Kitabı oku: «Mollie and the Unwiseman», sayfa 2
"It's very pretty," she said. "What is it a picture of – a meadow?"
"No. It's a picture of me," said the Unwiseman. "And it's one of the best I ever had taken."
"But I don't see you in it," said Mollie. "All I can see is a great field of grass and a big bowlder down in one corner."
"I know it," said the Unwiseman. "I'm lying on my back behind the bowlder asleep. If you could move the bowlder you could see me, but you can't. It's too heavy, and, besides, I think the paint is glued on."
"I hope you don't lie on the ground asleep very much," said Mollie, gravely, for she had taken a great liking to this strange old man who didn't know anything. "You might catch your death of cold."
"I didn't say I was lying on the ground," said the Unwiseman. "I said I was lying on my back. People ought not to catch cold lying on a nice warm back like mine."
"And do you live here all alone?" asked Mollie.
"Yes, I don't need anybody to live with. Other people know things, and it always makes them proud, and I don't like proud people."
"I hope you like me," said Mollie, softly.
"Yes, indeed, I do," cried the Unwiseman. "I like you and Whistlebinkie very much, because you don't either of you know anything either, and so, of course, you aren't stuck up like some people I meet who think just because they know the difference between a polar bear and a fog horn while I don't that they're so much better than I am. I like you, and I hope you will come and see me again."
"I will, truly," said Mollie.
"Very well – and that you may get back sooner you'd better run right home now. It is getting late, and, besides, I have an engagement."
"You?" asked Mollie. "What with?"
"Well, don't you tell anybody," said the Unwiseman; "but I'm going up to the village to the drug store. I promised to meet myself up there at six o'clock, and it's quarter past now, so I must hurry."
"But what on earth are you going to do there?" asked Mollie.
"I'm going to buy myself a beaver hat just like Whistlebinkie's," returned the Unwiseman, gleefully, "I've got to have something to keep my tablecloth in, and a beaver hat strikes me as just the thing."
Saying which the Unwiseman bowed Mollie and Whistlebinkie out, and sped off like lightning in the direction of the village drug store, but whether or not he succeeded in getting a beaver hat there I don't know, for he never told me.
III
In the House of the Unwiseman
In which Mollie Reads Some Strange Rules
A Few days later Mollie and Whistlebinkie were strolling together through the meadows when most unexpectedly they came upon the little red house of the Unwiseman.
"Why, I thought this house was under the willow tree," said Mollie.
"Sotwuz," whistled Whistlebinkie through his hat.
"What are you trying to say, Whistlebinkie?" asked Mollie.
"So – it – was," replied Whistlebinkie. "He must have moved it."
"But this isn't half as nice a place for it as the old one," said Mollie. "There isn't any shade here at all. Let's knock at the door, and see if he is at home. Maybe he will tell us why he has moved again."
Mollie tapped gently on the door, but received no response. Then she tried the knob, but the door was fastened.
"Nobody's home, I guess," she said.
"The back door is open," cried Whistlebinkie, running around to the rear of the house. "Come around this way, Mollie, and we can get in."
So around Mollie went, and sure enough there was the kitchen door standing wide open. A chicken was being grilled on the fire, and three eggs were in the pot boiling away so actively that they would undoubtedly have been broken had they not been boiling so long that they had become as hard as rocks.
"Isn't he the foolishest old man that ever was," said Mollie, as she caught sight of the chicken and the eggs. "That chicken will be burned to a crisp, and the eggs won't be fit to eat."
"I don't understand him at all," said Whistlebinkie. "Look at this notice to burglars he has pinned upon the wall."
Mollie looked and saw the following, printed in very awkward letters, hanging where Whistlebinkie had indicated:
Notiss to Burgylers.
If you have come to robb mi house you'd better save yourselfs the trouble. My silver spoons are all made of led, and my diamonds are only window glass. If you must steel something steel the boyled eggs, because I don't like boyled eggs anyhow. Also plese if you get overcome with remoss for having robbed a poor old man like me and want to give yourselfs upp to the poleese, you can ring up the poleese over the tellyfone in Miss Mollie Wisslebinkie's house up on Broadway.
Yoors trooly,The Unwiseman.
P. S. If you here me coming while you are robbing me plese run, because I'm afraid of burgylers, and doo not want to mete enny.
N. G. If you can't rede my handwriting you'd better get someboddy who can to tell you what I have ritten, because it is very important. Wishing you a plesant time I am egen as I sed befour
Yoors tooly,The Unwiseman.
"What nonsense," said Mollie, as she read this extraordinary production. "As if the burglars would pay any attention to a notice like that."
"Oh, they might!" said Whistlebinkie. "It might make 'em laugh so they'd have fits, and then they couldn't burgle. But what is that other placard he has pinned on the wall?"
"That," said Mollie, as she investigated the second placard, "that seems to be a lot of rules for the kitchen. He's a queer old man for placards, isn't he?"
"Indeed he is," said Whistlebinkie. "What do the rules say?"
"I'll get 'em down," said Mollie, mounting a chair and removing the second placard from the wall. Then she and Whistlebinkie read the following words:
Kitching Rules
1. No cook under two years of age unaccompanied by nurse or parent aloud in this kitching.
3. Boyled eggs must never be cooked in the frying pan, and when fried eggs are ordered the cook must remember not to scramble them. This rule is printed ahed of number too, because it is more important than it.
2. Butcher boys are warned not to sit on the ranje while the fiyer is going because all the heat in the fiyer is needed for cooking. Butcher boys who violate this rule will be charged for the cole consumed in burning them.
7. The fiyer must not be aloud to go out without some boddy with it, be cause fiyers are dangerous and might set the house on fiyer. Any cook which lets the house burn down through voilating this rule will have the value of the house subtracted from her next month's wages, with interest at forety persent from the date of the fiyer.
11. Brekfist must be reddy at all hours, and shall consist of boyled eggs or something else.
4. Wages will be pade according to work done on the following skale:
In making up bills against me cooks must add the figewers right, and substract from the whole the following charges:
13. These rules must be obayed.
Yoors Trooly,The Unwiseman.
P. S. Ennyboddy violating these rules will be scolded. Yoors Tooly,
The Unwiseman.
Whistlebinkie was rolling on the floor convulsed with laughter by the time Mollie finished reading these rules. He knew enough about house-keeping to know how delightful they were, and if the Unwiseman could have seen him he would doubtless have been very much pleased at his appreciation.
"The funny part of it all is, though," said Mollie, "that the poor old man doesn't keep a cook at all, but does all his own housework."
"Let's see what kind of a dining-room he has got," said Whistlebinkie, recovering from his convulsion. "I wonder which way it is."
"It must be in there to the right," said Mollie. "That is, it must if that sign in the passage-way means anything. Don't you see, Whistlebinkie, it says: 'This way to the dining-room,' and under it it has 'Caution: meals must not be served in the parlor'?"
"So it has," said Whistlebinkie, reading the sign. "Let's go in there."
So the two little strangers walked into the dining-room, and certainly if the kitchen was droll in the matter of placards, the dining-room was more so, for directly over the table and suspended from the chandelier were these
Rules for Guests
Guests will please remember to remove their hats before sitting down at the tabel.
Soup will not be helped more than three times to any guest, no matter who.
It is forbidding for guests to criticize the cooking, or to converse with the waiteress.
Guest's will kindly not contradict or make fun of their host, since he is very irritable and does not like to be contradicted or made fun of. Guests will oblige their host by not asking for anything that is not on the bill of fare. In a private house like this it would be very awkward to have to serve guests with fried potatoes at a time when ice-cream or mince pie has been ordered.
Horses and wheelbarrows are not aloud in this dining-room under any circumstances whatever.
Neither must cows or hay scales be brought here. Guests bringing their own olives will be charged extra. Also their own assalted ammonds. Spoons, platters, and gravy boats taken from the table must be paid for at market rates for articles so taken away.
Any guest caught violating any or all of these rules will not be aloud any dessert whatever; and a second voilition will deprive them of a forth helping to roast beef and raisins.
Yoors Tooly,The Unwiseman.
N. G. Any guest desiring to substitute his own rules for the above is at libbity to do so, provided he furnishes his own dining-room.
"They're the most ridiculous rules I ever heard of," said Mollie, with a grin so broad that it made her ears uncomfortable. "The idea of having to tell anybody not to wear a hat at the table! He might just as well have made a rule forbidding people to throw plates on the floor."
"I dessay he would have, if he'd thought of it," returned Whistlebinkie. "But just look at these rules for the waitress. They are worse than the others." Then Whistlebinkie read off the rules the Unwiseman had made for the waitress, as follows:
Rules for the Waiteress
1. Iced water must never be served boiling, nor under any circumstances must ice-cream come to the tabel fried to a crisp.
2. Waiteresses caught upsetting the roast beef on a guest's lap will be charged for the beef at the rate of $1.00 a pound, and will have to go to bed without her brekfist.
3. All cakes, except lady-fingers, must be served in the cake basket. The lady-fingers must be served in finger bowls, whether this is what the waiteress is used to or not. This is my dining-room, and I am the one to make the rules for it.
4. All waiteresses must wear caps. Their caps must be lace caps, and not yotting caps, tennis caps, or gun caps. The caps must be worn on the head, and not on the hands or feet. All waiteresses caught voilating this rule will not be allowed any pie for eight weeks.
5. Meals must not be served until they are ready, and such silly jokes as putting an empty soup tureen on the table for the purpose of fooling me will be looked upon with disfavor and not laughed at.
6. Waiteresses must never invite their friends here to take dinner with me unless I am out, and they mustn't do it then either, because this is my dining-room, and I can wear it out quick enough without any outside help.
7. Waiteresses must not whistle while waitering on the tabel, because it isn't proper that they should. Besides, girls can't whistle, anyhow.
8. At all meals dessert must be served at every other course. In serving a dinner this course should be followed:
9. In case there is not enough of anything to go around more will be sent for at the waiteresses' expense, because the chances are she has been tasting it, which she hadn't any business to do.
10. To discourage waiteresses in losing spoons, and knives, and forks, any waiteress caught losing a spoon or a knife and a fork will have the price of two spoons, two knives, and two forks substracted off of her next month's wages.
Yoors Tooly,The Unwiseman.
N. G. All waiteresses who don't like these rules would better apply for some other place somewhere else, because I'm not going to take the trouble to get up a lot of good rules like these and then not have them obeyed. Riteing rules isn't easy work.
"Well I declare!" said Mollie, when they had finished reading. "I don't wonder he has to live in his little old house all by himself. I don't believe he'd get anybody to stay here a minute, if those rules had to be minded."
"Oh, I don't know," said Whistlebinkie. "They all seem reasonable enough."
"I think I'll take 'em down and show them to my mamma," said Mollie, reaching out to do as she said.
"No, no, don't do that," said Whistlebinkie. "That wouldn't be right. They are his property, and it would never do for you to steal them."
"That's so," said Mollie. "I guess you are right."
"If you want to steal something why don't you do as he asked you to?" put in Whistlebinkie.
"What did he ask me to do?"
"Why don't you remember the notice to burglars?"
"Oh, yes!" said Mollie. "'If you must steal something steal a boyled egg.'"
"That's it. He doesn't like boyled eggs."
"And neither do I," said Mollie. "Particularly when they are as hard as bullets."
And then hearing the tinkle of the tea bell at home Mollie and Whistlebinkie left the Unwiseman's house without stealing anything, which after all was the best thing to do.
IV
A Call from the Unwiseman
In which Mollie's Call is Returned
Mollie had been very busy setting things to rights in Cinderella's house one autumn afternoon not long after her visit to the Unwiseman. Cinderella was a careless Princess, who allowed her palace to get into a very untidy condition every two or three weeks. Bric-a-brac would be strewn here and there about the floor; clocks would be found standing upside down in the fire-places; andirons and shoe buttons would litter up the halls and obstruct the stairways – in short, all things would get topsy-turvy within the doors of the Princess' house, and all because Princesses are never taught house-keeping. Should any King or Queen read these lines, the author hopes that his or her Majesty will take the hint and see to it that his or her daughters are properly brought up and taught to look after household affairs, for if they do not, most assuredly the time may come when the most magnificent palace in the world will be allowed to go to ruin through mere lack of attention.
It was a long and hard task for the little mistress of the nursery, but she finally accomplished it; apple-pie order once more ruled in the palace, the Princess' diamonds had been swept up from the floor, and stored away in the bureau drawers, and Mollie was taking a well-earned rest in her rocking-chair over by the window. As she gazed out upon the highway upon which the window fronted, she saw in the dim light a strange shadow passing down the walk, and in a minute the front door-bell rang. Supposing it to be no one but the boy with the evening paper, Mollie did not stir as she would have done if it had been her papa returning home. The paper boy possessed very little interest to her – indeed, I may go so far as to say that Mollie despised the paper boy, not because he was a paper boy, but because he was rude, and had, upon several occasions recently made faces at her and told her she didn't know anything because she was a girl, and other mean things like that; as if being a girl kept one from finding out useful and important things. So, as I have said, she sat still and gazed thoughtfully out of the window.
Her thoughts were interrupted in a moment, however, by a most extraordinary proceeding at the nursery door. It suddenly flew open with a bang, and Whistlebinkie came tumbling in head over heels, holding the silver card-receiver in his hand, and whistling like mad from excitement.
"Cardfew," he tooted through the top of his hat. "Nwiseman downstairs."
"What are you trying to say, Whistlebinkie?" asked Mollie, severely.
"Here is a card for you," said Whistlebinkie, standing up and holding out the salver upon which lay, as he had hinted, a card. "The gentleman is below."
Mollie picked up the card, which read this way:
Mr. ME.
My House.
"What on earth does it mean?" cried Mollie, with a smile, the card seemed so droll.
"It is the Unwiseman's card. He has called on you, and is downstairs in the parlor – and dear me, how funny he does look," roared Whistlebinkie breathlessly. "He's got on a beaver hat, a black evening coat like your papa wears to the theatre or to dinners, a pair of goloshes, and white tennis trousers. Besides that he's got an umbrella with him, and he's sitting in the parlor with it up over his head."
Whistlebinkie threw himself down on the floor in a spasm of laughter as he thought of the Unwiseman's appearance. Mollie meanwhile was studying the visitor's card.
"What does he mean by 'My House'?" she asked.
"That's his address, I suppose," said Whistlebinkie. "But what shall I tell him? Are you in?"
"Of course I'm in," Mollie replied, and before Whistlebinkie could get upon his feet again she had flown out of the room, down the stairs to the parlor, where, sure enough, as Whistlebinkie had said, the Unwiseman sat, his umbrella raised above his head, looking too prim and absurd for anything.
"How do you do, Miss Whistlebinkie?" he said, gravely, as Mollie entered the room. "I believe that is the correct thing to say when you are calling, though for my part I can't see why. People do so many things that there's a different way to do almost all of them. If I said, 'how do you do your sums?' of course there could be a definite answer. 'I do them by adding, or by substracting.' If any one calling on me should say, 'how do you do?' I'd say, 'excuse me, but how do I do what?' However, I wish to be ruled by etiquette, and as I understand that is the proper question to begin with, I will say again, 'how do you do, Miss Whistlebinkie?' According to my etiquette book it is your turn to reply, and what you ought to say is, 'I'm very well, I thank you, how are you?' I'm very well."
"I'm delighted to hear it, Mr. Me," returned Mollie, glad of the chance to say something. "I have thought a great deal about you lately."
"So have I," said the Unwiseman. "I've been thinking about myself all day. I like to think about pleasant things. I've been intending to return your call for a long time, but really I didn't know exactly how to do it. You see, some things are harder to return than other things. If I borrowed a book from you, and wanted to return it, I'd know how in a minute. I'd just take the book, wrap it up in a piece of brown paper, and send it back by mail or messenger – or both, in case it happened to be a male messenger. Same way with a pair of andirons. Just return 'em by sending 'em back – but calls are different, and that's what I've come to see you about. I don't know how to return that call."
"But this is the return of the call," said Mollie.
"I don't see how," said the Unwiseman, with a puzzled look on his face. "This isn't the same call at all. The call you made at my house was another one. This arrangement is about the same as it would be in the case of my borrowing a book on Asparagus from you, and returning a book on Sweet Potatoes to you. That wouldn't be a return of your book. It would be returning my book. Don't you see? Now, I want to be polite and return your call, but I can't. I can't find it. It's come and gone. I almost wish you hadn't called, it's puzzled me so. Finally, I made up my mind to come here, and apologize to you for not returning it. That's all I can do."
"Don't mention it," said Mollie.
"Oh, but I must! How could I apologize without mentioning it?" said the Unwiseman, hastily. "You wouldn't know what I was apologizing for if I didn't mention it. How have you been?"
"Quite well," said Mollie. "I've been very busy this fall getting my dolls' dresses made and setting everything to rights. Won't you – ah – won't you put down your umbrella, Mr. Me?"
"No, thank you," said the Unwiseman, with an anxious peep at the ceiling. "I am very timid about other people's houses, Miss Whistlebinkie. I have been told that sometimes houses fall down without any provocation, and while I don't doubt that your house is well built and all that, some nail somewhere might give way and the whole thing might come down. As long as I have the umbrella over my head I am safe, but without it the ceiling, in case the house did fall, would be likely to spoil my hat. This is a pretty parlor you have. They call it white and gold, I believe."
"Yes," said Mollie. "Mamma is very fond of parlors of that kind."
"So am I," said the Unwiseman. "I have one in my own house."
"Indeed?" said Mollie. "I didn't see it."
"You were in it, only you didn't know it," observed the Unwiseman. "It was that room with the walls painted brown. I was afraid the white and gold walls would get spotted if I didn't do something to protect them, so I had a coat of brown paint put over the whole room. Good idea that, I think, and all mine, too. I'd get it patented, if I wasn't afraid somebody would make an improvement on it, and get all the money that belonged to me, which would make me very angry. I don't like to get angry, because when I do I always break something valuable, and I find that when I break anything valuable I get angrier than ever, and go ahead and break something else. If I got angry once I never could stop until I'd broken all the valuable things in the world, and when they were all gone where would I be?"
"But it seems to me," said Mollie, as she puzzled over the Unwiseman's idea, of which he seemed unduly proud, "it seems to me that if you cover a white and gold parlor with a coat of brown paint, it doesn't stay a white and gold parlor. It becomes a brown parlor."
"Not at all," returned the Unwiseman. "How do you make that out? Put it this way: You, for instance, are a white girl, aren't you?"
"Yes," said Mollie.
"That is, they call you white, though really you are a pink girl. However, for the sake of the argument, you are white."
"Certainly," said Mollie, anxious to be instructed.
"And you wear clothes to protect you."
"I do."
"Now if you wore a brown dress, would you cease to be a white girl and become a nigrio?"
"A what?" cried Mollie.
"A nigrio – a little brown darky girl," said the Unwiseman.
"No," said Mollie. "I'd still be a white or pink girl, whatever color I was before."
"Well – that's the way with my white and gold parlor. It's white and gold, and I give it a brown dress for protection. That's all there is to it. I see you keep your vases on the mantel-piece. Queer notion that. Rather dangerous, I should think."
Mollie laughed.
"Dangerous?" she cried. "Why not at all. They're safe enough, and the mantel-piece is the place for them, isn't it? Where do you keep yours?"
"I don't have any. I don't believe in 'em," replied the Unwiseman. "They aren't any good."
"They're splendid," said Mollie. "They're just the things to keep flowers in."
"What nonsense," said the Unwiseman, with a sneer. "The place to keep flowers is in a garden. You might just as well have a glass trunk in your parlor to hold your clothes in; or a big china bin to hold oats or grass in. It's queer how you people who know things do things. But anyhow, if I did have vases I wouldn't put 'em on mantel-pieces, but on the floor. If they are on the floor they can't fall off and break unless your house turns upside down."
"They might get stepped on," said Mollie.
"Poh!" snapped the Unwiseman. "Don't you wise people look where you step? I do, and they say I don't know enough to go in when it rains, which is not true. I know more than enough to go in when it rains. I stay out when it rains because I like to. I'm fond of the wet. It keeps me from drying up, and makes my clothes fit me. Why, if I hadn't stayed out in the rain every time I had a chance last summer my flannel suit never would have fitted me. It was eight sizes too big, and it took sixteen drenching storms to make it shrink small enough to be just right. Most men – wise men they call themselves – would have spent money having them misfitted again by a tailor, but I don't spend my money on things I can get done for nothing. That's the reason I don't pay anything out to beggars. I can get all the begging I want done on my place without having to pay a cent for it, and yet I know lots and lots of people who are all the time spending money on beggars."
