Then the man in overalls took a shovel and began shoveling silver dollars out of the wheelbarrow into the aluminum dishpan and the galvanized iron washtub. He shoveled out of the wheelbarrow till the dishpan was full, till the washtub was full. Then he put the shovel into the wheelbarrow and went up Main Street. 

Six o’clock that night Pick Ups came along. The Potato Face Blind Man said to him, “I have to carry home a heavy load of money to-night, an aluminum dishpan full of silver dollars and a galvanized iron washtub full of silver dollars. So I ask you, will you take care of Poker Face the Baboon and Hot Dog the Tiger?” 57

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“Yes,” said Pick Ups, “I will.” And he did. He tied a pink string to their legs and took them home and put them in the woodshed. 

Poker Face the Baboon went to sleep on the soft coal at the north end of the woodshed and when he was asleep his face had something faraway in it and he was so quiet he looked like a dummy with brown hair of the jungle painted on his black skin and a black nose painted on his brown face. Hot Dog the Tiger went to sleep on the hard coal at the south end of the woodshed and when he was asleep his eyelashes had something hungry in them and he looked like a painted dummy with black stripes painted over his yellow belly and a black spot painted away at the end of his long yellow tail. 

In the morning the woodshed was empty. Pick Ups told the Potato Face Blind Man, “They left a note in their own handwriting on perfumed pink paper. It said, ‘Mascots never stay long.’” 

And that is why for many years the Potato 58 Face Blind Man had silver dollars to spend—and that is why many people in the Rootabaga Country keep their eyes open for a Watermelon Moon in the sky with a green rim and red meat inside and black seeds making spots on the red meat. 

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The Toboggan-to-the-Moon Dream of thePotato Face Blind Man

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