under her chin, her eyes watching the fun and the danger and the dreams in the eyes of the two boys. And she said, “Me, oh, my—but those pen 80wipers and pencil sharpeners hate each other.” And she turned her eyes toward the flicks and spots of new green grass coming on the hills and the prairie, and she let her ears listen to the young frogs shooting silver spears of little songs up into the sky that day. 80 And she told her two boys, “Pick up your feet now and run. Go to the grass, go to the new green grass. Go to the young frogs and ask them why they are shooting songs up into the sky this early spring day. Pick up your feet now and run.” 2 At last Googler and Gaggler were big boys, big enough to pick the stickers out of each other’s hair, big enough to pick up their feet and run away from anybody who chased them. 81 They went to sleep on top of the wagon 83One night they turned flip-flops and handsprings and climbed up on top of a peanut wagon where a man was pouring hot butter into popcorn sacks. They went to sleep on top of the wagon. Googler dreamed of teasing cats, killing snakes, climbing apple trees and stealing apples. Gaggler dreamed of swimming in brickyard ponds and coming home with his back sunburnt so the skin peeled off. 83 They woke up with heavy gunnysacks in their arms. They climbed off the wagon and started home to their father and mother lugging the heavy gunnysacks on their backs. And they told their father and mother: “We ran away to the Thimble Country where the people wear thimble hats, where the women wash dishes in thimble dishpans, where the men go to work with thimble shovels. “We saw a war, the left-handed people against the right-handed. And the smokestacks did all the fighting. They all had monkey wrenches and they tried to wrench each other to pieces. And they had monkey 84faces on the monkey wrenches—to scare each other. 84 “All the time they were fighting the Thimble people sat looking on, the thimble women with thimble dishpans, the thimble men with
Prev.
Back
Top