John Kendrick Bangs

“ And before Mollie could say another word he was gone.
"Isn't he the worst you ever saw?" said Mollie.
"Puffickly-digulous," said Whistlebinkie.
"I wonder what his business is to be," observed Mollie, as she seated herself on the sled and made ready for the descent.
"I haven't the slightest ideeeee-eeeeeeee-eeeee-eeee-ah!" whistled Whistlebinkie; a strange and long-drawn-out word that; but whistling dolls are very like boys and girls when they are sliding down hill. ”

“ Other people know things, and it always makes them proud, and I don't like proud people."
"I hope you like me," said Mollie, softly.
"Yes, indeed, I do," cried the Unwiseman. "I like you and Whistlebinkie very much, because you don't either of you know anything either, and so, of course, you aren't stuck up like some people I meet who think just because they know the difference between a polar bear and a fog horn while I don't that they're so much better than I am. ”

“ Mollie, getting a large lemon out of the pantry closet and cutting it in half.
As the sharp steel blade of the knife cut through the crisp yellow lemon the eyes of the Unwiseman opened wide and bulged with astonishment.
"What on earth are you doing, Miss Whistlebinkie?" he said. "Why do you destroy that beautiful thing?"
It was Mollie's turn to be surprised.
"I don't know what you mean," she said. "Why shouldn't I cut the lemon? How can I make a lemonade without cutting it?"
"Humph!" said the Unwiseman, with a half sneer on his lips. "You'll go to the poor-house if you waste things like that. ”

“ Unwiseman," said Mollie. "He isn't paid for opening the front door. He just does it for fun."
"Oh! well, that's different," said the proud visitor. "If he does it just for fun I can afford to recognize him—though I must say I can't see what fun there is in opening front doors. How do you do, Whistlebinkie?"
"Pretwell," said Whistlebinkie. "How are you?"
"I hardly know what to say," replied the Unwiseman, scratching his head thoughtfully. "You see, Miss Mollie, when I got up my conversation for this call I didn't calculate on Whistlebinkie here. ”

“ Poor Whistlebinkie squeaked out an apology and subsided.
"Pleasure ought to be spread."
"Take bananas, for instance," said the Unwiseman, not deigning to notice Whistlebinkie's apology. "I dare say if your mother gives you a banana, you go off into a corner and gobble it right up. Now I find that a nibble tastes just as good as a bite, and by nibbling you can get so many more tastes out of that banana, as nibbles are smaller than bites, and instead of a banana lasting a week, or two weeks or eight weeks, it's all gone in ten seconds. ”

“ Gyp turned his head to one side as the Unwiseman spoke and looked at him earnestly for a few seconds, and then, as if overcome with mirth at the idea, he rushed out of the [Pg 133] door and chased his tail around the house three times.
"What an extraordinary animal that is," said the Unwiseman. "He must be very young."
"He is," said Mollie. "He is nothing but a puppy."
"Well, it seems to me he wastes a good deal of strength," said the Unwiseman. "Why, if I should run around the house that way three times I'd be so tired I'd have to hire a man to help me rest." ”

“ Our doctor is just lovely. He gives me the nicest medicines you ever saw."
"That may be true; but I don't want to be a doctor," returned the Unwiseman. "You have to study an awful lot to be a doctor. I knew a man once who studied six weeks before he could be a doctor, and then what do you suppose happened? It was awfully discouraging."
"What was it?" queried Mollie.
"Why, he practised on a cat he owned, to see what kind of a doctor he had become, and the cat died all nine times at once; so the poor fellow, after wasting all those weeks on study, had to become a plumber, after all. ”

“ The Unwiseman.
Whistlebinkie was rolling on the floor convulsed with laughter by the time Mollie finished reading these rules. He knew enough about house-keeping to know how delightful they were, and if the Unwiseman could have seen him he would doubtless have been very much pleased at his appreciation.
"The funny part of it all is, though," said Mollie, "that the poor old man doesn't keep a cook at all, but does all his own housework." ”

“ Mollie felt very sorry for poor Bopeep as she listened to this dreadful statement, and she was very much surprised to see Bopeep smiling through it all.
"Why did you smile?" she asked the little shepherdess as they wended their way home again.
"She lives on ink and it makes her disagreeable."
"Because I knew from what she said that she knew the sheep were safe—but she lives on ink, and that makes her disagreeable. [Pg 26] She just wanted to make me feel as disagreeable as she does, and she told me all that nonsense to accomplish that purpose." ”

“ Really, you ought never to go out without an umbrella. I always do, but then I know enough to go in when it rains, so of course don't need one."
"I see you have a piano," said Whistlebinkie, taking in the furniture of the parlor.
[Pg 41]
"Yes," replied the Unwiseman. "It's a very fine one, too. It has lots of tunes locked up in it."
"Are you fond of music?" asked Mollie. "No, I hate it," said the Unwiseman.
"Are you fond of music?" asked Mollie.
"No, I hate it," said the Unwiseman. "That's why I have the piano. There's just so much less music in the world. ”

“ One must have some comfort."
"Then you have made some good resolutions, have you?" said Mollie.
"Millions of 'em," said the Unwiseman; "and I'm going to make millions more. One of 'em is that I won't catch cold during the coming year. That's one of the best resolutions a man of my age can make. Colds are very bad things, and it costs so much to be rid of them. Why, I had one last winter and I had to burn three cords of wood to get rid of it."
"Do you cure a cold with wood?" asked Flaxilocks.
"Why not?" returned the Unwiseman. "A roaring hot fire is the best cure for cold I know. ”

“ What could I do?"
"But you haven't been throwing stones at anybody's pet tiger, have you?" asked Mollie.
"Not while I was awake, but I may have done it in my sleep, you know."
"Not while I was awake," said the Unwiseman. "But I may have done it in my sleep, you know. People do lots of things in their sleep that they never do while awake. They snore, for instance; and one man I know, who always rides when he is awake, walks in his sleep."
[Pg 38]
"Let's try it, anyway," said Whistlebinkie. "It may be that there won't be any trouble, after all."
"Very well," assented the Unwiseman. ”

“ The first place we must go to is the home of the Unwiseman."
"The what?" demanded Mollie.
"The Unwiseman. He's an unwiseman who doesn't know anything," explained Bopeep. "The rules require that we go to him [Pg 19] first and ask him if he knows where the sheep are. He'll say he doesn't know, and then we'll go on to the little old woman who lives under the hill. She'll know where they are, but she'll tell us wrong. Hi! Whistlebinkie and Flaxilocks! Turn off to the left, and stop at that little red house under the oak tree."
"There isn't any little red house under the oak tree," said Mollie. ”

“ It's rather a wonderful age, don't you think so?"
"It certainly is," said the new doll.
"But then you are a wonderful man," said Mollie.
The Unwiseman drops words out of his vocabulary.
"True," said the Unwiseman, reflectively. "I am wonderful. Sometimes I spend the whole night full of wonder that I should be so wonderful. I know so much. Why, I can read French. ”

“ Most men—wise men they call themselves—would have spent money having them misfitted again by a tailor, but I don't spend my money on things I can get done for nothing. That's the reason I don't pay anything out to beggars. I can get all the begging I want done on my place without having to pay a cent for it, and yet I know lots and lots of people who are all the time spending money on beggars."
"There is a great deal in what you say," said Mollie.
"There generally is," returned the Unwiseman. ”

“ Assafœdita, peristyle, and cosmopolis until next year dawns shall be dead to me. I may take them on again next year; but if I do, I shall drop Mulligatawney, Portuguese, and pollywog from my vocabulary. I may even go so far as to drop vocabulary, although it is a word for which I have a strong affection. I am so attached to vocabulary as a word that I find myself murmuring it to myself in the dead of night."
"What does it mean?" asked the new doll.
"Vocabulary?" cried the Unwiseman. "Vocabulary? Don't you know what a vocabulary is?"
[Pg 136]
"I know," said Whistlebinkie. ”

“ But to come back to the chocolate eclaires, whether they are made by bakers, fakirs, or plumbers, they cost money; if I don't have them I shall starve to death, for I can never more eat apples; therefore, to live I must make some money, and to make money I must go into business."
"Well, I haven't any doubt it will be good for you," said Mollie. "It's always well to have something to do. What business are you going into?"
[Pg 109]
"Ah!" said the Unwiseman, with a shake of his head. "That's my secret. I've got a patent business I'm going into. It's my own invention. ”

“ I can't afford to build a house and employ a man to cry through a window just to supply the government with a model. My idea was this. As my tears fell to the ground my ears and nose got very cold—almost froze, in fact. There was the scheme in a nutshell. Tears rhyme with ears, nose with froze. Why not write rhymes for the comic papers?"
[Pg 148]
"Oho!" said Mollie; "I see. You are going to be a poet."
"That's the idea," said the Unwiseman. "There's heaps of money in it. I know a man who gets a dollar a yard for writing poetry. ”

“ Whistlebinkie giggled slightly through his beaver hat as he and Mollie, accepting the invitation, walked in and seated themselves [Pg 40] in a droll little parlor that opened on the left-hand side of the hall.
"So this is your house, is it?" said Mollie, glancing about her with much interest.
"Yes," said the Unwiseman; "but, Miss Whistlebinkie, won't you kindly sit on the table instead of on that chair? So many people have been hurt by chairs breaking under them—many times more than are hurt from sitting on tables—that I have to be very careful. ”

“ It may be that I must become second to her; but you, you needn't play second fiddle to any one, for there isn't another rubber doll with a whistle in his hat in the house to rival you."
"Well, I wish I could be sure of that," said Whistlebinkie, mournfully, "I can see very well how Mollie can love you as well as she loves me—but that real dog, bah! He can't even whistle, and he's awfully destructive. [Pg 126] Only last night he chewed up the calico cat, and actually, Mollie laughed. Do you suppose she would laugh if he chewed me up?"
"He couldn't chew you up," said Flaxilocks. ”

“ There isn't any use of living like a prince for five minutes and then starving to death for seven weeks, six days, twenty-three hours, and fifty-five minutes."
Here the Unwiseman opened the drawer of his table and took out the eclaire to show it to Mollie.
"It doesn't look very good," said Mollie.
"That's true," said the Unwiseman; "but that helps. It's awfully hard work the first day to keep from nibbling it up too fast, but the second day it's easier, and so it goes all along until you get to the fourth week, and then you don't mind only taking a nibble. ”

“ Gyp took a roll in the snow and gleefully barked to show that he too thought it wasn't half bad.
"I wonder what the Unwiseman is doing this morning," said Mollie, after they had romped about for some little while.
"I dare say he is throwing snow-balls at himself," said Whistlebinkie. "That's about as absurd a thing as any one can do, and he can always be counted upon to be doing things that haven't much sense to 'em." ”

“ You don't make things last as you should ought to."
"Excuse me," interrupted Whistlebinkie, [Pg 184] who had been criticized so often about the way he spoke, that he was resolved to get even. "Is 'should ought to' a nice way to speak?"
"If you want to speak some other language, you can go outside and speak it."
"It's nice enough for me," retorted the Unwiseman. "And as this is my house I have a right to choose the language I speak here. If you want to speak some other language, you can go outside and speak it." ”

“ Mollie admitted. "What do they mean?"
"I'm not in the school-teacher business, and so I shan't tell you," said the Unwiseman, with a wave of his hand. "Besides, I really don't know myself—though I'm not a little girl. But I'll tell you one thing. An Alpine stock is a thing to climb Alps with, and a thing you can climb an Alp with ought to help you climbing into a kitchen window, because kitchen windows aren't so high as Alps, and they don't have snow on 'em in spring like Alps do." ”