much to be too long anywhere.” So they sold everything they had, pigs, pastures, 6 pepper pickers, pitchforks, everything except their ragbags and a few extras. 6 When their neighbors saw them selling everything they had, the different neighbors said, “They are going to Kansas, to Kokomo, to Canada, to Kankakee, to Kalamazoo, to Kamchatka, to the Chattahoochee.” One little sniffer with his eyes half shut and a mitten on his nose, laughed in his hat five ways and said, “They are going to the moon and when they get there they will find everything is the same as it always was.” All the spot cash money he got for selling everything, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, Gimme the Ax put in a ragbag and slung on his back like a rag picker going home. Then he took Please Gimme, his oldest and youngest and only son, and Ax Me No Questions, his oldest and youngest and only daughter, and went to the railroad station. The ticket agent was sitting at the window selling railroad tickets the same as always. 7 He opened the ragbag and took out all the spot cash money 9 “Do you wish a ticket to go away and come back or do you wish a ticket to go away and never come back?” the ticket agent asked wiping sleep out of his eyes. “We wish a ticket to ride where the railroad tracks run off into the sky and never come back—send us far as the railroad rails go and then forty ways farther yet,” was the reply of Gimme the Ax. “So far? So early? So soon?” asked the ticket agent wiping more sleep out his eyes. “Then I will give you a new ticket. It blew in. It is a long slick yellow leather slab ticket with a blue spanch across it.” Gimme the Ax thanked the ticket agent once, thanked the ticket agent twice, and then instead of thanking the ticket agent three times he opened the ragbag and took out all the spot cash money he got for selling everything, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, and paid the spot cash money to the ticket agent. Before he put it in his pocket he looked once, 10 twice, three times at the
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