Pinochle

“ The Farmer is milking the little black cow,
The Rooster is blowing his shiny tin horn
And Billy Breeze’s whistling a tune in the corn.
Goodness me! Up jumped Little Jack Rabbit. You remember that the tired little bunny boy had been too sleepy to hop upstairs after playing a game of pinochle with Uncle John Hare, and had fallen asleep in a big arm chair for the night. That’s where we left him, and now we find him wide awake. ”

“ Twenty-five years of pinochle and poker and the fat of the land haven't added up any bumps in the old stocking under the mattress."
"Say, looka here," objected Gabe, more red-faced than usual, "I didn't know was proposing to no Senatorial investigating committee. Say, you talk about them foreign noblemen being mercenary! Why, they ain't in it with you girls to-day. A feller is got to propose to you with his bank book in one hand and a bunch of life-insurance policies in the other. ”

“ Tursio then handed Pinocchio a small shell of very strange shape. It looked like a helmet.
“Wear this, Pinocchio,” he said. “It will make a pretty cap for you.”
“It is very pretty. What is it?”
“It is a very rare shell.”
“But it is only one shell. Where is its mate?”
“It has none. It is a univalve. That means it has only one shell. The tellines have two shells, and are therefore called bivalve. Another kind looks like a box with a cover.”
[Pg 27]
“But does an animal live in there?”
“Of course. Every shell has its mollusk.” ”

“ Whenever they construct weirs to catch fish, they take care to offer fish to the water-serpent of the river; and when they are away from home and are making pinole, that is, toasted maize-meal, they drop the first of the pinole into the water as an offering to the serpents, who would otherwise try to seize them and chase them back to their own land. ”

“ They are calling ‘papa.’ I never thought fish could talk,” said Pinocchio.
[Pg 152]
“First of all, seals are not fish, but mammals. And then there are some fish which do produce sounds. Tunnies, when out of the water, cry like children. Some poulpes, when caught, groan. Others make a sound like a whistle.”
“I am ready to believe anything,” Pinocchio said very weakly. “But what is a poulpe?”
“Oh, that is another name for the octopus or devilfish,” was the reply. ”

“ He opened and ate so many, that it was a wonder to Marsovino that so small a person could hold so much.
Suddenly Pinocchio noticed numberless tiny, tiny white specks coming out of some oysters. To him they looked like grains of sand. But when he saw the specks moving and trying hard to attach themselves to rocks, he could not help crying out, “O look at the live sand, Tursio.”
“Who told you it is live sand?” asked Tursio. “Those are the newborn oysters, looking for a place on which to spend their lives. Where those small grains hang, there the oysters will live, grow, and die.” ”

“ You see,” continued Marsovino, opening a shell, “this one has none. But do you see this coating of many colors on the inside of the shell? That is a substance which comes from the body of the mollusk. It is called mother of pearl. When the oyster opens its shell, a grain of sand may get into it. The oyster does not like this, as the stone hurts her, but she can’t throw it out. So she covers it up with this substance from her body. When the little stone is all covered up, we have a lovely pearl.”
“Who would ever have thought such a thing possible!” thought Pinocchio, getting to work. ”

“ After having walked half the day they reached a town that was called "Trap for Blockheads." As soon as Pinocchio entered this town he saw that the streets were crowded with dogs who were yawning from hunger, shorn sheep trembling with cold, cocks without combs begging for a grain of Indian corn, large butterflies that could no longer fly because they had sold their beautiful colored wings, peacocks which had no tails and were ashamed to be seen, and pheasants that went scratching about in a subdued fashion, mourning for their brilliant gold and silver feathers gone forever. ”

“ In Mesa Verde P. truei and P. maniculatus occur together only at the fringes of the pinyon-juniper woodland, where ecotonal areas provide less than optimum habitats for both species. Almost all individuals of P. truei occur only in pinyon-juniper woodland, whereas P. maniculatus occurs only in more open habitats, such as grassy meadows and stands of sagebrush.
Pinyon mice were abundant in a variety of associations within the pinyon-juniper woodland. The highest population densities were in pinyon-juniper woodland having an understory of mixed shrubs. ”

“ But Pinkel has a smooth tongue, and he can get the better of any woman, old or young.’
‘Then bid him go this very night,’ cried the king; ‘and if he brings me the lantern I will make him one of the chief men about my person.’
Pinkel was much pleased at the thought of his adventure, and without more ado he borrowed a little boat which lay moored to the shore, and rowed over to the island at once. It was late by the time he arrived, and almost dark, but he knew by the savoury smell that reached him that the witch was cooking her supper. ”

“ For in my pond the pickerel are surely the prominent citizens, the aristocracy, for they are the largest and strongest and they live directly off their fellow fishes, which constitutes an aristocracy in any community. Minnows, perch, bream and mullet alike are busy assimilating vegetable matter, mussels, worms, insects and small crustacae, merely to form themselves either directly or in their children ultimately into titbits for the nourishing of pickerel. All the pond world knows that and its denizens tremble in the presence of these great-jawed, hook-toothed gobblers of small fry ”

“ The pond pickerel waxes fat on minnows and other small fry and in the course of a long life grows to be two feet or more in length and specimens have been caught weighing seven pounds, perhaps more. It is rather interesting to learn from the fishermen that certain ponds are apt to contain pickerel of a certain size, in the main, as if the conditions of food supply and the freshness of the water or the amount of sunshine were only sufficient to bring the most of them to a definite period of maturity, where they stopped. ”

“ As if these were not enough, out of a hole came a crab larger than any of the others. He was rapidly coming nearer, but before long one of his claws was grasped by one lobster, the other by another. Without the least movement to fight, the crab just pulled off his claws, and quickly went back to his hole.
Pinocchio was thunderstruck. How could the crab do this so calmly? For the simple reason that the crab preferred losing his claws to being killed and eaten up. In a few months he would grow another set of claws as good as those he had lost. Yes, a crab can do that, children. ”

“ When they were white with it, he threw them into the pan. The first to dance in the hot oil were the mullets, the bass followed, then the whitefish, the flounders, and the anchovies. Pinocchio’s turn came last. Seeing himself so near to death (and such a horrible death!) he began to tremble so with fright that he had no voice left with which to beg for his life.
The poor boy beseeched only with his eyes. But the Green Fisherman, not even noticing that it was he, turned him over and over in the flour until he looked like a Marionette made of chalk. ”

“ A knowledge of their language might assist much to make us better acquainted with their country, for their nomenclature of places, as well as of persons, is rarely insignificant. I have already stated that the Pehuenches derive their name from pehuen, the pine-tree, which abounds on the slopes of the Cordillera where they dwell. The Ranqueles are so called from ranquel, the thistle, which covers the plains which they inhabit. The Picunches take their name from picun, the north. The Puelches signify the people to the east, and the Huilliches those to the south: che means people. ”

“ Pinguicula is abundant in the north temperate zone, and ranges down the Andes as far as Patagonia; the 250 species of Utricularia are mostly aquatic, and some are found in all save polar regions; their unimportant congeners, Genlisea and Polypompholix, occur in tropical America and south-western Australia respectively. ”

“ With claws in the air and eyes roving madly they approached. Very carefully they looked the boy over. A lobster or a crab never begins to fight unless he knows what he has to deal with.
And still they kept coming! Wherever Pinocchio turned, there was a horrible creature. To the right the large mouth of a common lobster threatened him. To the left an ugly spiny lobster shook his claws at him. Behind and before him the sand was covered with them, large green crabs, common crabs, porcelain crabs, common lobster, spider crabs, glass crabs, tiny fiddlers, and others. ”

“ Concealed in the bottom of their living dwelling-place (a den which the mussel transports at will) they choose admirably the moment and the place to rush out to the attack, and always fall on their enemy unawares. Some of these pinnotheres live in all seas, and inhabit a great number of bivalve molluscs. The northern seas contain a large species of Modiola (Modiola Papuana) which is especially found in deep and almost inaccessible parts, and which always encloses a couple of pinnotheres about the size of a hazel-nut. ”

“ The Devil’s Pincushion is our largest and finest, resembling a pineapple in color and appearance, with his cone-shaped stems three to nine inches tall and three to six inches across, his big tubercles in spirals of thirteen or more rows, coarse yellowish thorns, and large fruit and seeds. The dozen or so spines in a comb-like radial arrangement from a common center, the areola, and graduated, are not alone beautiful and symmetrical, but provide a coat of mail for robustispina protecting him against excessive light or heat and cold. ”

“ All of them. And many of them come from a single oyster, for an oyster [Pg 42] gives forth almost two millions of eggs at a time. These little things have so many enemies, however, that very seldom do more than ten of the millions grow old.”
“Two millions! Then I may eat all I want to,” continued Pinocchio, unmercifully tearing away the poor oysters, young and old.
“Look, Pinocchio,” here called Tursio, pointing to a small fish, colored with brilliant blues and reds. “That is the stickleback. You may have heard that this fish makes a nest, as do birds. ”

“ Pinocchio, mortified at being called a crawfish, indignantly cried out: “I am not a crawfish! Look at me; I am a marionette.”
“A marionette!” replied the fisherman. “Well, well! A marionette fish is a new kind to me. All the better; I shall eat you with more relish.”
“Eat me? But you do not understand! I am not a fish. Don’t you see that I reason and talk as you do?”
“It is true,” replied the fisherman. “As I see that you live in the water and must be a fish, and as you know how to reason and talk, I will respect your wisdom and will therefore let you decide.” ”

“ A moment he paused, awed by a superstitious fear of the dead, but a violent clap of thunder terrified him into forgetting all but his immediate danger. There were only a few moments left; if he could reach the top of the tree before the island dashed past the vines, he might save himself. His hands tremblingly sought the notches sacred to the dead; he scrambled upward. Thorns pierced his tired limbs; vines and creepers took vicious delight in fastening themselves upon him. The tree shook as the monkey jumped farther out on a limb, and the movement seemed to put new strength in Piang. ”

“ So he pulled the tail of one, pinched another’s round body, or shook a third one by the nose. The poor things turned and struggled. But this only afforded greater fun for Pinocchio.
But, oh! He had no sooner touched a large red eel’s tail, than he gave a scream of pain. His shouts of laughter were changed to moans, and in his struggles the marionette [Pg 92] fell out of the shell and tumbled on the sand.
“Help! Help! I am dying! Some one has killed me!” howled Pinocchio, so loudly that he could have been heard a mile away. ”

“ What so attracted Pinocchio were medusæ. They also are animals belonging to the zoöphytes.
These medusæ have no solid parts and cannot live out of the water. If taken out and left in the sun they dry up and soon nothing is left of them. Some of them are as small as a penny, and others are very large.
“If I could only take one,” sighed Pinocchio, hanging way out of his shell in his efforts to touch them. ”

“ While travelling with such burdens they eat nothing but pinole, a little at frequent intervals.
The wonderful health these people enjoy is really their most attractive trait. They are healthy and look it. It could hardly be otherwise in this delightful mountain air, laden with the invigorating odour of the pines combined with the electrifying effect of being close to nature’s heart. In the highlands, where the people live longer than in the barrancas, it is not infrequent to meet persons who are at least a hundred years old. ”

“ Indians climb the trees like bears and beat off the cones or recklessly cut off the more fruitful branches with hatchets, while the squaws gather and roast them until the scales open sufficiently to allow the hard-shell seeds to be beaten out. The curious little Pinus attenuata is found at an elevation of from 1500 to 3000 feet, growing in close groves and belts. It is exceedingly slender and graceful, although trees that chance to stand alone send out very long, curved branches, making a striking contrast to the ordinary grove form. ”

“ We saw the sunfishes making their nests in little openings in the rushes where the water was only a few feet deep, ploughing up and shoving away the soft gray mud with their noses, like pigs, forming round bowls five or six inches in depth and about two feet in diameter, in which their eggs were deposited. And with what beautiful, unweariable devotion they watched and hovered over them and chased away prowling spawn-eating enemies that ventured within a rod or two of the precious nest!
The pickerel is a savage fish endowed with marvelous strength and speed. ”