Half-Past Seven Stories Part 4

He came over, and squinted his eyes thoughtfully like a judge, while Fatty twisted and squirmed and squirmed and twisted.

"I wouldn't hit him," said the Toyman, "Fatty's so fat it wouldn't do any good anyway. Your fists would only sink into him like dough. So I guess you'd better wash his face in the snow--_hard_ now."

So they did--very _hard_, as the Toyman had told them.

"Why, he's actually blubbering, the great big b.o.o.by," said Jehosophat, "shame!"

Now there's no word in the language in which boys and girls join more readily than this same word "Shame." So they all took up the chorus, everybody on that hill. You know that chorus, and your parents know it, and your grandparents, and great grandparents, too, sang it, long, long before you were born.

"Shame, shame, puddin' an' tame.

Everybody knows your name."

What pudding has to do with it probably none in the whole world knows.

But it is a very effective song, and they one and all shouted it, dancing around Fatty and Reddy, and laughing at them; and the fat boy started to run away, yelling at the top of his lungs. But he stumbled over the bobsled, and the tangled ropes caught his feet and started him rolling down the hill. He didn't exactly roll, either, for he was so fat that he seemed to bounce like a rubber ball; and little Wienerwurst, who thought it all very fine sport, ran after him, nosing and snapping at him all the way down that hill. Then, when he reached the bottom, coward Fatty picked himself up and "made tracks" for home.

It was to--be sure, an odd sort of punishment that the Toyman ordered for Fatty. It was just such things that made Mr. and Mrs. Hamm and all the neighbors shake their heads over the Toyman and say he was crazy.

But Jehosophat, who had heard it said that Solomon was a wonderful judge, knew one that could beat Solomon--and he was the Toyman.

Perhaps he was right. At all events, the children were ever so happy, as they coasted down, down the hill on that big bobsled, which they did till the stars came out, and, far over the fields, the supper bell sounded.

III

THE JOLLY ROGER

Marmaduke thought he knew now what it meant to be in jail. For three whole days he had had to stay in the house. For three whole days and nights, too, it had rained--"rained pitchforks." That is what Father said, but Marmaduke could see nothing but p.r.o.ngs. There were thousands of them, coming down through the air. _Where_ were the handles?

He looked a long time, thinking that perhaps they had gotten loose from the p.r.o.ngs and would come down afterwards, but never a handle came.

They must be having haying time, the folks in the sky, to use so many forks, he decided, and the sun must be shining for them, way up above the clouds, or they wouldn't have haying weather. But maybe, after all, it was wet there, too, and they had just grown disgusted, and were throwing their forks away, every last one of them.

Yes, it was pretty lonesome and dull, staying in the house like this.

To be sure, once in a while, when the rain slackened a little and the pitchforks didn't come down so fast, he could put on his rubber boots and go out to the barn. But for most of the time he had been a prisoner--in jail.

He looked out at the Pond. So much water had fallen in it that it was swelling up like a pouter pigeon, or like the bowl that held the Chinese Lily, when he dropped pebbles in it.

My, how Duckie the Stepchild must like this weather! There he was now, and his father and his mother and all his relatives. All just letting the water run off their backs and having a grand time. But Father Wyandotte and all his family were sticking pretty close to the coops.

Funny how ducks liked water and chickens didn't, all but the Gold Rooster on the top of the barn. _He_ never seemed to mind it a bit. Marmaduke looked for him up in the sky, but he was almost hidden by the rain and the gray mist, and stood there on his high perch, swinging from East to North, and back again.

But he grew tired of watching the Gold Rooster, and looked up the pasture for his friend, the Brook. It wasn't hard to find, for it had grown so big and stretched almost to the fence-rails now, and was racing along towards the Pond, growing wider and wider every minute--just like Marmaduke's eyes.

"Crackey! Sposin' there should be a flood!" exclaimed Jehosophat.

"Wouldn't that be fine!" said Marmaduke.

"Fine!" Jehosophat cried. "What would you do? It might rise an' rise till the barnyard'd be covered, an' the road an' all the country an'

the whole world."

"Like Noah's flood, you mean?"

"Yes, just like Noah's, only he isn't here to build any ole ark for you to get on."

"I don't care," said Marmaduke stoutly.

"You don't care!" cried his brother. "Why, you'd drown, that's what you'd do!"

"No, I wouldn't either--" Marmaduke seemed very sure about this--"'cause," he started to explain.

"'Cause what?"

"'Cause the Toyman is as good as ole Noah any day," replied the little boy. "He could build an ark as big as a house, as big as the Church, an' the ducks'd get on an' the cows an' the horses an'--"

"Yes," interrupted his brother, "but don't you remember--there were only two of each kind. Now Hal an' Teddy could get on, but White Boots an' Ole Methusaleh'd have to stay off, an' Rover an' Brownie could go, but Wienerwurst couldn't--see?"

Marmaduke looked frightened at this--at the very thought of Wienerwurst, his little doggie, trying to swim around in a terrible flood.

"I'd hide him under my coat," he declared.

"You couldn't get on yourself," Jehosophat insisted, "I tell you an ark only takes two of each sort of people an' animals an' chickens and things. Now Mother and Father could go--that's two grown-ups, an'

Hepzebiah an' me, but you an' Wienie would have to swim around in the water just as long as you could, then go under--way under, too," he added.

Perhaps he was only teasing, but Marmaduke didn't take it quite that way. It seemed very serious. Then suddenly he had a bright idea.

"You forgot the _Toyman_," he shouted, "and that makes another two, for the Toyman an' I are just alike. Didn't Mother say,--'He's nothing but a boy.' So I'd sneak Wienie under my coat--if it was ol'

Noah's ark--an' if it was the Toyman's, why he'd let me in anyway."

Jehosophat had no answer at all for this, and all they could do now was to watch the rain and the Pond and the Brook, but Marmaduke was very happy picturing to himself the big Ark which the Toyman would build, and how he would help, and the fine time, too, he and all the animals would have, living together under the very same roof.

Of course, the rain had to stop some time. It always does in the end.

And on the sixth day the Sun came out jolly and warm again, and the boys put on their rubber boots and went out to the Pond. They couldn't get quite as near it as usual, for the edge was almost at the Ducks'

house now, and not so very far from the house of the White Wyandottes, who seemed to think the end of the world had come, and looked very sad with their draggled feathers.

For a little while the boys threw sticks in the water. When the dogs had fetched the sticks they would shake the water from their coats and over the boys, just like shower baths. It was all very jolly, and I don't know which the children enjoyed more, throwing the sticks or the nice cool showers.

But after a while they tired of this, too, and walked up the pasture to see the Brook.

There it was, racing and romping and tearing along for dear life. It wasn't clear and silvery now, but muddy and brown as if a thousand cups of coffee had been spilled in it. And on it floated many strange things,--branches of trees and a fence-rail, the roof of a pig-pen, an old shoe, and one poor drowned sheep.

"Maybe," said Jehosophat, "maybe, if we watch long enough, some pirates'll come sailin' along with big hats an' swords an'--"

"An' knives in their mouths," Marmaduke suggested.

"But that's not the best thing," Jehosophat went on, "they'll have a flag with a skull an' dead men's bones painted on it."

"Crackey!" exclaimed his brother, just like the big boys. It was a fine word, too, but only to be used on special occasions. And pirates and skulls and dead men's bones certainly made a "special occasion."