So again 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, “This is the prairie, and the prairie belongs to us.”
Far away today 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 the gophers are playing the-green-grass-grew-all-around, playing cross tag, skip tag, hop tag, billy-be-tag, billy-be-it. And sometimes they sit in a circle and ask, “What does this ‘Bah!’ mean?” And an old-timer answers, “‘Bah!’ speaks more than it means whenever it is spoken.”
That was the story the young rat under the oleanders, under the roses, told the other young rat, while the two sweetheart dippies sat on the fence in the moonlight looking at the lumber and listening.
The young rat who told the story hardly got started eating the nail he was chewing, while the young rat that did the listening chewed up and swallowed down a whole nail.
As the two dippies on the fence looked at the running wild oleander and the running wild rambler roses over the lumber in the moonlight, they said to each other, “It’s easy to be a dippy . . . among the dippies . . . isn’t it?” And they climbed down from the fence and went home in the moonlight.
Two Stories Out of the Tall Grass
PEOPLE:
John Jack Johannes Hummadummaduffer
Feed Box
Eva Evelyn Evangeline Hummadummaduffer
Sky Blue
The harvest moon
A haystack cricket
Baby Moon
Half Moon
Silver Moon
Doorbells, chimneys, cellars
The night policeman in the Village of Cream Puffs
Butter Fingers
Three Strikes
Cub ballplayers
THE HAYSTACK CRICKET AND HOW THINGS ARE DIFFERENT UP IN THE MOON TOWNS
THERE IS AN old man with wrinkles like wrinkled leather on his face living among the cornfields on the rolling prairie near the Shampoo River.
His name is John Jack Johannes Hummadummaduffer. His cronies and the people who know him call him Feed Box.
His daughter is a cornfield girl with hair shining the way corn silk shines when the corn is ripe in the fall time. The tassels of corn silk hang down and blow in the wind with a rusty dark gold, and they seem to get mixed with her hair. Her name is Eva Evelyn Evangeline Hummadummaduffer. And her chums and the people who know her call her Sky Blue.
The eleventh month, November, comes every year to the corn belt on that rolling prairie. The wagons bring the corn from the fields in the harvest days, and the cracks in the corncribs shine with the yellow and gold of the corn.
The harvest moon comes, too. They say it stacks sheaves of the November gold moonshine into gold corn shocks on the sky. So they say.
On those mornings in November that time of the year, the old man they call Feed Box sits where the sun shines against the boards of a corncrib.
The girl they call Sky Blue, even though her name is Eva Evelyn Evangeline Hummadummaduffer, she comes along one November morning. Her father is sitting in the sun with his back against a corncrib. And he tells her he always sits there every year listening to the mice in the cornfields getting ready to move into the big farmhouse.
“When the frost comes and the corn is husked and put in the corncribs, the fields are cleaned and the cold nights come. Papa mouse and mama mouse tell the little ones it is time to sneak into the cellar and the garret and the attic of the farmhouse,” said Feed Box to Sky Blue.
“I am listening,” she said, “and I can hear the papa mouse and the mama mouse telling the little ones how they will find rags and paper and wool and splinters and shavings and hair, and they will make warm nests for the winter in the big farmhouse—if no kits, cats, nor kittycats get them.”
The old man, Feed Box, rubbed his back and his shoulders against the boards of the corncrib and washed his hands almost as if he might be washing them in the gold of the autumn sunshine. Then he told this happening:
“This time of the year, when the mouse in the fields whispers so I can hear him, I remember one November when I was a boy.
“One night in November when the harvest moon was shining and stacking gold cornshocks in the sky, I got lost. Instead of going home, I was going away from home. And the next day and the next night instead of going home, I was going away from home.
“That second night I came to a haystack where a yellow and gold cricket was singing. And he was singing the same songs the crickets sing in the haystacks back home where the Hummadummaduffers raise hay and corn, in the corn belt near the Shampoo River.
“And he told me, this cricket did, he told me when he listened soft if everything was still in the grass and the sky, he could hear golden crickets singing in the cornshocks the harvest moon had stacked in the sky.
“I went to sleep listening to the singing of the yellow and gold crickets in that haystack. It was early in the morning, long before daylight, I guess, the two of us went on a trip away from the haystack.
“We took a trip. The yellow and gold cricket led the way. ‘It is the call of the harvest moon,’ he said to me in a singing whisper. ‘We are going up to the moon towns where the harvest moon stacks the cornshocks on the sky.’
“We came to a little valley in the sky. And the harvest moon had slipped three little towns into that valley, three little towns named Half Moon, Baby Moon, and Silver Moon.
“In the town of Half Moon they look out of the doors and come in at the windows. So they have taken all the doorbells off the doors and put them on the windows. Whenever we rang a doorbell, we went to a window.
“In the town of Baby Moon they had windows on the chimneys so the smoke can look out of the window and see the weather before it comes out over the top of the chimney. And whenever the chimneys get tired of being stuck up on the top of the roof, the chimneys climb down and dance in the cellar. We saw five chimneys climb down and join hands and bump heads and dance a laughing chimney dance.
“In the town of Silver Moon the cellars are not satisfied. They say to each other, ‘We are tired of being under, always under.’ So the cellars slip out from being under, always under. They slip out and climb up on top of the roof.
“And that was all we saw up among the moon towns of Half Moon, Baby Moon, and Silver Moon. We had to get back to the haystack so as to get up in the morning after our night sleep.”
“This time of the year I always remember that November,” said the old man, Feed Box, to his daughter, Sky Blue.
And Sky Blue said, “I am going to sleep in a haystack sometime in November just to see if a yellow and gold cricket will come with a singing whisper and take me on a trip to where the doorbells are on the windows and the chimneys climb down and dance.”
The old man murmured, “Don’t forget the cellars tired of being under, always under.”
WHY THE BIG BALLGAME BETWEEN HOT GROUNDERS AND THE GRAND STANDERS WAS A HOT GAME
UP NEAR THE Village of Cream Puffs is a string of ball towns hiding in the tall grass. Passengers in the railroad trains look out of the windows, and the tall grass stands up so they can’t see the ball towns. But the ball towns are there, and the tall grass is full of pitchers, catchers, basemen, fielders, shortstops, sluggers, southpaws, and backstops. They play ball till dark, and after dark they talk ball. The big, fast ballplayers in the Rootabaga Country all come from these ball towns in the tall grass.
The towns used to have names like names in books. But now the names are all like ball talk: Knock the Cover Off, Home Plate, Chest Protector, Grand Stand, Nine Innings, Three Balls and Two Strikes, Bases Full and Two Out, Big League, Bush League, Hot Grounder, Out Drop, Bee Liner, Muffs and Pick Ups, Slide Kelly Slide, Paste It on the Nose.
Now the night policeman in the Village of Cream Puffs stopped in at the cigar store one night, and a gang of cub ballp
layers loafing and talking ball talk asked him if there was anything in the wind. And he told them this happening:
“I was sitting on the front steps of the post office last night thinking how many letters get lost and how many letters never get answered. A ballplayer came along with a package and said his name was Butter Fingers and he was the heavy hitter, the hard slugger, for the Grand Stand ball team playing a championship game the day before with the Hot Grounders ball team. He came to the Village of Cream Puffs the day before the game, found a snoox and a gringo and got the snoox and the gringo to make him a home run shirt. Wearing a home run shirt, he told me, you knock a home run every time you come to bat. He said he knocked a home run every time he came to bat, and it was his home runs won the game for the Grand Standers. He was carrying a package and said the home run shirt was in the package and he was taking it back to the snoox and the gringo because he promised he wouldn’t keep it, and it belonged to the snoox and the gringo and they only rented it to him for the championship game. The last I saw of him he was hotfooting it pitty-pat pitty-pat up the street with the package.
“Well, I just said tra-la-loo to Butter Fingers when along comes another ballplayer. He had a package too, and he said his name was Three Strikes, and he was the left-handed southpaw pitcher for the Hot Grounders team the day before playing a game against the Grand Stand team. He said he knew unless he put over some classy pitching, the game was lost and everything was goose eggs. So he came to the Village of Cream Puffs the day before the game, found a snoox and a gringo, and got the snoox and the gringo to make him a spitball shirt. A spitball looks easy, he told me, but it has smoke and whiskers and nobody can touch it. He said he handed the Grand Standers a line of inshoots close to their chins, and they never got to first base. Three Strikes was carrying a package, and he said the spitball shirt was in the package, and he was taking it back to the snoox and the gringo because he promised he wouldn’t keep it and it belonged to the snoox and the gringo and they only rented it to him. The last I saw of him he was hot-footing it pitty-pat pitty-pat up the street with a package.”
The gang of cub ballplayers in the cigar store asked the night policeman, “Who won the game? Was it the Grand Standers or the Hot Grounders took the gravy?”
“You can search me for the answer,” he told the boys. “If the snoox and the gringo come past the post office tonight when I sit on the front steps wondering how so many letters get lost and how so many never get answered, I will ask the snoox and the gringo, and if they tell me tonight, I’ll tell you tomorrow night.”
And ever since then when they talk ball talk in the ball towns hiding in the tall grass, they say the only sure way to win a ballgame is to have a pitcher with a spitball shirt and over that a home run shirt, both made by a snoox and a gringo.
Two Stories Out of Oklahoma and Nebraska
PEOPLE:
Jonas Jonas Huckabuck
Mama Mama Huckabuck
Pony Pony Huckabuck
A yellow squash
A silver buckle
A Chinese silver slipper buckle
Popcorn
Yang Yang
Hoo Hoo
Their mother
The shadow of the goose
The left foot of the shadow of the goose
An Oklahoma home
THE HUCKABUCK FAMILY AND HOW THEY RAISED POPCORN IN NEBRASKA AND QUIT AND CAME BACK
JONAS JONAS HUCKABUCK was a farmer in Nebraska with a wife, Mama Mama Huckabuck, and a daughter, Pony Pony Huckabuck.
“Your father gave you two names the same in front,” people had said to him.
And he answered, “Yes, two names are easier to remember. If you call me by my first name Jonas and I don’t hear you, then when you call me by my second name Jonas, maybe I will.
“And,” he went on, “I call my pony-face girl Pony Pony because if she doesn’t hear me the first time, she always does the second.”
And so they lived on a farm where they raised popcorn, these three, Jonas Jonas Huckabuck, his wife Mama Mama Huckabuck, and their pony-face daughter Pony Pony Huckabuck.
After they harvested the crop one year, they had the barns, the cribs, the sheds, the shacks, and all the cracks and corners of the farm, all filled with popcorn.
“We came out to Nebraska to raise popcorn,” said Jonas Jonas, “and I guess we got nearly enough popcorn this year for the popcorn poppers and all the friends and relations of all the popcorn poppers in these United States.”
And this was the year Pony Pony was going to bake her first squash pie all by herself. In one corner of the corncrib, all covered over with popcorn, she had a secret, a big round squash, a fat yellow squash, a rich squash all spotted with spots of gold.
She carried the squash into the kitchen, took a long, sharp, shining knife, and then she cut the squash in the middle till she had two big half squashes. And inside just like outside, it was rich yellow spotted with spots of gold.
And there was a shine of silver. And Pony Pony wondered why silver should be in a squash. She picked and plunged with her fingers till she pulled it out.
“It’s a buckle,” she said, “a silver buckle, a Chinese silver slipper buckle.”
She ran with it to her father and said, “Look what I found when I cut open the golden yellow squash spotted with gold spots—it is a Chinese silver slipper buckle.”
“It means our luck is going to change, and we don’t know whether it will be good luck or bad luck,” said Jonas Jonas to his daughter, Pony Pony Huckabuck.
Then she ran with it to her mother and said, “Look what I found when I cut open the yellow squash spotted with spots of gold—it is a Chinese silver slipper buckle.”
“It means our luck is going to change, and we don’t know whether it will be good luck or bad luck,” said Mama Mama Huckabuck.
And that night a fire started in the barns, crib, sheds, shacks, cracks, and corners, where the popcorn harvest was kept. All night long the popcorn popped. In the morning the ground all around the farmhouse and the barn was covered with white popcorn so it looked like a heavy fall of snow.
All the next day the fire kept on, and the popcorn popped till it was up to the shoulders of Pony Pony when she tried to walk from the house to the barn. And that night in all the barns, cribs, sheds, shacks, cracks, and corners of the farm, the popcorn went on popping.
In the morning when Jonas Jonas Huckabuck looked out of the upstairs window, he saw the popcorn popping and coming higher and higher. It was nearly up to the window. Before evening and dark of that day, Jonas Jonas Huckabuck, and his wife Mama Mama Huckabuck, and their daughter Pony Pony Huckabuck, all went away from the farm saying, “We came to Nebraska to raise popcorn, but this is too much. We will not come back till the wind blows away the popcorn. We will not come back till we get a sign and a signal.”
They went to Oskaloosa, Iowa. And the next year Pony Pony Huckabuck was very proud because when she stood on the sidewalks in the street, she could see her father sitting high on the seat of a coal wagon, driving two big spanking horses hitched with shining brass harness in front of the coal wagon. And though Pony Pony and Jonas Jonas were proud, very proud all that year, there never came a sign, a signal.
The next year again was a proud year, exactly as proud a year as they spent in Oskaloosa. They went to Paducah, Kentucky, to Defiance, Ohio; Peoria, Illinois; Indianapolis, Indiana; Walla Walla, Washington. And in all these places Pony Pony Huckabuck saw her father, Jonas Jonas Huckabuck, standing in rubber boots deep down in a ditch with a shining steel shovel shoveling yellow clay and black mud from down in the ditch high and high up over his shoulders. And though it was a proud year, they got no sign, no signal.
The next year came. It was the proudest of all. This was the year Jonas Jonas Huckabuck and his family lived in Elgin, Illinois, and Jonas Jonas was watchman in a watch factory watching the watches.
“I know where you have been,” Mama Mama Huckabuck would say of an evening to Pony Pony Huc
kabuck. “You have been down to the watch factory watching your father watch the watches.”
“Yes,” said Pony Pony. “Yes, and this evening when I was watching father watch the watches in the watch factory, I looked over my left shoulder and I saw a policeman with a star and brass buttons, and he was watching me to see if I was watching Father watch the watches in the watch factory.”
It was a proud year. Pony Pony saved her money. Thanksgiving came. Pony Pony said, “I am going to get a squash to make a squash pie.” She hunted from one grocery to another; she kept her eyes on the farm wagons coming into Elgin with squashes.
She found what she wanted, the yellow squash spotted with gold spots. She took it home, cut it open, and saw the inside was like the outside, all rich yellow spotted with gold spots.
There was a shine like silver. She picked and plunged with her fingers and pulled and pulled till at last she pulled out the shine of silver.
The Sandburg Treasury Page 15