The Sandburg Treasury

by Carl Sandburg

  “‘When I went away from the palace, the doors and the windowsills, the corners of the roofs and the eave troughs where the rain runs off, they were all full of pink and purple peanuts standing in their overshoes washing their faces, stitching handkerchiefs, calling good-by to me, good-by and come again, good-by and stay longer next time. Then I came buzzing home because I was lonesome. And I am so, so glad to be home again.’”

  The Potato Face looked up again and said, “It is a misty, moisty evening in the moonshine. Now tell us about that blue-violet honeybee, Spanish Onions.”

  And Dippy the Wisp tied a slipknot in the pearl-color handkerchief around the yellow neck of Spanish Onions and said, “Spanish Onions came buzzing back home with her face dirty and scared, and she told us, ‘I flew and flew and I buzzed and buzzed till I came where I met the Queen of the Empty Hats. She took me by the foot and took me across the City of the Empty Hats, saying under her breath, “There is a screw loose somewhere; there is a leak in the tank.” Fat rats, fat bats, fat cats, came along under empty hats, and the Queen always said under her breath, “There is a screw loose somewhere; there is a leak in the tank.” In the houses, on the street, riding on the rattlers and the razz cars, the only people were hats, empty hats. When the fat rats changed hats with the fat bats, the hats were empty. When the fat bats changed those hats with the fat cats, the hats were empty. I took off my hat and saw it was empty. I began to feel like an empty hat myself. I got scared. I jumped loose from the Queen of the Empty Hats and buzzed back home fast. I am so, so glad to be home again.’”

  The Potato Face sat hugging his accordion. He looked up and said, “Put the bees back in the bee bag—they buzz too many secrets, syllables, and snitches.”

  “What do you expect when the moon is a gold door with silver transoms?” asked Slip Me Liz.

  “Yes,” said Dippy the Wisp. “What do you expect when the bumblebees and the honeybees are chasing each other over the gold door of the moon and up over the silver transoms?”

  And the two tough pony girls, the two limber prairie girls, went away humming a little humpty dumpty song across the moonshine gold on the tops of the rainpools.

  HOW HOT BALLOONS AND HIS PIGEON DAUGHTERS CROSSED OVER INTO THE ROOTABAGA COUNTRY

  HOT BALLOONS WAS a man who lived all alone among people who sell slips, flips, flicks, and chicks by the dozen, by the box, by the boxcar job lot, back and forth to each other.

  Hot Balloons used to open the window in the morning and say to the ragpickers and the rag handlers, “Far, far away the pigeons are calling; far, far away the white wings are dipping in the blue, in the sky blue.”

  And the ragpickers and the rag handlers looked up from their ragbags and said, “Far, far away the rags are flying; far, far away the rags are whistling in the wind, in the sky wind.”

  Now two pigeons came walking up to the door, the doorknob and the doorbell under the window of Hot Balloons. One of the pigeons rang the bell. The other pigeon, too, stepped up to the bell and gave it a ring.

  Then they waited, tying the shoestrings on their shoes and the bonnet strings under their chins, while they waited.

  Hot Balloons opened the door. And they flew into his hands, one pigeon apiece in each of his hands, flipping and fluttering their wings, calling, “Ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo,” leaving a letter in his hands and then flying away fast.

  Hot Balloons stepped out on the front steps to read the letter where the light was good in the daylight because it was so early in the morning. The letter was on paper scribbled over in pigeon-foot blue handwriting with many secrets and syllables.

  After Hot Balloons read the letter, he said to himself, “I wonder if those two pigeons are my two runaway daughters, Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz. When they ran away, they said they would cross the Shampoo River and go away into the Rootabaga Country to live. And I have heard it is a law of the Rootabaga Country whenever a girl crosses the Shampoo River to come back where she used to be, she changes into a pigeon—and she stays a pigeon till she crosses back over the Shampoo River into the Rootabaga Country again.” And he shaded his eyes with his hands and looked far, far away in the blue, in the sky blue. And by looking long and hard, he saw far, far away in the sky blue the two white pigeons dipping their wings in the blue, flying fast, circling and circling higher and higher, toward the Shampoo River, toward the Rootabaga Country.

  “I wonder, I guess, I think so,” he said to himself, “I wonder, I think so, it must be those two pigeons are my two runaway daughters, my two girls, Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz.”

  He took out the letter and read it again right side up, upside down, back and forth. “It is the first time I ever read pigeon-foot blue handwriting,” he said to himself. And the way he read the letter, it said to him:

  Daddy, daddy, daddy, come home to us in the Rootabaga Country where the pigeons call ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo, where the squirrels carry ladders and the wildcats ask riddles and the fish jump out of the rivers and speak to the frying pans, where the baboons take care of the babies and the black cats come and go in orange and gold stockings, where the birds wear rose and purple hats on Monday afternoons up in the skylights in the evening.

  (Signed) DIPPY THE WISP,

  SLIP ME LIZ.

  And reading the letter a second time, Hot Balloons said to himself, “No wonder it is scribbled over the paper in pigeon-foot blue handwriting. No wonder it is full of secrets and syllables.”

  So he jumped into a shirt and a necktie, he jumped into a hat and a vest, and he jumped into a steel car, starting with a snizz and a snoof till it began running smooth and even as a catfoot.

  “I will ride to the Shampoo River faster than two pigeons fly,” he said. “I will be there.”

  Which he was. He got there before the two pigeons. But it was no use, for the rain and the rainstorm was working—and the rain and the rainstorm tore down and took and washed away the steel bridge over the Shampoo River.

  “Now there is only an air bridge to cross on, and a steel car drops down, falls off, falls through, if it runs on an air bridge,” he said.

  So he was all alone with the rain and the rainstorm all around him—and far as he could see by shading his eyes and looking, there was only the rain and the rainstorm across the river—and the air bridge.

  While he waited for the rain and the rainstorm to go down, two pigeons came flying into his hands, one apiece into each hand, flipping and fluttering their wings and calling, “Ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo.” And he could tell by the way they began tying the shoestrings on their shoes and the bonnet strings under their chins, they were the same two pigeons ringing the doorbell that morning.

  They wrote on his thumbnails in pigeon-foot blue handwriting, and he read their handwriting asking him why he didn’t cross over the Shampoo River. And he explained, “There is only an air bridge to cross on. A steel car drops down, falls off, falls through, if it runs on an air bridge. Change my steel car to an air car. Then I can cross the air bridge.”

  The pigeons flipped and fluttered, dipped their wings and called, “Ka loo, ka loo, ka lo, ka lo.” And they scribbled their pigeon feet on his thumbnail—telling him to wait. So the pigeons went flying across the Shampoo River.

  They came back with a basket. In the basket was a snoox and a gringo. And the snoox and the gringo took hammers, jacks, flanges, nuts, screws, bearings, ball bearings, axles, axle grease, ax handles, spits, spitters, spitballs and spitfires, and worked.

  “It’s a hot job,” said the snoox to the gringo.

  “I’ll say it’s a hot job,” said the gringo, answering the snoox.

  “We’ll give this one the merry razoo,” said the snoox to the gringo, working overtime and double time.

  “Yes, we’ll put her to the cleaners and shoot her into high,” said the gringo, answering the snoox, working overtime and double time.

  They changed the steel to air, made an air car out of the steel car, put Hot Balloons and the two pigeons i
nto the air car, and drove the air car across the air bridge.

  And nowadays when people talk about it in the Rootabaga Country, they say, “The snoox and the gringo drove the air car across the air bridge clean and cool as a whistle in the wind. As soon as the car got off the bridge and over into the Rootabaga Country, the two pigeons changed in a flash. And Hot Balloons saw they were his two daughters, his two runaway girls, Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz, standing and smiling at him and looking fresh and free as two fresh fish in a free river, fresh and free as two fresh bimbos in a bamboo tree.

  He kissed them both, two long kisses, and while he was kissing them, the snoox and the gringo worked double time and overtime and changed the air car back into a steel car.

  And Dippy the Wisp and Slip Me Liz rode in that car—starting with a snizz and a snoof till it began running smooth and even as a catfoot—showing their father, Hot Balloons, where the squirrels carry ladders and the wildcats ask riddles and the fish jump out of the rivers and speak to the frying pans, where the baboons take care of the babies and the black cats come and go in orange and gold stockings, where the birds wear rose and purple hats on Monday afternoons up in the skylights in the evening.

  And often on a Saturday night or a New Year Eve or a Christmas morning, Hot Balloons remembers back how things used to be, and he tells his two girls about the ragpickers and the rag handlers back among the people who sell slips, flips, slicks, and chicks, by the dozen, by the box, by the boxcar job lot, back and forth to each other.

  HOW TWO SWEETHEART DIPPIES SAT IN THE MOONLIGHT ON A LUMBERYARD FENCE AND HEARD ABOUT THE SOONERS AND THE BOOMERS

  NOT SO VERY far and not so very near the Village of Liver-and-Onions is a dippy little town where dippy people used to live.

  And it was long, long ago the sweetheart dippies stood in their windows and watched the dips of the star dippers in the dip of the sky.

  It was the dippies who took the running wild oleander and the running wild rambler rose and kept them so the running wild winters let them alone.

  “It is easy to be a dippy . . . among the dippies . . . isn’t it?” the sweetheart dippies whispered to each other, sitting in the leaf shadows of the oleander, the rambler rose.

  The name of this dippy town came by accident. The name of the town is Thumbs Up, and it used to be named Thumbs Down and expects to change its name back and forth between Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down.

  The running wild oleanders and the running wild rambler roses grow there over the big lumberyards where all the old lumber goes.

  The dippies and the dippy sweethearts go out there to those lumberyards and sit on the fence moonlight nights and look at the lumber.

  The rusty nails in the lumber get rustier and rustier till they drop out. And whenever they drop out, there is always a rat standing under to take the nail in his teeth and chew the nail and eat it.

  For this is the place the nail-eating rats come to from all over the Rootabaga Country. Father rats and mother rats send the young rats there to eat nails and get stronger.

  If a young rat comes back from a trip to the lumberyards in Thumbs Up and he meets another young rat going to those lumberyards, they say to each other, “Where have you been?” “To Thumbs Up.” “And how do you feel?” “Hard as nails.”

  Now one night two of the dippies, a sweetheart boy and girl, went out to the big lumberyards and sat on the fence and looked at the lumber and the running wild oleanders and the running wild rambler roses.

  And they saw two big rusty nails, getting rustier and rustier, drop out of the lumber and drop into the teeth of two young rats.

  And the two young rats sat up on their tails there in the moonlight under the oleanders, under the roses, and one of the young rats told the other young rat a story he made up out of his head.

  Chewing on the big rusty nail and then swallowing, telling more of the story after swallowing and before beginning to chew the nail again, this is the story he told—and this is the story the two dippies, the two sweethearts sitting on the fence in the moonlight, heard:

  Far away where the sky drops down, and the sunsets open doors for the nights to come through—where the running winds meet, change faces, and come back—there is a prairie where the green grass grows all around.

  And on that prairie the gophers, the black and brown-striped ground squirrels, sit with their backs straight up, sitting on their soft paddy tails, sitting in the spring song murmur of the south wind, saying to each other, “This is the prairie, and the prairie belongs to us.”

  Now far back in the long time, the gophers came there, chasing each other, playing the-green-grass-grew-all-around, playing cross tag, hop tag, skip tag, billy-be-tag, billy-be-it.

  The razorback hogs came then, eating pig nuts, potatoes, paw paws, pumpkins. The wild horse, the buffalo, came. The moose, with spraggly branches of antlers spreading out over his head, the moose came—and the fox, the wolf.

  The gophers flipped a quick flip-flop back into their gopher holes when the fox, the wolf, came. And the fox, the wolf, stood at the holes and said, “You look like rats, you run like rats, you are rats, rats with stripes. Bah! You are only rats. Bah!”

  It was the first time anybody said “Bah!” to the gophers. They sat in a circle with their noses up asking, “What does this ‘Bah!’ mean?” And an old-timer, with his hair falling off in patches, with the stripes on his soft paddy tail patched with patches, this old-timer of a gopher said, “‘Bah!’ speaks more than it means whenever it is spoken.”

  Then the sooners and the boomers came, saying “Bah!” and saying it many new ways, till the fox, the wolf, the moose, the wild horse, the buffalo, the razorback hog picked up their feet and ran away without looking back.

  The sooners and boomers began making houses, sod houses, log, lumber, plaster-and-lath houses, stone, brick, steel houses, but most of the houses were lumber with nails to hold the lumber together to keep the rain off and push the wind back and hold the blizzards outside.

  In the beginning the sooners and boomers told stories, spoke jokes, made songs, with their arms on each other’s shoulders. They dug wells, helping each other get water. They built chimneys together helping each other let the smoke out of their houses. And every year (he day before Thanksgiving they went in cahoots with their posthole diggers and dug all the postholes for a year to come. That was in the morning. In the afternoon they took each other’s cistern cleaners and cleaned all the cisterns for a year to come. And the next day on Thanksgiving they split turkey wishbones and thanked each other they had all the postholes dug and all the cisterns cleaned for a year to come.

  If the boomers had to have broomcorn to make brooms, the sooners came saying, “Here is your broomcorn.”

  If the sooners had to have a gallon of molasses, the boomers came saying, “Here is your gallon of molasses.”

  They handed each other big duck eggs to fry, big goose eggs to boil, purple pigeon eggs for Easter breakfast. Wagonloads of buff banty eggs went back and forth between the sooners and boomers. And they took big hayracks full of buff banty hens and traded them for hayracks full of buff banty roosters.

  And one time at a picnic, one summer afternoon, the sooners gave the boomers a thousand golden ice tongs with hearts and hands carved on the handles. And the boomers gave the sooners a thousand silver wheelbarrows with hearts and hands carved on the handles.

  Then came pigs, pigs, pigs, and more pigs. And the sooners and boomers said the pigs had to be painted. There was a war to decide whether the pigs should be painted pink or green. Pink won.

  The next war was to decide whether the pigs should be painted checks or stripes. Checks won. The next war after that was to decide whether the checks should be painted pink or green. Green won.

  Then came the longest war of all, up till that time. And this war decided the pigs should be painted both pink and green, both checks and stripes.

  They rested then. But it was only a short rest, for then came the war to decide wheth
er peach pickers must pick peaches on Tuesday mornings or on Saturday afternoons. Tuesday mornings won. This was a short war. Then came a long war—to decide whether telegraph pole climbers must eat onions at noon with spoons, or whether dishwashers must keep their money in pig’s ears with padlocks pinched on with pincers.

  So the wars went on. Between wars they called each other goofs and snoofs, grave robbers, pickpockets, porch climbers, pie thieves, pie-face mutts, bums, big bums, big greasy bums, dummies, mummies, rummies, sneezicks, bohunks, wops, snorkies, ditchdiggers, peanuts, fatheads, sapheads, pinheads, pickle faces, horse thieves, rubbernecks, big pieces of cheese, big bags of wind, snabs, scabs, and dirty sniveling snitches. Sometimes when they got tired of calling each other names, they scratched in the air with their fingers and made faces with their tongues out twisted like pretzels.

  After a while, it seemed, there was no corn, no broomcorn, no brooms, not even teeny sweepings of corn or broomcorn or brooms. And there were no duck eggs to fry, goose eggs to boil, no buff banty eggs, no buff banty hens, no buff banty roosters, no wagons for wagonloads of buff banty eggs, no hayracks for hayrack loads of buff banty hens and buff banty roosters.

  And the thousand golden ice tongs the sooners gave the boomers, and the thousand silver wheelbarrows the boomers gave the sooners, both with hearts and hands carved on the handles, they were long ago broken up in one of the early wars deciding pigs must be painted both pink and green with both checks and stripes.

  And now, at last, there were no more pigs to paint either pink or green or with checks or stripes. The pigs, pigs, pigs, were gone.

  So the sooners and boomers all got lost in the wars, or they screwed wooden legs on their stump legs and walked away to bigger, bigger prairies, or they started away for the rivers and mountains, stopping always to count how many fleas there were in any bunch of fleas they met. If you see anybody who stops to count the fleas in a bunch of fleas, that is a sign he is either a sooner or a boomer.