Andiron Tales - John Kendrick Bangs (inspirational books for students TXT) 📗

even as the Bellows had said, was sailing rapidly off in the direction of the crescent moon, which lay to the west and below them.

"Hurrah!" he cried. "It's all right."

"Can you see it still?" asked Tom, anxiously, for his cap was made of sealskin and he didn't wish to lose it.

"Yes, it's all right," said the Poker. "It nearly missed, but not quite. If you will look through these glasses you will see it."

The Poker handed Tom a pair of strong field glasses and the lad, gazing anxiously through them, was delighted to see his wandering cap hanging, as if on a great golden hook in the sky beneath them, and which was nothing more than the last appearance of the moon itself.

"Good!" cried the Righthandiron. "That settles the question for us of where we shall go next. There is no choice left. We'll go to the moon. Heave ahead, Wheezy."

Whereupon the Bellows began to blow, at first gently, then stronger and stronger, and yet more strongly still, until the cloud was moving rapidly in the direction they desired.


CHAPTER VII.


They Reach the Crescent Moon

As the jolly party sped along through the heavens Tom began to find his eyes bothering him a trifle. Brilliant as many of the sunshiny days had been at home, particularly when the snow was on the ground, nothing so dazzlingly bright as this great golden arc in the sky was getting to be, as they approached closer, had ever greeted his sight.

"It's blinding!" he cried, his eyes blinking and filling with water as he gazed upon the scene. "I can't stand it. What shall I do, Lefty?"

"Turn your head around and approach it backward," said Lefty. "Then you won't see it."

"But I want to see it," retorted Tom. "What's the use of visiting the moon if you can't see it?"

"Reminds me of a poem I wrote once," put in the Poker. "'What's the Use?' was one of my masterpieces, and maybe if I recite it to you it will help your eyes."

"Bosh!" growled the Bellows, who was beginning to get a little short-winded with his labors, and, therefore, a trifle out of temper. "How on earth will reciting your poem help Tom's eyes?"

"Easy enough," returned the Poker haughtily and with a contemptuous glance at the Bellows. "My poem is so much brighter than the moon that the moon will seem dull alongside of it."

"Go ahead anyhow," said Tom, interested at once and forgetting his eyes for the moment. "Give us the poem."

"Here goes, then," said the Poker, with a low bow and then, standing erect, he began. "It's called

WHAT'S THE USE.

What's the use of circuses that haven't any beasts?
What's the use of restaurants that haven't any feasts?

What's the use of oranges that haven't any peels?
What's the use of bicycles that haven't any wheels?

What's the use of railway trains that have no place to go?
What's the use of going to war if you haven't any foe?

What's the use of splendid views for those that cannot see?
What's the use of freedom's flag to folks that aren't free?

What's the use of legs to those who have no wish to walk?
What's the use of languages to those who cannot talk?

What's the use of kings and queens that haven't any throne?
What's the use of having pains unless you're going to groan?

What's the use of anything, however grand and good,
That doesn't ever, ever work the way it really should?"

"Humph!" panted the Bellows, "you don't call that bright, do you?"

"I do, indeed," said the Poker. "And I call it bright because I know it's bright. It is so bright that not a magazine in all the world dare print it, because they'd never be able to do as well again, and people would say the magazine wasn't as good as it used to be."

"What nonsense," retorted the Bellows. "Why, I could blow a mile of poetry like that in ten minutes:

What's the use of churches big that haven't any steeples?
What's the use of nations great that haven't any peoples?

What's the use of oceans grand that haven't any beaches?
What's the use of Delawares that haven't any peaches?

What's the use--"

"O, shut up Wheezy," interrupted the Poker angrily. "Of course you can go on like that forever, once somebody gives you the idea, but to have the idea in the beginning was the big thing. Columbus was a great man for coming to America, but every foreigner who has come over since isn't, not by a long shot. As I say in my celebrated rhyme on "Greatness":

The greatest man in all the world, by far the greatest one,
Is he who goes ahead and does what no one else has done.
But he must be the first if he would rank as some "potaters,"
For those who follow after him are merely imitators.

"Ha! ha! ha!" laughed the Bellows. "You are a great chap, Pokey--you, with your poetry. I hope Tom isn't going to be affected by the lessons you teach. The idea of saying that a man is the greatest man in the world because he does what no one else has done! I guess nobody's never eaten bricks up to now. Do you mean to say that if Tom here ate a brick he'd be the greatest man in the world?"

"No; he'd be a cannibal," put in the Righthandiron, desirous of stopping the quarrel between the rivals.

"How do you make that out?" demanded the Bellows.

"Because Tom is a brick himself," explained the Righthandiron; and just then slap! bang! the party plunged head first into what appeared to be--and in fact really was--a huge snowbank.

"Hurrah! Here we are!" cried Lefty, gleefully.

"Wh-where are we?" Tom sputtered, blowing the snow out of his mouth and shaking it from his coat and hair and ears.

"Hi, there! Look out!" roared Righty, grabbing Tom by the coat sleeve and yanking him off to one side. A terrible swishing sound fell upon the lad's ears, and as he gazed doggedly about him to see what had caused it he saw a great golden toboggan whizzing down into the valley, and then slipping up the hill on the other side.

"You had a narrow escape that time," said Righty, as they excitedly watched the toboggan speeding on its way, and which, by the way, was filled with a lot of little youngsters no bigger than Tom himself, children of all colors, apparently, red, white and blue, green, yellow and black. "If I hadn't yanked you away you'd have been run over."

"But where are we?" Tom asked, bewildered by the experience.

"We're on the Crescent Moon at last," said Lefty. "It's the boss toboggan slide of the universe."

"A toboggan slide?" cried Tom.

"The very same," said the Poker. "Didn't you know that this dazzling whiteness of the Crescent Moon is merely the reflection of the sun's light on the purest of pure white snow? It's too high up for dust and dirt here, you see, and so the snow is always clean, and so, equally of course, is dazzling white."

"But the tobogganing?" asked Tom.

"It's like swinging and letting the old cat die," explained the Righthandiron. "You see, it's this shape," and he marked the crescent form of the moon on the snow and lettered the various points.

"Now," he continued, "you start your toboggan at A and whizz down to C. When you get there you have gathered speed enough to take you up the hill to B. Then of its own weight the toboggan slides back to D, from which it again moves forward to E, and so it keeps on sliding back and forth until finally it comes to a dead stop at C. Isn't that a fine arrangement?"

"Magnificent," said Tom. "And do they call it tobogganing here?"

"No," said Righty, "it's called oscillating, and the machine is known as the oscycle"--

"Don't confound it with the icicle," put in the Bellows.

"Oh, I know what an icicle is," said Tom. "It's a spear of ice that hangs from a piazza roof."

"That's what it is at home," said the Poker, "but not here, my lad. Here an icicle is a bicycle with runners instead of wheels."

"But what makes it go?" demanded Tom.

"Pedals, of course," returned the Poker. "You just tread away on the pedals, as if you were riding on a bicycle, and the chain sets a dozen ice picks revolving that shove you over the ice like the wind. Oh, it's great sport!"

Another rush and roar of a passing toboggan caused them to pause in their conversation for a moment, and then Tom turned his attention to the diagram Righty had drawn on the snow.

"Suppose you didn't stop at B and go back--what would happen?" he asked as he considered the possible dangers of this wonderful new sport.

"You'd fall over the edge, of course," said the Poker.

"I see that," said Tom. "But if you fell over the edge what would become of you? Where would you land?"

"If you had luck you wouldn't land anywhere," said Righty. "The chances are, however, you'd fall back on the earth again. Maybe in Canada, possibly in China, perhaps in Egypt. It would all depend on the time of night."

"And wouldn't you be killed?" Tom asked.

"Not if you had your rubbers on," said Righty. "If you had your rubbers on it would only jar you slightly. You'd just hit the earth and then bounce back again, but there's no use of talking about that, because it never happened but once. It happened to a chap named Blenkinson, who took an Oscillator that hadn't any brake on it. He was one of those smart fellows that want to show how clever they are. He whizzed down one side and up the other, and pouf! First thing he knew he was flying off into space."

"And what became of him?" demanded Tom.

"He had the luck not to hit anything, but he suffered just the same," said Righty. "He flew on until he got to a point where he was held fast up in the air by the force of gravity of 1,600 different planets, and he's there yet. At a distance he looks like another new star, but when you get close to him he's nothing more than just a plain, everyday Smarty."

"I should think he'd starve to death," said Tom, as he reflected on the horrid fate of Blenkinson.

"He would if he had any appetite," said the Bellows. "But he hasn't. He's so worried all the time that he can't eat, so he gets along very well without food."

"Let's quit talking now," suggested the Poker, "and get a ride, eh?"

"I'm ready," said Tom eagerly. "Where do we start?"

"There's the station up on the hill. It's only about 700 miles. We can walk it in a year," said Righty.

"I move we take this cloud that's coming up," said the Bellows. "I'm winded."

Tom looked in