Rootabaga Stories | Page 3

and filled the sky.
The balloon pickers were walking on high stilts picking balloons. Each
picker had his own stilts, long or short. For picking balloons near the
ground he had short stilts. If he wanted to pick far and high he walked
on a far and high pair of stilts.
Baby pickers on baby stilts were picking baby balloons. When they fell
off the stilts the handful of balloons they were holding kept them in the
air till they got their feet into the stilts again.
"Who is that away up there in the sky climbing like a bird in the
morning?" Ax Me No Questions asked her father.
"He was singing too happy," replied the father. "The songs came out of
his neck and made him so light the balloons pulled him off his stilts."
"Will he ever come down again back to his own people?"
"Yes, his heart will get heavy when his songs are all gone. Then he will
drop down to his stilts again."
The train was running on and on. The engineer hooted and tooted the
whistle when he felt like it. The fireman rang the bell when he felt that
way. And sometimes the open-and-shut of the steam hog had to go
pfisty-pfoost, pfisty-pfoost.
"Next is the country where the circus clowns come from," said Gimme
the Ax to his son and daughter. "Keep your eyes open."
They did keep their eyes open. They saw cities with ovens, long and
short ovens, fat and stubby ovens, lean lank ovens, all for baking either

long or short clowns, or fat and stubby or lean and lank clowns.
After each clown was baked in the oven it was taken out into the
sunshine and put up to stand like a big white doll with a red mouth
leaning against the fence.
Two men came along to each baked clown standing still like a doll.
One man threw a bucket of white fire over it. The second man pumped
a wind pump with a living red wind through the red mouth.
The clown rubbed his eyes, opened his mouth, twisted his neck,
wiggled his ears, wriggled his toes, jumped away from the fence and
began turning handsprings, cartwheels, somersaults and flipflops in the
sawdust ring near the fence.
"The next we come to is the Rootabaga Country where the big city is
the Village of Liver-and-Onions," Said Gimme the Ax, looking again in
his pocket to be sure he had the long click yellow leather slab ticket
with a blue spanch across it.
The train ran on and on till it stopped running straight and began
running in zigzags like one letter Z put next to another Z and the next
and the next.
The tracks and the rails and the ties and the spikes under the train all
stopped being straight and changed to zigzags like one letter Z and
another letter Z put next after the other.
"It seems like we go half way and then back up," said Ax Me No
Question.
Look out of the window and see if the pigs have bibs on," said Gimme
the Ax. "If the pigs are wearing bibs then this is the Rootabaga
country."
And they looked out of the zigzagging windows of the zigzagging cars
and the first pigs they saw had bibs on. And the next pigs and the next
pigs they saw all had bibs on.

The checker pigs had checker bibs on, the striped pigs had striped bibs
on. And the polka dot pigs had polka dot bibs on.
"Who fixes it for the pigs to have bibs on?" Please Gimme asked his
father.
"The fathers and mothers fix it,"answered
Gimme the Ax. "The checker pigs have checker fathers and mothers.
The striped pigs have striped fathers and mothers. And the polka dot
pigs have polka dot fathers and mothers."
And the train went zigzagging on and on running on the tracks and the
rails and the spikes and the ties which were all zigzag like the letter Z
and the letter Z.
And after a while the train zigzagged on into the Village of
Liver-and-Onions, known as the biggest city in the big, big Rootabaga
country.
And so if you are going to the Rootabaga country you will know when
you get there because the railroad tracks change from straight to zigzag,
the pigs have bibs on and it is the fathers and mothers who fix it.
And if you start to go to that country remember first you must sell
everything you have, pigs, pastures, pepper pickers, pitchforks, put the
spot cash money in a ragbag and go to the railroad station and ask the
ticket agent for a long slick yellow leather slab ticket with a blue
spanch across it.
And