Petersham Maud - Rootabaga Stories

The balloons floated and filled the sky

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2017, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published by Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., New York, in 1922. A full-color frontispiece from the original edition has been reproduced on the inside front cover.

International Standard Book Number

ISBN-13: 978-0-486-81560-2

ISBN-10: 0-486-81560-9

Manufactured in the United States by LSC Communications
81560901 2017
www.doverpublications.com

TO

SPINK AND SKABOOTCH

1. Three Stories About the Finding of the Zigzag Railroad, the Pigs with Bibs On, the Circus Clown Ovens, the Village of Liver-and-Onions, the Village of Cream Puffs.

People: Gimme the Ax
Please Gimme
Ax Me No Questions
The Ticket Agent
Wing Tip the Spick
The Four Uncles
The Rat in a Blizzard
The Five Rusty Rats

More People:
Balloon Pickers
Baked Clowns
Polka Dot Pigs

How They Broke Away to Go to the Rootabaga Country

Gimme the Ax lived in a house where everything is the same as it always was.

The chimney sits on top of the house and lets the smoke out, said Gimme the Ax. The doorknobs open the doors. The windows are always either open or shut. We are always either upstairs or downstairs in this house. Everything is the same as it always was.

So he decided to let his children name themselves.

The first words they speak as soon as they learn to make words shall be their names, he said. They shall name themselves.

When the first boy came to the house of Gimme the Ax, he was named Please Gimme. When the first girl came she was named Ax Me No Questions.

And both of the children had the shadows of valleys by night in their eyes and the lights of early morning, when the sun is coming up, on their foreheads.

And the hair on top of their heads was a dark wild grass. And they loved to turn the doorknobs, open the doors, and run out to have the wind comb their hair and touch their eyes and put its six soft fingers on their foreheads.

And then because no more boys came and no more girls came, Gimme the Ax said to himself, My first boy is my last and my last girl is my first and they picked their names themselves.

Please Gimme grew up and his ears got longer. Ax Me No Questions grew up and her ears got longer. And they kept on living in the house where everything is the same as it always was. They learned to say just as their father said, The chimney sits on top of the house and lets the smoke out, the doorknobs open the doors, the windows are always either open or shut, we are always either upstairs or downstairseverything is the same as it always was.

After a while they began asking each other in the cool of the evening after they had eggs for breakfast in the morning, Whos who? How much? And whats the answer?

It is too much to be too long anywhere, said the tough old man, Gimme the Ax.

And Please Gimme and Ax Me No Questions, the tough son and the tough daughter of Gimme the Ax, answered their father, It is too much to be too long anywhere.

So they sold everything they had, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, everything except their ragbags and a few extras.

When their neighbors saw them selling everything they had, the different neighbors said, They are going to Kansas, to Kokomo, to Canada, to Kankakee, to Kalamazoo, to Kamchatka, to the Chattahoochee.

One little sniffer with his eyes half shut and a mitten on his nose, laughed in his hat five ways and said, They are going to the moon and when they get there they will find everything is the same as it always was.

All the spot cash money he got for selling everything, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, Gimme the Ax put in a ragbag and slung on his back like a rag picker going home.

Then he took Please Gimme, his oldest and youngest and only son, and Ax Me No Questions, his oldest and youngest and only daughter, and went to the railroad station.

The ticket agent was sitting at the window selling railroad tickets the same as always.

He opened the ragbag and took out all the spot cash money

Do you wish a ticket to go away and come back or do you wish a ticket to go away and never come back? the ticket agent asked wiping sleep out of his eyes.

We wish a ticket to ride where the railroad tracks run off into the sky and never come backsend us far as the railroad rails go and then forty ways farther yet, was the reply of Gimme the Ax.

So far? So early? So soon? asked the ticket agent wiping more sleep out his eyes. Then I will give you a new ticket. It blew in. It is a long slick yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it.

Gimme the Ax thanked the ticket agent once, thanked the ticket agent twice, and then instead of thanking the ticket agent three times he opened the ragbag and took out all the spot cash money he got for selling everything, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, and paid the spot cash money to the ticket agent.

Before he put it in his pocket he looked once, twice, three times at the long yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it.

Then with Please Gimme and Ax Me No Questions he got on the railroad train, showed the conductor his ticket and they started to ride to where the railroad tracks run off into the blue sky and then forty ways farther yet.

The train ran on and on. It came to the place where the railroad tracks run off into the blue sky. And it ran on and on chick chick-a-chick chick-a-chick chick-a-chick.

Sometimes the engineer hooted and tooted the whistle. Sometimes the fireman rang the bell. Sometimes the open-and-shut of the steam hogs nose choked and spit pfisty-pfoost, pfisty-pfoost, pfisty-pfoost. But no matter what happened to the whistle and the bell and the steam hog, the train ran on and on to where the railroad tracks run off into the blue sky. And then it ran on and on more and more.

Sometimes Gimme the Ax looked in his pocket, put his fingers in and took out the long slick yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it.

Not even the Kings of Egypt with all their climbing camels, and all their speedy, spotted, lucky lizards, ever had a ride like this, he said to his children.

Then something happened. They met another train running on the same track. One train was going one way. The other was going the other way. They met. They passed each other.

What was itwhat happened? the children asked their father.

One train went over, the other train went under, he answered. This is the Over and Under country. Nobody gets out of the way of anybody else. They either go over or under.

Next they came to the country of the balloon pickers. Hanging down from the sky strung on strings so fine the eye could not see them at first, was the balloon crop of that summer. The sky was thick with balloons. Red, blue, yellow balloons, white, purple and orange balloonspeach, watermelon and potato balloonsrye loaf and wheat loaf balloonslink sausage and pork chop balloonsthey floated and filled the sky.