said, “It is a misty moisty evening in the moonshine. Now tell us about that blue-violet honeybee, Spanish Onions.”

And Dippy the Wisp tied a slipknot in the pearl-color handkerchief around the yellow neck of Spanish Onions and said, “Spanish Onions came buzzing back home with her face dirty and scared and she told us, ‘I flew and flew and I buzzed and buzzed till I came where I met the Queen of the Empty Hats. She took me by the foot and took me across the City of the Empty Hats, saying under her breath, “There is a screw loose somewhere, there is a leak in the tank.” Fat rats, fat bats, fat cats, came along under empty hats and the Queen always said under her breath, “There is a screw loose somewhere, there is a leak in the tank.” In the houses, on the street, riding 125on the rattlers and the razz cars, the only people were hats, empty hats. When the fat rats changed hats with the fat bats, the hats were empty. When the fat bats changed those hats with the fat cats, the hats were empty. I took off my hat and saw it was empty. I began to feel like an empty hat myself. I got scared. I jumped loose from the Queen of the Empty Hats and buzzed back home fast. I am so, so glad to be home again.’”

125

The Potato Face sat hugging his accordion. He looked up and said, “Put the bees back in the bee-bag—they buzz too many secrets, syllables and snitches.”

“What do you expect when the moon is a gold door with silver transoms?” asked Slip Me Liz.

“Yes,” said Dippy the Wisp. “What do you expect when the bumblebees and the honeybees are chasing each other over the gold door of the moon and up over the silver transoms?”

126And the two tough pony girls, the two limber prairie girls, went away humming a little humpty dumpty song across the moonshine gold on the tops of the rainpools.

126

127

How Hot Balloons and His Pigeon Daughters Crossed Over into the Rootabaga Country

Hot Balloons was a man who lived all alone among people who sell slips, flips, flicks and chicks by the dozen, by the box, by the box car job lot, back and forth to each other.

Hot Balloons used to open the window in the morning and say to the rag pickers and the rag handlers, “Far, far away the pigeons are calling; far, far away the white wings are dipping in the blue, in the sky blue.”

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