Kitabı oku: «Mollie and the Unwiseman», sayfa 3

"There is a great deal in what you say," said Mollie.

"There generally is," returned the Unwiseman. "I do a great deal of thinking, and I don't say anything without having thought it all out beforehand. That's why I'm so glad you were at home to-day. I mapped out all my conversation before I came. In fact, I wrote it all down, and then learned it by heart. It would have been very unpleasant if after doing all that, taking all that trouble, I should have found you out. It's very disappointing to learn a conversation, and then not converse it."

"I should think so," said Mollie. "What do you do on such occasions? Keep it until the next call?"

"No. Sometimes I tell it to the maid, and ask her to tell it to the person who is out. Sometimes I say it to the front door, and let the person it was intended for find it out for herself as best she can, but most generally I send it to 'em by mail."

Here the Unwiseman paused for a minute, cocking his head on one side as if to think.

"Excuse me," he said. "But I've forgotten what I was to say next. I'll have to consult my memorandum-book. Hold my umbrella a minute – over my head please. Thank you."

Then as Mollie did as the queer creature wished, he fumbled in his pockets for a minute and shortly extracting his memorandum-book from a mass of other stuff, he consulted its pages.

"Oh, yes!" he said, with a smile of happiness. "Yes, I've got it now. At this point you were to ask me if I wouldn't like a glass of lemonade, and I was to say yes, and then you were to invite me up-stairs to see your play room. There's some talk scattered in during the lemonade, but, of course, I can't go on until you've done your part."

He gazed anxiously at Mollie for a moment, and the little maid, taking the hint, smilingly said:

"Ah! won't you have a little refreshment, Mr. Me? A glass of lemonade, for instance?"

"Why – ah – certainly, Miss Whistlebinkie. Since you press me, I – ah – I don't care if I do."

And the caller and his hostess passed, laughing heartily, out of the white and gold parlor into the pantry.

V
The Unwiseman is Offended
In which the Old Gentleman takes his Leave

"How do you like your lemonade?" asked Mollie, as she and the Unwiseman entered the pantry. "Very sour or very sweet?"

"What did you invite me to have?" the Unwiseman replied. "Lemonade or sugarade?"

"Lemonade, of course," said Mollie. "I never heard of sugarade before."

"Well, lemonade should be very lemony and sugarade should be very sugary; so when I am invited to have lemonade I naturally expect something very lemony, don't I?"

"I suppose so," said Mollie, meekly.

"Very well, then. That answers your question. I want it very sour. So sour that I can't drink it without it puckering my mouth up until I can't do anything but whistle like our elastic friend with the tootle in his hat."

"You mean Whistlebinkie?" said Mollie.

"Yes – that India-rubber creature who follows you around all the time and squeaks whenever any one pokes him in the ribs. What's become of him? Has he blown himself to pieces, or has he gone off to have himself made over into a golosh?"

"Oh, no – Whistlebinkie is still here," said Mollie. "In fact, he let you into the house. Didn't you see him?"

"No, indeed I didn't," said the Unwiseman. "What do you take me for? I'm proud, I am. I wouldn't look at a person who'd open a front door. I come of good family. My father was a Dunderberg and my mother was a Van Scootle. We're one of the oldest families in creation. One of my ancestors was in the Ark, and I had several who were not. It would never do for one in my position to condescend to see a person who opened a front door for pay.

"That's why I don't have servants in my own house. I'd have to speak to them, and the idea of a Dunderberg-Van Scootle engaged in any kind of conversation with servants is not to be thought of. We never did anything for pay in all the history of our family, and we never recognize as equals people who do. That's why I have nothing to do with anybody but children. Most grown up people work."

"I don't see how you live," said Mollie. "How do you pay your bills?"

"Don't have any," said the Unwiseman. "Never had a bill in my life. I leave bills to canary birds and mosquitoes."

"But you have to buy things to eat, don't you?"

"Very seldom," said the Unwiseman. "I'm never hungry; but when I do get hungry I can most generally find something to eat somewhere – apples, for instance. I can live a week on one apple."

"Well, what do you do when you've eaten the apple?" queried Mollie.

"What an absurd question," laughed the Unwiseman. "Didn't you know that there was more than one apple in the world? Every year I find enough apples to last me as long as I think it is necessary to provide. Last year I laid in fifty-three apples so that if I got very hungry one week I could have two – or maybe I could give a dinner and invite my friends, and they could have the extra apple. Don't you see?"

"Well, you are queer, for a fact!" said Mollie, getting a large lemon out of the pantry closet and cutting it in half.

As the sharp steel blade of the knife cut through the crisp yellow lemon the eyes of the Unwiseman opened wide and bulged with astonishment.

"What on earth are you doing, Miss Whistlebinkie?" he said. "Why do you destroy that beautiful thing?"

It was Mollie's turn to be surprised.

"I don't know what you mean," she said. "Why shouldn't I cut the lemon? How can I make a lemonade without cutting it?"

"Humph!" said the Unwiseman, with a half sneer on his lips. "You'll go to the poor-house if you waste things like that. Why, I've had lemonade for a year out of one lemon, and it hasn't been cut open yet. I drop it in a glass of water and let it soak for ten minutes. That doesn't use up the lemon juice as your plan does, and it makes one of the bitterest sour drinks that you ever drank – however, this is your lemonade treat, and it isn't for me to criticize. My book of etiquette says that people out calling must act according to the rules of the house they are calling at. If you asked me to have some oyster soup and then made it out of sassafras or snow-balls, it would be my place to eat it and say I never tasted better oyster soup in my life. That's a funny thing about being polite. You have to do and say so many things that you don't really mean. But go ahead. Make your lemonade in your own way. I've got to like it whether I like it or not. It isn't my lemon you are wasting."

Mollie resumed the making of the lemonade while the Unwiseman looked about him, discovering something that was new and queer to him every moment. He seemed to be particularly interested in the water pipes.

"Strange idea that," he said, turning the cold water on and off all the time. "You have a little brook running through your house whenever you want it. Ever get any fish out of it?"

"No," said Mollie, with a laugh. "We couldn't get very big fish through a faucet that size."

"That's what I was thinking," said the Unwiseman, turning the water on again; "and furthermore, I think it's very strange that you don't fix it so that you can get fish. A trout isn't more than four inches around. You could get one through a six-inch pipe without any trouble unless he got mad and stuck his fins out. Why don't you have larger faucets and catch the fish? I would. If there aren't any fish in the brook you can stock it up without any trouble, and it would save you the money you pay to fish-markets as well as the nuisance of going fishing yourself and putting worms on hooks."

A long hilarious whistle from the pantry door caused the Unwiseman to look up sharply.

"What was that?" he said.

"Smee," came the whistling voice.

"It's Whistlebinkie," said Mollie.

"Is his real name Smee?" asked the Unwiseman. "I thought Whistlebinkie was his name."

"So it is," said Mollie. "But when he gets excited he always runs his words together and speaks them through the top of his hat. By 'smee' he meant 'it's me.' Come in, Whistlebinkie."

"I shall not notice him," said the Unwiseman, stiffly. "Remember what I said to you about my family. He opens front doors for pay."

"Donteither," whistled Whistlebinkie.

"You wrong him, Mr. Unwiseman," said Mollie. "He isn't paid for opening the front door. He just does it for fun."

"Oh! well, that's different," said the proud visitor. "If he does it just for fun I can afford to recognize him – though I must say I can't see what fun there is in opening front doors. How do you do, Whistlebinkie?"

"Pretwell," said Whistlebinkie. "How are you?"

"I hardly know what to say," replied the Unwiseman, scratching his head thoughtfully. "You see, Miss Mollie, when I got up my conversation for this call I didn't calculate on Whistlebinkie here. I haven't any remarks prepared for him. Of course, I could tell him that I am in excellent health, and that I think possibly it will rain before the year is over; but, after all, that's very ordinary kind of talk, and we'll have to keep changing the subject all the time to get back to my original conversation with you."

"Whistlebinkie needn't talk at all," said Mollie. "He can just whistle."

"Or maybe I could go outside and put in a few remarks for him here and there, and begin the call all over again," suggested the Unwiseman.

"Oh, no! Dodoothat," began Whistlebinkie.

"Now what does he mean by dodoothat?" asked the visitor, with a puzzled look on his face.

"He means don't do that – don't you, Whistlebinkie? Answer plainly through your mouth and let your hat rest," said Mollie.

"That – swat – I – meant," said Whistlebinkie, as plainly as he could. "He – needn't – botherto – talk – toomee – to me, I mean. I only – want – to – listen – towhim."

"What's towhim?" asked the Unwiseman.

"To you is what he means. He says he's satisfied to listen to you when you talk."

"Thassit," Whistlebinkie hurried to say, meaning, I suppose, "that's it."

"Ah!" said the Unwiseman, with a pleased smile. "That's it, eh? Well, permit me to say that I think you are a very wonderfully wise rubber doll, Mr. Whistlebinkie. I may go so far as to say that in this view of the case I think you are the wisest rubber doll I ever met. You like my conversation, do you?"

"Deedido," whistled Whistlebinkie. "I think it's fine!"

"I owe you an apology, Whistlebinkie," said the Unwiseman, gazing at the doll in an affectionate way. "I thought you opened front doors for pay, instead of which I find that you are one of the wisest, most interesting rubber celebrities of the day. I apologize for even thinking that you would accept pay for opening a front door, and I will esteem it a great favor if you will let me be your friend. Nay, more. I shall make it my first task to get up a conversation especially for you. Eh? Isn't that fine, Whistlebinkie? I, Me, the Unwiseman, promise to devote fifteen or twenty minutes of his time to getting up talk for you, talk with thinking in it, talk that amounts to something, talk that ninety-nine talkers out of a hundred conversationalists couldn't say if they tried; and all for you. Isn't that honor?"

"Welliguess!" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"Very well, then. Listen," said the Unwiseman. "Where were we at, Miss Mollie?"

"I believe," said Mollie, squeezing a half a lemon, "I believe you were saying something about putting fish through the faucet."

"Oh, yes! As I remember it, the faucets were too small to get the fish through, and I was pondering why you didn't have them larger."

"That was it," said Mollie. "You thought if the faucets were larger it would save fish-hooks and worms."

"Exactly," said the Unwiseman. "And I wonder at it yet. I'd even go farther. If I could have a trout-stream running through my house that I could turn on and off as I pleased, I'd have also an estuary connected with the Arctic regions through which whales could come, and in that way I'd save lots of money. Just think what would happen if you could turn on a faucet and get a whale. You'd get oil enough to supply every lamp in your house. You wouldn't have to pay gas bills or oil bills, and besides all that you could have whale steaks for breakfast, and whenever your mother wanted any whale-bone, instead of sending to the store for it, she'd have plenty in the house. If you only caught one whale a month, you'd have all you could possibly need."

"It certainly is a good idea," said Mollie. "But I don't think – "

"Wait a minute, please," said the Unwiseman, hastily. "That don't think remark of yours isn't due until I've turned on this other faucet."

Suiting his action to his word, the Unwiseman turned on the hot-water faucet, and plunging his hand into the water, slightly scalded his fingers.

"Ouch!" he cried. "The brook must be afire! Now who ever heard of that? The idea of a brook being on fire! Really, Miss Whistlebinkie, you ought to tell your papa about this. If you don't, the pipes will melt and who knows what will become of your house? It will be flooded with burning water!"

"Oh, no! – I guess not. That water is heated down stairs in the kitchen, in the boiler."

"But – but isn't it dangerous?" the Unwiseman asked, anxiously.

"Not at all," said Mollie. "You've been mistaken all along, Mr. Me. There isn't any brook running through this house."

"I?" cried the Unwiseman, indignantly. "Me? I? The Unwiseman mistaken? Never! I never made a mistake but once, Miss Mary J. Whistlebinkie, and that was in calling upon you. I'm going home at once. You have outrageously offended me."

"I didn't mean to," pleaded Mollie. "I was only trying to tell you the truth. This water comes out of a tank."

"Excuse me," said the Unwiseman, indignantly. "You have said that I have made a mistake. You charge me with an act of which I have never been guilty, and I am going straight home. You said something that wasn't in the conversation, and we can never get back again to the point from which you have departed."

"Oh! do stay," said Whistlebinkie. "You haven't seen the nursery yet, and the hardwood stairs, and all the lovely things we have here."

"No, I haven't – and I sha'n't now!" retorted the Unwiseman. "I had some delicious remarks to make about the nursery, but now they are impossible. I shall not even drink your lemonade. I am going home!"

And without another word the Unwiseman departed in high dudgeon.

"Isn't it too bad," said Mollie, as she heard the front door slam after the departing guest.

"Yes," said Whistlebinkie. "I wanted him to stay until it was dark. I should like so much to know what he'd have to say about gas."

VI
The Christmas Venture of the Unwiseman
In which the Unwiseman Goes into an Unprofitable Business

It was the Saturday before Christmas. Mollie and Whistlebinkie started out in the afternoon to watch the boys skating for a while, after which they went to the top of the great hill just outside the village to take a coast or two. Whistlebinkie had never had any experience on a sled, and he was very anxious to try it just once, and, as Mollie was a little sleepy when he began persuading her to take him some time when she went, for the sake of peace and rest she had immediately promised what he wished of her. So here they were, on this cold, crisp December day, laboriously lugging Mollie's sled up the hill.

"Tain-teesy!" whistled Whistlebinkie.

"What's that you say?" panted Mollie, for she was very much out of breath.

"Tain-teesy," repeated Whistlebinkie. "I can't wissel well when I'm out of breath."

"Well, I guess I know what you mean," said Mollie. "You mean that it isn't easy pulling this sled up hill."

"Thassit!" said Whistlebinkie. "If this is what you call coasting, I don't want any more of it."

"Oh, no!" said Mollie. "This isn't coasting. This is only getting ready to coast. The coast comes when you slide down hill. We'll come down in about ten seconds."

"Humph!" said Whistlebinkie. "All this pulling and hauling for ten seconds' worth of fun?"

"That's what I say!" said a voice at Mollie's elbow. "Sliding down hill is never any fun unless you live at the top of the hill and wish to go down to the level to stay forever."

"Why," cried Mollie, delightedly, as she recognized the voice; "why it's the Unwiseman!"

"Sotiz!" roared Whistlebinkie, intending, of course to say "so it is."

"Certainly it is," said the Unwiseman; "for how could it be otherwise, seeing as I am not a magic lantern and so cannot change myself into some one else? I've got to stay Me always."

"Magic lanterns can't change themselves into anything else," said Mollie. "You must mean magician."

"Maybe I must," said the Unwiseman. "I guess you are right. Some people call 'em by a long name like prestodigipotatoes, but your word is good enough for me, so we'll let it go at that. I'm not a magellan, so I can't transfigure myself. Therefore, I am still the Unwiseman at your service. But tell me, are you going sliding?"

"Yes," said Mollie. "Want to come with us?"

"I'd like to, but I'm afraid I can't. I'm very busy," replied the Unwiseman. "I'm going into business."

"You?" cried Mollie, in amazement. "Why, didn't you tell me once that you never worked? That no member of your family had ever worked, and that you despised trade?"

"Iyeardim," put in Whistlebinkie.

"What's that?" queried the Unwiseman, frowning at Whistlebinkie. "What does iyeardim mean?"

"It's Whistlebinkie for 'I heard him,'" explained Mollie. "He means to say that he heard you say you had never worked and never intended to."

"No doubt," said the Unwiseman. "No doubt. But misfortune has overtaken me. I have ceased to like apples."

"Ho!" laughed Mollie. "What has that to do with it?"

"I have ceased to like apples and have conceived an unquenchable thirst for chocolate eclaires," said the Unwiseman. "Hitherto, as I once told you, I have lived on apples, which cost me nothing, because I could pick them up in the orchard, but chocolate eclaires cost money. I have been informed, and I believe, they cost five cents a piece; that they do not grow on trees, but are made by men calling themselves fakirs – "

"Bakers, you mean, I guess," interrupted Mollie.

"It may be," said the Unwiseman, "though neither fakir nor baker seems to me to be so good a name for a man who makes cakes as the word caker."

"But there isn't any such word," said Mollie.

"Then that accounts for it," said the Unwiseman. "If there were such a word those men would be called by it. But to come back to the chocolate eclaires, whether they are made by bakers, fakirs, or plumbers, they cost money; if I don't have them I shall starve to death, for I can never more eat apples; therefore, to live I must make some money, and to make money I must go into business."

"Well, I haven't any doubt it will be good for you," said Mollie. "It's always well to have something to do. What business are you going into?"

"Ah!" said the Unwiseman, with a shake of his head. "That's my secret. I've got a patent business I'm going into. It's my own invention. I was going to be a lawyer at first, but I heard that lawyers gave advice. I don't intend to give anything. There isn't any money in giving things, so, of course, I decided not to be a lawyer – besides, I know of a man who was a lawyer and he spent all of his life up to his ears in trouble, and he didn't even own the trouble. It all belonged to his victims."

"Why don't you become a minister?" suggested Mollie.

"That's too hard work," said the Unwiseman. "You've got to go to church three times every Sunday, and, besides, my house wouldn't look well with a steeple on it. Then, too, I'd have to take a partner to ring the bell and play the organ, and, of course, he'd want half the collections. No: I couldn't be a minister. I'm too droll to be one, even if my house would look well with a steeple on it. I did think some of being a doctor, though."

"Why don't you?" said Mollie. "Doctors are awfully nice people. Our doctor is just lovely. He gives me the nicest medicines you ever saw."

"That may be true; but I don't want to be a doctor," returned the Unwiseman. "You have to study an awful lot to be a doctor. I knew a man once who studied six weeks before he could be a doctor, and then what do you suppose happened? It was awfully discouraging."

"What was it?" queried Mollie.

"Why, he practised on a cat he owned, to see what kind of a doctor he had become, and the cat died all nine times at once; so the poor fellow, after wasting all those weeks on study, had to become a plumber, after all. Plumbing is the easiest profession of all, you know. You don't have to know anything to be a plumber, only you've got to have strong eyes."

"I didn't know that," said Mollie.

"Oh my, yes!" returned the Unwiseman. "You can't be a plumber unless you have strong eyes. It is very bad for a weak-eyed person to have to sit on the floor and look at a pipe all day. That is one reason why I'm not going to be a plumber. The other reason is that they never get any rest. They work all day eying pipes, and then have to sit up all night making out bills, and then they burn their fingers on stoves, and they sometimes get their feet wet after springing a leak on a pipe, and, altogether, it isn't pleasant. People play jokes on plumbers, too; mean jokes. Why, I knew a plumber who was called out in the middle of the night once by a city man who was trying to be a farmer during the summer months, and what do you suppose the trouble was?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Mollie. "What?"

"The city man said he'd come home late and found the well full of water, and what was worse, the colander was riddled with holes. Twelve o'clock at night, mind you, and one of these bitter cold summer nights you find down in New Jersey."

"That was awfully mean," said Mollie. "That is, it was if the city man didn't know any better."

"He did know better. He did it just for a joke," said the Unwiseman.

"And didn't the plumber put in a great big bill for that?" asked Mollie.

"Yes – but the city man couldn't pay it," said the Unwiseman. "That was the meanest part of the joke. He went and lost all his money afterward. I believe he did it just to spite the plumber."

"Well," said Mollie, "here we are at the top of the hill at last. Won't you change your mind and go down with us, just once?"

"Nope," returned the Unwiseman. "I can't change my mind. Can't get it out of my head, to change. Besides, I must hurry. I've got to get a hundred pairs of stockings before Christmas Eve."

"Oh!" said Mollie. "I see. You are going into the stocking business."

"No, I'm not," said the queer old fellow, with a knowing smile. "There isn't much money in selling stockings. I've got a better idea than that. You come around to my house Christmas morning and I'll show you a thing or two – that is, I will if I can get the hundred pairs of stockings – you couldn't lend me a few pairs, could you?"

"I guess maybe so," said Mollie.

"All right – thank you very much," said the Unwiseman. "I'll be off now and get them. Good-by."

And before Mollie could say another word he was gone.

"Isn't he the worst you ever saw?" said Mollie.

"Puffickly-digulous," said Whistlebinkie.

"I wonder what his business is to be," observed Mollie, as she seated herself on the sled and made ready for the descent.

"I haven't the slightest ideeeee-eeeeeeee-eeeee-eeee-ah!" whistled Whistlebinkie; a strange and long-drawn-out word that; but whistling dolls are very like boys and girls when they are sliding down hill. Mollie had set the sled in motion just as Whistlebinkie started to speak, and her little rubber companion could not get away from the letter e in idea until he and his mistress ran plump into the snow-drift at the foot of the hill.