Half-Past Seven Stories Part 33

workin' away."

"Yes," said the Toyman, as they watched Robber Hawk swing round and round in the sky, "how any one can feel lonely in the country I can't see. I can understand it in the city, where you can't speak to a soul without his putting his hand on his watch, but here there's always a lot of folks with beaks and claws and tails, and all kinds o' tongues an' dialecks, that you don't need any introduction to, to say 'howdy!'"

But Marmaduke remembered that morning and how the Toyman had seemed in trouble. He had certainly looked lonely when Marmaduke and Wienerwurst had found him sitting up there on the hill, and the little boy couldn't help asking,--"Don't you ever feel lonely? You haven't any wife, and Mother says she pities a man without chicken or child--'tleast she said something like that--and how it wasn't good for a man to live alone--an' _you_ do--out in your bunkhouse."

For the first time that afternoon the Toyman, who had been so worried, laughed his old hearty laugh, and Echo sent it back from her cave in the hill.

"No!" said he, "I don't want any ole wife. Like as not she'd talk me to death. Besides I don't feel lonely when you're along, little fellow."

The little boy felt very happy over that, but, for some reason or other, he felt quite embarra.s.sed, too. Often, when he felt happiest, he couldn't put his happiness into words--he just couldn't talk about the particular thing that was making him happy. And, strange to say, he would usually talk about something quite different. So he said,--

"Let's see your knife."

The Toyman took it out. It was a beauty, too, with _five_ blades, all of different sizes, and a corkscrew.

Marmaduke tried to open one of the blades, but he couldn't, they were too strong for his fingers.

So the Toyman took it.

"Which shall it be?" he asked.

"The very biggest," came the answer, "and oh, Toyman, let's play 'Mumbledy Peg!'"

"A galoochious idea!" exclaimed the Toyman, "how did you ever think of it?"

"Oh!" said Marmaduke, "I thought of it--_just like this_"; and he snapped his fingers to show just how quick. "But pshaw! I could think of lots more galoochious than that." Then he added in delight,--"The one who loses has to pull the peg out of the ground with his teeth."

Meanwhile the Toyman was driving that peg into the ground. When it was in so far that it seemed as if no Thirty White Horses could ever pull it out, they began the game--the famous game of Mumbledy Peg.

First, Marmaduke put the knife in the palm of his right hand and made that knife turn a somersault in the air. And it landed right on the blade point and stuck upright in the ground.

Then, taking the knife in the palm of his left hand, he made it turn another somersault in the air. Again it landed on the point of the blade and stuck in the ground, quivering deliciously.

"Neat work!" said the Toyman. Probably he said it too soon, for on the very next try Marmaduke missed, and the Toyman had his turn.

_He_ took the knife and got just as far as Marmaduke with his tricks, then he missed, too.

So Marmaduke took another turn and clenched his right fist tight shut, and threw the knife in the air from that, and it turned another somersault clean, and landed straight up in the ground. And he did the same with his left hand clenched. He was getting on famously!

The next trick in the game of Mumbledy Peg was to twirl the knife from the tip of the first finger, then from the second, and so on. When Marmaduke tried it from the third finger, the knife fell on its point, quivered feebly as if it were sick, then fell over on its side, only part way up in the air.

"Can you get two fingers under it--between the blade and the ground?"

said the Toyman eagerly. "If you can, it's all right."

"_You_ try?" said Marmaduke.

"What--with _these_ fingers?" laughed the Toyman, "you'd better try yours--you'd have more of a chance."

So Marmaduke tried, and just managed to squeeze his two smallest between the blade and the ground. But when he tried twirling it from his last finger he failed. The knife fell over on its side, and he couldn't squeeze any two of his fingers, even the smallest, between the gra.s.s and the blade.

"Oh dear!" he exclaimed, "I always miss with my 'pinky.'"

However, the Toyman missed with his fourth finger, and Marmaduke was still ahead.

"I'm off my game," the Toyman explained a little later, as he threw the knife over his left shoulder and failed, "and you're in rare form!"

Now this was strange, for the Toyman was so good at work and games and everything, but I'm thinking it was like that time they played marbles--he did it on purpose, just to let the little boy have the fun of winning. That would have been like the Toyman.

Anyway, the last time Marmaduke threw the knife through the air, and it made its last somersault and stuck up in the ground, straight as straight as could be and quivering like a jews-harp, the Toyman said,--

"Congratulations, ole man, you've won!"

And somehow Marmaduke liked to be called "ole man," and felt quite as proud over that as over winning the game.

Now the Toyman had to get down on his hands and knees and try to pull the peg out of the ground with his teeth. And oh, what a time he made of it, growling like a dog over a bone, all for the fun of the thing, until Marmaduke shouted in glee and Echo answered back from her cave again.

So for a long time they played Mumbledy Peg on the hill, while the shadows grew longer and longer on the gra.s.s at their feet. Then they stopped to rest and sat quiet "for a spell."

Opposite them, in the West, were other hills, higher ones too, rising way up in the sky. And far above them curled great white clouds, standing still as still could be.

For a long while they watched those clouds, the man and the boy, then Marmaduke said,--

"I wonder if you see what _I_ see."

"What _do_ you see, Sonny?" the Toyman replied.

"A great big city--look, there it is!" And the little boy pointed straight at the clouds.

"Why, to be sure!" exclaimed the Toyman, "there it is, an' it looks mighty pretty. But just _what_ do you make out?"

"Well!" replied Marmaduke, squinting his eye thoughtfully, "_I_ see a big wall and towers on it--a whole lot of towers. There's about fifty, I guess."

The Toyman squinted too, and pointed his brown finger at the clouds, counting slowly under his breath.

"Fifty-_one_ towers I make," he said as he finished--"some little and some big; and some have little peaks on 'em, and some are all scalloped out on top."

"And there's a church--a _whopper_ of a big one!" went on Marmaduke.

"Where?" asked the Toyman, craning his neck.

Marmaduke pointed at the Cloud City.

"There--just behind the biggest tower."

"Just a little to the right, you mean?" again asked the Toyman, trying hard to see so as not to miss anything in that wonderful city. Then he added,--"oh, I get it now--it's got a gold cross on it an' little diamonds at the tips. My! how they shine in the sun."

Then Marmaduke put in,--

"An' there's flags on the towers, red, yellow and blue--"