Mollie and the Unwiseman Part 10

"I didn't know that," said Mollie.

"Oh my, yes!" returned the Unwiseman. "You can't be a plumber unless you have strong eyes. It is very bad for a weak-eyed person to have to sit on the floor and look at a pipe all day. That is one reason why I'm not going to be a plumber. The other reason is that they never get any rest.

They work all day eying pipes, and then have to sit up all night making out bills, and then they burn their fingers on stoves, and they sometimes get their feet wet after springing a leak on a pipe, and, altogether, it isn't pleasant. People play jokes on plumbers, too; mean jokes. Why, I knew a plumber who was called out in the middle of the night once by a city man who was trying to be a farmer during the summer months, and what do you suppose the trouble was?"

"I'm sure I don't know," said Mollie. "What?"

"The city man said he'd come home late and found the well full of water, and what was worse, the colander was riddled with holes. Twelve o'clock at night, mind you, and one of these bitter cold summer nights you find down in New Jersey."

"That was awfully mean," said Mollie. "That is, it was if the city man didn't know any better."

"He did know better. He did it just for a joke," said the Unwiseman.

"And didn't the plumber put in a great big bill for that?" asked Mollie.

"Yes--but the city man couldn't pay it," said the Unwiseman. "That was the meanest part of the joke. He went and lost all his money afterward.

I believe he did it just to spite the plumber."

"Well," said Mollie, "here we are at the top of the hill at last. Won't you change your mind and go down with us, just once?"

"Nope," returned the Unwiseman. "I can't change my mind. Can't get it out of my head, to change. Besides, I must hurry. I've got to get a hundred pairs of stockings before Christmas Eve."

"Oh!" said Mollie. "I see. You are going into the stocking business."

"No, I'm not," said the queer old fellow, with a knowing smile. "There isn't much money in selling stockings. I've got a better idea than that.

You come around to my house Christmas morning and I'll show you a thing or two--that is, I will if I can get the hundred pairs of stockings--you couldn't lend me a few pairs, could you?"

"I guess maybe so," said Mollie.

"All right--thank you very much," said the Unwiseman. "I'll be off now and get them. Good-by."

And before Mollie could say another word he was gone.

"Isn't he the worst you ever saw?" said Mollie.

"Puffickly-digulous," said Whistlebinkie.

"I wonder what his business is to be," observed Mollie, as she seated herself on the sled and made ready for the descent.

"I haven't the slightest ideeeee-eeeeeeee-eeeee-eeee-ah!" whistled Whistlebinkie; a strange and long-drawn-out word that; but whistling dolls are very like boys and girls when they are sliding down hill.

Mollie had set the sled in motion just as Whistlebinkie started to speak, and her little rubber companion could not get away from the letter _e_ in idea until he and his mistress ran plump into the snow-drift at the foot of the hill.

"My!" said Whistlebinkie, blowing the snow out of his whistle. "Wasn't that fine! I could do that all day."

"You could if the hill was long enough," said Mollie, sagely. "But come, we must go home now." And home they went.

In the forty-eight or more hours that pa.s.sed before Christmas morning came, Mollie often wondered at the business venture of the Unwiseman.

What it could be she could not guess. The hundred pairs of stockings mystified her exceedingly, and so, when Christmas morning finally dawned, the first thing she and Whistlebinkie did was to post off at full speed to the house of the Unwiseman.

"I wonder where his home is now?" said Whistlebinkie, as they walked along.

"I haven't the slightest idea," said Mollie; "but it's had a way of turning up where we least expected it in the past, so maybe we'll find it in the same way now."

Mollie was right, for hardly were the words out of her mouth when directly in front of her she saw what was unmistakably the house of the Unwiseman, only fastened to the chimney was a huge sign, which had not been there the last time she and Whistlebinkie had visited the Unwiseman.

"What is that he's got on his chimmilly?" said Whistlebinkie, who did not know how to spell, and who always p.r.o.nounced words as he thought they were spelled.

"It's a sign--sure as you live," said Mollie.

"What does it say?" Whistlebinkie asked.

"The Unwiseman's Orphan Asylum," said Mollie, reading the sign. "Notice to Santa Claus: Dear Sir:--Too Hundred Orphans is Incarcerated Here.

Please leave Toys Accordingly."

"Ho!" said Whistlebinkie. "How queer."

"You don't suppose he has really gone into the Orphan Asylum business?"

said Mollie.

"I dono," said Whistlebinkie. "Let's wait till we see him before we decide."

So they ran on until they got to the Unwiseman's front door, upon which they knocked as hard as they knew how.

"Who's there?" came a reply in a mournful voice, from within.

"It's us," said Mollie.

"Who is Uss?" said the voice. "I know several Usses. Are you George W.

Uss, the trolley-car conductor, or William Peters Uss, the poet? If you are the poet, I don't want to see you. I don't care for any poetry to-day. If you are the conductor, I've paid my fare."

"It's Mollie and Whistlebinkie," said Mollie.

"Oh--well, that's different. Come in and see your poor ruined old friend, who's got to go back to apples, whether he likes them or not,"

said the voice.

Mollie opened the door and walked in, Whistlebinkie following close behind her--and what a sight it was that met their gaze! There in the middle of the floor sat the Unwiseman, the perfect picture of despair.

Scattered about the room were hundreds of broken toys, and swinging from the mantel-piece were two hundred stockings.

"h.e.l.lo!" said the Unwiseman. "Merry Christmas. I'm ruined; but what of that? You aren't."

"But how are you ruined?" asked Mollie.

"My business has failed--it didn't work," groaned the Unwiseman. "It was the toy business I was going into, and as I had no money to buy the toys with I borrowed a hundred pairs of stockings and hung 'em up. Then I put out that notice for Santa Claus, telling him that this was an Orphan Asylum."

"Yes," said Mollie, "I know. But it wasn't the truth, was it?"

"Of course it was," said the Unwiseman. "I'm an orphan. Very few men of my age are not, and this is my asylum."

"Yes; but you said there were two hundred in here," said Mollie. "I saw your sign."