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Queer Stories

For Boys and Girls



BY

EDWARD EGGLESTON

AUTHOR OF "THE HOOSIER SCHOOLMASTER," "THE HOOSIER SCHOOL-BOY," ETC.



NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1884


Copyright, 1884, by

EDWARD EGGLESTON


TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,
NEW YORK.




PREFACE.


The stories here reprinted include nearly all of those which I have
written for children in a vein that entitles them to rank as "Queer
Stories," that is, stories not entirely realistic in their setting but
appealing to the fancy, which is so marked a trait of the minds of boys
and girls. "Bobby and the Key-hole" appeared eight or nine years ago in
_St. Nicholas_, and has never before been printed in book form. The
others were written earlier for juvenile periodicals of wide repute in
their time--periodicals that have now gone the way of almost all young
people's magazines, to the land of forgetfulness. Although I recall with
pleasure the fact that these little tales enjoyed a considerable
popularity when they first appeared, I might just as well as not have
called them "The Unlucky Stories." In two or three forms some of the
stories that form this collection have appeared in book covers in years
past, but always to meet with disaster that was no fault of theirs. Two
little books that contained a part of the stories herein reprinted were
burned up--plates, cuts and all--in the Chicago fire of 1871. Another
book, with some of these stories in it, was issued by a publisher in
Boston, who almost immediately failed, leaving the plates in pawn. These
fell into the hands of a man who issued a surreptitious edition, and then
into the possession of another, to whom at length I was forced to pay a
round sum for the plates, in order to extricate my unfortunate tales from
the hands of freebooters. This is therefore the first fair and square
issue in book form that these stories have had. For this they have been
revised by the author, and printed from plates wholly new by the
liberality of the present publisher.

E. E.

Owls' Nest, Lake George, 1884.




CONTENTS.


QUEER STORIES. PAGE

Bobby and the Key-hole, a Hoosier Fairy Tale, 3

Mr. Blake's Walking-stick, 23

The Chairs in Council, 60

What the Tea-kettle Said, 67

Crooked Jack, 72

The Funny Little Old Woman, 77

Widow Wiggins' Wonderful Cat, 83


CHICKEN LITTLE STORIES.

Simon and the Garuly, 91

The Joblilies, 101

The Pickaninny, 111

The Great Panjandrum Himself, 120


STORIES TOLD ON A CELLAR-DOOR.

The Story of a Flutter-wheel, 137

The Wood-chopper's Children, 143

The Bound Boy, 149

The Profligate Prince, 155

The Young Soap-boiler, 160

The Shoemaker's Secret, 168


MODERN FABLES.

Flat Tail the Beaver, 177

The Mocking-bird's Singing-school, 181

The Bobolink and the Owl, 185




Queer Stories.




BOBBY AND THE KEY-HOLE.

_A Hoosier Fairy Tale._


You think that folks in fine clothes are the only folks that ever see
fairies, and that poor folks can't afford them. But in the days of the
real old-fashioned "Green Jacket and White Owl's Feather" fairies, it
was the poor boy carrying fagots to the cabin of his widowed mother who
saw wonders of all sorts wrought by the little people; and it was the
poor girl who had a fairy godmother. It must be confessed that the
mystery-working, dewdrop-dancing, wand-waving, pumpkin-metamorphosing
little rascals have been spoiled of late years by being admitted into
fine houses. Having their pictures painted by artists, their praises sung
by poets, their adventures told in gilt-edge books, and, above all,
getting into the delicious leaves of St. Nicholas, has made them "stuck
up," so that it is not the poor girl in the cinders, nor the boy with a
bundle of fagots now, but girls who wear button boots and tie-back
skirts, and boys with fancy waists and striped stockings that are
befriended by fairies, whom they do not need.

But away off from the cities there still lives a race of unflattered
fairies who are not snobbish, and who love little girls and boys in
pinafores and ragged jackets. These spirits are not very handsome, and
so the artists do not draw their pictures, and they do not get into
gilt-edge Christmas books. Dear, ugly, good fairies! I hope they will not
be spoiled by my telling you something about them.

Little Bobby Towpate saw some of them; and it's about Bobby, and the
fairies he saw, that I want to speak. Bobby was the thirteenth child in
a rather large family--there were three younger than he. He lived in a
log cabin on the banks of a stream, the right name of which is "Indian
Kentucky Creek." I suppose it was named "Indian Kentucky" because it is
not in Kentucky, but in Indiana; and as for Indians, they have been gone
many a day. The people always call it "The Injun Kaintuck." They tuck up
the name to make it shorter.

Bobby was only four years and three-quarters old, but he had been in
pantaloons for three years and a half, for the people in the Indian
Kaintuck put their little boys into breeches as soon as they can
walk--perhaps a little before. And such breeches! The little white-headed
fellows look like dwarf grandfathers, thirteen hundred years of age. They
go toddling about like old men who have grown little again, and forgotten
everything they ever knew.

But Bobby Towpate was not ugly. Under his white hair, which "looked every
way for Sunday," were blue eyes and ruddy cheeks, and a mouth as pretty
as it was solemn. The comical little fellow wore an unbleached cotton
shirt, and tattered pantaloons, with home-made suspenders or "gallowses."
The pantaloons had always been old, I think, for they were made out of a
pair of his father's--his "daddy's," as he would have told you--and
nobody ever knew his father to have a new pair, so they must have been
old from the beginning. For in the Indian Kaintuck country nothing ever
seems to be new. Bobby Towpate himself was born looking about a thousand
years old, and had aged some centuries already. As for hat, he wore one
of his daddy's old hats when he wore any, and it would have answered well
for an umbrella if it had not been ragged.

Bobby's play-ground was anywhere along the creek in the woods. There were
so many children that there was nobody to look after him; so he just kept
a careful eye on himself, and that made it all right. As he was not a
very energetic child, there was no danger of his running into mischief.
Indeed, he never ran at all. He was given to sitting down on the ground
and listening to the crazy singing of the loons--birds whose favorite
amusement consists in trying to see which can make the most hideous
noise. Then, too, he would watch the stake-drivers flying along the
creek, with their long, ugly necks sticking out in front of them, and
their long, ugly legs sticking out behind them, and their long, ugly
wings sticking out on each side of them. They never seemed to have any
bodies at all. People call them stake-drivers because their musical
voices sound like the driving of a stake: "Ke-whack! ke-whack!" They also
call them "Fly-up-the-creeks," and plenty of ugly names besides.

It was one sleepy summer afternoon that Bobby sat on the root of a
beech-tree, watching a stake-driver who stood in the water as if looking
for his dinner of tadpoles, when what should the homely bird do but walk
right out on the land and up to Bobby. Bobby then saw that it was not a
stake-driver, but a long-legged, long-necked, short-bodied gentleman, in
a black bob-tail coat. And yet his long, straight nose did look like a
stake-driver's beak, to be sure. He was one of the stake-driver fairies,
who live in the dark and lonesome places along the creeks in the Hoosier
country. They make the noise that you hear, "Ke-whack! ke-whack!" It may
be the driving of stakes for the protection of the nests of their friends
the cat-fish.

"Good-morning, Bobby, ke-whack!" said the long, slim gentleman, nodding
his head. He said ke-whack after his words because that is the polite
thing to do among the stake-driver fairies.

"My name haint Bobby Ke-whack, nur nothin'," answered Bobby. The people
on Indian Kaintuck say "nor nothin'," without meaning anything by it. "My
name haint on'y jeth Bob, an' nothin' elth."

But the slender Mr. Fly-up-the-creek only nodded and said ke-whack two or
three times, by way of clearing his throat.

"Maybe you'd like to see the folks underground, ke-whack," he added
presently. "If you would, I can show you the door and how to unlock it.
It's right under the next cliff, ke-whack! If you get the door open, you
may go in and find the Sleepy-headed People, the Invisible People, and
all the rest, ke-whack!"

"Ke-whack!" said Bob, mimicking, and grinning till he showed his row of
white milk-teeth. But the gentleman stake-driver must have been offended,
for he walked away into the water and disappeared among the willows,
saying, "Ke-whack! ke-whack!" in an indignant way at every step.

When once the stake-driver fairy had gone, Bob was troubled. He was
lonesome. He had always been lonesome, because the family was so large.
There is never any company for a body where there are so many. Now Bob
wished that "Ole Ke-whack," as he called him, had not walked off into the
willows in such a huff. He would like to see who lived under the ground,
you know. After a while, he thought he would go and look for the door
under the cliff. Bobby called it "clift," after the manner of the people
on the Indian Kaintuck.

Once under the cliff, he was a long time searching around for a door. At
last he found a something that looked like a door in the rock. He looked
to see if there was a latch-string, for the houses in the Indian Kaintuck
are opened with latch-strings. But he could not find one. Then he said to
himself (for Bobby, being a lonesome boy, talked to himself a great deal)
words like these:

"Ole Ke-whack thed he knowed wharabout the key mout be. The time I went
down to Madison, to market with mammy, I theed a feller dretht up to kill
come along and open hith door with a iron thing. That mout be a key.
Wonder ef I can't find it mythelf! There, I come acrost the hole what it
goeth into."

He had no trouble in "coming acrost" the key itself, for he found it
lying on the ground. He took it up, looked at it curiously, and said:
"Thith thing muth be a key." So he tried to put it into the key-hole, but
an unexpected difficulty met him. Every time he tried to put in the key,
the key-hole, which before was in easy reach, ran up so far that he could
not get to it. He picked up some loose stones and piled them up against
the door, and stood on them on his tiptoes, but still the key-hole shot
up out of his reach. At last he got down exhausted, and sat down on the
pile of stones he had made, with his back to the door. On looking round,
he saw that the key-hole was back in its old place, and within a few
inches of his head. He turned round suddenly and made a dive at it, with
the key held in both hands, but the key-hole shot up like a rocket, until
it was just out of his reach.

After trying to trap this key-hole in every way he could, he sat down on
a stone and looked at it a minute, and then said very slowly: "Well, I
never! That beats me all holler! What a funny thing a key-hole muth be."

At last he noticed another key-hole in the rock, not far away, and
concluded to try the key in that. The key went in without trouble, and
Bob turned it round several times, until the iron key had turned to brass
in his hands.

"The blamed thing ith turnin' yaller!" cried little Towpate. You must
excuse Bob's language. You might have talked in the same way if you had
been so lucky as to be born on the Indian Kaintuck.

Seeing that he could not open anything by turning the key round in this
key-hole, since there was no door here, he thought he would now try what
luck he might have with the "yaller" key in opening the door. The
key-hole might admit a brass key. But what was his amazement to find on
trying, that the key-hole which had run upward from an iron key, now ran
down toward the bottom of the door. He pulled away the stones and stooped
down till his head was near the ground, but the key-hole disappeared off
the bottom of the door. When he gave up the chase it returned as before.
Bobby worked himself into a great heat trying to catch it, but it was of
no use.

Then he sat down again and stared at the door, and again he said slowly:
"Well, I never, in all my born'd days! That beats me all holler! What a
thing a keyhole ith! But that feller in town didn't have no trouble."

After thinking a while he looked at the key, and came to the conclusion
that, as the key-hole went up from an iron key, and down from a brass
one, that if he had one half-way between, he should have no trouble.
"Thith key ith too _awful_ yaller," he said. "I'll put it back and
turn it half-way back, and then we'll thee."

So he stuck it into the key-hole and tried to turn it in the opposite
direction to the way he had turned it before. But it would not turn to
the left at all. So he let go and stood off looking at it a while, when,
to his surprise, the key began turning to the right of its own accord.
And as it turned it grew whiter, until it was a key of pure silver.

"Purty good for you, ole hoss," said Bob, as he pulled out the bright
silver key. "We'll thee if you're any better'n the black one and the
yaller one."

But neither would the silver one open the door; for the key-hole was as
much afraid of it as of the brass one and the iron one. Only now it
neither went up nor down, but first toward one side of the door and then
toward the other, according to the way in which the key approached it.
Bobby, after a while, went at it straight from the front, whereupon the
key-hole divided into two parts--the one half running off the door to the
right, the other to the left.

"Well, that'th ahead of my time," said Bob. But he was by this time so
much amused by the changes in the key and the antics of the nimble
key-hole, that he did not care much whether the door opened or not. He
waited until he had seen the truant key-hole take its place again, and
then he took the silver key back to the other key-hole. As soon as he
approached it the key leaped out of his hand, took its place in the
key-hole, and began to turn swiftly round. When it stopped the silver had
become gold.

"Yaller again, by hokey," said Bob. And he took the gold key and went
back, wondering what the key-hole would do now. But there was now no
key-hole. It had disappeared entirely.

Bob stood off and looked at the place where it had been, let his jaw drop
a little in surprise and disappointment, and came out slowly with this:
"Well, I never, in all my born'd days!"

He thought best now to take the key back and have it changed once more.
But the other key-hole was gone too. Not knowing what to do, he returned
to the door and put the key up where the nimble key-hole had been,
whereupon it reappeared, the gold key inserted itself, and the door
opened of its own accord.

Bob eagerly tried to enter, but there stood somebody in the door,
blocking the passage.

"Hello!" said Bob. "You here, Ole Ke-whack? How did you get in? By the
back door, I 'low."

"Put my yellow waistcoat back where you got it, ke-whack!" said the
stake-driver, shivering. "It's cold in here, and how shall I go to the
party without it, ke-whack!"

"Your yaller wescut?" said Bob. "I haint got no wescut, ke-whack or no
ke-whack."

"You must put that away!" said the fly-up-the-creek, pecking his long
nose at the gold key. "Ke-whack! ke-whack!"

"Oh!" said Towpate, "why didn't you say so?" Then he tossed the gold key
down on the ground, where he had found the iron one, but the key stood
straight up, waving itself to and fro, while Bobby came out with his
drawling: "Well, I never!"

"Pick it up! Pick it up! Ke-whack! You've pitched my yellow waistcoat
into the dirt, ke-whack, ke-whack!"

"Oh! You call that a wescut, do you. Well, I never!" And Bobby picked up
the key, and since he could think of no place else to put it, he put it
into the key-hole, upon which it unwound itself to the left till it was
silver. Bobby, seeing that the key had ceased to move, pulled it out and
turned toward the open door to see the stake-driver wearing a yellow
vest, which he was examining with care, saying, "Ke-whack, ke-whack," as
he did so. "I knew you'd get spots on it, ke-whack, throwing it on the
ground that way."

Poor Bobby was too much mystified by this confusion between the gold key
and the yellow vest, or "wescut," as they call it on the Indian Kaintuck,
to say anything.

"Now, my white coat, put that back, ke-whack," said the fly-up-the-creek
fairy. "I can't go to the party in my shirt sleeves, ke-whack."

"I haint got your coat, Ole Daddy Longlegs," said Bobby, "'less you mean
this key."

On this suspicion he put the key back, upon which it again unwound itself
to the left and became brass. As soon as Bobby had pulled out the brass
key and turned round, he saw that the fairy was clad in a white coat,
which, with his stunning yellow vest, made him cut quite a figure.

"Now, my yellow cap," said the stake-driver, adding a cheerful ke-whack
or two, and Bobby guessed that he was to put the brass key in the
key-hole, whereupon it was immediately turned round by some unseen power
until it became iron, and then thrown out on the ground where Bobby
Towpate had found it at first. Sure enough, the fairy now wore a yellow
cap, and, quick as thought, he stepped out to where the key was lying,
and struck it twice with his nose, whereupon it changed to a pair of
three-toed boots, which he quickly drew on. Then he turned and bowed to
Bobby, and said:

"Ke-whack! You've ironed my coat and vest, and brushed my cap and blacked
my boots. Good-day, ke-whack, I'm going to the party. You can go in if
you want to."

Bobby stood for some time, looking after him as he flew away along the
creek, crying "ke-whack, ke-whack, ke-whack!" And Bobby said once again:
"Well, I never, in all my born'd days," and then added, "Haint Daddy
Longlegs peart? Thinks he's _some_ in his yaller wescut, I 'low."

When once the fly-up-the-creek had gone out of sight and out of hearing,
Bobby started on his search for the Sleepy-headed People. He travelled
along a sort of underground gallery or cave, until he came to a round
basin-like place. Here he found people who looked like fat little boys
and girls, rather than men and women. They were lolling round in a ring,
while one of the number read drowsily from a big book which was lying on
a bowlder in the middle of this Sleepy-hollow. All seemed to be looking
and listening intently. But as soon as those who sat facing Bobby caught
sight of him, they gave a long yawn and fell into a deep sleep. One after
another they looked at him, and one after another the little round, lazy
fellows gaped, until it seemed their heads would split open, then fell
over and slept soundly, snoring like little pigs. Bobby stood still with
astonishment. He did not even find breath to say, "Well, I never!" For
presently every one of the listeners had gone off to sleep. The reader,
whose back was toward the new-comer, did not see him. He was the only one
left awake, and Bobby looked to see him drop over at any moment. But the
little fat man read right along in a drawling, sleepy mumble, something
about the Athenians until Bob cried out: "Hello, Ole Puddin'-bag,
everybody'th gone to thleep; you'd jeth as well hole up yer readin' a
while."

The little man rolled his eyes round upon Bob, and said: "Oh, my! I'm
gone off again!" And then he stretched his fat cheeks in an awful yawn.

"Hey! You'll never get that mouth of your'n shet, ef you don't be mighty
keerful," cried Bob; but the fellow was fast asleep before he could get
the words out.

"Well now, that'th a purty lookin' crowd, haint it?" said Bob, looking
round upon the sleepers.

Just at that moment they began to wake up, one after another, but as soon
as they saw Bob, they sighed and said: "He's so curious," or, "He's so
interesting," or something of the sort, and fell away into a deep slumber
again. At last Bob undertook to wake some of them up by hallooing, but
the more noise he made, the more soundly they slept. Then he gave over
shaking them and shouting at them, and sat down. As soon as he was quiet
they began to wake up again.

"Hello!" cried Bob, when he saw two or three of them open their eyes.

"If you'd only keep still till I get awake," said one of them, and then
they all went to sleep again.

By keeping quite still he got them pretty well waked up. Then they all
fell to counting their toes, to keep from becoming too much interested in
Bobby, for just so sure as they get interested or excited, the
Sleepy-headed People fall asleep. Presently the reader awoke, and began
to mumble a lot of stuff out of the big book, about Epaminondas, and
Sesostris, and Cyaxeres, and Clearchus, and the rest, and they all grew a
little more wakeful. When he came to an account of a battle, Bobby began
to be interested a little in the story, but all the others yawned and
cried out, "Read across, read across!" and the reader straightway read
clear across the page, mixing the two columns into hopeless nonsense, so
as to destroy the interest. Then they all waked up again.

"I know a better thtory than that air!" said Bobby, growing tired of the
long mumbling reading of the dull book.

"Do you? Tell it," said the reader.

So Bobby began to tell them some of his adventures, upon which they all
grew interested and fell asleep.

"Don't tell any more like that," said the little reader, when he awoke.

"What'th the matter weth it? Heap better thtory than that big book that
you're a mumblin' over, Mr. Puddin'."

"We don't like interesting stories," said the sleepy reader. "They put us
to sleep. This is the best book in the world. It's Rollin's Ancient
History, and it hasn't got but a few interesting spots in the whole of
it. Those we keep sewed up, so that we can't read them. The rest is all
so nice and dull, that it keeps us awake all day."

Bobby stared, but said nothing.

"Can you sing?" said one of the plump little old women.

"Yeth, I can sing Dandy Jim."

"Let's have it. I do love singing; it soothes me and keeps me awake."

Thus entreated, little Bobby stood up and sang one verse of a negro song
he had heard, which ran:

"When de preacher took his tex'
He look so berry much perplex'
Fur nothin' come acrost his mine
But Dandy Jim from Caroline!"

Bobby shut his eyes tight, and threw his head back and sang through his
nose, as he had seen big folks do. He put the whole of his little soul
into these impressive words. When he had finished and opened his eyes to
discover what effect his vocal exertions had produced, his audience was
of course fast asleep.

"Well, I never!" said Bob.

"The tune's too awful lively," said the little old woman, when she woke
up. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Now, hear me sing." And she
began, in a slow, solemn movement, the most drawling tune you ever heard,
and they all joined in the same fashion:

"Poor old Pidy,
She died last Friday:
Poor old creetur,
The turkey-buzzards----"

But before they could finish the line, while they were yet hanging to the
tails of the turkey-buzzards, so to speak, Bobby burst out with:

"La! that'th the toon the old cow died on. I wouldn't thing that."

"You wouldn't, hey?" said the woman, getting angry.

"No, I wouldn't, little dumplin'."

Whereupon the little woman got so furious that she Went fast asleep, and
the reader, growing interested and falling into a doze, tumbled off his
chair on his head, but as his head was quite soft and puttyish, it did
him no particular harm, except that the fall made him sleep more soundly
than ever.

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