face of yours won’t do, my dear old friend. Really, you ought to cheer up, you know.” He next spied a young girl. “ Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary! ” he cried delightedly. “How does your garden grow? You were just a baby when I saw you last. But you must mend your ways, Mistress Mary. Con¬ trary girls, you know —” And so he went the rounds. He chided Sim¬ ple Simon for not trying to improve his wits. He urged Little Miss Muffett to give up her diet and try green vegetables. He insisted that the Old Woman abandon her Shoe and go to live in a house like other respectable folk. And he even rebuked Old King Cole as being far too merry for the dignity of his position. Yes, he was just the same. Queer, wasn’t it? But then everybody is queer in one way or an¬ other, and the Dutch Uncle really did have the softest heart in the world under his little blue jacket, as the people of Pudding Lane had al¬ ways suspected and now found out that very day. [ 99 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS For suddenly the Dutch Uncle whirled around and demanded: “ And where is pretty Dolly Daffy-Dill? ” “ Pretty Dolly Daffy-Dill? ” repeated every¬ body, and then they all looked at each other. Could it be possible that the Dutch Uncle be¬ lieved that Dolly Daffy-Dill was still the same girl he had known so many years ago? Did he not know that she had grown older, just as every¬ body else had? Had he not heard how crabbed she had become, so crabbed, indeed, that she wasn’t even called Dolly any more, but Cross- Patch, which suited her much better? It seemed impossible that the Dutch Uncle did not know all these things, but he didn’t, ap¬ parently, so Mr. Horner, the father of Jack, tried to explain. “ She’s older now, you understand,” he said. “ And we call her — Cross-Patch.” “ Cross-Patch, draw the latch, Sit by the fire and spin,” quoted Mrs. Grundy. Oh, dear, it was too bad that the Dutch Uncle had r to find out all this about Dolly, and they all felt very sympathetic. But was the Dutch Uncle distressed? No, indeed. [ 100 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS “ Of course, she’s older! ” he exclaimed. “ I had forgotten that, but it’s all the better. And you say she’s cross? Hurray, what a fine Dutch Aunt she’ll make! ” With which, to everybody’s astonishment, the Dutch Uncle hastened to old % Cross-Patch’s house, the same little house where he used to call on her when she was a girl and he a dash¬ ing young blade. And so his courtship commenced, the strangest courtship that Pudding Lane had ever seen. Isn’t it queer that a cranky old woman like Cross- Patch should have inspired the tender passion in the hearts of such hosts of men? First there was the candlestick-maker and now here was the Dutch Uncle. Well, that’s love, you know, and there’s no doing anything about it. But something else happened in Pudding Lane that quickly drove the Dutch Uncle’s love affair out of everybody’s thoughts. It was really something so terrible and so sad that nobody would have ever dreamed it could happen. And this is what it was: Bo-Peep’s sheep came home one day, after a long absence, and they didn’t have their tails behind them! Oh, so sad! So sad! And how Bo-Peep cried, how the lambs [ 101 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS bleated, how Mr. Bo-Peep hunted for the tails, how doleful Old King Cole looked, how fright¬ ened everybody was. But although Little Bo- Peep wept and Mr. Bo-Peep hunted and Old King Cole worried himself sick, the missing tails were not returned to their owners and King Cole finally said that everybody, every single person, would have to go out on a hunt for them. He even made a speech about it. “ What is a sheep without a tail? 55 he asked the assemblage. “ Nothing!” he answered himself trium¬ phantly, which wasn’t strictly true, although it made a profound impression on his hearers. “ Well, then, what is a whole flock of sheep without a tail? 55 he finished up in grand climax. And so, spurred on by Old King Cole’s ora¬ tory, all of Pudding Lane started on the hunt. It did seem as if they were always searching for something in that town. Once it was Santa Claus, once it was the Pied Piper, ganders, cats, and now it was tails. I said all of Pudding Lane went on the hunt, but I forgot the Dutch Uncle, who was sitting with Cross-Patch in her back garden, sipping a cup of tea. And he must have been talking aw¬ fully loud and drinking tea awfully hard, for he [ 102 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS didn’t seem to hear a bit of the commotion when the whole town departed on its quest. But Cross-Patch had sharp ears and she knew what was up, and she said to her gallant caller: “ Why don’t you help a body who’s in trouble instead of fiddling with a teacup? ” The Dutch Uncle looked at her amazed, for he had just been telling her what a sweet crea¬ ture she was and her remark sounded rather abrupt. “ What is it, my love? ” he asked. “ I said why don’t you go out and help a body? Why don’t you join in the search for the tails of the sheep? ” The Dutch Uncle jumped up, ashamed. “ Oh, I ought to help, I know. I am very fond of Little Bo-Beep and feel so sorry for her in her trouble.” “ Then go out and show your sympathy,” re¬ plied the Dutch Uncle’s lady love grimly. “ I’d go myself if I weren’t so old and crippled.” “ Old, love! ” repeated the Dutch Uncle play¬ fully. “ Crippled! ” “ Go on to your tails,” replied Cross-Patch stolidly. The Dutch Uncle, looking crestfallen, ceased [ 103 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS his gestures, picked up his hat and started for the gate. Indeed, he looked so wretched that Cross-Patch relented a bit. “ Look here,” she called after him. “ If you find the tails, Dutch Uncle, I might — in fact I will — consider becoming the Dutch Aunt.” The Dutch Uncle looked at her beaming, yet almost unbelieving.- “Wonderful woman! ” he exclaimed raptur¬ ously. “ Glorious —” “ Will you get on to those tails? ” cried Cross- Patch, exasperated. She hated foolishness, did Cross-Patch, and the Dutch Uncle was so full of it. She often wished that he would scold her as he did every¬ body else. Being cross herself, she would have enjoyed it. When the Dutch Uncle got into the street, he found that every single person was gone. All the houses and shops were closed. Even the palace at the top of the hill looked deserted. But the Dutch Uncle could hear a little noise from somewhere or other, and as he listened in¬ tently, he decided that it must be the bleating of those poor little sheep down in Bo-Peep’s meadow. He then went down to the meadow and there they were, bleating pitifully, and there [ 104 ] Look here” he said to the black sheep . “ You're responsible for all this ” Page lOjf. I HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS was Bo-Peep too, under a tree and crying as if her heart would break. She raised herself up when she heard the Dutch Uncle’s step and wiped her eyes. “ Do you hear them bleating? ” she asked him. “ Yes,” replied the Dutch Uncle, “ I do.” The Dutch Uncle then made a discovery; the black sheep of the flock was not bleating at all, but was frisking around as merrily as could be, watching the others with wicked glee out of the corner of his eye. The Dutch Uncle watched him a moment and then, without a word to Little Bo-Peep, he marched straight up to that black sheep, took hold of his pink ribbon collar and looked him sternly in the eye. The sheep squirmed a little and tried to brave it out, but the Dutch Uncle was too much for him, so he squirmed a great deal more and dropped his eyes in the most ashamed way. Whereupon the Dutch Uncle did give him a dose of his best Dutch Uncle talk — such a dose! “ Look here,” he said to the black sheep. “ You’re responsible for all this. You know ex¬ actly where those tails are, and you’ve known all along, and now right this minute you’re go¬ ing to take Little Bo-Peep and me and show us where they are. You are a wicked, wicked sheep, [ 105 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS you are, but we’ve got you this time, you wretch, you—” Well, he couldn’t think of anything worse than a wretch, so he stopped with that, and waited for the black sheep to do something. And the black sheep did something, right enough. He turned around and walked off, the Dutch Uncle and Little Bo-Peep behind him, and he kept on walking until at last they came to a wood on the very edge of which stood a tree. And there the black sheep stopped. “ What’s this? ” asked the Dutch Uncle. “ I don’t know,” answered Little Bo-Peep. Then the sheep raised his eyes, the Dutch Uncle and Bo-Peep raised theirs, and there on a branch what should they see but ten little white tails all in a row, hanging like white flowers among the green leaves, with one little black one in the middle! “ Oh! ” shrieked Little Bo-Peep joyfully. “ Ah-ha! ” exclaimed the Dutch Uncle. And the next thing the tails knew, they were being carried back to the sheep in the meadow at Pudding Lane. Everybody was overjoyed when it was known that Little Bo-Peep had found her sheep’s tails, but of course, the next problem was to get them back on the sheep. The carpenter was all for [ 106 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS tacking them on, though he quickly took back his suggestion when he remembered that it was sheep they were talking about, not houses or boards. Jack-of-All-Trades offered to glue them neatly back in their places, and the cobbler said that if sewing were necessary, he would gladly render his services. The cobbler s idea was considered a good one, for the great London doctors were sewing people now, and if it were good for people, it would certainly do for sheep. So they called Doctor Foster, who had just got back from Gloucester, and asked his advice about the sewing. “ No, no, no! ” said Doctor Foster. “ Doctors don’t sew things on, they just sew things up. But if you just tie these tails to the sheep, theyTl grow back as nicely as you please. 5 ’ So that’s what they did, and the tails did grow back, just as he had said, as nicely as you please. Only one looked a little different from its old self, and that was the black sheep’s, which was rather to one side and at a rakish angle. But then the black sheep deserved it, for all the trou¬ ble he had caused. Because the Dutch Uncle thought that the black sheep not only knew where the tails were all the time, but that he himself made the sheep lose their tails. I don’t [ 107 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS see how he could have, really. I think the tails just dropped off. Still, the Dutch Uncle may be right. WeTl never know, for sheep can’t talk, and the black sheep wouldn’t tell if he could. Anyway, it all came out all right. All but one thing and that concerns the poor Dutch Uncle, who didn’t get his Cross-Patch, after all. For when he went back to her in high glee, told her about the tails, and began calling her high-sounding names, Cross-Patch suddenly became fifty times crosser than she had ever been before, told him she couldn’t stand his sugarish nonsense and left the room. And that was the end of the Dutch Uncle’s romance. All might have been different if he had only talked to Cross-Patch like a Dutch Uncle, but that’s so often the way with gentle¬ men in love; they become such different crea¬ tures. However, he did turn on Cross-Patch just as she was leaving the room, and then he certainly did talk to her like a Dutch Uncle, for he was very angry and disappointed. Too late, though. Cross-Patch drew the latch, sat down to spin and never for a second regretted her action. She was even glad the old bother was gone. Poor Dutch Uncle, having to go back to Hol- [ 108 ] HOW A DUTCH UNCLE TALKS land without the Dutch Aunt of his dreams. Everybody felt sorry for him, and especially did Little Bo-Peep, who had come to love him so much. It was Little Bo-Peep who walked with him down the road when he set out that day for Ban¬ bury Cross. They said good-by and shook hands. The Dutch Uncle had tears in his eyes and Bo- Peep was sniffling right out. But the Dutch Uncle soon came to himself. “ Look here, you shouldn’t have come so far with me. The sheep will get lost and your mother will be worried. Go straight home, you naughty child.” But Bo-Peep only smiled at him. “ You’re an old fraud,” she told the Dutch Uncle. And then it was that the Dutch Uncle knew that she had found him out, this Little Bo-Peep of Pudding Lane. Yet he wouldn’t give in, even then. “ Go straight home, I tell you! ” But he kissed her, and then was gone. [ 109 ] VIII THE SAND MAN’S SCARE M RS. BLUE was busy in her kitchen one August morning when she heard a racket in the cornfield. “ At it again,” she murmured and ran out to the side fence. “ Little Boy Blue,” she called loudly, “ come blow your horn. The sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn.” No answer from the little boy, lying under a near-by haystack. Mrs. Blue opened her mouth to call again when up popped Farmer Tom from behind the barn. Farmer Tom was the Blues’ neighbor, and it was Farmer Tom’s cornfield that the cow was in. “ Where’s the boy that looks after the sheep? ” demanded the farmer. “ He’s under the haystack fast asleep,” ad¬ mitted poor Mrs. Blue. Farmer Tom snorted. [ 110 ] What could Mrs . Blue do ? She could do nothing hut climb the fence, skirts and all . Page ill . 4 * THE SAND MAN’S SCARE “ Well, he must get them animals out of my corn,” he said. “ Yes, sir,” answered Mrs. Blue nervously, and then called again, “ little boy blue! ” so loudly that you would have thought any fellow might have waked up. Little Boy Blue did al¬ most wake up too. He grunted, stirred, rubbed his eyes, but then if he didn’t curl down deeper in the hay and go straight back to sleep. What could Mrs. Blue do? She could do nothing but climb the fence, skirts and all — for the gate was a long way off — and go after Little Boy Blue, so that’s what she did. She climbed the fence, marched over to the haystack and shook — yes, shook — her sleeping son until at last he was awake. Then he scuttled away and led the sheep and cow into the pasture where they belonged. This was the way things were always going with the Blues. Boy Blue was forever falling asleep, the cows were forever getting in the corn, Farmer Tom was always scolding and fussing and Mrs. Blue was always worrying. Of course, it was worse in summer, when the warm air was drowsy and the haystack was soft and inviting. But even in winter it was bad enough, for then Little Boy Blue went to sleep over his books, [ 111 ] i THE SAND MAN’S SCARE over his supper, over his games. He had actu¬ ally been caught at it during an exciting game of Hide-and-Go-Seek, when he had hidden be¬ hind the hedge in Mistress Mary’s garden and then promptly gone to sleep there. But you cannot sleep all of the time, even if you’re a Little Boy Blue, and so it was that Little Boy Blue found that he was not sleeping very well of nights, because he slept all day. It was a dull business too, lying awake in the dead of the night, with nothing to see except perhaps a streak of moonlight or the shadow of the pear tree, nothing to hear except the dickery, dickery, dock, of the kitchen clock, nothing to do but wait for daylight to come. And so on this same night, as usual, Little Boy Blue lay stark awake, even starker awake than he sometimes was, for his naps had been more frequent and longer that day. It was early still, about eight o’clock, and although Little Boy Blue had been in bed only half an hour, it seemed to him that he had been there exactly one hundred years, he was so tired of it. He twisted and turned and rolled and kicked. He propped himself up on his elbows and stared up at the stars: “Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are,” and then he almost [ 112 ] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE did go to sleep wondering just exactly what stars were — fire or silver or flowers or what. Little Boy Blue had not studied astronomy yet. But just as he almost fell asleep, clink, clank came a noise, and he came to with a jerk. What was that noise? It sounded like a milk pail, clink, clank. He listened hard, but no further sound came. He squirmed and turned some more. Finally he sat up straight in bed. “ I’m going to get up,” he said to himself. “ Right up.” Which he did. He groped in the dim light for his clothes and put them on — his blue suit, his shoes and stockings, his favorite blue cap with the red button on top. Then he tiptoed softly out of his room, through the kitchen and into the yard. Oh, Little Boy Blue, what would your mother say if she knew you were not in bed and asleep? What would your father say if somebody should tell him that his little boy was out in the middle of the night like this, walking around? But they didn’t know it, those two good souls nod¬ ding by their candle in the second-best parlor, which is probably a good thing, as it would have distressed them. Not that Little Boy Blue meant the least harm in the world. He had just [ 113 ] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE thought he’d take “ a bit of a turn ” and try that way to get sleepy. He had heard the candle- stick-maker say once that he always took “ a bit of a turn ” before he went to bed, which made him sleep like a top. As if tops did sleep — the funny old candlestick-maker. Little Boy Blue had hardly taken three steps when clink, clank, his foot bumped against some¬ thing which made that same noise he had heard a few moments before in bed. He stooped down. It looked like a bucket, but it wasn’t one of his mother’s milk pails. What could it be ? He put his hands into it. There was something inside that felt gritty and sticky and damp. He looked closer and felt it again. It was sand. But what on earth was a bucket of sand doing on the Blues’ side stoop, and who in the world had left it there ? Little Boy Blue did not know. Perhaps his father had forgotten it, he thought. Perhaps Farmer Tom had put it there. He and Mr. Blue were always lending each other things — bags of gravel, baskets of chips, nails and bridles and chicken feed. Well, whatever it was, this was not the place for it, Little Boy Blue knew that. So he picked it up and carried it back to the tool house, and there he put it in a corner out of harm’s way, like [ 114 ] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE the careful little boy that he was. And then he went away to take his bit of a turn. Little did Boy Blue know what he had really done by hiding that bucket of sand, though the fact was that he had done something epoch-mak¬ ing in Pudding Lane. Epoch-making is a big word, but then Little Boy Blue had done a big thing. For whom do you suppose that sand be¬ longed to? It belonged to the Sand Man, that fellow who slips along by our windows at night, throws his handfuls of sand in our eyes and makes us feel heavy in our eyelids and sleepy all over. He had left his sand for the least little while on the Blues 5 side stoop, while he went up to the palace to put the King and Queen to sleep, and now Boy Blue had hidden it. Think of it! The Sand Man without his sand! Do you wonder that when he came back, he wrung his sandy hands and beat his breast in frenzied despair? Do you wonder that he trem¬ bled all over? Poor Sand Man! It did look bad for him. Never before had he failed to do his work. Every single night, for years and years and years, he had gone on his circuit from house to house, and put folks to sleep, first the children, then the grandfathers, and after that, sometimes [ 115 ] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE quite late, the mothers and fathers and big sisters in the parlor. And now on this night, his sand was gone, everybody would stay wide awake, and good¬ ness knows what angry message Old King Cole would send him. That merry old soul might even deprive him of his job, and then what would he do for a living, and what would the Sand Woman do, and all the little Sand Children? It was a sad thought, and the Sand Man shud¬ dered as he stood there in the shadow of the Blues’ house, wondering what to do next. As Little Boy Blue walked down Pudding Lane, he wondered why the Shoe was lighted up so brilliantly, and as he passed the Dumpties’ he thought it strange indeed that the candle in Humpty’s room was still burning. It was late. What should children be doing awake at such an hour? They hadn’t slept all day to make them wakeful, like Boy Blue himself. The Clauses’ house was brightly lighted too, and he could see the Flinderses’ fine new lamp from London burning gayly in Polly’s room. Now, of course, we know exactly what was happening, even though Little Boy Blue did not. We know and the Sand Man knew, but Little Boy Blue did not know, and certainly the dis- [ 116 ] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE tracted mothers of Pudding Lane did not know what was the matter with their children that night. And how exasperated they were too, those mothers. “ What does ail you, Santa Claus ? 55 asked his mother of that little boy, who was sitting up in bed with not a sign of sleep about him. “ I don’t know,” answered Santa Claus, much puzzled himself. “ Only I just can’t sleep, and I don’t believe I ever will sleep again.” “Mercy on us!” breathed Mrs. Claus fear¬ fully. “ Humpty, darling, are you ill? ” asked Mrs. Dumpty anxiously. “ You’ve never been wake¬ ful like this before.” “ No, not ill, just wide awake,” answered Humpty. “ Children, will you get into your beds and go to sleep? ” demanded the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe, beside herself with impatience at all these dozens of children scampering around the Shoe at the impossible hour of nine o’clock. “ But we’re not a bit sleepy,” spoke up Judy. “ Not a single bit! ” echoed Polly and Jumbo and Jocko and all the rest. That was the way it was in every house in Pudding Lane that night. The mothers tried [H7] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE spanking, and it didn’t work. Spanking really doesn’t make you sleepy, though sometimes it makes you try harder to get sleepy. They tried bread and milk. They tried lullabies. They tried everything, and still the children of Pud¬ ding Lane were as wide awake as could be until finally, when they all begged their moth¬ ers to let them go out and play, those fran¬ tic women, wondering what Old King Cole would say to such a performance, consented. And with a whoop loud enough to be heard in Banbury Cross, the children of Pudding Lane rushed outdoors for a glorious romp in the moon¬ light. What a night that was! Everybody was up, even Humpty Dumpty, looking on from his window. Little Boy Blue had joined them, of course. Polly Flinders, Little Bo-Peep, all the Old Woman’s children, Jack Horner — not a single child in Pudding Lane was missing, for even that baby, The Little Girl Who Had a Little Curl, was brought out and dumped in the midst of the fun. You know her. She was only three, but already she was a well-known char¬ acter in the village. A changeable child. One minute she would be very good indeed, and the next she would be — simply horrid. But she [ 118 ] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE was very pretty, and she had a little curl right down in the middle of her forehead. Unless you have played outdoors in the moon¬ light yourself, you can never imagine how much fun it is. There’s something about it that makes mere playing in the daylight and sunshine seem very ordinary. Perhaps it’s the shadows. You’re always mistaking them for something else, which is very funny. Little Bo-Peep actu¬ ally tagged the shadow of the Clauses’ gate once, thinking it was Jumbo! Perhaps it’s the moon¬ light itself, thin and gleaming and rare. Per¬ haps it’s the jolly little stars, kicking up their heels there in the sky. Anyway, it’s pure de¬ light to be out on such a night, and the children of Pudding Lane thought they simply never had had such a good time as they were having that night. They played Tag and Blind Man’s Buff and Ring-Around-a-Rosy. Oh, yes, I forgot to say that singing on such a night seems to be music of a special sort. Even Simple Simon’s poor cracked voice did not sound bad that night as they sang “ Ring Around a Rosy, Pocket Full of Posies.” They played Drop-the-Handker- chief, too, which is particularly good at night, for the handkerchief is so hard to see. [119] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE Well, they played on and on, while the mothers looked at them round-eyed from the windows and wondered if their darling children would ever, ever, ever get sleepy and come in to bed like good and law-abiding citizens. They played on and on and on, while the Sand Man crouched in a corner of the Blues’ side stoop and pondered desperately on his fate. And; they might have been playing yet if the Little Girl with the Curl had not suddenly cut up one of her capers. But she did. She cut up a terrible caper. She cried and kicked and jumped up and down. She screamed and howled and made faces. Oh, she was horrid! At first, the children tried to pacify her by ordinary means. “ Come ride on my back, Little Girl,” invited Santa Claus. “ I’ll be the horse and you can be the rider.” But the Little Girl only stamped her foot at him. “ Little Girl, look here, I’ve got a top! ” called out Tom, Tom, the piper’s son. But the Little Girl only stuck out her tongue at him! “ Little Girl, look at me!” cried Jack-Be- [ 120 ] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE Nimble, jumping over a candlestick for her bene¬ fit. But the Little Girl only lay down on the ground and kicked and screamed some more. The Little Girl’s mother came out, and the Little Girl’s father came out, and they spanked her. But even that did not do any good on this terrible night. They were all perfectly desperate. What could they do with such a child? The party was spoiled. The fun was over. The beautiful mid¬ summer night’s dream was broken. And all be¬ cause of that horrid Little Girl. At last, however, in the midst of her caper, Little Boy Blue had a sudden idea. He didn’t say a word to anybody, but he ran back to his father’s tool house, picked up the pail of sand and brought it to the Little Girl. And lo, when the Little Girl saw that bucketful of lovely sand, she stopped right in the middle of a howl, sat down and began to dig in it as hard as she could dig. She dug with both fists and sent the sand flying. She loved sand to play in, the Little Girl did, and Pudding Lane had so little sand, being far from the sea. The children, breathing sighs of relief, began to play again. [121] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE But the next moment, the games and the night and the whole beautiful party began to seem rather stupid. First it was Jill who yawned. “ Oh, dear, I’m really getting sleepy/' she con¬ fessed. Whereupon Jack said that he was really get¬ ting sleepy too. Humpty Dumpty was seen nod¬ ding at the window. The Little Girl with the Curl had fallen over on her pail, fast asleep. Simple Simon had one eye closed. Santa Claus had both eyes closed. The Old Woman's chil¬ dren were blinking like lazy little pussy cats and Little Boy Blue had gone to sleep standing up. And the next thing they knew it was to-mor¬ row. How surprised they were to find them¬ selves in bed exactly as if nothing had happened. “ What did happen? " they asked their moth¬ ers. “Why, you just got sleepy," answered the mothers. But of course, that really wasn't it at all, and I think it’s funny that nobody guessed that the sand belonged to the Sand Man. Nobody did, however, and they don't know it to this day. And one thing you may be sure of and that is that the Sand Man was never so careless as to [ 122 ] THE SAND MAN’S SCARE leave his sand bucket around any place again. That night, when the children had all been car¬ ried in to their beds, he sneaked quietly down from the Blues’, snatched his precious bucket quickly under his arm and, after putting the grown-ups to sleep, ran for home. “ Look here,” he said to the Sand Woman, after he had told her his exciting story, “ I want you to sew a button on my jacket for me to hang the sand pail on, so that I shall never, never, never forget and leave it any place again.” So the Sand Woman sewed a large button on the Sand Man’s coat, and ever after that the Sand Man kept his pail right with him wherever he was, and never, never, never forgot and left it any place again. [ 123 ] IX WHY TAFFY THE WELSHMAN STOLE MEAT T AFFY the Welshman had come to Pud¬ ding Lane and that quiet village was in a turmoil. For Taffy was not only a Welshman but Taffy was a thief. Perhaps you have heard of him. He specialized in meat. Some thieves go in for gold watches, some deal in silver spoons. Taffy confined himself to meat. Once in a while he descended to bones, but usu¬ ally it was meat, here a knuckle of veal, there a shoulder of lamb, yonder a round of beef. If ever a man knew how to steal meat, Taffy was that man. He could nip off a roast as you or I couldn’t nip off a feather, airily, easily, with jaunty grace. He could nip it when you weren’t looking or when you were. He could nip ten pounds or one pound with equal art. A born genius was Taffy, and he loved his work and pursued it diligently. Thus it was that every morning Mrs. Dumpty, Mrs. Claus, the Old Woman Who Lived in a [ 124 ] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT Shoe, Mrs. Jack Spratt and all the other women of Pudding Lane would trot to the butchers and buy meat; every afternoon Taffy would steal it, and every night — no meat for supper. And the men were getting tired of it. Especially Jack Spratt. “ It’s all very well , 55 he said to Mrs. Spratt one day, “ it’s all very well for these foreigners to come swarming into our fair city, but I must have lean meat soon, or I don’t guarantee, Mrs. Spratt, I don’t guarantee that nothing will hap¬ pen.” Mrs. Spratt quailed. Her husband’s was a delicate constitution and she well knew what the effect would be if he were deprived of meat much longer. He would probably slam doors and kick things. He might even hurl his shoe. Once he had hurled his shoe when there was a shortage of lean meat in Pudding Lane. Awful to think of it, but he did do it. “ Yes,” repeated Jack Spratt, “ it’s all very well for foreign robbers to come swarming —” Really though, Jack Spratt was talking non¬ sense. In the first place, poor Taffy hadn’t “ swarmed ” into Pudding Lane. If there’s only one of you, you can’t swarm; there was only one of Taffy. In the second place, Jack Spratt [12J] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT needn’t have laid down the law like that to his wife. She couldn’t help it if Taffy was a thief. She was tired of eggs and lettuce herself, and thought yearningly of her own favorite fat meat. At night she dreamed of it, juicy, dripping chunks of it. It was like that in every house in Pudding Lane, the men demanding meat, the women buy¬ ing it, and then losing it that way. It did seem rather queer that the women couldn’t keep their meat once they had bought it, but they couldn’t. Even the Queen of Hearts couldn’t keep her meat, and the unfortunate lady had many a scene with Old King Cole over the disappearance of the royal chops. “ I can’t help it,” she told him, “ if your friend Taffy steals meat all over the place. But if I were the King — of course, I’m only a woman, a mere Queen — but if I were the King, I’d soon fix that fellow. I’d take it up with the Welsh ambassador.” Which shows how much she knew about diplomatic matters. And it wasn’t any use talking to her, for if Old King Cole had said there wasn’t any Welsh ambassador, the Queen would have demanded, “ Well, why isn’t there one? ” and a long argument would have ensued. Some women are like that. [ 126 ] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT Only two people in Pudding Lane did not suffer from the ravages of the thieving Taffy. One was Little Miss Muffett, who was quite con¬ tent now, as always, with her curds and whey; and the other was the butcher. For the more meat Taffy stole, the more meat the butcher sold. He was doing a rushing business and he was very happy. Furiously he bought pigs and sheep and beeves at the big market in Banbury Cross, and brought them back on loads and droves to Pudding Lane. Furiously the women bought his meat butchered from these pigs and sheep and beeves. Furiously Taffy nipped the meat from their cupboards and cellars and shelves. Yes, the butcher was very happy. But as Jack Spratt had intimated, this state of affairs could not go on forever. The men were getting worse. They stalked savagely; they had glitterings in their eyes; they gathered in the candlestick-maker’s shop and muttered to¬ gether. Even that mild husband and father, Mr. Claus, was a changed man, and one day, as he eyed his wife in an odd, bloodthirsty way, Mrs. Claus spoke her mind. “ Look here, Mr. Claus,” said she, “ I’m not a roast of mutton, sir.” Mr. Claus gaped. [ 127 ] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT “ Nor am I a leg of pork/’ went on the ex¬ traordinary woman. Mr. Claus gaped wider. “ So you needn’t look at me like a cannibal,” she told him. “ I won’t be cooked and eaten, even by you. Pray don’t delude yourself.” “ My dear —” remonstrated the baker with a ghastly smile. “ No,” continued Mrs. Claus, “ nor shall you cast your eyes upon my children in that fashion. No doubt Santa Claus would make a delicious meal, Mr. Claus, but you shall not feast your¬ self upon him. Yes, and the twins would prob¬ ably be as tender flesh as a man could taste, but you are not the man who will taste it. I am sur¬ prised at you, Mr. Claus, that you should turn heathen like this and want to eat your family alive; I really am.” Oh, what a woman she was! Had Mr. Claus mentioned eating his family? Had he even thought of such an atrocious thing? Yet on and on rattled Mrs. Claus, and she probably would have been rattling on yet, if just then the Town Crier had not come along, ringing his bell and shouting something. What was he saying? cc Make your sandwiches! Bake your cakes! To-morrow is picnic day! ” [ 128 ] The next morning at nine o'clock the whole town started out for Honeysuckle HilL Page I2Q . WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT Picnic day, oh, yes, so it was. To-morrow was picnic day; Mrs. Claus had quite forgotten it. Now the picnic that the Town Crier was call¬ ing was the picnic that Pudding Lane had been talking about all summer, but never, until now, had really got around to. It was a bit late for picnics, being September, but you have to have at least one picnic a year, and if it won’t come off early in the season, it just has to come off late, that’s all. And to-morrow, finally, Pud¬ ding Lane’s annual picnic was to come off. But how can you have a picnic without ham? Mrs. Claus wanted to know. And what is a pic¬ nic without cold tongue? demanded Mrs. Dumpty. Nevertheless, the women went ahead making their sandwiches just the same, cheese sandwiches and currant jam sandwiches, and sandwiches of watercress. They baked their cakes and stuffed their eggs and fished out their pickles and collected their bananas and packed their baskets with all these things. And the next morning at nine o’clock the whole town started out for Honeysuckle Hill. The picnic went off with a bang, despite the meat crisis. Indeed, so successful an affair was that picnic that Old King Cole felt moved to make a formal statement, and he did so, saying [ 129 ] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT that it was very gratifying to him as king for a picnic to attain such heights as this. Although just why he should have been gratified, I don’t know, since all he did for the picnic was to come to it and eat at it. Still, his statement made the women very happy; it’s a great thing to please a king. And so everything was going as smoothly as you please — until something happened to Miss Muffett. It was this way. Little Miss Muffett sat on a tuffet, eating her curds and whey. She was talking and smiling and having a lovely time when along came a spider and sat down beside her. Oh, dear, how she jumped and screamed. For if there was anything in the world that Little Miss Muffett was afraid of, it was a spider. And yet spiders were always pursuing her. Every time that girl sat down on a tuffet to enjoy her repast of curds and whey, along would come a spider and sit down beside her, just as that spider did to-day. It may be that spiders are particularly fond of curds and whey, or per¬ haps Miss Muffett herself had a fatal fascina¬ tion for spiders. Anyway, wherever she went she was pursued by spiders, an unhappy fortune, surely, for a little girl as timid as Miss Muffett. [ 130 ] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT To-day, however, the courtly Mr. Horner, always the man to assist a lady in distress, rose up heroically and chased the spider off. At least, he thought he chased the spider off, and everybody else, including Miss Muffett, thought so too, when suddenly the spider appeared again beside Miss Muffett and this time frightened Miss Muffett away. One look at the hideous creature sitting there so calmly beside her, and overboard went the bowl of curds and whey, up flew Miss Muffett shrieking, and away she was gone, down Pinafore Pike in a cloud of dust. Mr. Horner, the butcher, the baker, the candle- stick-maker and all the other men let out great roars, the women screamed, the children cried. What a scene, where all had been sweet peace before. And then, away leaped Mr. Horner down the road after Miss Muffett, away leaped Mr. Spratt after him, and in another moment every man, woman and child in Pudding Lane was tearing madly down Pinafore Pike behind the flying skirts and scampering feet of Little Miss Muffett. And the spider? Well, the spider with one look at the empty havoc around him, legged it off to Mrs. Spider and the children, sighing as [ 131 ] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT he went. It was too bad, he was thinking to himself. He adored Little Miss Muffett with all the fervor of his spiderish heart, yet every time he went near her, she squealed and pulled up her skirt and ran away from him. Perhaps she didn’t like him, he thought. Oh, dear, it’s a hard world for spiders. Nobody really likes them, even when they are as faith¬ ful and devoted as this old fellow was. Well, Mrs. Spider liked him anyway, he reflected, and the spider children liked him too. Home was the place for spiders, so home he would go and there in the bosom of his family console himself as best he could. For ten good minutes the people of Pudding Lane kept their furious pace down Pinafore Pike. They panted and heaved and got red in the face, especially Mrs. Dumpty; their knees wobbled and waggled, especially the candle¬ stick-maker’s; their tongues hung out, particu¬ larly Simple Simon’s; their arms flapped, Mr. Claus’s most of all. But still they kept on. Old King Cole lost his best ruby crown and never looked back after it. Polly Flinders stubbed her pretty toes and bore the pain un¬ flinchingly. Mrs. Claus’s back hair went stream¬ ing in the wind, and she didn’t even know it. [ 132 ] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT What they were running for, I don’t know, and they didn’t know themselves, I’m afraid. Why they didn’t stop, I can’t say. But they didn’t, until they turned the corner toward Ban¬ bury Cross and there they did stop, suddenly and stock-still. And it was no wonder they stopped, for the most astonishing sight confronted them. In¬ deed, it was so astonishing they couldn’t believe they were seeing aright. It didn’t seem possible that they could be seeing hundreds of cats and hundreds of dogs like that. For that’s just what they saw: hundreds of cats and hundreds of dogs, all there together, with hundreds of bones and hundreds of chunks of meat. And in the midst of that mass of fur and sharp eyes and wagging tails and crunch¬ ing jaws stood Taffy the Welshman, smiling happily at the scene. The people of Pudding Lane blinked; they rubbed their eyes. Surely something was the matter with their eyesight. But Taffy himself looked natural enough, and his voice when he spoke, sounded natural too. Taffy was speak¬ ing; he addressed himself, very properly, to Old King Cole. “ Welcome, sir,” said he graciously. “Wel- [ 133 ] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT come to Your Majesty, welcome to the Queen of Hearts, and heartiest greetings to all your people here/’ But Old King Cole couldn’t answer, for star¬ ing at the cats and dogs. “ I knew you would come some day,” went on Taffy smoothly, “ and now — here you are. We welcome you, sir, cats, dogs and Taffy him¬ self.” No answer from Old King Cole, glaring an¬ grily now at the cats and dogs. “ You must understand, sir,” began Taffy. “ But that’s just it,” burst out Old King Cole, “ I don’t understand at all. I tell you, Welsh¬ man, this is a serious thing. You break the law, you defy punishment, you steal meat from my people day in and day out, and now I find you here, consorting with hundreds of dogs and hun¬ dreds of cats on the public highway. Can it be, sir, that you have robbed us of beef and mutton only to feed these beasts ? ” “ That is the truth, Your Majesty,” answered Taffy softly. “ I spend my life stealing meat for these poor creatures. Is it so wong of me?” “ Wrong? Of course it’s wrong,” thundered Old King Cole. “ Don’t you know wrong from [ 134 ] WHY TAFFY STOLE MEAT right, Welshman? Didn’t your mother teach you that it was wrong to steal? ”