Books: Half Past Seven Stories
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Robert Gordon Anderson >> Half Past Seven Stories
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For the first time that afternoon the Toyman, who had been so worried,
laughed his old hearty laugh, and Echo sent it back from her cave in
the hill.
"No!" said he, "I don't want any ole wife. Like as not she'd talk me
to death. Besides I don't feel lonely when you're along, little
fellow."
The little boy felt very happy over that, but, for some reason or
other, he felt quite embarrassed, too. Often, when he felt happiest,
he couldn't put his happiness into words--he just couldn't talk about
the particular thing that was making him happy. And, strange to say,
he would usually talk about something quite different. So he said,--
"Let's see your knife."
The Toyman took it out. It was a beauty, too, with _five_ blades,
all of different sizes, and a corkscrew.
Marmaduke tried to open one of the blades, but he couldn't, they were
too strong for his fingers.
So the Toyman took it.
"Which shall it be?" he asked.
"The very biggest," came the answer, "and oh, Toyman, let's play
'Mumbledy Peg!'"
"A galoochious idea!" exclaimed the Toyman, "how did you ever think of
it?"
"Oh!" said Marmaduke, "I thought of it--_just like this_"; and he
snapped his fingers to show just how quick. "But pshaw! I could think
of lots more galoochious than that." Then he added in delight,--"The
one who loses has to pull the peg out of the ground with his teeth."
Meanwhile the Toyman was driving that peg into the ground. When it was
in so far that it seemed as if no Thirty White Horses could ever pull
it out, they began the game--the famous game of Mumbledy Peg.
First, Marmaduke put the knife in the palm of his right hand and made
that knife turn a somersault in the air. And it landed right on the
blade point and stuck upright in the ground.
Then, taking the knife in the palm of his left hand, he made it turn
another somersault in the air. Again it landed on the point of the
blade and stuck in the ground, quivering deliciously.
"Neat work!" said the Toyman. Probably he said it too soon, for on the
very next try Marmaduke missed, and the Toyman had his turn.
_He_ took the knife and got just as far as Marmaduke with his
tricks, then he missed, too.
So Marmaduke took another turn and clenched his right fist tight shut,
and threw the knife in the air from that, and it turned another
somersault clean, and landed straight up in the ground. And he did the
same with his left hand clenched. He was getting on famously!
The next trick in the game of Mumbledy Peg was to twirl the knife from
the tip of the first finger, then from the second, and so on. When
Marmaduke tried it from the third finger, the knife fell on its point,
quivered feebly as if it were sick, then fell over on its side, only
part way up in the air.
"Can you get two fingers under it--between the blade and the ground?"
said the Toyman eagerly. "If you can, it's all right."
"_You_ try?" said Marmaduke.
"What--with _these_ fingers?" laughed the Toyman, "you'd better
try yours--you'd have more of a chance."
So Marmaduke tried, and just managed to squeeze his two smallest
between the blade and the ground. But when he tried twirling it from
his last finger he failed. The knife fell over on its side, and he
couldn't squeeze any two of his fingers, even the smallest, between
the grass and the blade.
"Oh dear!" he exclaimed, "I always miss with my 'pinky.'"
However, the Toyman missed with his fourth finger, and Marmaduke was
still ahead.
"I'm off my game," the Toyman explained a little later, as he threw
the knife over his left shoulder and failed, "and you're in rare
form!"
Now this was strange, for the Toyman was so good at work and games and
everything, but I'm thinking it was like that time they played
marbles--he did it on purpose, just to let the little boy have the fun
of winning. That would have been like the Toyman.
Anyway, the last time Marmaduke threw the knife through the air, and
it made its last somersault and stuck up in the ground, straight as
straight as could be and quivering like a jews-harp, the Toyman
said,--
"Congratulations, ole man, you've won!"
And somehow Marmaduke liked to be called "ole man," and felt quite as
proud over that as over winning the game.
Now the Toyman had to get down on his hands and knees and try to pull
the peg out of the ground with his teeth. And oh, what a time he made
of it, growling like a dog over a bone, all for the fun of the thing,
until Marmaduke shouted in glee and Echo answered back from her cave
again.
So for a long time they played Mumbledy Peg on the hill, while the
shadows grew longer and longer on the grass at their feet. Then they
stopped to rest and sat quiet "for a spell."
Opposite them, in the West, were other hills, higher ones too, rising
way up in the sky. And far above them curled great white clouds,
standing still as still could be.
For a long while they watched those clouds, the man and the boy, then
Marmaduke said,--
"I wonder if you see what _I_ see."
"What _do_ you see, Sonny?" the Toyman replied.
"A great big city--look, there it is!" And the little boy pointed
straight at the clouds.
"Why, to be sure!" exclaimed the Toyman, "there it is, an' it looks
mighty pretty. But just _what_ do you make out?"
"Well!" replied Marmaduke, squinting his eye thoughtfully, "_I_
see a big wall and towers on it--a whole lot of towers. There's about
fifty, I guess."
The Toyman squinted too, and pointed his brown finger at the clouds,
counting slowly under his breath.
"Fifty-_one_ towers I make," he said as he finished--"some little
and some big; and some have little peaks on 'em, and some are all
scalloped out on top."
"And there's a church--a _whopper_ of a big one!" went on
Marmaduke.
"Where?" asked the Toyman, craning his neck.
Marmaduke pointed at the Cloud City.
"There--just behind the biggest tower."
"Just a little to the right, you mean?" again asked the Toyman, trying
hard to see so as not to miss anything in that wonderful city. Then he
added,--"oh, I get it now--it's got a gold cross on it an' little
diamonds at the tips. My! how they shine in the sun."
Then Marmaduke put in,--
"An' there's flags on the towers, red, yellow and blue--"
"How nice they look!" the Toyman murmured, "all a wavin' in the wind."
"And there's soldiers in the streets, with helmets on their heads, an'
spears, an' things--"
"You bet--an' you kin hear the silver shoes of their horses on the
cobbles--"
"What kind of cobbles?"
The Toyman thought a moment--
"Oh, let me see--wh-h-y, I'd say they were all cut outo' agate like
your shooters--leastways they look like that at this distance. An' the
sidewalks, of course, are of gold--a blind man could tell that--"
"What else?" demanded Marmaduke, a little out of breath, and dazzled
by all this sudden glory.
"Oh, a lot else--" the Toyman replied, "for one thing, the door-knobs
in all the castles are silver--but then that's nothin'--silver's so
common even their frying-pans are made outo' that. But you ought to
see their lamp-posts in the street. Their poles are built of ivory
from the tusks of elephants of the first water; an' the glass on top
is nothing but rubies--"
"Whew!" exclaimed Marmaduke, "that's a great city."
"Yes," added the Toyman, "it's a great city."
So for a little while they watched that great Cloud City with all its
towers, and flags and banners waving in the wind; and heard the horses
prance over the bright cobbles, and the glorious music coming from out
the great church doors. Suddenly Marmaduke asked,--
"Do you 'spose we could take that city?"
"'_Spose_!" exclaimed the Toyman, "why, I'm _sure_ of it.
Just call up your horses an' call up your men." And he put his hands
to his lips and hallooed through them as through a trumpet, Echo
answering back as if she had a trumpet, too.
"Hurry," the Toyman went on in excitement, "there's your horse--come,
put your foot in the stirrup an' lick him up an' away we'll go!"
And he made all the motions of mounting a horse himself, and calling,
"Charge!" to the soldiers. It was a beautiful game, and so real that
Marmaduke felt he was actually flying through the air on a winged
horse, at the head of a mighty column of soldiers, straight towards
the Cloud City.
But alas! they didn't take that city, for, as they came near it, a
horn sounded from the valley below. They turned back to look and there
far, far beneath them, they saw the White House with the Green Blinds
By the Side of the Road, and Mother standing by the door. She looked
ever so tiny, and she was blowing that horn over and over to call them
to supper. They reined in their horses to listen, for they knew what
they would hear in a minute. Yes, there it came, that other horn--it
was Echo's. And when they turned in their saddles to look at the Cloud
City again, it had vanished--vanished at the sound of the horn, with
all their horses and men.
[Illustration: "So, for a little while, they watched that great Cloud
City, with all its towers and flags and banners waving in the wind."]
"Oh dear!" said Marmaduke, when he found himself on the hill once
more, the game all over and ended, "she's always mocking us an'
spoiling things, that Echo. If I ever catch her, I--I'll break her
horn an' throw it down the waterfall, so she can't blow it
again--_ever_."
"Never mind, sonny, we'll take that city some time," said the Toyman.
"We had a lesson 'bout that, in Sunday school today," Marmaduke told
him, "all about 'he who taketh the city.' But the teacher said 'he who
conquers his spirit is greater'n he who taketh the city.' How can you
conquer a spirit, Toyman, when you can't see it? Did you ever conquer
your spirit?"
The Toyman looked very sober for a while, as they rose and turned
their faces towards the road and the valley.
"Yes," he said, "that's what I've been trying to do all day. I had
some trouble an' temptation, an' it was getting the best of me. You
know, something bad in me that was tellin' me to do things I'd
oughtn't to. I tried hard to get my fingers around that bad spirit an'
throw him out by his heels. That's why I came up here on the hill to
fight it out. You'll understand some day--when you're older."
But, strange to say, the little boy thought he understood even
then--at least part of it.
"Have you conquered it, Toyman?" he asked at last.
"I think so," the Toyman answered slowly--"leastways I hope so."
"And _when_ did you conquer it?" the little boy prattled on.
The Toyman thought for a moment.
"When you just crep' up behind me, so still an' quiet, an' put your
face against mine." And at that the Toyman hugged him again. "No, I
guess we won't take that city tonight--we've done a better job."
As they walked to the brown ribbon road again, and over the hill to
the valley, the sun was setting. They could see it perched like a gold
saucer on the top of the hill, or like the shield of one of their
soldiers. Gold bit by gold bit it sank below. Then it went altogether,
out of sight, but the Cloud City came back again just for a moment,
and a rosy light shone upon that Cloud City and all its banners, and
towers, and spires.
Then suddenly it faded quite away. And the little boy and the Toyman
walked home through the night, but they whistled together as they
went.
THE END.
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