Nancy Byrd Turner

“ Amos had a question to ask as the travelers turned to leave the January house.
“Don’t you keep any pets?” he said.
January grinned. “It would have to be a cold kind of pet,” he replied. “And I don’t like seals and walruses. The very animal that I want I can’t have: the alligator has always been my favorite.”
“The alligator?” echoed Amos and Ann.
“Yes,” said January, firmly. “Always the al—”
But a little nickel clock caught him just there, so he remarked instead:—
“Always the alphabet to me
Is like a happy family. ”

“ The young woman rose and came smilingly to the door. A clock somewhere inside struck nine, with quick, sharp strokes.
It sounded so familiar, somehow, that the children cried in alarm, “Oh, it’s time for school!”
“Not quite, for you scholars,” the teacher said. “But folks and things in there”—she nodded toward the schoolroom—“are ready and waiting.”
Amos and Ann peered past her through the door, but they could see nothing except desks and seats.
“I suppose Columbus has sailed, by this time,” remarked the Journeying Man. ”

“ Amos wanted to know.
“Mainly resolutions,” answered January with a wry face. And then he further said: “So many of them get broken that sometimes I think I’ll move into another house.”
“But then,” put in little Ann, “we shouldn’t have any New Year. And oh, how we’d miss New Year—”
A square-faced clock on the hall-landing struck one just as Ann said she’d miss New Year.
“Oh!” said Ann with a gasp. “Now I’ve got to say a rhyme beginning—‘miss New Year.’ What shall I say? ”

“ When it was nearly time to leave the February house, Ann remarked that Amos had talked in prose straight along ever since they came.
Amos smiled proudly. “So I have,” he said. He was about to go on to say that he wondered if he would be caught at all, when—whiz! with a scramble and a scuffle a cuckoo rushed out of a [Pg 24] clock just above his head and bobbed intently up and down twelve times. Amos had got only as far as “wonder.” “Wonder—wonder—” he stammered, as he heard the clock. ”

“ The Journeying Man swept off his green hat when he caught sight of May.
“I knew you’d be here,” he said. “May I tell my two young companions how the joyful animals welcomed you when you came?”
May smiled at Amos and Ann. “How did you know?” she asked J. M.
“I saw it all,” was the answer. “I was passing through the wood one day—”
The Journeying Man was interrupted here by a clock striking ten, and so he was obliged to dash into rhyme:—
“One day the cheery wood-folk heard
A robin tell another bird
A piece of news, a joyful word
Repeated often over. ”

“ But people, chiefly youthful,
[Pg 129]
“Who show these different traits and tricks
When bedtime hour comes duly—
Banana-kind and Orange-kind;
Now which kind are you, truly?”
“Banana-kind!” cried Amos and Ann, as well as they could for laughter.
“Don’t be too quick. Don’t be Grape-kind,” said the Journeying Man.
“Grape-kind?” they echoed.
“And jump out of your skins,” said J. M.
At that Amos and Ann laughed so hard that they had to sit down on the ground. But all at once a clock began to strike fast and furiously. It had struck a hundred before the children could scramble to their feet. ”

“ That you’re due in Zodiac Town!”
He took up his book and shouldered his staff,
And turned to Amos and Ann.
“Call me J. M.,” he said with a laugh.
“That stands for Journeying Man.
I’ll make you some whistles along the way,
While you are remembering rhymes to say;
For more than once in the land of Time
You will have to speak in rhyme.”
“Our names,” said the children, “are Amos and Ann;
And poetry is rather hard for us,
But we’ll do the best we can.” ”

“ Brighter grows her one eye
And shorter grows her train.
“Now, what’s the answer?” she cried.
“That’s easy,” the Fool said promptly. “The answer is, of course, a mushroom.”
[Pg 46]
Amos laughed loudly at that; but kind little Ann was distressed to think what a pitifully poor guess her host had made.
“Oh, not a mushroom, Mr. Fool,” she said. “Don’t you see it has something to do with sewing?”
“Then of course it’s a mushroom,” the Fool said calmly. “Don’t I sow mushrooms every year all over my backyard? Nobody can fool me,” he finished with a chuckle, “about mushrooms.” ”

“ When crickets trill out on the hill,
[Pg 97] And dusk comes quick and cool;
When all at once, in midst of play,
You can’t remember what’s the way
To multiply—you stop and say,
‘Time for school!’”
A clock boomed ten with a familiar sound, and Ann and Amos jumped.
“I almost thought we were an hour late for school,” Ann said.
“September’s a rather funny month,” Amos remarked. “It ends so many things and it begins so many things.”
“I like to come home at the end of summer,” little Ann said. ”

“ The squirrels merely looked sulky, and so the Brownie addressed himself to Amos. “What,” he asked, “is your candid opinion about the wood-folk, anyway?”
“The wood-folk?” Amos said. He had not known that he had any opinion about the wood-folk, but just then a clock struck four, and suddenly he formed an opinion on the spot.
“The wood-folk scamper to and fro;
They have no tasks to do. ”

“ A fairy or a firefly could hardly flit so fast.
When we come home in summer, I have given up at last.
I lay my cheek on mother’s. If there’s only one for me,
I’d rather have her, anyway, than the girl she used to be!”
“That’s pretty good,” said Amos critically. “I like—”
Before he could go on, a little crystal clock struck four. So Amos had to fall a-rhyming again. He stood on his head and illustrated the last two lines of the rhyme.
“I like to have vacation,
I like to camp and roam ”

“ As the travelers entered the woods, they heard funny little clicking sounds everywhere.
“It’s the sound a watch makes when you shut it,” Ann said.
“Maybe they have watches here instead of clocks,” remarked Amos.
“Not at all,” said a voice behind them. The voice came from a fat Brownie, who was sitting on a stone with his legs dangling. “They have clocks everywhere in Zodiac Town,” the Brownie resumed, “even out here in the suburbs. That noise is the Chestnut Chaps unbuckling their belts and throwing off their overcoats.” ”

“ Amos cried, delighted. “Though I don’t know how you found it out, to be sure.”
“Now, Amos,” the Journeying Man put in, “it’s only fair that you should give us your poem about a band.”
Amos turned red. “My poem about a band!” he echoed. “I don’t know any poem about a band.”
“One—two—three,” chimed an old grandfather clock on the stairs; and all at once the little boy, much to his astonishment, began to recite. This is what he recited:—
[Pg 76]
“A band is such a brave, bright thing,
With tassels tossed, and burnished brass,
And music quick and fluttering—
I love to see one pass. ”

“ The Journeying Man picked up his stick. “Time to go to bed!” he cried.
Amos and Ann were astonished. “To bed?” they repeated, unbelieving. “To bed, in Zodiac Town?”
“No, in your own home,” replied J. M. “Come along, Amos and Ann!”
And when they still held back, he gave them a funny little scolding all in rhyme, which pleased them so that they followed him out into the dusk with never a word!
[Pg 128]
“It’s strange how things can differ so! ”

“ Then, without waiting at all for a clock to strike she swung into a poem:—
“When we travel back in summer to the old house by the sea,
Where long ago my mother lived, a little girl like me,
I have the strangest notion that she still is waiting there,
A small child in a pinafore with ribbon on her hair.
I hear her in the garden when I go to pick a rose;
She follows me along the path on dancing tipsy-toes;
I hear her in the hayloft when the hay is slippery-sweet—
[Pg 98] A rustle and a scurry and a sound of scampering feet ”

“ Grown-up folks in straw or leather,
Just whichever suits the weather.
These styles are the latest thing,
Brought from Paris for the Spring,
Neat and natty, trim and cool”—
“April Fool!” cried Amos. He felt sure that was coming.
But the Fool merely put his hand to his ear. “Did you call me?” he asked politely.
The children shook with laughter at that, and the April Fool turned to the Journeying Man. “Your turn,” he said.
This is the April poem that the Journeying Man recited for the rest:—
“Young Peter Puck and his brothers wrote
To the wise wood-people a little note. ”

“ And since it runs so fast, I didn’t even try to overtake it.”
“But a clock has no feet,” cried Amos.
“It has hands, though,” retorted the gypsy. “Will you deny that?”
Then he pointed his funny brown finger at Ann. “You can make a rhyme without a clock striking, you know,” he said. “Make one, this minute, Miss.”
Ann was alarmed. “What shall I make it about?” she said in a flustered voice.
“Anything,” the gypsy answered. “Hats will do.”
[Pg 62]
“Hats?” echoed Ann. “However in the world can I make a poem about hats?” ”

“ That a person could climb if he had the will—
That a person could climb, then start at the top,
And bumpeting down and thumpeting down,
Go zip! to the bottom with never a stop.
“Whoopee!” cried Amos—and off and away,
Quick with a kick, like a clown,
He ran to the top of the highest stair,
Ann at his heels—And zip! the pair
Came bumpeting down and thumpeting down.
Then, “Come, you two,” said the Journeying Man,
“We have twelve calls to pay. ”

“ The chickens shun the crows;
“The camel will not stir a peg
Until his fill he’s drunk;
The elephant is loud and cross
Until he checks his trunk;
“The tortoise always comes too late;
The hare a day ahead. ”

“ The poor owls cried, ‘Alackaday, we shan’t know whom to thank!’
“Next morning all the crows came out and pranced about and glanced about, expecting greetings from their friends, and praise, and everything; but when they got no single word of gratitude from any bird, they held a meeting in the trees that made the whole woods ring.
“Oh, well, it surely seemed a shame, but no one really was to blame; and this year all the birds around (I heard it from a wren) will put their mail most carefully safe in a holeproof hollow tree. ”

“ Hold on to your hat!”
“There’s not a single solitary clock at this place, anyway,” Amos remarked.
“Don’t be too sure,” J. M. told him. “It may be, you see, that the tree keeps a clock in its trunk. First thing you know, the clock may speak up and tell on itself, the way Tom Tuttle used to do.”
“We never heard of Tom Tuttle,” said little Ann.
“Never heard of Tom Tuttle?” echoed the Journeying Man. “Then you shall hear of him, as soon as—”
From a hole in the tree came the sound of a clock [Pg 33] striking loudly. ”

“ Will be good chums together!’”
J. M. was the next one to get caught. January had just asked the three to stay to lunch.
“Wish we could,” said the Journeying Man, “but in spite of all these clocks there is no time. I can smell your stew cooking, January—, such stew!”
A clock struck eight just as the Journeying Man said “such stew.” ”

“ For example, she was just about to describe a jolly party she went to one day last year, when a clock struck six, and she was obliged to say, instead:—
“One day last year, with hems and haws and sidelong steps and nervous caws, the crows came mincing forth to mail gay valentines, you know. The post box was a hollow tree. They did not know, unluckily, that squirrels had gnawed the floor away, and owls moved in below. ”

“ Never finer fellows lived
Than the Chestnut Chaps!”
As he finished, there came a series of clicks overhead, and seven Chestnut Chaps landed suddenly at the travelers’ very feet. As they fell, two gray squirrels darted out to the end of a limb, their tails jerking with excitement; but the Brownie waved them back.
“In this wood,” he said, “squirrels are not allowed to feed on chestnuts.” He turned to the squirrels, [Pg 107] who were scowling at him from a high branch. “And you know that very well,” he added. ”

“ Wonders we’ll show with our magic wand.’
‘What shall we do?’ said the forest-folk.
‘Maybe it’s merely a practical joke.’
But they went, good souls, and they only found
A bare, bare bush and the green, green ground.
‘But watch,’ said the fairies, ‘and you shall see
Animals grow on a tiny tree.’
“The rabbits and squirrels felt aggrieved ”

“ Twelve stories about the six-footed creatures, the fascinating little insects that children see every day. As interesting as fiction, yet holding a wealth of biologic and nature-study information, this is an ideal volume for younger children. Illustrated by Robert J. Sim. Library Edition, bound in light-blue silk cloth. ”

“ Twelve rods I’ve cut for fishing poles in our own yard this year.’
“‘How many perches make a mile? Now think before you speak.’
‘Perches?’ he said, ‘There’s millions in the upper sawmill creek.’
“‘What grows in southern Hindustan?’ Said Tom, ‘I do not know ”