Andiron Tales Part 8

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 suns.h.i.+ny 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."

"Bos.h.!.+" 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "COLUMBUS WAS A GREAT MAN."]

"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 n.o.body'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 s...o...b..nk.

"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 swis.h.i.+ng 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?"