Mollie and the Unwiseman Abroad. Bangs John Kendrick
in a balloon, I suppose," sneered the Unwiseman. "That is all of you but old Sizzerinktum here. I suppose he's going to try and jump across. Smart feller, old Sizzerinktum."
"I ain't neither!" retorted Whistlebinkie.
"Ain't neither what – smart?" said the Unwiseman.
"No – ain't goin' to jump," said Whistlebinkie.
"Good thing too," observed the Unwiseman approvingly. "If you did you'd bounce so high when you landed that I don't believe you'd ever come down."
"We're going in a boat," said Mollie. "Not a row boat nor a sail boat," she hastened to explain, "but a great big ocean steamer, large enough to carry over a thousand people, and fast enough to cross in six days."
"Silly sort of business," said the Unwiseman. "What's the good of going to Europe and Swazzoozalum – or whatever the place is – when you haven't seen Albany or Troy, or New Rochelle and Yonkers, or Michigan and Patterson?"
"O well," said Mollie, "Papa's tired and he's going to take a vacation and we're all going along to help him rest, and Flaxilocks is so excited about going back to Paris where she was born that I have had to keep her in her crib all the time to keep her from getting nervous procrastination."
"I see," said the Unwiseman. "But I don't see why if people are tired they don't stay home and go to bed. That's the way to rest. Just lie in bed a couple of days without moving."
"Yes," said Mollie. "But Papa needs the salt air to brace him up."
"What of it?" demanded the Unwiseman. "Can't you get salt air without going across the ocean? Seems to me if you just fill up a pillow with salt and sleep on that, the way you do on one of those pine-needle pillows from the Dadirondacks, you'd get all the salt air you wanted, or build a salt cellar under your house and run pipes from it up to your bedroom to carry the air through."
"It wouldn't be the same, at all," said Mollie. "Besides we're going to see the Alps."
"Oh – that's different. Of course if you're going to see the Alps that's very different," said the Unwiseman. "I wouldn't mind seeing an Alp or two myself. I always was interested in animals. I've often wondered why they never had any Alps at the Zoo."
"I guess they're too big to bring over," said Mollie gravely.
"Maybe so, but even then if they catch 'em young I don't see," began the Unwiseman.
Whistlebinkie's behavior at this point was such that Mollie, fearing a renewal of the usual quarrel between her friends ran hastily on to the object of their call and told the Unwiseman that they had come to bid him good-bye.
"I wish you were going with us," she said as she shook the old gentleman's hand.
"Thank you very much," he replied. "I suppose it would be nice, but I have too many other things to attend to and I don't see how I could spare the time. In the first place I've got all those commas and Qs to look after, and then if I went away there'd be nobody around to see that my pipe was smoked every day, or to finish up my newspaper. Likewise also too in addition the burgulars might get into my house some night while I was away and take the wrong things because I haven't been able yet to let 'em know just what I'm willing to have 'em run off with, so you see how badly things would get mixed if I went away."
"I suppose they would," sighed Mollie.
"There'd be nobody here to exercise my umbrella on wet days, either," continued the old gentleman, "or to see that the roof leaked just right, or to cook my meals and eat 'em. No – I don't just see how I could manage it." And so the old gentleman bade his visitors good-bye.
"Take care of yourself, Fizzledinkie," he observed to Whistlebinkie, "and don't blow too much through the top of your hat. I've heard of boats being upset by sudden squalls, and you might get the whole party in trouble by the careless use of that hat of yours."
Mollie and her companion with many waves of their hands back at the Unwiseman made off up the road homeward. The old gentleman gazed after them thoughtfully for awhile, and then returned to his work on his newspaper.
"Queer people – some of 'em," he muttered as he cut out his ninety-ninth Q and noted the ten-thousand-six-hundred-and-thirty-eighth comma on his pollywog tally sheet. "Mighty queer. With a country of their own right outside their front door so big that they couldn't walk around it in less than forty-eight hours, they've got to go abroad just to see an old Alp cavorting around in Whizzizalum or whatever else that place Whistlebinkie was trying to talk about is named. I'd like to see an Alp myself, but after all as long as there's plenty of elephants and rhinoceroses up at the Zoo what's the good of chasing around after other queer looking beasts getting your feet wet on the ocean, and having your air served up with salt in it?"
And as there was nobody about to enlighten the old gentleman on these points he went to bed that night with his question unanswered.
II
THE START
Other good byes had been said; the huge ocean steamer had drawn out of her pier and, with Mollie and Whistlebinkie on board, together with Flaxilocks and the rest of the family, made her way down the bay, through the Narrows, past Sandy Hook and out to sea. The long low lying shores of New Jersey, with their white sands and endless lines of villas and summer hotels had gradually sunk below the horizon and the little maid was for the first time in her life out of sight of land.
"Isn't it glorious!" cried Mollie, as she breathed in the crisp fresh air, and tasted just a tiny bit of the salt spray of the ocean on her lip.
"I guesso," whistled Whistlebinkie, with a little shiver. "Think-ide-like-it-better-'fwe-had-alittle-land-in-sight."
"O no, Whistlebinkie," returned Mollie, "it's a great deal safer this way. There are rocks near the shore but outside here the water is ever so deep – more'n six feet I guess. I'd be perfectly happy if the Unwiseman was only with us."
Just then up through one of the big yawning ventilators, that look so like sea-serpents with their big flaming mouths stretched wide open as if to swallow the passengers on deck, came a cracked little voice singing the following song to a tune that seemed to be made up as it went along:
"Yo-ho!
Yo-ho —
O a sailor's life for me!
I love to nail
The blithering gale,
As I sail the bounding sea.
For I'm a glorious stowaway,
I've thrown my rake and hoe away,
On the briny deep to go away,
Yeave-ho – Yeave-ho – Yo-hee!"
"Where have I heard that voice before!" cried Mollie clutching Whistlebinkie by the hand so hard that he squeaked.
"It's-sizz!" whistled Whistlebinkie excitedly.
"It's what?" cried Mollie.
"It's-his!" repeated Whistlebinkie more correctly.
"Whose – the Unwiseman's?" Mollie whispered with delight.
"Thass-swat-I-think," said Whistlebinkie.
And then the song began again drawing nearer each moment.
"Yeave-ho,
Yo-ho,
O I love the life so brave.
I love to swish
Like the porpoise fish
Over the foamy wave.
So let the salt wind blow-away,
All care and trouble throw-away,
And lead the life of a Stowaway
Yeave-ho – Yeave-ho – Yo-hee!"
"It is he as sure as you're born, Whistlebinkie!" cried Mollie in an ecstacy of delight. "I wonder how he came to come."
"I 'dno," said Whistlebinkie. "I guess he's just went and gone."
As Whistlebinkie